No one else uttered a word, but all nodded assent: even the greatest fools among them knew well that such a school meant nothing but the payment of new taxes for nothing: which no one cared for.
The multitude, however, were restless, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, coughing and clearing their throats.—They were terribly afraid of opposing the head official and his satellites.
One man looked at another, secretly troubled what to do; and everyone noted carefully what the richest among them seemed to think. As to the miller and the foremost men in the other villages, they appeared to put themselves forward on purpose to be favorably noticed by the gendarmes and the scrivener.
Antek went to speak with them; but the miller said rudely: “Any man but a fool can tell how he should vote!” and turned to the blacksmith, who was of everybody’s opinion, and always gliding about from group to group, guessing shrewdly how matters would turn out. He talked to the scrivener, chatted with the miller, offered Gregory a pinch of snuff—and kept his own counsel meanwhile so well that to the very end no one knew on which side he was.
The majority were meanwhile gradually inclining not to vote for the school. They now dispersed about the square, indifferent to the noonday heat, and were setting to canvass their views still louder and more boldly than before, when the scrivener called from the open window:
“Here, someone of you!”
No one stirred.
“Let someone run over to the Manor for the fish. ’Twas to be brought here in the morning, and we are waiting still.—Come!” he shouted masterfully; “make haste!”
Here a voice uttered the bold words:
“We are not here as your servants!”
“Let him run thither himself! It irks him to drag his paunch about!” At this they laughed, for his belly was indeed as big as a drum.
The scrivener swore. But in a minute, out came the Voyt at the back of the house, who, passing behind the tavern, slipped away to the Manor by the outside of the village.
“He must have been changing the clothes of the babies at Madam Scrivener’s, and cleaning them likewise: so he has gone out for a little fresh air.”
“Ah, yes; Madam likes not her rooms to be noisome.”
“She will soon find other services for him to render her.”
“Strange that the Squire is not yet to be seen,” they said in some surprise; but the smith returned, with a cunning smile:
“He has too much sense to come.”
They looked at him inquiringly.
“For why,” the smith explained, “should he have to vote for the school … or go to loggerheads with the District Official? And he will never vote: fancy what he would have to pay! No, he is wise.”
“But you—are you with us, Michael, say?” Matthew pressed him, eager to know.
The smith wriggled like a worm trodden upon, but, being in a quandary, grumbled a word or two, and went over to speak to the miller, who had come round to the peasants, and was now talking to old Ploshka very loud, for the rest to hear.
“My advice is: Vote as the officials wish. A school there must be: the worst is better than none. The one you wish for, ye’ll not get: ’tis no use knocking your heads against a wall. Won’t you vote?—Then they will not ask your leave.”
“But,” cried a bystander, “what can they do, if we give no money?”
“You are foolish. They’ll take it. Will you refuse?—They will sell even your last cow, and send you to prison for mutiny into the bargain. Is that clear?—For,” he added, turning to the Lipka folk, “ye have to do now, not with the Squire, but with the head official: a man who is not to be trifled with!—I tell you, do as they bid, and thank God things are no worse!”
Such as held his views here chimed in; and old Ploshka, after musing for some time, said on a sudden:
“Ye say true; and Roch misleads and seduces our folk.”
To this, one of the Przylek husbandmen added with emphasis:
“He is with the Manor folk, and therefore stirs us up against the Government.”
An outcry arose against him on every side; but he, undaunted, went on as soon as they let him.
“Those,” he said, looking sagely around him, “those are fools that help him. If anyone likes this not, let him come forward: I’ll call him a fool to his face. Such men know not that it hath been so from all time: the gentry rebel and drive our folk to ruin; but who has to pay, when payday comes? Why, we peasants! When the Cossacks are quartered in your villages, who will get the beatings? who will suffer and be sent to prison? Only we peasants! The gentlefolk will not move a finger for you; they will slink away and leave you in the lurch, the Judases!—and, moreover, they will feast the officials in their manors!”
“Ha! What is the people in their eyes that they should stir for them?” cried one; and another:
“If they could, serfdom would be restored tomorrow!”
“Gregory says,” the former speaker continued, “ ‘let them teach in Polish; or, if they will not, let us vote no schools and no money for them.’—Very fine. But ’tis only a labourer who can say to his master: ‘I will not work,’ throw an insult in his face, and yet escape a thrashing by running away. We farmer folk cannot flee, and must needs stay and take the beating. Therefore I say it will come cheaper for you to build the school than to resist the officials. True, they will not teach our language; but they will never make Russians of us for all that: we shall none of us pray to God or speak among ourselves save as we do now, even as our mothers taught us!
“Finally, I repeat: Stand up for your own interests only! Let the nobles tear each other to pieces: ’tis no affair of ours. Let them
