Early next morning, while the dew is still glittering on the grass, behold the miller dressed and on his way to the village. He found the people there buzzing like bees in a hive.
“Hey! Have you heard the news?” they cried. “Only a pair of shoes came back from the city last night instead of the inn-keeper.”
It was the talk of the village that morning, and the amount of gossip was sinful!
When Yankel’s widow had a pair of shoes returned to her instead of her husband, she lost her head entirely and didn’t know what in the world to do. To make matters worse, Yankel had wisely taken all his bonds to town with him, never dreaming that Khapun would get him that night. How could the poor Jew guess that out of the whole Hebrew congregation the devil would happen to choose him?
“That’s the way people always are, they never know, they never feel when trouble like, for instance, Khapun is hanging over their heads.”
So spoke the village folk, shaking their heads as they left the inn where the young Jewess and her children were tearing their clothes and beating their foreheads on the floor. And at the same time each man thought to himself:
“Well, anyhow, the bond I gave him has gone to the devil!”
To tell you the truth, there were very few in the village whose consciences whispered to them:
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to return the principal to the Jews, even if we kept the interest.”
And the fact is no one gave up so much as one crooked penny.
The miller did not pay anything either, but then he thought he was different.
The widow Yankel begged and implored the townsfolk to help her, and even made her children throw themselves at their feet, beseeching them to let her have fifty, or even twenty, copecks on every rouble so that she shouldn’t starve, and might somehow manage to take her little orphans to the city. And more than one kind-hearted man was so moved that the tears trickled down his whiskers, and more than one nudged his neighbour and said:
“Haven’t you any fear of God in you, neighbour? Didn’t you owe the Jew money? Why don’t you pay her? Upon my word, you ought to, even if it’s only a little.”
But the neighbour would only scratch his top-knot under his hat and answer:
“Why should I pay him, when with my own hands I took him every penny I owed him the day he went to the city? Would you have me to pay twice? Now with you, neighbour, it’s different!”
“Why is it different with me when I did exactly what you did? Yankel came to me just before he went away and begged me to pay him, and I did.”
The miller listened to all this, and his heart ached to hear it.
“What a bad lot they are!” he thought. “Goodness knows, they’re a bad lot! There’s absolutely no fear of God in their hearts. I see from this thatthey’ll never pay me unless they’re driven to do it. So, gentlemen, I must take care or I shall get robbed; only a born fool would put his finger in the mouth of any one of you! No, you needn’t expect that of me! I’m not going to make a fool of myself. You’ll not spit in my porridge. If anything, I’ll spit in yours.”
Old Prisia alone took the Jewess two dozen eggs and a piece of cloth, and paid the inn-keeper’s widow as many copecks as she owed her.
“Take them, dearie, in God’s name,” said she. “If I owe you a little more I’ll bring it here as God sends it to me. I have brought you all I have now.”
“There’s a crafty old woman for you!” the miller again commented angrily. “She wouldn’t pay me a thing yesterday and yet she is able to pay the Jewess. How wicked these people are! One can’t even trust the old women. She says she can’t pay a good Christian like me and then goes and hands over all her money to a nasty Jewess. Wait a bit, old woman, I’ll get even with you some day!”
Well, Yankel’s widow gathered her children about her, and sold the inn and the stock of vodka for a song; but there wasn’t much vodka left, for Yankel had meant to bring back a cask from the city, and people said, too, that Kharko had filched a cask or two from what had remained. So she took what she could get and left Novokamensk on foot with her children. Two she carried in her arms, a third toddledat her side holding on to her skirt, and the two eldest skipped on ahead.
And again the villagers scratched their heads, while those who had a conscience thought: “If only I could give the Jewess a wagon for the money I owe her perhaps I’d feel easier.”
But, you see, each man was afraid that the others would guess he hadn’t squared his account with the Jew.
And the miller thought again:
“Oh, what wicked people! Now I know how gladly they’d hustle me out of the way if I should ever stumble or come a cropper.”
