Of these, the Voyt’s young brother was the noisiest; and after him, Martin Byalek, Thomas Sikora, Paul Boryna (a first cousin of Antek who had also come at twilight to the tavern: only that day he did not dance, but sat in the smaller room with the smith and his companions), and lastly Franek from the mill, a short, thickset, curly-headed young man: the greatest talker of them all, a rakish youngster much given to joking, and so excessively fond of girls that his face was seldom without a bruise or a scratch. This evening he was quite tipsy to start with, and stood near the bar now, along with fat Magda (from the organist’s house), who was six months gone with child.
The priest had given him public reproof from the pulpit, and urged him to marry her. But Franek would not obey, because he had to go to the army in autumn, and what should he do with a wife there?
Magda now drew him into a corner, and was saying something in a tearful voice; but he answered as ever:
“You’re a fool. Did I entice you, say? I’ll pay for the christening, and give you a rouble or so—as much as I choose to give.” He was stupefied with drink, and pushed her away so roughly that she sank down on the ground near Kuba, who was sleeping close to the stove, his head in the ashes. Then Franek went off to drink again with Ambrose and the farmers, who were all willing to pay for him, to get their corn ground sooner.
“Have a drink, Franek, and pray get my stuff ground quick: my wife is worrying me—says she hasn’t enough flour to make any more dumplings.”
“Ah! and mine is continually grumbling, because we have no groats.”
“And mine must have oatmeal for the pig we are fattening.”
Franek drank, promised everything, and bragged very loud about what he could do. It was by his orders, he said, that everything was done at the mill. The miller had to do his will … and if not! well, he, Franek, knew of means to cause vermin to breed in the flour-bins—to make the stream run dry—to kill the fishes till the pond should stink—and rot the flour, so that it would be good for nothing in the world. …
“And I, if you did that to me, would pluck the wool off your curly ram’s head!” cried a voice: it was Yagustynka’s. She was always present where she found most company, being there most likely to find also some gossip or kinsman to offer her a drop of vodka, fearing her acrimonious tongue. Franek too, drunk as he was, felt apprehensive, and answered her not a word. She knew, indeed, too much about him and his management of the mill. Triumphant, and also rather flustered with drink, she set her arms akimbo, and danced and stamped and shouted in time with the music.
“What I say is true,” the smith in the adjoining room remarked; “for there it stands, in print in the papers—letters as big as an ox. There is no nation on earth that lives as we do. Not one!—Why, every big landowner domineers over us; so does every priest; so does every official. And all we have to do is work, and starve, and bow low to all men, lest they strike us in the face!—We have so little land of our own, that—for many of us—there presently will not be the least little patch left. … Meanwhile, the Squire has more land to himself than two villages put together!—Yesterday they were saying in court that there is to be a redistribution of land.”
“Whose land?”
“The gentlemen’s, of course.”
Yagustynka, who had come in, leaned over the table and laughed.
“Did you give it them, that you take it away! You are marvellous free with other people’s property!”
“Folk have self-government there,” the smith continued, without heeding the old woman’s interruption. “There, everybody goes to school; they all live in gentlemen’s houses, and are gentlemen.”
“Where may that be?” Yagustynka asked of Antek, who sat at the farther end of the table.
“In warm countries.”
“Then,” she screamed out angrily, “why does the smith not go there himself? The dirty dog! he is throwing dust in your eyes, lying to you … and you blockheads believe him!”
“Yagustynka, pray be so good as to go peacefully whence you came.”
“No, I will not! The tavern is for us all; and I, poor as I am, have as much right here as you. You play the teacher here! you, who serve the Jews, who cringe to the officials, who pull off your cap to the Squire from a mile away! You loud-mouthed ranter, you! Oh, I know of. …” She said no more. The smith had taken her under the ribs, pushed the door open with his foot, and pitched her into the big room, where she lay sprawling on the floor.
Without a word of reviling, she picked herself up, and called out cheerily:
“As strong as a horse, you are! I’d fain have such a husband!”
The folk burst into a guffaw, and she went out to curse in silence and alone.
By this time the tavern had begun to empty; the music had ceased, and the people were going home. The night was warm and the moon shone bright: no one stayed but the recruits, who shouted and drank their fill, and Ambrose, who, being exceeding mellow, had rushed into the middle of the road, singing and reeling, from one side to the other.
The knot of men who had the blacksmith for leader had also left the place.
The recruits too,
