Selected Polish Tales Part 8

Stasiek pressed closer to him and began to chatter again:

'Isn't it true, daddy, that the water can see?'

'What should it see?'

'Everything--everything--the sky, the hills; it sees us when we follow the harrows.'

'Go to sleep. Don't talk nonsense.'

'It does, it does, daddy, I've watched it myself,' he whispered, going to sleep.

The room was too hot for Slimak; he dragged himself up and staggered to the barn, where he fell into a bundle of straw.

'But what I gave for the cow I gave for her,' he muttered in the direction of the sleeping Grochowski.

CHAPTER IV

Slimakowa came to the barn early the next morning and called her husband. 'Are you going to be long idling there?'

'What's the matter?'

'It's time to go to the manor-house.'

'Have they sent for me?'

'Why should they send for you? You have got to go to them and see about the field.'

Slimak groaned, but came out on to the thres.h.i.+ng-floor. His face was bloated, he looked ashamed of himself, and his hair was full of straw.

'Just look at him,' jeered his wife: 'his sukmana is dirty and wet, he hasn't taken off his boots all night, and he scowls like a brigand. You are more fit for a scarecrow in a flaxfield than for talking to the squire. Change your clothes and go.'

She returned to the cowshed, and a weight fell off Slimak's mind that the matter had ended there. He had expected to be jeered at till the afternoon. He came out into the yard and looked round. The sun was high, the ground had dried after the rain; the wind from the ravines brought the song of birds and a damp, cheerful smell; the fields had become green during the night. The sky looked as if it had been freshened up, and the cottage seemed whiter.

'A nice day,' he murmured, gaining courage, and went indoors to dress.

He pulled the straw out of his hair and put on a clean s.h.i.+rt and new boots. He thought they did not look polished enough, so he took a piece of tallow and rubbed it well first over his hair, then over his boots.

Then he stood in front of the gla.s.s and smiled contentedly at the brilliance he rejected from head to foot.

His wife came in at that moment and looked disdainfully at him.

'What have you been doing to your head? You stink of tallow miles off.

You'd better comb your hair.'

Slimak, silently acknowledging the justice of the remark, took a thick comb from behind the looking-gla.s.s and smoothed his hair till it looked like polished gla.s.s, then he applied the soap to his neck so energetically that his fingers left large, dark streaks.

'Where is Grochowski?' he asked in a more cheerful voice, for the cold water had added to his good temper.

'He has gone.'

'What about the money?'

'I paid him, but he wouldn't take the thirty-three roubles; he said that Jesus Christ had lived in this world for thirty-three years, so it would not be right for him to take as much as that for the cow.'

'Very proper,' Slimak agreed, wis.h.i.+ng to impress her with his theological knowledge, but she turned to the stove and took off a pot of hot barley soup. Offering it to him with an air of indifference: 'Don't talk so much,' she said. 'Put something hot inside you and go to the manor-house. But just try and bargain as you did with the Soltys and I shall have something to say to you.'

He sat humbly, eating his soup, and his wife took some money from the chest. 'Take these ten roubles,' she said, 'give them to the squire himself and promise to bring the rest to-morrow. But mind what he asks for the field, and kiss his hands, and embrace his and the lady's feet so that he may let you off at least three roubles. Will you remember?'

'Why shouldn't I remember?'

He was obviously repeating his wife's admonitions, for he suddenly stopped eating and tapped the table rhythmically with the spoon.

'Well, then, don't sit there and think, but put on your sukmana and go.

And take the boys with you.'

'What for?'

'What for? They are to support you when you ask the squire, and Jendrek will tell me how you have bargained. Now do you know what for?'

'Women are a pest!' growled Slimak, when she had unfolded her carefully laid plans. 'Curse her, how she lords it over me! You can see that her father was a bailiff.'

He struggled into his sukmana, which was brand new and beautifully embroidered at the collar and pockets with coloured thread; put on a broad leather belt, tied the ten roubles up in a rag and slipped them into his sukmana. The children had long been ready, and at last they started.

They had no sooner gone than loneliness began to fill Slimakowa's heart. She went outside the gate and watched them; her husband, with his hands in his pockets, was strolling along the road, Jendrek on his right and Stasiek on his left. Presently Jendrek boxed Stasiek's ears and as a result he was walking on the left and Stasiek on the right.

Then Slimak boxed both their ears, after which they were both walking on the left, Jendrek in the ditch, so that he could threaten his brother with his fist.

'Bless them, they always find some nice amus.e.m.e.nt for themselves,' she whispered, smiling, and went back to put on the dinner.

Having settled the misunderstanding between his sons, Slimak sang softly to himself:

'Your love is no courtier, my own heart's desire, He's riding a pony on his way to the squire.'

Then in a more melancholy strain:

'Oh dearie, dearie me This is great misery, What shall I do?...'

He sighed, and felt that no song could adequately express his anxiety.

Would the squire let him have the field? They were just pa.s.sing it; he was almost afraid to look at it, so beautiful and unattainable did it seem. All the fines he had had to pay for his cattle, all the squire's threats and admonitions came into his mind. It struck him that if the field lay farther off and produced sand instead of good gra.s.s, he would have a better chance.

'Eh, I don't care!' he cried, throwing up his head with an air of indifference; 'they've often asked me to take it.'

That was so, but it had been at times when he had not wanted it; now that he did, they would bargain hard, or not let him have it at all.

Who could tell why that should be so? It was a law of nature that landlords and peasants were always at cross purposes.

He remembered how often he had charged too much for work done, or how often the gospodarze had refused to come to terms with the squire about rights of grazing or wood-gathering in the forests, and he felt contrite. Good Lord! how beautifully the squire had spoken to them: 'Let us help each other and live peaceably like good neighbours.'

And they had answered: 'What's the good of being neighbours? A n.o.bleman is a n.o.bleman and a peasant is a peasant. We should prefer peasants for neighbours and you would prefer n.o.blemen.' Then the squire had cited: 'Remember, the runaway goat came back to the cart and said, "Put me in." But I shall say you nay.' And Gryb, in the name of them all, had answered: 'The goat will come, your honour, when you throw your forests open.'