Some two hours later, a peasant rode out to plow a distant field. The field lay near the forest, a little parcel forever in shadow. Two wild boars lolled in it, a deer trampled it – an exasperating little field.
The peasant planted for the forest creatures, and dutifully so, yet surely he did not sing at his labors. He did not sing, and neither did he look around as he hastened to finish his work. He was so oblivious that it was left to Providence to sprinkle his way with adventure. He spotted a hare springing on three legs, he heard the piercing song of a little bird, looked around, and then saw Marketa Lazarová. She was sleeping. He didn’t know who she was, and she didn’t remind him of anybody. He fretted about the waste of time, fretted about these damned diabolical pranks that would place a vagabond girl in his path, but because the ground was cold and a man gets hot at the plow, he tossed his cloak over the poor girl to cover her. Truly, he was in no hurry to take her home. He plowed on, and when he had finished, he went back for his cloak. He took what was his and shook the girl’s shoulder, saying:
"Get up or you’ll freeze to death. What’s with you, anyway, that you’re sleeping in fields?" Thus his query, though he wasn’t really waiting for an answer. He wasn’t looking for adventure.
Marketa told him one thing and another, and the peasant kept nodding his head, God knows he was only half-listening.
Come now, the escapades of young maidens with torn dresses? Is that the forest groaning? There’s firewood in the forest, and I’ve a good mind to go get some! And deer! If I didn’t have the noose to face for it, I’d lie in wait for that big six-point stag that's been giving me so much trouble.
They rode into the village. The peasant opened the wattle that served as the fence gate and drove up to the cottage. Marketa thanked him yet wished to continue on her way.
Where would she have gone? Night was again coming on, the day drawn to a close, and it was time for the Angelus bell. Then the peasant’s wife emerged and started asking questions while performing her evening chores. She had little time to spare and was not especially affable. Everything finally ready, the man and wife had a free moment to converse.
"Oh, the times we live in!" said the peasant woman, "you can’t be sure of the roof over your head. You see, I know that Obořiště was burned down." Saying this, she invited Marketa into the room and to table. She fanned the fire, the coals glowed red, and soon joyful flames were flickering. The counterweight in the well scraped, and in the dust of the first darkness the evening star appeared. The sheepish peasant, sheepish because his labors were over, went out to the stoop and waited for the young lady to fall asleep. Then he went back in and lay down next to the chimney, the warmest spot.
The next day Marketa woke up when day broke. Her breakfast was ready on the table. She drank a little milk and broke off a piece from a slice of bread, tasting the shame that comes over us when we solicit charity. The farmer had already left to his labors, and Marketa could only give her thanks to his wife. How should she speak with her? She spoke like a little girl. But the object of her gratitude replied with great respect, honoring her almost as if she were a duchess. Who knows? Maybe it was with a hint of derision.
The night’s lodging and the sleep did not refresh Marketa. She tottered as she walked. She kept to the fields and did not set foot on the highway that led all the way to Obořiště. She walked like the prodigal son returning home.
On the imperial highway that here hewed to the forest, the spot where Lazar once stood to accost his first traveler, at that memorable bend, she saw horsemen. They were royal cavaliers.
And then fear for Mikoláš overtook her. She asked of her heart what she should do if her betrothed had been taken captive, she asked of her mouth if it would want for food and of her legs if they would then serve her. She asked why she had left and why she had hidden. A wave of grief crashed down on her and tossed her soul, as a float is tossed by the surf.
All the arrows dread had dipped in its burning swill hit Marketa’s heart. So great was her disunity of mind that the poor girl felt simultaneously both love for Mikoláš and fear of God. Her thoughts were at war, one contending with the other. The hair of her soul was now in flames. The sole casualty of these wars would be Marketa, and the conflagration would consume her. She shuddered. She cared not what would happen before her father and before the captains. She cared not to what tortures they would adjudge her and what maledictions they would heap on her. She shuddered for Mikoláš.