So the poor widow crawled away to the city, and heaven only knows what became of her there. Maybe she and the children found something to do; maybe they all died of hunger. Everything is possible. But as a matter of fact, Jews are tenacious creatures. They may live badly, but they manage to stay alive.
Then the people began to ask themselves who would be the next inn-keeper in Novokamensk. For though Yankel had gone and the women and children of the inn had wandered away into the wide world, the tavern still stood on its hill, and on its doors were still depicted in white paint a quart measure and a tin mug. And everything else was there in its proper place.
Even Kharko still sat on the hill smoking his longpipe and waiting to see whom God would send him for a master.
One evening though, when the village folk were standing in front of the empty tavern and wondering who would be their next inn-keeper, the priest came up, and bowing deeply—for the mayor was there, and as he is a great man it is no sin even for a priest to bow to him—began to say what a good thing it would be if a meeting could be arranged to close up the tavern for good and all. He, the priest, would write a letter with his own hand and send it to the bishop. And this would be a splendid, beautiful thing, and beneficial to the whole village.
The old men and the women answered that what the priest had said was the honest truth, but the miller thought the priest’s idea absolutely worthless and even insulting.
“What a wicked priest!” he thought with indignation. “There’s a friend for you! Just you wait a bit, though, holy Father, you’ll see what’ll happen.”
“You are quite right, Father,” he answered in oily tones, “your letter will do a great deal of good, only I don’t know whom it will help most, you or the village. You know yourself—don’t take it ill—that you always send to the city for vodka and so you don’t need the tavern. It would be very nice for you to have the bishop read your letter and praise it.”
The people shouted with laughter, but the priest only spat in a great huff, clapped his straw hat on his head, and walked away down the street as if nothing had happened and he was simply taking an evening stroll.
Need I tell you more? You must surely have guessed already that the miller had made up his mind to be the keeper of the Jewish tavern. And having made up his mind he talked very agreeably to the mayor, entertained whichever members of the County Court he thought advisable, and reasoned very cleverly with the captain of police and with the head of the District, as well as with the judge, the treasurer, and finally with the commissioner of rural police and the customs inspector.
On his way back from the village after all these exertions the miller passed the inn. There was Kharko, sitting on the hill smoking his pipe. The miller only nodded to him, but Kharko—although he was a proud fellow—jumped up at once and ran toward him.
“Well, what have you got to say?” asked the miller.
“What should I have to say? I am waiting for you to tell me something.”
“Well, well.”
Kharko didn’t want to nail the miller down with words yet, so he listened to what the miller said,pulled off his cap with both hands, and wisely answered:
“I shall be very glad to do all I can for my kind master.”
So the miller took possession of the inn and lorded it in Novokamensk better than Yankel had done. He put his roubles out to pasture among the people, and when the time came he drove them and their increase back into his chest. And no one there was to get in his way.
And if it was true that more than one person wept bitter tears because of him—why there is no room for truth in this world. And many did weep; whether more than had wept when Yankel kept the inn or fewer, I cannot attempt to say. Who can take the measure of human grief and who can count human tears?
Ah, no one has ever measured the grief and no one has ever counted the tears of the world, but the old folks say, “walking or riding, trouble’s always in hiding”; and that “the back doesn’t laugh at a stick or a staff.” I don’t know how true that is, but it seems true to me.
I must admit I didn’t mean to tell you all this about my friend, but it’s too late to take it back now. I’ve begun the story and I shall go on tothe end. A song’s not a song, they say, if a word is missing. And after all, if the miller doesn’t hide anything, why should I?
You see, the state of affairs was this. All old Yankel had ever wanted had been human money. If he heard with one corner of his ear that some one had a rouble or two loose in his pocket his heart would give him a little prod and he would immediately think of some way in which he could pull up that rouble and put it to work for him, as one might pull a fish out of somebody else’s pond. If he succeeded, he and his Sarah would rejoice over their good fortune.
