She sat stiffly like the other women, looking at her prayer book, but she could not make out a single letter, not a page, nothing, for those sad eyes, sorrowful eyes, blazing flashing eyes, stood before her, shining like stars. They blotted out the entire world, so that she completely lost her head, was utterly hopeless – and still he knelt there, she could hear his short hot breathing and feel that sweet power, that terrible power that radiated from him, that went straight to her heart, seemed to bind her like a rope and fill her with such sweetness, fear and trembling that made her lose her mind, a cry of love so powerful that every bone in her body quaked, and her heart thudded like a bird whose wings have been nailed to a wall by children for the fun of it!
Władysław Reymont, “The Peasants”, 1909
