Selected Polish Tales Part 42

'Indeed he would. He is anxious to settle his son too, and Josel has been sniffing round for a month past. So there's your chance, bargain well.'

'Why, d.a.m.n it,' said Slimak, 'I would rather have a hundred Germans than that old Judas.'

A door creaked and the schoolmaster changed the conversation. 'Come this way, your wife is in the schoolroom.'

'Is that Slimak?' Fritz called out.

'It is I.'

'Don't stay long with your wife, she is being looked after, and we want you at daybreak; you must sleep in the kitchen.'

The noise of loud conversation and clinking of gla.s.ses came from the back of the house, but the large schoolroom was empty, and only lighted by a small lamp. His wife was lying on a plank bed; a pungent smell of vinegar pervaded the room. That smell took the heart out of Slimak; surely his wife must be very ill! He stood over her; her eye-lashes twitched and she looked steadily at him.

'Is it you, Josef?'

'Who else should it be?'

Her hands moved about restlessly on the sheepskin; she said distinctly: 'What are you doing, Josef, what are you doing?'

'You see I am standing here.'

'Ah yes, you are standing there...but what are you doing? I know everything, never fear!'

'Go away, gospodarz,' hurriedly cried the old woman, pushing him towards the door, 'she is getting excited, it isn't good for her.'

'Josef!' cried Slimakowa, 'come back! Josef, I must speak to you!' The peasant hesitated.

'You are doing no good,' whispered the schoolmaster, 'she is rambling, she may go to sleep when you are out of sight.'

He drew Slimak into the pa.s.sage, and Fritz Hamer at once took him to the further room.

Miller Knap and old Hamer were sitting at a brightly lighted table behind their beer mugs, blowing clouds of smoke from their pipes. The miller had the appearance of a huge sack of flour as he sat there in his shirtsleeves, holding a full pot of beer in his hand and wiping the perspiration off his forehead. Gold studs glittered in his shirt.

'Well, you are going to let us have your land at last?' he shouted.

'I don't know,' said the peasant in a low voice, 'maybe I shall sell it.' The miller roared with laughter.

'Wilhelm,' he bellowed, as if Wilhelm, who was officiating at the beer-barrel on the bench, were half a mile off, 'pour out some beer for this man. Drink to my health and I'll drink to yours, although you never used to bring me your corn to grind. But why didn't you sell us your land before?'

'I don't know,' said the peasant, taking a long pull.

'Fill up his gla.s.s,' shouted the miller, 'I will tell you why; it's because you don't know your own mind. Determination is what you want.

I've said to myself: I will have a mill at Wolka, and a mill at Wolka I have, although the Jews twice set fire to it. I said: My son shall be a doctor, and a doctor he will be. And now I've said: Hamer, your son must have a windmill, so he must have a windmill. Pour out another gla.s.s, Wilhelm, good beer...eh? my son-in-law brews it. What? no more beer? Then we'll go to bed.'

Fritz pushed Slimak into the kitchen, where one of the farm-hands was asleep already. He felt stupefied; whether it was with the beer or with Knap's noisy conversation, he could not tell. He sat down on his plank bed and felt cheerful. The noise of conversation in German reached him from the adjoining room; then the Hamers left the house. Miller Knap stamped about the room for a while; presently his thick voice repeated the Lord's prayer while he was pulling off his boots and throwing them into a corner: 'Amen amen,' he concluded, and flung himself heavily upon the bed; a few moments later noises as if he were being throttled and murdered proclaimed that he was asleep.

The moon was throwing a feeble light through the small squares of the window.

Between waking and sleeping Slimak continued to meditate: 'Why shouldn't I sell? It's better to buy fifteen acres of land elsewhere, than to stay and have Jasiek Gryb as a neighbour. The sooner I sell, the better.' He got up as if he wished to settle the matter at once, laughed quietly to himself and felt more and more intoxicated.

Then he saw a human shadow outlined against the window pane; someone was trying to look into the room. The peasant approached the window and became sober. He ran into the pa.s.sage and pulled the door open with trembling hands. Frosty air fanned his face. His wife was standing outside, still trying to look through the window.

'Jagna, for G.o.d's sake, what are you doing here? Who dressed you?'

'I dressed myself, but I couldn't manage my boots, they are quite crooked. Come home,' she said, drawing him by the hand.

'Where, home? Are you so ill that you don't know our home is burnt down? Where will you go on a bitter night like this?'

Hamer's mastiffs were beginning to growl. Slimakowa hung on her husband's arm. 'Come home, come home,' she urged stubbornly, 'I will not die in a strange house, I am a gospodyni, I will not stay here with the Swabians. The priests would not even sprinkle holy water on my coffin.'

She pulled him and he went; the dogs went after them for a while snapping at their clothes; they made straight for the frozen river, so as to reach their own nest the sooner. On the riverbank they stopped for a moment, the tired woman was out of breath.

'You have let yourself be tempted by the Germans to sell them your land! You think I don't know. Perhaps you will say it is not true?' she cried, looking wildly into his eyes. He hung his head.

'You traitor, you son of a dog!' she burst out. 'Sell your land! You would sell the Lord Jesus to the Jews! Tired of being a gospodarz, are you? What is Jendrek to do? And is a gospodyni to die in a stranger's house?'

She drew him into the middle of the frozen river. 'Stand here, Judas,'

she cried, seizing him by the hands. 'Will you sell your land? Listen!

Sell it, and G.o.d will curse you and the boy. This ice shall break if you don't give up that devil's thought! I won't give you peace after death, you shall never sleep! When you close your eyes I will come and open them again...listen!' she cried in a paroxysm of rage, 'if you sell the land, you shall not swallow the holy sacrament, it shall turn to blood in your mouth.'

'Jesus!' whispered the man.

'...Where you tread, the gra.s.s shall be blasted! You shall throw a spell on everyone you look at, and misfortune shall befall them.'

'Jesus...Jesus!' he groaned, tearing himself from her and stopping his ears.

'Will you sell the land?' she cried, with her face close to his. He shook his head. 'Not if you have to draw your last breath lying on filthy litter?'

'Not though I had to draw...so help me G.o.d!'

The woman was staggering; her husband carried her to the other bank and reached the stable, where the two farm labourers were installed.

'Open the door!' He hammered until one of them appeared.

'Clear out! I am going to put my wife in here.'

They demurred and he kicked them both out. They went off, cursing and threatening him.

Slimak laid his wife down on the warm litter and strolled about the yard, thinking that he must presently fetch help for her and a doctor.

Now and then he looked into the stable; she seemed to be sleeping quietly. Her great peacefulness began to strike him, his head was swimming, he heard noises in his ears; he knelt down and pulled her by the hand; she was dead, even cold.

'Now I don't care if I go to the devil,' he said, raked some straw into a corner and was asleep within a few minutes.

It was afternoon when he was at last awakened by old Sobieska.

'Get up, Slimak! your wife is dead! G.o.d's faith! dead as a stone.'

'How can I help it?' said the peasant, turning over and drawing his sheepskin over his head.