But that wasn’t enough for the miller. Yankel had always grovelled before every one, but the miller held his head as high as a turkey cock. Yankel had always slipped up to the back door of the District policeman’s house and stood timidly on the threshold, but the miller swaggered all over the front steps as if he were at home there. Yankel never took it hard if he got his ears boxed by some drunken fellow. He howled a bit and then stopped, perhaps squeezing a few extra copecks out of his tormentor one day or another to make up for it. But if the miller ever got hold of a peasant’s top-knot it would probably stay in his hands, and his eyes would flash like the sparks from a blacksmith’s hammer. With the miller it was: pay up both money and respect! And he got them both, there’s no use denyingit. The people bowed low before their icons, but they bowed lower before my friend.
And yet he never could get enough. He went about as surly and angry as if a puppy were worrying his heart, thinking to himself all the time:
“Everything is wrong in this world, everything is wrong! Somehow money doesn’t make a man as happy as it ought to.”
Kharko once asked him:
“Why do you go about looking as cross as if some one had thrown a bucket of slops over you, master? What does my master want?”
“Perhaps if I got married I should be happier.”
“Then go ahead and get married.”
“That’s just the trouble. How can I get married when the thing’s impossible no matter how I tackle it? I’ll tell you the truth: I fell in love with Galya, the widow’s daughter, before I ever came to be a miller and while I was still a workman at the mill. If my uncle hadn’t got drowned I should be married to her to-day. But now you see yourself that she is below me.”
“Of course, she is below you! All you can do now is to marry rich old Makogon’s daughter Motria.”
“There you are! I can see for myself and every one says that my money and old Makogon’s would just match, but there you are again—the girl is so ugly. She sits all day like a great bale of hay everlastingly hulling seeds. Every time I look at her Ifeel as if some one had got me by the nose and were pulling me away from her. How different Galya is! That’s why I say everything is wrong in this world. If a man loves one girl the other one’s sure to have the money. I shall certainly shrivel up some day like a blade of grass. I loathe the world.”
The soldier took his pipe out of his mouth, spat, and said:
“That’s bad! Any one but me would never have thought of a way out of it, but I’m going to give you some advice that you’ll not be sorry if you take. Will you give me the pair of new boots that Opanas left in pawn if I tell you what to do?”
“I wouldn’t begrudge you a pair of boots for your advice, but have you thought of something that really will help me?”
Well, it turned out that that wicked soldier had thought of a plan which, if it had gone through a little bit sooner, would certainly have sent the miller straight to the devil in hell and I should never have been telling you this story.
“Very well, then, listen carefully to me,” Kharko said. “Plainly, there are three of you, one man and two girls. And plainly one man can’t possibly marry them both unless he’s a Turk.”
“How right the wretch is!” thought the miller. “What’s coming next?”
“Good! Now as you are a rich man and Motriais a rich girl, and baby can see who ought to marry who. Send the match-makers to old Makogon.”
“That’s all very well! I knew that without being told. But what about Galya?”
“Do you want to hear to the end? Or do you yourself know what I’m going to say?”
“Come, come, don’t get cross!”
“You make every one cross. I’m not the man to begin saying something and then stop before I’ve finished. Now, to come to Galya. Used she to love you?”
“I should say she did!”
“And what were you when she loved you?”
“A workman in the mill.”
“Then a baby could understand that too. If the girl loved a workman once, let her marry a workman now.”
The miller’s eyes grew as round as saucers and his head began to go round like a mill-wheel.
“But I’m not a workman any longer!”
“How dreadful! And isn’t there a workman at the mill?”
“You mean Gavrilo? So that’s your idea, is it? Very well, let him give you a pair of boots for it! Neither he nor his uncle nor his aunts will ever see me stand that arrangement, I can tell you! I’d sooner go and break every bone in his body.”
“Gracious, what a hot-tempered fellow you are; hot enough to boil an egg! I was going to tell yousomething entirely different when you boiled over like this.”
“What can you tell me now seeing that that little joke didn’t please me?”
“Just listen.”
Kharko took his pipe out of his mouth, winked, and clicked his tongue so sympathetically the miller felt better at once.
“And you—did you love her though she was poor?”
“Yes, indeed I did!”
