In 1925 Polish novelist Wladyslaw Reymont won the Nobel Prize in literature for 'The Peasants', one of the most vivid and captivating sagas of rural life in 19th century Poland. It's not just beautifully written, it also has the makings of a riveting modern-day soap opera, with jealousy, steamy love affairs and a village moral majority turning on the local scarlet woman. Here's Reymont's classic account of Christmas Eve in the cottage of Boryna, one of the novel's central characters. It's read by Bengt Scotland.