Selected Polish Tales Part 28

There was really nothing to get up for now. Maciek had long ago finished the spring-work in the fields; the Jews had left the village, carrying their business farther afield, following the new railway line now under construction, and no one sent for him from the manor--for there was no manor. He smoked, strolled about for days together in the yard, or looked at the abundantly sprouting corn. His favourite pastime, however, was to watch the Germans, whose habitations were shooting up like mushrooms.

By the end of May Hamer and two or three others had finished building, and their gospodarstwos were pleasant to look at. They resembled each other like drops of water; each one stood in the middle of its fields, the garden was by the roadside, shut off by a wooden fence; the house, roughcast, consisted of four large rooms, and behind it was a good- sized square of farm-buildings.

All the buildings were larger and loftier than those of the Polish peasants, and were clean and comfortable, although they looked stiff and severe; for while the roofs of the Polish gospodarstwos overhung on the four sides, those of the Germans did so only at the front and back.

But they had large windows, divided into six squares, and the doors were made by the carpenter. Jendrek, who daily ran over to the settlement reported that there were wooden floors, and that the kitchen was a separate room with an iron-plated stove.

Slimak sometimes dreamt that he would build a place like that, only with a different roof. Then he would jump up, because he felt he ought to go somewhere and do work, for he was bored and ashamed of idling; at times he would long for the manor-fields over which he had guided the plough, where the settlement now stood. Then a great fear would seize him that he would be powerless when the Germans, who had felled forests, shattered rocks and driven away the squire, should start on him in earnest.

But he always rea.s.sured himself. He had been neighbours with them now for two months and they had done him no harm. They worked quietly, minded their cattle so that they should not stray, and even their children were not troublesome, but went to school at Hamer's house, where the infirm schoolmaster kept them in order.

'They are respectable people,' he satisfied himself. 'I'm better off with them than with the squire.'

He was, for they bought from him and paid well. In less than a month he had taken a hundred roubles from them; at the manor this had meant a whole year's toil.

'Do you think, Josef, that the Germans will always go on buying from you?' his wife asked from time to time. 'They have their own gospodarstwos now, and better ones than yours; you will see, it will last through the summer at the best, and after that they won't buy a stick from us.'

'We shall see,' said the peasant.

He was secretly counting on the advantages which he would reap from the building of the new line; had not the engineer promised him this? He even laid in provisions with this object, having to go farther afield, for the peasants in the village would no longer sell him anything.

But he soon realized that prices had risen; the Germans had long ago scoured the neighbourhood and bought without bargaining.

Once he met Josel who, instead of smiling maliciously at him as usual, asked him to enter into a business transaction with him.

'What sort of business?' asked Slimak.

'Build a cottage on your land for my brother-in-law.'

'What for?'

'He wants to set up a shop and deal with the railway people, else the Germans will take away all the business from under our noses.'

Slimak reflected.

'No, I don't want a Jew on my land,' he said. 'I shouldn't be the first to be eaten up by you longcurls.'

'You don't want to live with a Jew, but you are not afraid to pray with the Germans,' said the Jew, pale with anger.

Slimak was made to feel the profound unpopularity he had incurred in the village. At church on Sundays hardly anyone answered him 'In Eternity', and when he pa.s.sed a group he would hear loud talk of heresy, and G.o.d's judgment which would follow.

He therefore ordered a Ma.s.s one Sunday, on the advice of his wife, and went to confession with her and Jendrek; but this did not improve matters, for the villagers discussed over their beer in the evening what deadly sin he might have been guilty of to go to confession and pray so fervently.

Even old Sobieska rarely appeared and came furtively to ask for her vodka. Once, when her tongue was loosened, she said: 'They say you have turned into a Lutheran...It's true,' she added, 'there is only one merciful G.o.d, still, the Germans are a filthy thing!'

The Germans now began mysteriously to disappear with their carts at dawn of day, carrying large quant.i.ties of provisions with them. Slimak investigated this matter, getting up early himself. Soon he saw a tiny yellow speck in the direction which they had taken. It grew larger towards evening, and he became convinced that it was the approaching railway line.

'The scoundrels!' he said to his wife, 'they've been keeping this secret so as to steal a march on me, but I shall drive over.'

'Well, look sharp!' cried his wife; 'those railway people were to have been our best customers.'

He promised to go next day, but overslept himself, and Slimakowa barely succeeded in driving him off the day after.

He gathered some information on the way from the peasants. Many of them had volunteered for work, but only a few had been taken on, and those had soon returned, tired out.

'It's dogs' work, not men's,' they told him; 'yet it might be worth your while taking the horses, for carters earn four roubles a day.'

'Four roubles a day!' thought Slimak, laying on to the horses.

He drove on smartly and soon came alongside the great mounds of clay on which strangers were at work, huge, strong, bearded men, wheeling large barrows. Slimak could not wonder enough at their strength and industry.

'Certainly, none of our men would do this,' he thought.

No one paid any attention to him or spoke to him. At last two Jews caught sight of him and one asked: 'What do you want, gospodarz?' The embarra.s.sed peasant twisted his cap in his hands.

'I came to ask whether the gentlemen wanted any barley or lard?'

'My dear man,' said the Jew, 'we have our regular contractors; a nice mess we should be in, if we had to buy every sack of barley from the peasants!'

'They must be great people,' thought Slimak, 'they won't buy from the peasants, they must be buying from the gentry.'

So he bowed to the ground before the Jew, who was on the point of walking away.

'I entreat the favour of being allowed to cart for the gentlemen.'

This humility pleased the Jew.

'Go over there, my dear fellow,' he said, 'perhaps they will take you on.'

Slimak bowed again and made his way through the crowd with difficulty.

Among other carts he saw those of the settlers.

Fritz Hamer came forward to meet him; he seemed to be in a position of some authority there.

'What do you want?' he asked.

'I want a job too.' The settler frowned.

'You won't get one here!'

Seeing that Slimak was looking round, he went to the inspector and spoke to him.

'No work for carters,' the latter at once shouted, 'no work! As it is we have too many, you are only getting in people's way. Be off!' The brutal way in which this order was given so bewildered the peasant that, in turning, he almost upset his cart; he drove off at full speed, feeling as if he had offended some great power which had worked enough destruction already and was now turning hills into valleys and valleys into hills.

But gradually he reflected more calmly. People from the village had been taken on, and he remembered seeing peasants' carts at the embankment. Why had he been driven away?