“Well, then, go on loving her to your heart’s content after she has married the workman. And this is the end of my speech. You three will live at the mill together and the fourth fool won’t count. Aha! Now you know whether I have brought you honey or gall, don’t you? Yes indeed! Kharko’s head is all right because he was always licked on the back. That’s why he’s such a clever fellow and knows who will get the kernel of the nut, who will get the shell, and who will get the pair of boots.”
“But what if your plan shouldn’t work?”
“Why shouldn’t it work?”
“For lots of reasons. Perhaps old Makogon won’t consent.”
“Bah! Let me talk to him.”
“Well, what would you say?”
“I’ll tell you. I’d be on my way from the city with a load of vodka. He’d be coming toward me. We’dtalk a while and then I’d say: I’ve found a husband for your daughter; it’s our miller.”
“And what would he say?”
“He’d say: ‘Well I never! Your grandmother never expected that! How much is he worth?’”
“And what would you answer?”
“I’d answer: Of course my grandmother never expected it because she died long ago, God rest her soul! So you don’t know, I see, that the devil has carried away our Jew?”
“‘Then that’s altogether different,’ he’d say. ‘If there’s no Jew in the village the miller will be a substantial man.’”
“All right, supposing Makogon gives his consent, will Galya marry the workman?”
“If you drive the girl and her mother out of their khata she will be glad to live at the mill.”
“I see—well, well——”
The miller scratched his head in perplexity, and things went on like that, you must know, not only for a day but for almost a year. The miller had hardly had time to look about him before St. Philip’s day had come and gone, and Easter, and Spring, and Summer. Then once again he found himself standing at the door of the tavern, with Kharko leaningagainst the door post beside him. The moon was shining exactly as it had shone one year before, the river was sparkling as it had sparkled then, the street was just as white, and the same black shadow was lying on the silver ground beside the miller. And something flashed across his memory.
“Listen to me, Kharko!”
“What do you want?”
“What day of the week is it?”
“Monday.”
“It was Saturday last year, do you remember?”
“Saturdays are as thick as flies.”
“I mean the Day of Atonement one year ago.”
“Oh, that’s what you’re thinking of! Yes, it was Saturday last year.”
“When will the Day of Atonement be this year?”
“I can’t say when it will be. There’s no Jew near here now, so I don’t know.”
“Look at the sky. It’s clear and bright, just as it was that night.”
And the miller glanced in terror at the window of the Jewish hut, afraid of seeing again those Hebrew children nodding their heads and humming their prayers for their daddy whom Khapun was carrying away over the hills and dales.
But no! All that was over. Probably not a bone was left of Yankel by now; his orphans had wandered away into the wide world, and their hutwas as dark as a tomb. The miller’s heart was as full of darkness as the deserted Jewish khata.
“I didn’t save the Jew,” he thought. “It was I who made his children orphans, and now what dreadful things am I plotting against the widow’s daughter?”
“Would it be right for us to do it?” he asked of Kharko.
“Why not? Of course there are some people who won’t eat honey. Perhaps you are one of them.”
“No, I’m not one of them, but still—well, good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
The miller started down the hill, and once more Kharko whistled after him. Although he did not whistle as insultingly as he had the year before, it flicked the miller on the raw.
“What do you mean by whistling, you rascal?” he asked, turning round.
“What, mayn’t a man even whistle?” Kharko retorted crossly. “I used to whistle when I was orderly to the Captain, and yet I mayn’t do it here!”
“After all, why shouldn’t he whistle?” the miller thought. “Only why does everything happen just as it did that evening?”
So he walked away down the hill and Kharko went on whistling, only more softly. The miller passed the garden where the cherry trees grew, and once more what seemed to be two great birds rose outof the grass. Once more a tall hat and a girl’s white blouse gleamed in the darkness and some one gave a smack that resounded through the bushes. Ugh, out upon you! But this time the miller did not stop to scold the shameless youngster; he was afraid he might get the very same answer he had had the year before. So our Philip went his way quietly toward the widow’s cottage.
There stood the little khata shimmering under the moon; the tiny window was winking, and the tall poplar seemed to be bathing in the moonlight. The miller stopped at the stile, scratched his head under his hat, and again threw his leg across the hedge.
