“Scraggy? Say ye no such word, or ye shall rue it! Scraggy! Look but at her—so young—scarce in her fifth year—and in such goodly condition!” So spoke Hanka, enraged.
“Pshaw! Pshaw! Who doth business, a word shall not anger him.—Say thirty roubles!”
“I have spoken.”
“And I shall speak. Thirty-one? … Well, thirty-one and a half.—Thirty-two?—Then let it be thirty-two and a half. … It’s a bargain?”
“I have said.”
“My last word: three and thirty!”—“Take it or leave it,” added the younger Jew phlegmatically, looking round for his staff, while the elder buttoned up his gaberdine.
Thereupon Bylitsa said, patting the cow’s neck: “For such a beast as this!—O men, fear ye not God? A cow as large as a byre!—Why, her hide alone will be worth half a score of roubles—O ye swindlers! ye murderers of Christ!”
But now the Jews began to chaffer eagerly, violently. Antek stood stubbornly to his price; and though he gave way a little, it was but little. Indeed, the cow Krasula was very valuable; and had he been selling it in spring and to another peasant, he would have got fifty roubles at least. But “Necessity drives to the mart, with Poverty drawing the cart.” This the Jews were perfectly aware of; and though they shouted louder and louder, and struck their hands in Antek’s with greater zeal to conclude the bargain, their offers rose by at most half a rouble each time.
Finally it came to this pass, that they started home in high dudgeon, and Hanka was leading the cow back to her shed, while Antek himself was angered and ready to renounce selling the beast at all—when lo! back they came again, and shrieked and swore that they could not possibly offer a higher price, and struck their hands in Antek’s again … till at last the man agreed to forty roubles, plus two zloty for old Bylitsa, as the holder of the rope.
They paid on the nail; the old man led the cow after them to the tavern where their sledge was waiting. Accompanied by the children, Hanka went with Krasula as far as the road, stroking her muzzle every now and then, affectionately bending over her, and quite unable to conceal her grief and affliction. …
She stood long upon the road, looking at Krasula as she was led away, and pouring out execrations on those unchristened “Yellow Ones.”
To lose such a cow as Krasula was!—No wonder if the poor woman felt her bosom overflow with gall!
When she came back, she said: “It is as if one of us had been borne to the churchyard”; and she still continued to peep into the empty stall, or to gaze through the window at the pathway marked by the hoofs which had but now passed there; and often and often did she give way to her distress, and shed tears again and again.
“Now then, will you have done?” Antek cried out, seating himself at the table where the money lay. “Why, the woman is for all the world like a calf; doth naught but weep and blubber.”
“ ‘He that suffereth naught will for nothing have thought,’ ” was Hanka’s reply. “You suffered nothing, when you gave poor Krasula up to those Jews to be butchered.”
“Aye, you’d rather have me open my own bowels to get you money!”
“And now we remain like the very last of hired servants—like dziads—without one drop of milk, without one crumb of comfort! This—this is what my share of my own house and home have earned for me.—Merciful heavens! Other men work as hard as oxen, and bring something home; and this man sells the very last thing—the cow, my marriage portion, all I had from my family!” she went on in uncontrollable excitement.
“Being a fool and without understanding, you may bellow at your ease.—Here’s money for you. Pay what you owe, buy what you need, keep the rest.” He pushed the roubles over to her, but, taking five from the heap, put them into his pocketbook.
“And why take so much money with you?”
“Why? I am not going to start off with nothing but my staff.”
“Start off? and whither?”
“Anywhither, if it be but away from here. I will seek work, and not rot here in Lipka.”
“Away? A dog is barefoot everywhere—‘Where’er the poor man goes, the wind against him blows.’—Ah! and I am to stay here alone, say? Am I?” And, raising her voice, she approached him with a threatening mien, not knowing what she did; he meanwhile took no notice of her, occupied as he was in taking down his sheepskin, putting his girdle on, and looking for his cap.
“Work for the peasants here? That I will not,” he declared. “No: though I should starve; I will not!”
“The organist is in want of a thresher.”
“That great man!—A calf who bleats in the choir, and is good for naught else; whose eyes are always on the farmers’ moneybags, and who lives on what he gets out of them by begging or by lying!”
“ ‘Who has no goodwill shirks his duty still!’ ”
“Enough! You’re saucy!” he cried out in anger.
“When do I say a word to oppose you? You always do as you please, and I am nowhere!”
“I shall apply at the manors,” he said presently, in a gentler tone. “I mean to inquire about service to be had, and perhaps may get something by Christmas. But I would rather be a common ploughman elsewhere than rot here, where the wrong done me stares me in the face at every step. That I cannot bear. I have enough of it—enough of being pitied by some, and looked upon by others as a mangy dog!” As he spoke, he waxed angrier and more highly wrought and Hanka, seized with terror, stood petrified and motionless: she had never yet seen him in such a state.
“Farewell. I shall return in a few days.”
“Antek!”—The word was a despairing scream.
“What would you?” He turned upon the threshold.
“Do you grudge me even a friendly parting word?”
“Is it caresses you mean? Oh, I am in