Thus far she had been taking the footpaths, but now she stepped onto the main road and walked briskly. She was passed by two foreigners and a beggarwoman who was all too well known in these parts. The woman stopped on recognizing Marketa Lazarová. Marketa tried to pass her by as swiftly as she could, but alas, her legs faltered, and shame and fatigue rooted her. She stood before the beggarwoman.
Surely both women are good-hearted, and surely they are deserving of mercy, but speech is not a matter of the heart. Scant our knowledge of feelings! Our paltry words caw like birds following a ship from a distance.
O voyages of the heart, O inarticulate mouth! All the rains, all the downpours, have soaked the beggarwoman’s back, her face wasted and crusts of bread she had collected near a pigsty fermenting in her bowels. Could she do anything other than stand tall before this penitent girl? Could she refrain from flourishing her walking stick and reviling her?
"You slut," she said, pounding her beggar’s sack, "you concubine of the executioner, you concubine of the executioner’s lackeys, go, scurry after your blessing!" Then she began to scream, and she screamed like a banshee. Marketa covered her face with her hands and stumbled onward to Obořiště with the beggarwoman and her imprecations at her heels.
Dear gentlemen, does this spectacle displease you? Alas! It was the first time this poor, miserable woman had met a young lady who was more degraded and more woeful than beggary itself. Within our minds slumbers a bewitching desire for justice that often leads us to commit injustice. Let her speak, let her be heard! Disregard this minor wrong, it merely reflects gross injustice.
Marketa plodded along, weeping, Obořiště no longer distant, and the beggarwoman would not relent and would not be silent. See her father’s house! House you say? I see only charred ruins. I see the work of Kozlík, of a bandit whom, Marketa, you do love.
It so happened that on that day all the Lazars were at home. It was early spring and time to think of rebuilding. The fine had been paid to the king. There was peace, so Lazar’s people were carting tree trunks from the forest. Others were hewing stone, others were busy digging. Lazar stood in their midst. If Marketa were returning alone, she would have waited until sunset, she would have stood through the night before the door, waiting for one of her brothers to notice her, yet the shrieking of this abusive harridan hounded her like a dog’s barking hounds a doe.
Everyone stopped their work and looked to see who was arriving. Ah, old men’s eyes can see far indeed. Lazar spotted her and recognized her.
Would anger overwhelm him? Would he welcome her, would he be reconciled?
Her name now rang out, everyone threw down their work and bolted to the gate, the maidservants ran out in front – but Lazar turned away. He did not want to see his daughter. He shut himself in his room with its demolished fireplace and ordered everyone to be silent.
"Silence," he told his servants and sons, "be silent, while there is no need to close our door to this person now returning, there is no need to send anyone to greet her. Be silent, and let the woman do as she wishes."
The arms of the maidservants fell, and more than one among them wept. Those who had set off running were now at a loss for what to do.
Oh, the homecomings of wayward sons, oh, the homecomings of daughters! Marketa fell to her knees. Everyone could see her worn shoes and her clothes caked in mud. Incline, Lazar, to the doleful entreaties of your daughter – if only you would hear her, if only you would approvingly nod your head. But nothing of the kind happened. Lazar did not come out.
Marketa had three brothers, and these brothers each had wives and small children. Well, would their love be revived? Would they have the little ones embrace their dear friend?
No. The courtyard remained empty, no one paid her any mind, no one came to her, and the children, seeing a face so unlike Marketa’s beatific face, were hesitant. If the unhappy girl had a mother, surely she would have spoken to her, and even if it were a tearful word, Marketa would still have listened, completely reassured, for even a reproach is often covered in the bloom of love.
Marketa spent the whole of the first night awake in a recess of the house reserved for dirty vagabonds to sleep. She prayed, but not a single stone fell from the crown that love had placed on her head. Marketa loved Mikoláš, and surely it was God’s wish that she love him. He nourished this feeling and did not allow it to wane.