“Knock—knock!”
“Okh, there is sure to be a fuss as there was last time, only worse,” thought the miller. “That infernal Kharko with his infernal talk told me just what to say, but now, when I remember what he told me, it doesn’t somehow seem right. It doesn’t sound common sense. But what will be, will be!” and he knocked again.
A pale face and a pair of black eyes gleamed for an instant at the window.
“Mother, mother mine!” whispered Galya. “Here’s that wicked miller again standing at the window and tapping on the pane.”
“Ah, she doesn’t lean out to put her arms around me and kiss me this time, even by mistake,” thought the miller sadly.
The girl came out softly and stood a long way off with her arms folded on her white breast.
“What do you mean by knocking again?”
Alas, it is bitter for a man to hear such cold words from the girl who has been his darling love! The miller longed to embrace her girlish form and show her why he had knocked. To tell you the truth, he was already beginning to sidle toward her when he remembered what Kharko had told him, and answered instead:
“Why should I not knock when you owe me so much that you will never be able to pay me? Your hut isn’t worth the debt.”
“If you know we shall never pay you, don’t come knocking at the window by night, you godless man! You will drive my old mother into her grave.”
“Who the devil is driving her into her grave, Galya? If you only would let me, I would give your mother a peaceful old age.”
“You’re lying!”
“No, I’m not lying! Oi, Galya, Galya! I can’t live without loving you!”
“You lie like a dog! Who was it sent the match-makers to Makogon?”
“Whether I sent them or not, I’ll tell you the whole truth and swear to it if you like. I’m pining and fading away without you. And I’m going to tell you just what we’ll do, and if you’re a sensible girl you’ll listen to me. But I make one condition:listen with your ears and answer with your tongue. No hand play this time! If there is, I’ll be angry.”
“You’ve a funny way of doing things,” said Galya, folding her arms. “However, I’ll listen to you; but I warn you, if you begin to talk nonsense don’t call on your God to help you!”
“It won’t be nonsense. You see—oh, how did Kharko begin?”
“Kharko? What has Kharko to do with you and me?”
“Oh, do be quiet or I won’t be able to get anything straight. Listen to me: used you to love me?”
“Would I have kissed an ugly face like yours if I hadn’t?”
“And what was I then, a workman in the mill or not?”
“A workman, of course. I wish to goodness you had never become a miller!”
“Tut, tut, don’t talk so much or I’ll get mixed up! So you see it is clear that you loved a workman once and that therefore you ought to marry a workman now and live at the mill. And I shall go on loving you as I always have, even if I marry ten Motrias.”
Galya actually rubbed her eyes; she thought she was dreaming.
“What nonsense are you talking, man? EitherI’m absolutely crazy or else there’s a screw loose in your head. How can I marry a workman now that you are a miller? And how can you marry me when you’re sending the match-makers to Motria? What nonsense you’re talking, man! Cross yourself with your left hand!”
“What do you mean?” answered the miller. “Do you think I haven’t a workman at the mill? What about Gavrilo? Isn’t he one? He’s a little stupid, I know, but that will be all the better for us, Galya, my darling.”
Only then did the girl at last understand what the miller was driving at with his cunning talk. You should have seen her throw up her arms and heard her scream!
“Oi, mother, dear mother, listen to what he is saying! He wants to turn Turk and to keep two wives! Fetch the pitchfork out of the cottage quick, while I settle him with my hands!”
So she fell upon the miller, and the miller fell back. He escaped to the stile, put one foot upon it, and said:
“Oho! So that’s your game, little viper! Very well then, quit this hut with your mother! To-morrow I’ll take it for your debts. Away with you!”
But she shouted back:
“Get out of my garden, you Turk, as long as it’s mine! If you don’t I’ll scratch you with mynails so that even your Motria won’t know where your eyes and nose and mouth have been. Not only will you not have two sweethearts, not one will look at an eyeless creature like you.”
What use to talk to her? The miller spat, jumped quickly over the hedge, and left the village in a rage. When he reached the crest of the hill from where there came to him the murmuring of the stream in the mill-race, he looked back and shook his fist.
