Sometimes, stopping to breathe, he would gloat over the land with eyes of love, and whisper to it: “My own—oh, my own!”
For that soil, so weedy and barren, uncultivated and forsaken by all, he was full of pity, and would say caressingly, as though speaking to a child:
“Patience, have patience yet awhile: I’ll till you, I’ll make you fat, and you’ll bear fruit like the other lands around you. Fear not: you shall be satisfied and rejoice.”
The sun, now rising, shone straight into his eyes.
“Thanks, O Lord God!” he exclaimed, blinking; and added: “We shall still have dry hot weather for some time!” For the sun rose as red as red could be.
Far away, the Mass-bell rang, and the chimneys of Lipka were crowned with plumes of blue smoke.
“Have you a good appetite, eh?” he said to himself, and drew his girdle tighter, sighing mournfully. “But Mother will never bring you your breakfast any more!”
Other parts, too, of the Podlesie farm were now swarming with people, like him at work on their newly bought lands; and he saw Staho Ploshka, ploughing with a couple of strong horses.
“Oh,” he thought; “dear Lord! if I could but have one of them!”
Joseph Vahnik was carting stones to lay the foundation of his hut; Klemba and his sons were digging a ditch round their holding; and Gregory, the Voyt’s brother, was busy measuring something with a pole near the highway cross.
“That,” Simon observed, “would be the very best place to build a tavern.”
Gregory, having driven in stakes to mark off the places he had in mind, came up to greet Simon.
“Ho, ho!” he cried, his eyes round with amazement; “you’re working as hard as ten, I see!”
“Can I do otherwise? what have I in the world? One pair of breeches and these two bare hands!”
He was surly, and would not interrupt his labours to talk. Gregory gave him some advice and went back to his own ground. After him came others, some to encourage him, some to gossip, some merely to smoke a cigarette and have a laugh; but they made Simon impatient, and he ended by flying out at Prychek:
“Ye might as well do your own work and not hinder others! Holiday-making on workdays—too much of a good thing!”
So they came no longer, and he remained alone.
It was blindingly bright, broilingly hot; and the sun had wrapped the world in a shimmering haze of light.
“Oh, but ye’ll not drive me away so easily!” he said, addressing the sun; and then, perceiving Nastka, who was coming with his breakfast, he went to meet her, and pounced on the porringer with greedy hands.
Nastka, very far from cheerful, surveyed the fields.
“Why, what can ever grow on such wastes and moorlands?”
“Everything!—As you’ll see. There will even be wheat for you to bake cakes of!”
“Oh, yes!—‘While the grass grows, the steed starves!’ ”
“It will not, Nastka. We have our own land now; ’tis easier far for us.—Six whole acres!” he reminded her, eating away at full speed.
“Can we eat the earth?—How shall we get through the winter?”
“That’s my affair: do not trouble. I have thought it all out, and shall find means.”
He thrust away the empty pot, stretched himself, and led her off to see all and hear his explanations.
“This,” he cried out gaily, “shall be the site of our cottage.”
“Our cottage? Built of mud, perchance, like a swallow’s nest?”
“Of wood and branches, and clay and sand, and whatsoever we can get: to last for a couple of years, till we are better off.”
“Quite a Manor house, I see, you have in mind!” she replied in an unpleasant tone.
“Better dwell in one’s own hovel than live in another man’s house.”
“Ploshka’s wife desires us to spend the winter with her: she has offered us a room with a willing heart.”
“A willing heart!—Willing, I know, to do anything to spite my mother, with whom she is always at odds.—Fear nothing, Nastka; I’ll build you a hut, with window and fireplace all that is needful. You shall see: in three weeks from now, had I to work my arms to the stumps, it shall stand there, like Amen at the end of ‘Our Father’: yes, stand it shall.”
“And, of course, you’ll have to work by yourself?”
“Matthew will help: he has promised.”
“Would not your mother,” she faltered, “come in any way to your aid?”
“I would die rather than ask her!” he burst out; but at once, seeing how dejected she looked, he felt sorry and, sitting down at her side by a rye-field, stammered an explanation.
“How can I, Nastka? Me she has thrust out, and you she loads with curses!”
“But, good God! if she would but let us have one cow! We are like the very lowest of dziads: with naught in the world! ’Tis fearful to think of.”
“But, Nastka, there will be a cow: I have one already in mind.”
“No hut … no cattle … nothing whatsoever!” she wailed, with her head upon his bosom, while he wiped her eyes and stroked her hair. All the time, he felt so sad that it was a wonder he himself could keep back his tears.—All at once he seized his spade, sprang to his feet, and cried in feigned anger:
“Woman, fear God! There’s so much work to do—and you do nothing—only complain!”
She, sorely troubled, rose with him, but care was gnawing at her heart, and made her say:
“Even should we not quite starve, the wolves will eat us in this wilderness.”
This time, he felt seriously angry. Turning away to work, he threw her these sharp words:
“Better stay at home than come here to talk nonsense and whimper!”
She wanted to appease him, but he pushed her away.
“Dear Lord!” he thought. “Indeed, a woman is of the some blood with a man; but she hath not reason such as a man hath. Wealth falls from heaven, not by lamenting and wailing, but by working with our hands.—They are all like children, now weeping, now laughing, or drooping, or full of malice.—Dear Lord!”
He went on
