Selected Polish Tales | Page 9

field,' he thought, 'I could sleep more.'
He had been meditating on this while harrowing over a fresh bit for half
an hour, when he heard his wife calling from the hill:
'Josef, Josef!'
'What's up?'
'Do you know what has happened?' 'How should I know?'

'Is it a new tax?' anxiously crossed his mind.
'Magda's uncle has come, you know, that Grochowski....'
'If he wants to take the girl back--let him.'
'He has brought a cow and wants to sell her to Gryb for thirty-five
paper roubles and a silver rouble for the halter. She is a lovely cow.'
'Let him sell her; what's that to do with me?'
'This much: that you are going to buy her,' said the woman firmly.
Slimak dropped his hand with the whip, bent his head forward, and
looked at his wife. The proposal seemed monstrous.
'What's wrong with you?' he asked.
'Wrong with me?' She raised her voice. 'Can't I afford the cow? Gryb
has bought his wife a new cart, and you grudge me the beasts? There
are two cows in the shed; do you ever trouble about them? You
wouldn't have a shirt to your back if it weren't for them.'
'Good Lord,' groaned the man, who was getting muddled by his wife's
eloquence,' how am I to feed her? they won't sell me fodder from the
manor.'
'Rent that field, and you will have fodder.'
'Fear God, Jagna! what are you saying? How am I to rent that field?'
'Go to the manor and ask the square; say you will pay up the rent in a
year's time.'
'As God lives, the woman is mad! our beasts pull a little from that field
now for nothing; I should be worse off, because I should have to pay
both for the cow and for the field. I won't go to the squire.'
His wife came close up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You won't go?'

'I won't go.'
'Very well, then I will take what fodder there is and your horses may go
to the devil; but I won't let that cow go, I will buy her!'
'Then buy her.'
'Yes, I will buy her, but you have got to do the bargaining with
Grochowski; I haven't the time, and I won't drink vodka with him.'
'Drink! bargain with him! you are mad about that cow!'
The quick-tempered woman shook her fist in his face.
'Josef, don't upset me when you yourself have nothing at all to propose.
Listen! you are worrying every day that you haven't enough manure;
you are always telling me that you want three beasts, and when the time
comes, you won't buy them. The two cows you have cost you nothing
and bring you in produce, the third would be clear gain. Listen.... I tell
you, listen! Finish your work, then come indoors and bargain for the
cow; if not, I'll have nothing more to do with you.'
She turned her back and went off.
The man put his hands to his head.
'God bless me, what a woman!' he groaned, 'how can I, poor devil, rent
that field? She persists in having the cow, and makes a fuss, and it
doesn't matter what you say, you may as well talk to a wall. Why was I
ever born? everything is against me. Woa, lads!'
He fancied that the earth and the wind were laughing at him again:
'You'll pay the thirty-five paper roubles and the silver rouble for the
halter! Week after week, month after month you have been putting by
your money, and to-day you'll spend it all as if you were cracking a nut.
You will swell Grochowski's pockets and your own pouch will be
empty. You will wait in fear and uncertainty at the manor and bow to
the bailiff when it pleases him to give you the receipt for your rent!...

'Perhaps the squire won't even let me have the field.'
'Don't talk nonsense!' twittered the sparrows; 'you know quite well that
he'll let you have it.'
'Oh yes, he'll let me have it,' he retorted hotly, 'for my good money. I
would rather bear a severe pain than waste money on such a foolish
thing.'
The sun was low by the time Slimak had finished his last bit of
harrowing near the highroad. At the moment when he stopped he heard
the new cow low. Her voice pleased him and softened his heart a little.
'Three cows is more than two,' he thought, 'people will respect me more.
But the money... ah well, it's all my own fault!'
He remembered how many times he had said that he must have another
cow and that field, and had boasted to his wife that people had
encouraged him to carve his own