And at that moment he heard the sound of a bell: ding, dong; ding, dong! Again Kadilo was ringing the hour of midnight from the village belfry.
The miller reached his mill. It was all drenched with dew; the moon was shining, the wood was shimmering, and a bittern, that foul bird, was awake and booming in the reeds, sleepless, as if it were waiting for some one, as if it were calling up some one out of the pond.
Dread fell upon Philip the miller.
“Hey! Gavrilo!” he shouted.
“Oo-oo, oo-oo!” answered the bittern from the marsh, but not a squeak came from the mill.
“Oh, the confounded scapegrace! He’s run off after the girls again.” So thought the miller, and somehow did not feel like going alone into the emptymill. Although he was used to it, he sometimes remembered that not only fish but adders were to be found swimming about among the piles in the dark water under the floor.
He looked in the direction of the city. The night was warm and bright; a light mist was circling over the river that flowed through the woods, lost in the shimmering murk. There was not a cloud in the sky.
The miller looked behind him, and wondered afresh at the depth of his pond that found room in its bosom for the moon and the stars and the whole of the dark blue sky.
As he gazed at the pond, he saw in the water something resembling a gnat flying across the stars. He looked more closely, and saw the gnat grow to the size of a fly, and the fly to a sparrow, and the sparrow to a crow, and the crow to a hawk.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” cried the miller, and, raising his eyes, he saw something flying not through the water but through the air, and making straight for the mill.
“The Lord preserve us! There’s Khapun again hurrying to the city after his prey. Look at him, the unholy brute, how late he is this time! It’s past midnight already, and he’s just starting out.”
While the miller was standing there staring up at the sky, the cloud, which was now as large as an eagle, circled over the mill and began to descend.Out of it came a humming sound like out of a huge swarm of bees that has left its hive and is hovering over a garden.
“What! Is he going to rest on my dam again?” thought the miller. “What a habit he makes of it now! Wait a bit, mister! I’ll put up a cross there next year, and then you won’t come stopping at my dam on your journey like a gentleman at an inn. But what is he making that noise for, like those rattling kites children fly? I must hide under the sycamores again, and see what he’s going to do next.”
But before he had had time to reach the trees, the miller looked up and nearly shrieked aloud with terror. He saw his guest hovering right over the mill holding—what? You will never guess what the devil held in his clutches.
It was Yankel the Jew! Yes, he had brought back the selfsame Yankel whom he had carried away the year before. He was holding him tight by the back, and in Yankel’s hands was a huge bundle tied up in a sheet. The devil and Yankel were abusing one another in the air, and making as much fuss as ten Jews in a bazaar squabbling over one peasant.
The devil dropped on to the dam like a stone. If it hadn’t been for his soft bundle every bone in Yankel’s body would certainly have been broken to pieces. As soon as they touched the ground bothjumped to their feet and went at it again, hammer and tongs.
“Oi, oi! What a dirty, foul trick!” screamed Yankel. “Couldn’t you have let me down more gently? I suppose you knew you had a living man in your claws?”
“I wish you and your bundle had gone right through the earth!”
“Pooh! What harm does my little bundle do you? You don’t have to carry it.”
“Yourlittlebundle indeed! A whole mountain of trash! I have only just managed to drag you back. Oo-ff! There was nothing about this in our contract.”
“But when has it ever been known that a man went on a journey without any baggage? If you carry a man you must carry his things too; that’s understood without any contract. I see! You’ve been trying to cheat poor Yankel the Jew from the very start, and that’s why you’re quarrelling now!”
“Huh! Any one who tried to cheat you, you old fox, wouldn’t live three days! I’m precious sorry I ever agreed to anything!”
“And do you think I am perfectly delighted to have made your acquaintance? Oi, vei! You’d better tell me yourself what our contract was. But you may have forgotten it, so I’ll remind you. We made a bet. Perhaps you will say we didn’t make a bet? That would be a nice trick!”
“Who said we didn’t make a bet? Did I say we didn’t?”