Toward morning, when she had dozed off, she dreamed that she was back in the brigands’ forest. She was sleeping with Mikoláš and felt his embrace, ah, an embrace that sets the consciousness trembling and makes one’s thoughts fall like fruit from a tree. She was damned!
Was the devil drawing close to her? No! You’ve developed the habit of being too severe when calling a thing by its name, and you multiply this severity when it has to do with a young girl in her father’s house. In the judgment of reasonable people, Marketa was right to be thinking of her lover. Let her think of him, or better, let her return to him! The Lord truly cares little for the veil of carping women who mutilate their prayers and do not bring another living creature into the world. Are you saying this marriage made a mockery of her father, made a mockery of all people, and made a mockery of God, for the bride had made her choice before she even laid eyes on Mikoláš?
I would demur that compared to deeds, promises are relatively non-binding. This is what she has become – accept her as she is.
How can we accept her when she condemns herself, when she calls herself a hussy and a bitch?
It is said that life is inhospitable to those who reject it. Marketa is one of those unfortunates. Marketa is the most unfortunate of all, for she does not possess the fortitude to embrace life, and yet she does not possess the fortitude to resist it. Fear and grace wage war for her. Dread and love convulse her, convulse and batter her, as the ocean batters rocks on a shore. Marketa will die. Marketa has been scorched by hell!
After two days of unparalleled anger and contempt, a maidservant brought Marketa fresh clothes and summoned her to Lazar. The poor girl succumbed to hope and then again to fear – what might she be told? Was Mikoláš at Obořiště? Had he met with some sudden misfortune?
She stood trembling, and blood flooded the inside of her head. She heard the effervescing torrent of destruction.
"Marketa," said Lazar, "I have summoned you to ask what penance you shall perform. What do you deserve, Marketa?" After a moment of silence his dear daughter replied in an almost strangled voice:
"You hold the keys to all punishment. Order me to do as you will."
"The Angel of Destruction, who has six arms and wields a knife in every one them, this angel has access to your soul and will stab it until it dies. If you stay in my house, it will burn down. If you walk among the fields, the crops will rot. Tend the herd, and my cows will be barren, and I will have no new calves. You are damned, for you broke the promises your father made. You broke the promise made to God. To God, you wretch! I have not the courage to watch your demise and as you turn to ash and rot. Get out of my sight! I will not allow you in my house even as a maidservant who brings the pigs their swill. Take your lecherous body away from my house, as you would carry away a corpse. Why do you stand there, why don’t you get moving? Your face is that of a phantom, and the regret you affect stokes my anger and the arms of my anger. Leave, you debauchee! I adjure you, get yourself to the nunnery you have disgraced. Cast yourself upon its gate, shout out your treachery, and beg them to throw you into the dungeon." Marketa listened, and in the neighboring room her friends were listening. Lifting the burlap that hung in the doorframe, the kids peeked into that chamber of ire and alibis.
Damn it, everything of wood has burned to ash. Everything has been smashed, the rooms exposed to rain, and we’re supposed to give sanctuary to the arsonist’s courtesan? The mistress of the outlaw who turned Obořiště into a wasteland and killed five of our people? Well, wouldn’t that just suit her! Let her go, let her walk beneath the gallows of her darlings!
This is your husbands’ sister, ladies. This is Marketa, the youngest of Lazar’s brood, the very one whom you used to ask to read and sing for you!
You utter rabble of thieves, you truly have no cause to crow over this sinful girl. You scoffers, you respectable pickpockets, you vapid criminals, you cheats, you ridiculous buffoons who brandish the sword yet fear being wounded, you nanny goats who are quick to set on a hapless wayfarer yet snivel before soldiers, do you intend to pass judgment on brigands and their mistresses? Nothing doing, no-thing do-ing! Leave, Marketa! Hold your head high, higher! Go your way as one who knows the true worth of her man.