Elsewhere, tailors and furriers had set forth their respective goods, the latter pungent in the nostrils with the spices used to preserve them; and they, since winter was coming on, had customers not a few.
After these came rows of tables sheltered under canvas roofs, displaying enormous coils of russet-hued sausages, as thick as a ship’s mooring-rope; and piles of yellow fat and grease, brown flitches of smoked bacon, whole sides of fat salt pork, and hams by scores, rose in multitudinous tiers: while at other stalls, entire carcasses of hogs were hooked up, wide-opened, gaping, and so dripping with blood that the dogs gathered round, and had to be driven away.
Close by the butchers were their brethren of the baking-oven; and on thick layers of straw, on wagons, upon tables and in baskets, and wheresoever they could be placed, lay monstrous piles of loaves, each as large as a small cartwheel. Cakes, too, were there, glazed over with yellow egg-yolks; and little rolls, and great ones as well.
Nor were stalls for playthings wanting. Some were made of gingerbread, in the shape of many a kind of beast, of soldiers, and hearts—and strange forms, whose meaning no one could make out. At other stalls you could have seen almanacs, prayer-books, tales about robbers and fierce Magielons;11 at others, cheap whistles, mouth-organs, singing-birds of baked clay, and similar musical instruments were to be bought, on which those “Jew rascals” who sold them made such a row as was hardly to be borne; for the birds chirped, the trumpets blew, the whistles squeaked with long-drawn shrillness, and the little kettledrums at times joined in, beating a tattoo: and the uproar was enough to split any man’s head.
But in the centre of the marketplace, under the trees, coopers, tinmen and earthenware dealers had made up a group apart. There were so many pots, pans, pipkins and porringers that it was no easy thing to get past. Beyond these were stationed the joiners, with a show of painted bedsteads and chests, wardrobes, and tiers of shelves, and tables.
Now, in every place—upon the carts, along the walls, in the gutters, and, in short, wherever they found room—saleswomen were sitting: with onions in strings, or in baskets; with cloth fabrics and petticoats of their own making; with eggs, cheeses, mushrooms, pats of butter of oblong shape and wrapped in a linen cloth. Some had potatoes to sell, some a couple of geese, or a fowl already plucked and drawn; others, flax fibres finely combed out, or skeins of spun flaxen thread. Each of them sat by her wares and chatted pleasantly with her neighbour, as folk are wont to do at the fair. And when a purchaser appeared, they dealt with him quietly, gravely, leisurely, as decent peasant people: not like those Jews, who quarrel and scream and push one another, as though they were out of their minds.
Amid carts and booths, smoke was seen here and there curling up from sheet-iron stoves. Here they sold hot tea. At others, there were eatables: fried sausages, cabbage, barszcz12 and boiled potatoes.
Everywhere, dziads were about in vast swarms: the blind, the halt, the dumb; cripples with never an arm, cripples with never a leg: just as at a local village fête. They played hymn tunes on tiny kits they held, or sang godly songs, clinking money in their wooden bowls. From the house-walls, from among the wagons, from the mud-deluged street, they all came to beg timidly, and implore a trifle in money or in kind.
On all this did Boryna gaze, not infrequently with admiration, as he exchanged a few words with acquaintances whom he met. At last he got to the swine-market, which was beyond the monastery: a very large space of sandy ground, with a few houses sprinkled here and there. Close to the monastery garden wall, and shaded by many a huge oak-tree that stretched out its branches over the wall, still covered with withered leaves, were grouped a good many people and carts, together with a large number of swine brought to the fair for sale.
He soon saw Hanka and Yuzka, who stood at the outside of the group.
“Have you sold, hey?”
“Oh, the butchers have been here already to bargain for the sow; but they offer too little.”
“Are swine dear?”
“Dear? Not at all. So many have come, and the buyers are too few.”
“Anybody from Lipka?”
“The Klembas have brought some small pigs; and Simon, Dominikova’s son, has one too.”
“Well, be as quick as you can, that you may enjoy the fair.”
“We have enough of waiting already.”
“How much will they give for the sow?”
“Thirty paper roubles. They say she is not well fed; big bones, but no fat on them.”
“That’s the biggest of lies! She has four fingers’ thickness of fat!” he cried, feeling the sow’s back and sides. “The young pig is not fat on the sides, but then its hams are well clad,” he added, driving it out of the wet sand where it was wallowing and half buried.
“Sell at thirty-five. I shall just see Antek, and come back to you directly.—Haven’t you a mind to eat?”
“Our bread is eaten already.”
“I’ll buy you a bit of sausage besides. Only get a good price for the pigs.”
“Father, won’t you think of buying me the kerchief you promised last spring?”
Boryna put his hand to his bosom, but stopped, as though struck with some idea, took out his hand again, and waved it, saying merely:
“You shall have it, Yuzka.”
Instantly he moved off, for he had descried Yagna’s face amongst the wagons; but before he got to her, she had disappeared, and was nowhere to be seen. So he went in search of Antek: no easy task, for the street from the swine-market to the great square was