“And how could you say we didn’t, when we made it right here in this very place? Perhaps you don’t remember what the bet was, as I do. You said: Jews are usurers, Jews sell the people vodka, Jews have pity on their own people but on no one else; that’s why every one wishes them to the devil. Of course, perhaps you didn’t say that, and perhaps I didn’t say in answer: there stands a miller behind that very sycamore tree who, if he had any pity for Jews, would shout to you now and say: ‘Drop him, Mr. Devil; he has a wife, he has children!’ But he won’t do it. That was number one!”
“How could the wretch have guessed that?” thought the miller; but the devil said:
“Very well; number one!”
“And then I said—don’t you remember?—I said: as soon as I’ve gone the miller will open a tavern and will begin selling diluted vodka. He lends money already at a fine rate of interest. That was number two!”
“All right; number two!” the devil agreed, but the miller scratched his head and thought:
“How could the infernal brute have guessed all that?”
“And I went on to say that, as a matter of fact, Christians did wish us to the devil. But do you think, said I, that if one of us Jews were here nowand saw what you want to do to me he wouldn’t raise a fine riot? But every one you ask will say of the miller in a year: the devil fly away with him! That was number three!”
“All right; number three. I don’t deny it.”
“And a fine business it would be if you did deny it! What sort of an honest Hebrew devil would you be after that? Tell me now what you agreed to do on your part.”
“I have done all I agreed. I have left you alive for a year; number one. I have brought you back here; number two——”
“And what about number three? What are you going to do about that?”
“What do you think I’m going to do? If you win the bet I’ll let you go scot free.”
“And my losses? Don’t you know that you owe me for my losses?”
“Losses? What losses can you have had when we allowed you to do business with us for a whole year without paying a license? You wouldn’t have made as much profit in three years on earth. Just think for yourself: I carried you off in your shirt without even a pair of shoes to your feet, and look what a big bundle you’ve brought back! Where did you get it from if you made nothing but losses?”
“Oi, vei! There you are scolding me about my bundle again! Whatever I made there by trading is my own business. Did you count my profits?I tell you I made nothing but losses out of my dealings with you, besides losing a year here on earth.”
“Oh, you swindler you!” shouted the devil.
“I a swindler? No, you’re a swindler yourself, you thief, you liar, you scab!”
And they began again to wrangle so violently that their words became quite unintelligible. They waved their arms, their skull-caps quivered, and they stood up on tip-toe like two cocks preparing to fight. The devil was the first to regain control of himself.
“But we don’t yet know who has won the bet! It is true that the miller didn’t take pity on you, but we haven’t decided the other points yet. We haven’t asked the people whether he opened a tavern or not.”
“I have opened two!” the miller thought, scratching his head again. “Oh, why didn’t I wait a year? Then Yankel would have been sent to the devil for good, but now something disagreeable may come of it.”
He looked round at his mill. Couldn’t he possibly slip away to the village by crawling behind it? But just as he was contemplating this move, the sound of muttering and of uncertain footsteps came to his ears from the wood. Yankel threw his bundle over his shoulder, and ran to the very sycamore tree where the miller was hiding. The miller hardly had time to slip behind a big willowtree before the devil and Yankel were both under the sycamore, and at that moment Gavrilo appeared at the far end of the dam. Gavrilo’s coat was in tatters and was hanging off one shoulder; his hat was on one side of his head, and his bare feet were continually quarrelling with one another. If one wanted to go to the right, the other, out of contrariness, tried to go to the left. One pulled one way and the other the other, until the poor man’s head and feet nearly flew off in opposite directions. So the poor lad staggered along, weaving patterns all across the dam from one side to the other, but not progressing forward very fast.
The devil saw that Gavrilo was full, so he came out and stood in the middle of the dam just as he was. Why the devil need any one stand on ceremony with a drunkard?
“Good evening, good fellow!” he called. “Where did you get so full?”
As he said this, the miller noticed for the first time how miserable and ragged Gavrilo had grown during the last year. And it was all because he drank up at his master’s tavern everything that he earned from his master. It was long since he had seen any money; he took it all out in vodka.
