Selected Polish Tales | Page 5

louder and louder in proportion
as the mistress went farther away. Jendrek began pushing Magda about,
pulling the dog's tail and whistling penetratingly; finally he ran out with
a spade into the orchard. Slimak sat by the stove. He was a man of
medium height with a broad chest and powerful shoulders. He had a
calm face, short moustache, and thick straight hair falling abundantly
over his forehead and on to his neck. A red-glass stud set in brass shone
in his sacking shirt. He rested the elbow of his left arm on his right fist
and smoked a pipe, but when his eyes closed and his head fell too far
forward, he righted himself and rested his right elbow on his left fist.
He puffed out the grey smoke and dozed alternately, spitting now and
then into the middle of the room or shifting his hands. When the
pipestem began to twitter like a young sparrow, he knocked the bowl a
few times against the bench, emptied the ashes, and poked his finger
down. Yawning, he got up and laid the pipe on the shelf.
He glanced under his brows at Magda and shrugged his shoulders. The
liveliness of the girl who skipped about while she was washing her
dishes, roused a contemptuous compassion in him. He knew well what

it felt like to have no desire for skipping about, and how great the
weight of a man's head, hands, and feet can be when he has been hard
at work.
He put on his thick hobnailed boots and a stiff sukmana,[1] fastened a
hard strap round his waist, and put on his high sheepskin cap. The
heaviness in his limbs increased, and it came into his mind that it would
be more suitable to be buried in a bundle of straw after a huge bowl of
peeled barley-soup and another of cheese dumplings, than to go to
work. But he put this thought aside, and went out slowly into the yard.
In his snuff-coloured sukmana and black cap he looked like the stem of
a pine, burnt at the top.
[Footnote 1: Sukmana, a long linen coat, often elaborately
embroidered.]
The barn door was open, and by sheer perversity some bundles of straw
were peeping out, luring Slimak to a doze. But he turned away his head
and looked at one of the hills where he had sown oats that morning. He
fancied the yellow grain in the furrows was looking frightened, as if
trying in vain to hide from the sparrows that were picking it up.
'You will eat me up altogether,' Slimak muttered. With heavy steps he
approached the shed, took out the two harrows, and led the chestnuts
out of the stable; one was yawning and the other moved his lips,
looking at Slimak and blinking his eyes, as if he thought: 'Would you
not prefer to doze and not to drag us up the hill? Didn't we do enough
work for you yesterday?' Slimak nodded, as if in answer, and drove off.
Seen from below, the thick-set man and the horses with heads hanging
down, seemed to harrow the blue sky, moving a few hundred paces
backward and forward. As often as they reached the edge of the sown
field, a flight of sparrows rose up, twittering angrily, and flew over
them like a cloud, then settled at the other end, shrieking continually in
astonishment that earth should be poured on to such lovely grain.
'Silly fool! Silly fool! What a silly fool!' they cried.

'Bah!' murmured Slimak, cracking his whip at them, 'if I listened to you
idlers, you and I would both starve under the fence. The beggars are
playing the deuce here!'
Certainly Slimak got little encouragement in his labour. Not only that
the sparrows noisily criticized his work, and the chestnuts scornfully
whisked their tails under his nose, but the harrows also objected, and
resisted at every little stone or clod of earth. The tired horses
continually stumbled, and when Slimak cried 'Woa, my lads!' and they
went on, the harrows again resisted and pulled them back. When the
worried harrows moved on for a bit, stones got into the horses' feet or
under his own shoes, or choked up, and even broke the teeth of the
harrows. Even the ungrateful earth offered resistance.
'You are worse than a pig!' the man said angrily. 'If I took to scratching
a pig's back with a horsecomb, it would lie down quietly and grunt with
gratitude. But you are always bristling, as if I did you an injury!'
The sun took up the affronted earth's cause, and threw a great sheaf of
light across the ashen-coloured field, where dark and yellow patches
were visible.
'Look at that black patch,' said the sun, 'the hill