Boryna, still breathing threats against him, returned to the cottage and looked into Antek’s quarters.
“What!” he cried out on seeing him. “Still abed, and the sun up so long?”
“I had to rest. Was tired to death yesterday.”
“I am going to the law court. You will bring home the potatoes; and when that work is done, send our people to get litter. You might yourself drive in laths to make the hut a winter coating.”7
“Do that yourself; there is no wind on our side.”
“As you please. I will do my side; and you, Mr. Sluggard, shall freeze.”
He slammed the door, and entered his own quarters. The fire was lit and Yuzka was going to milk the cows.
“Give me breakfast instantly: I must be off.”
“I can’t be in two places, nor do two things at once.”
And she went out.
“Not one quiet minute! I am forced to curse and fall foul of everybody,” he said to himself, and proceeded to dress in a very vile humour. What everlasting rows with his son, so that at every word each was ready to fly at the other—or worse—to say something that stabbed you like a knife! His ill humour, as he pondered, increased so, that he could not help cursing under his breath, and flinging his boots here and there about the floor.
“They ought to obey me, and they don’t. For what reason?” he asked himself.
“Because, no doubt, a cudgel, and a good one, is needed to deal with them. I ought long since to have used one. But I did not care to raise a scandal in the village, and could not make up my mind to do that. For I am not a beggarly ploughman; thirty acres are mine. Nor am I of a mean family; Boryna is a well-known name.—But kindness is thrown away upon them!” And then he remembered his son-in-law, the blacksmith, who was setting everyone against him, and continually pressing for a gift of six acres of cornland and one of forest, “willing,” he said, “to wait for the rest.”
“That is, till I am dead! Oh, yes,” he thought bitterly, “you will have to wait, fellow! While I live, you’ll not have so much as a smell at my land! You’re too clever by half!”
When Yuzka came in from milking, the potatoes were on the boil, and breakfast was soon ready.
“Yuzka, you will sell the meat yourself! Tomorrow is Sunday, and people know that we have it, so they will be coming. But no credit, mind! Keep the hind quarters for our own eating. You will call in Ambrose to salt and pickle them.”
“But the blacksmith too can do that.”
“He’ll take his share—the wolf’s share of the sheep!”
“But Magda will be hurt. ’Tis our cow; is she to have nothing?”
“Then cut off a piece and send it to Magda: but don’t call in the blacksmith.”
“Father dear, that’s kind of you!”
“All right, little one. Take good care of things here, and I’ll bring you a roll or something from town.”
He made a pretty good meal, girt himself up, smoothed down his scanty dishevelled hair, took his whip, and looked round the room.
“Is there anything I have forgotten?”
He would have looked into the alcove too, but Yuzka’s eye was upon him: so he merely crossed himself, and went out.
Sitting in the cart, with the reins in his hand, he gave one more order to Yuzka, who stood in the porch.
“When they have done digging the potatoes, send them off to rake up the litter: you’ll find the permit stuck behind the picture. … And tell them to cut down some young fir or hornbeam: it will come in handy.”
The cart had got as far as the fence, when Vitek showed himself among the apple-trees.
“I had forgotten. … Vitek! Prrru, prrru! Vitek, I say! you will take the kine to the meadow. … And tend them well, or you’ll get such a flogging as you won’t forget.”
“Oh, you may kiss—” the lad cried audaciously, and vanished on the other side of the barn.
“None of your impudence! If I get down, you’ll see!”
He turned to the right into the road by the church. The sun was by now above the cottages, with ever stronger and stronger rays. From the thatches mists rose up, and waterdrops dripped down; but in the shadows of the hedges and ditches, the frost lay white. On the pond, the thin film of morning haze had grown thinner; the waters bubbled and shone in the sunlight.
In the village the round of daily toil was commencing. Folks were livelier and more spirited than usual in this bright cool morning air: some going forth in troops to dig in the fields, carrying hoes and mattocks, and baskets with provisions; some setting out to plough the stubbled fields; some with harrows in carts, and bags full of seed-corn; whilst others wended their way to the wood for litter, and bore rakes on their shoulders. And on either side of the pond the noise increased, when presently the roads became crowded with cattle driven to grass; dogs barked, men shouted, and a heavy dust which the night’s dew had but partly laid, rose in the highway.
Boryna carefully threaded his way among the cattle, from time to time cracking his whip at some lamb or calf that would blunder across the filly’s path; and at last he got clear of them all, and approached the church, which was screened by a great rampart of limes and plane-trees, with dull yellow foliage. Thence he passed on to a broader road, planted on either side with giant poplars.
The bell had been rung