The workman walked right up to the devil, saying:
“Whoa there! What has come over these devilish feet of mine? When I want them to walk, theystop; when they see any one standing under my very nose, they rush on ahead. Who are you?”
“With your permission, I am the devil.”
“Wha-at? I believe you’re lying. Well, I never! But perhaps you are right after all! There are your horns and your tail, just as they ought to be. But why do you wear ringlets hanging down your cheeks?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m the Hebrew devil.”
“Aha! There’s a marvel for you! If I were to tell people I had seen your honour no one would believe me. Wasn’t it you who carried off our Yankel last year?”
“Yes, it was I.”
“And whom are you after now? Not me? If you are, I swear I’ll yell. Yes, I’ll yell like mad. You don’t know what a voice I have.”
“Come, don’t scream for nothing, good fellow. What good would you be to me?”
“Then perhaps it’s the miller you want? If you’d like me to call him, I will. But no, wait a bit. Who would be our inn-keeper if you took him away?”
“Does he keep an inn?”
“Does he? He keeps two: one in the village and one by the side of the road.”
“Ha! ha! ha! And is that why you would be sorry to lose the miller?”
“Oi, what a loud laugh you have! Ha! I’m not the fellow to be sorry on the miller’s account. No, Ididn’t mean that at all. He’s not a man to be sorry for. He thinks poor Gavrilo’s a fool. And he’s right too. I’m not very clever—don’t think ill of me for it—but still, when I eat I don’t put my porridge in another man’s mouth, but into my own. And if I get married it will be for myself, and if I don’t get married it will be for myself too. Am I right or not?”
“You’re right, you’re right, but I don’t yet know what you’re driving at.”
“Hee, hee, perhaps you don’t know because you don’t need to. But I need to know, and I do know why he wants to get me married. Oi, I know it very well, even though I’m not very bright. When you carried Yankel away that time I was sorry to see him go, and I said to my master: Well, who is going to keep the inn for us now? And he answered: Bah, you fool, do you think some one won’t turn up? Perhaps I’ll keep it myself! That’s why I say now: take the miller if you want him; we’ll find some one else to be a Jew in his place. And now let me tell you, my good man—good gracious, your honour, don’t think ill of me for calling a foul fiend a man!—and now let me tell you something: I’m getting terribly sleepy. Do as you please, but catch him yourself; I’m going to bed, I am, because I’m not very well. That will be splendid. Ah!”
Gavrilo’s legs began weaving again, and he hadhardly opened the door of the mill before he fell down and began to snore.
The devil laughed merrily, and, going to the edge of the dam, beckoned to Yankel where he stood under the sycamore tree.
“You seem to have won, Yankel,” he shouted. “It looks very much like it. But give me something to wear, all the same; I’ll pay you for it.”
Yankel took a pair of breeches to the light and looked them over to be sure he wasn’t giving the devil a new pair, and while he was busy with them, an ox-cart appeared on the road leading out of the wood. The oxen were sleepily nodding their heads, the wheels were quietly squeaking, and in the cart lay a peasant, Opanas the Slow, without a coat, without a hat, without boots, bawling a song at the top of his voice.
Opanas was a good peasant, but the poor fellow sorely loved vodka. Whenever he dressed up to go anywhere Kharko would be sure to call to him from his look-out at the inn-door:
“Won’t you drink a little mugful, Opanas? What’s your hurry?”
And Opanas would drink it.
Then, when he had crossed the dam and reached the village, the miller himself would call to him from the door of the other tavern:
“Won’t you come in and have a little mugful, Opanas? What’s the hurry?”
And Opanas would have another drink there. First thing you knew he would turn home without having been anywhere else at all.
Yes, he was a good peasant, but fate had ordained him always to fall between the two taverns. And yet he was a merry fellow and was always singing songs. That is man’s nature. When he has drunk up everything he possesses and knows that an angry wife is waiting for him at home, he will make up a song and think he has got rid of his troubles. And so it was with Opanas. He was lying in his wagon singing so loudly that even the frogs jumped into the water as he drove up, and this was his song: