“I was not aware,” he began, sarcastically, “that ye had bought so large a porker.”
“Well, I have—and killed it too.”
She felt somewhat frightened.
“A fine beast. It must have cost you some thirty roubles.”
He eyed it over scrutinizingly.
“ ’Twere hard to find a pig so thickly lined with fat,” the old woman remarked, laughing and offering him the bacon to examine.
“ ’Tis Boryna’s pig!” he suddenly burst out, unable any more to contain his rage.
“A shrewd guess!” Yagustynka jeered; “why, to know whose it is, you need only to see the tail!”
“And by what right have ye dared to slaughter it?” he cried indignantly.
“No shouting, please. This is not a tavern.—By what right? Because Antek sent me word by Roch to kill it.”
“And who is Antek to give orders here? Is the beast his?”
“Most surely,” she replied: her fear had gone from her now.
“No, it is ours!—For what ye have done, ye shall pay dear.”
“In this matter I am not answerable to you!”
“No?—To whom then?”
“Peace! and hold your tongue. Here lies the sick man to whom it belongs.”
“Which you, not he, will eat!”
“But you, at any rate, shall not so much as smell it!”
“Give me,” he said, changing his tone, “one-half of the carcass. Ye would not have me raise the devil, would ye?”
“Not one trotter of it shall you have on compulsion!”
“Then let me have a quarter—and a flitch thrown in—of your own free will.”
“I will, if Antek orders me. Else you shall not get one bone.”
“Antek! Antek!” he cried, again roused to fury. “Is it Antek’s, then? Are you raving?”
“It is Father’s,” she said firmly, “but Antek is now in his place and disposes of all. Later, it shall be whose our Lord may will it to be.”
“Let him dispose in jail of what he has! If he likes husbandry, he may play the husbandman down in Siberia, where he is to go!” he shrieked, foaming at the mouth.
“He may go thither,” she retorted fiercely, though fear for Antek was stabbing at her heart; “but were you yet a greater Judas than you are, you would not gain one inch of land thereby.”
The smith’s feet were shuffling on the floor with excitement, and his hands closing on his capote convulsively, so strong a craving he felt to clutch her by the throat. But he still mastered himself: he was not alone. She had no longer any fear at all: wielding the knife she used to cut the strips of flesh, she looked on the man with quiet scorn. After a time he sat down, lit a cigarette, and gazed about the room with red-rimmed eyes, revolving something in his mind. Presently he got up, and spoke to her calmly.
“Come round to the other side of the hut; we may yet find something to agree upon.”
Wiping her hands, she went out of the room, but left the door ajar.
“I wish not only not to go to law, but not even to quarrel,” he began, puffing at his cigarette.
“Because it will not serve,” she retorted.
“Did Father-in-law say aught to you yesternight?”
The smith was by now quite friendly and smiling.
“Oh, no; he lay as still as he lies now.” Full of suspicion, she was on her guard to divulge nothing.
“That pig is but a small matter; let us trouble no longer about it. Cut it up … eat it up by yourselves, just as you please: no very great loss for me.—One often says things of which one repents afterwards.—Pray forget what I said.—I want to speak of something more important. You ought to know that they talk in the village of cash—large sums—concealed within this hut. …” He paused and fixed his piercing eyes upon her face. “Now ’twere well worth while to seek for it, lest, should he die (which God forbid!), it might be mislaid, or fall into some stranger’s hand.”
“But will he say where he has hidden it?”
“To you he might, would you but draw him out with cunning words.”
“Well, I will do my best; but he must first come to his wits again.”
“And if ye keep it secret, and we find the money, then we might share and share alike. Nay, if the sum were large enough, a part might serve to set Antek free. Let no one else know of it: why should any know? Yagna’s deed of gift makes her quite rich enough; we might even go to law, and have it annulled.—As to Gregory, think how much he has received during his service in the army!” He approached her more closely.
“You are right … quite, quite right,” she stammered, struggling hard to give him no inkling of the secret she knew.
“I think he must have concealed it somewhere about the cabin; what think ye?”
“How should I know? He never spoke a word to me about that.”
“But he said something yesternight … something about corn, I think?” the smith suggested.
“Aye. He said it was to be sown.”
“About barrels too, did he not?” he persisted, looking her intently in the face.
“Of course. The seed-corn that’s in the barrels,” she made answer, apparently not making out to what those questions were tending.
He cursed silently, with bitter disappointment. And yet he felt more and more that she must be privy to the secret. Her face was so stiffly set, her eyes so carefully deprived of expression.
“Tell no one this thing I confide to you.”
“Am I such a talebearer and everlasting gossip?”
“Well, well, I only caution you.—Now give good heed. The old man has had a glimmer already: his wits may quite come back to him any day.”
“God grant it be soon!”
His glance lingered over her. At length, pulling at his moustache, he left her to herself and went out, she following him the while with a contemptuous look.
“A Judas, a traitor, and a thief!”
Exploding with hate, she took a few steps after him.—It was not for the first time that he had flourished before her eyes the awful possibility of Siberia’s mines and Antek working in them, fettered to a wheelbarrow!
Not that she believed
