Selected Polish Tales Part 29

It was quite clear that some one wished to shut him out.

'Curse the Judases, they're outdoing the Jews,' he muttered and felt a horror of the Germans for the first time.

He told his wife briefly that there was no work, and betook himself to the settlement. Old Hamer seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument with Hirschgold and two other men. When he caught sight of the peasant he took them into the barn.

'Sly dog,' murmured Slimak; 'he knows what I've come for. I'll tell him straight to his face when he comes out.'

But at every step his courage failed him more and more. He hesitated between his desire to turn back and his unwillingness to lose a job; he hung about the fences, and looked at the women digging in their gardens. A murmur like the hum of a beehive caught his ears: one of the windows in Hamer's house was open and he looked into a schoolroom.

One of the children was reciting something in a clamorous voice, the others were talking under their breath. The schoolmaster was standing in the middle of the room, calling out 'Silence!' from time to time.

When he saw Slimak, he beckoned to his daughter to take his place, and the hubbub of voices increased. Slimak watched her trying to cope with the children.

The schoolmaster came up behind him, walking heavily.

'Did you come to see how we teach our children?' he asked, smilingly.

'Nothing of the kind,' said Slimak; 'I've come to tell Hamer that he is a scoundrel.' He related his experience.

'What have I done?' he asked. 'Soon I may not be able to earn anything; is one to starve because it pleases them?'

'The truth is,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you are a thorn in their flesh.'

'Why?'

'Your land is right in the middle of Hamer's fields and that spoils his farm, but that is not the reason as much as your hill; he wants it for a windmill. They have nothing but level ground; it's the best land in the settlement, but no good for a windmill; if they don't put it up, one of the other settlers will.'

'And why are they so crazy after a windmill?'

'Well, it matters a great deal to them; if Wilhelm had a windmill he could marry Miller Knap's daughter from Wolka and get a thousand and twenty roubles with her; the Hamers may go bankrupt without that money.

That's why you stick in their throats. If you sold them your land they would pay you well.'

'And I won't sell! I will neither help them to stay here nor do myself harm for their benefit; when a man leaves the land of his fathers...'

'There will be trouble,' the schoolmaster said earnestly.

'Then let there be; I won't die because it pleases them.'

Slimak returned home without any further wish to see Hamer; he knew there could be no understanding between them.

Maciek had discovered at dawn one morning that a crowd had reached the river-bank by the ravines, and Slimak, hurrying thither, found some gospodarze from the village among the men.

'What is happening?'

'They are going to throw up a dam and build a bridge across the Bialka,' Wisniewski replied.

'And what are you doing here?'

'We have been taken on to cart sand.'

Slimak discovered the Hamers in the crowd.

'Nice neighbours you are!' he said bitterly, going up to them. 'Here you are sending all the way to the village for carts, and you won't let me have a job.'

'We will send for you when you are living in the village,' Fritz answered, and turned his back.

An elderly gentleman was standing near them, and Slimak turned to him and took off his cap.

'Is this justice, sir?' he said. 'The Germans are getting rich on the railway, and I don't earn a kopek. Last year two gentlemen came and promised that I should make a lot of money. Well, your honours are building the railway now, but I've never yet taken my horses out of the stable. A German with thirty acres of ground is having a good job, and I have only ten acres and a wife and children to keep, as well as the farmhand and the girl. We shall have to starve, and it's all because the Germans have a grudge against me.'

He had spoken rapidly and breathlessly, and after a moment of surprise the old man turned to Fritz Hamer.

'Why did you not take him on?'

Fritz looked insolently at him.

'Is it you who has to answer for the cartage or I? Will you pay my fines when the men fail me? I take on those whom I can trust.'

The old man bit his lip, but did not reply.

'I can't help you, my brother,' he said; 'you shall drive me as often as I come to this neighbourhood. It isn't much, but every little helps.

Where do you live?'

Slimak pointed to his cottage; he was longing to speak further, but the old man turned to give some orders, and the peasant could only embrace his knees.

Old Hamer waylaid him on the way back.

'Do you see now how badly you have done for yourself? You will do even worse, for Fritz is furious.'

'G.o.d is greater than Fritz.'

'Will you take seventy-five roubles an acre and settle on the other side of the Bug? You will have twice as much land.'

'I would not go to the other side of the Bug for double the money; you go, if you like!'

When the angry men were looking back at each other, the one was standing with a stubborn face, his pipe between his clenched teeth, the other with folded arms, smiling sadly. Each was afraid of the other.

The embankment was growing slowly from west to east. Before long thousands of carriages would roll along its line with the speed of birds, to enrich the powerful, shatter the poor, spread new customs and manners, multiply crime...all this is called 'the advancement of civilization'. But Slimak knew nothing of civilization and its boons, and therefore looked upon this outcome of it as ominous. The encroaching line seemed to him like the tongue of some vast reptile, and the mounds of earth to forebode four graves, his own and those of his wife and children.

Maciek also had been watching its progress, which he considered an entire revolution of the laws of nature.

'It's a monstrous thing', he said, 'to heap up so much sand on the fields near the river, and narrow the bed; when the Bialka swells, it will overflow.'

Slimak saw that the ends of the embankment were touching the river, but as they had been strengthened by brick walls he took no alarm.

Nevertheless, it struck him that the Hamers were hurriedly throwing up dams on their fields in the lower places.

'Quick folk!' he thought, and contemplated doing the same, and strengthening the dams with hurdles, as soon as he had cut the hay. It occurred to him that he might do it now when he had plenty of time, but, as usual, it remained a good intention.