Selected Polish Tales Part 3

He drove the horses down the hill towards the Bialka, where he caught sight of Stasiek, but could see nothing more of his farm or of the road. He was beginning to feel very tired; his feet seemed a heavy weight, but the weight of uncertainty was still greater, and he never got enough sleep. When his work was finished, he often had to drive off to the town.

'If I had another cow and that field,' he thought, 'I could sleep more.'

He had been meditating on this while harrowing over a fresh bit for half an hour, when he heard his wife calling from the hill:

'Josef, Josef!'

'What's up?'

'Do you know what has happened?' 'How should I know?'

'Is it a new tax?' anxiously crossed his mind.

'Magda's uncle has come, you know, that Grochowski....'

'If he wants to take the girl back--let him.'

'He has brought a cow and wants to sell her to Gryb for thirty-five paper roubles and a silver rouble for the halter. She is a lovely cow.'

'Let him sell her; what's that to do with me?'

'This much: that you are going to buy her,' said the woman firmly.

Slimak dropped his hand with the whip, bent his head forward, and looked at his wife. The proposal seemed monstrous.

'What's wrong with you?' he asked.

'Wrong with me?' She raised her voice. 'Can't I afford the cow? Gryb has bought his wife a new cart, and you grudge me the beasts? There are two cows in the shed; do you ever trouble about them? You wouldn't have a s.h.i.+rt to your back if it weren't for them.'

'Good Lord,' groaned the man, who was getting muddled by his wife's eloquence,' how am I to feed her? they won't sell me fodder from the manor.'

'Rent that field, and you will have fodder.'

'Fear G.o.d, Jagna! what are you saying? How am I to rent that field?'

'Go to the manor and ask the square; say you will pay up the rent in a year's time.'

'As G.o.d lives, the woman is mad! our beasts pull a little from that field now for nothing; I should be worse off, because I should have to pay both for the cow and for the field. I won't go to the squire.'

His wife came close up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You won't go?'

'I won't go.'

'Very well, then I will take what fodder there is and your horses may go to the devil; but I won't let that cow go, _I_ will buy her!'

'Then buy her.'

'Yes, I will buy her, but you have got to do the bargaining with Grochowski; I haven't the time, and I won't drink vodka with him.'

'Drink! bargain with him! you are mad about that cow!'

The quick-tempered woman shook her fist in his face.

'Josef, don't upset me when you yourself have nothing at all to propose. Listen! you are worrying every day that you haven't enough manure; you are always telling me that you want three beasts, and when the time comes, you won't buy them. The two cows you have cost you nothing and bring you in produce, the third would be clear gain.

Listen.... I tell you, listen! Finish your work, then come indoors and bargain for the cow; if not, I'll have nothing more to do with you.'

She turned her back and went off.

The man put his hands to his head.

'G.o.d bless me, what a woman!' he groaned, 'how can I, poor devil, rent that field? She persists in having the cow, and makes a fuss, and it doesn't matter what you say, you may as well talk to a wall. Why was I ever born? everything is against me. Woa, lads!'

He fancied that the earth and the wind were laughing at him again:

'You'll pay the thirty-five paper roubles and the silver rouble for the halter! Week after week, month after month you have been putting by your money, and to-day you'll spend it all as if you were cracking a nut. You will swell Grochowski's pockets and your own pouch will be empty. You will wait in fear and uncertainty at the manor and bow to the bailiff when it pleases him to give you the receipt for your rent!...

'Perhaps the squire won't even let me have the field.'

'Don't talk nonsense!' twittered the sparrows; 'you know quite well that he'll let you have it.'

'Oh yes, he'll let me have it,' he retorted hotly, 'for my good money.

I would rather bear a severe pain than waste money on such a foolish thing.'

The sun was low by the time Slimak had finished his last bit of harrowing near the highroad. At the moment when he stopped he heard the new cow low. Her voice pleased him and softened his heart a little.

'Three cows is more than two,' he thought, 'people will respect me more. But the money... ah well, it's all my own fault!'

He remembered how many times he had said that he must have another cow and that field, and had boasted to his wife that people had encouraged him to carve his own farm implements, because he was so clever at it.

She had listened patiently for two or three years; now at last she took things into her own hands and told him to buy the cow and rent the field at once. Merciful Jesu! what a hard woman! What would she drive him to next? He would really have to put up sheds and make farm carts!

Intelligent and even ingenious as Slimak was, he never dared to do anything fresh unless driven to it. He understood his farm work thoroughly, he could even mend the thras.h.i.+ng-machine at the manor-house, and he kept everything in his head, beginning with the rotation of crops on his land. Yet his mind lacked that fine thread which joins the project to the accomplishment. Instead of this the sense of obedience was very strongly developed in him. The squire, the priest, the Wojt, his wife were all sent from G.o.d. He used to say:

'A peasant is in the world to carry out orders.'

The sun was sinking behind the hill crest when he drove his horses on to the highroad, and he was pondering on how he would begin his bargaining with Grochowski when he heard a guttural voice behind him, 'Heh! heh!'

Two men were standing on the highroad, one was grey-headed and clean-shaven, and wore a German peaked cap, the other young and tall, with a beard and a Polish cap. A two-horse vehicle was drawn up a little farther back.

'Is that your field?' the bearded man asked in an unpleasant voice.

'Stop, Fritz,' the elder interrupted him.

'What am I to stop for?' the other said angrily.

'Stop! Is this your land, gospodarz?' the grey-haired man asked very politely.

'Of course it's mine, who else should it belong to?'