The squire and his wife left for Warsaw a week after the ball. Their
place was taken by Hirschgold's agent, a freckle-faced Jew, who
installed himself in a small room in the bailiffs house, spent his days
in looking through and sending out accounts, and bolted the door and
slept with two revolvers under his pillow at night.
The squire had taken part of the furniture with him, the rest of the
suites and fixtures were sold to the neighbouring gentry; the Jews
bought up the library by the pound, the priest acquired the American
organ, the garden-seats passed into Gryb's ownership, and for three
roubles the peasant Orzchewski became possessed of the large engraving
of Leda and the Swan, to which the purchaser and his family said their
prayers. The inlaid floors henceforward decorated the magisterial
court, and the damask hangings were bought by the tailors and made into
bodices for the village girls.
When Slimak went a few weeks later to have a look at the manor-house he
could not believe his eyes at the sight of the destruction that had
taken place. There were no panes in the windows and not a single latch
left on the wide-open doors; the walls had been stripped and the floors
taken up. The drawing-room was a dungheap, Pani Joselawa, the
innkeeper's wife, had put up hencoops there and in the adjoining rooms;
axes and saws were lying about everywhere. The farmhands, who according
to agreement were kept on till midsummer, strolled idly from corner to
corner; one of the teamdrivers had taken desperately to drink; the
housekeeper was ill with fever, and the pantryboy, as well as one of
the farm-boys, were in prison for stealing latches off the doors.
'Good God!' said the peasant.
He was seized with fear at the thought of the unknown power which had
ruined the ancient manor-house in a moment. An invisible cloud seemed
to be hanging over the valley and the village; the first flash of
lightning had struck and completely shattered the seat of its owners.
Some days later the neighbourhood began to swarm with strangers,
woodcutters and sawyers, mostly Germans. They walked and drove in
crowds along the road past Slimak's cottage; sometimes they marched in
detachments like soldiers. They were quartered at the manor, where they
turned out the servants and the remaining cattle: they occupied every
corner. At night they lit great fires in the courtyard, and in the
morning they all walked off to the woods. At first it was difficult to
guess what they were doing. Soon, however, there was a distant echo as
of someone drumming with his fingers on the table; at last the sound of
the axe and the thud of falling trees was heard quite plainly. Fresh
inroads on the wavy contour of the forest appeared continually; first
crevices, then windows, then wide openings, and for the first time
since the world was the world, the astonished sky looked into the
valley from that side.
The wood fell: only the sky remained and the earth with a few juniper
bushes and countless rows of tree-trunks, hastily stripped of their
branches. The rapacious axe had not spared one of the leafy tribe. Not
one--not even the centenarian oak which had been touched by lightning
more than once. Gazing upwards, this defier of storms had hardly
noticed the worms turning round its feet, and the blows of their axes
meant no more to it than the tapping of the woodpecker. It fell
suddenly, convinced at the last that the world was insecure after all,
and not worth living in.
There was another oak, half withered, on the branches of which the
unfortunate Simon Golamb[1] had hanged himself; the people passed it in
fear.
[Footnote 1: Polish spelling: _Gotab_.]
'Flee!' it murmured, when the woodcutters approached. 'I bring you
death; only one man dared to touch my branches, and he died.' But the
woodcutters paid no heed, deeper and deeper they sent the sharp axe
into its heart, and with a roar it swayed and fell.
The night-wind moaned over the corpses of the strong trees, and the
birds and wild creatures, deprived of their native habitations,
mourned.
Older still than the oaks were the huge boulders thickly sown over the
fields. The peasants had never touched them; they were too heavy to be
removed; moreover, there was a superstition that the rebellious devils
had in the first days of the creation thrown these stones at the
angels, and that it was unlucky to touch them. Overgrown with moss they
each lay in an island of green grass; the shepherds lit their fires
beneath them on chilly nights, the ploughmen lay down in their shade on
a hot afternoon, the hawker would sometimes hide his treasures
underneath them.
Now their last hour had struck too; men began to busy themselves about
them. At first the village people thought that the 'Swabians' were
looking for treasure; but Jendrek found out that they were boring holes
in the venerable stones.
'What are the idiots doing that for?' asked Slimakowa. 'Blessed if I
know what's the good of that to them!'
'I know, neighbour,' said old Sobieska, blinking her eyes; 'they are
boring because they have heard that there are toads inside those big
stones.'
'And what if there are?'
'You see, they want to know if it's true.'
'But what's that to them?'
'I'll be hanged if I know!' retorted Sobieska in such a decided tone
that Slimakowa considered the matter as settled.
The Germans, however, were not looking for toads. Before long such a
cannonading began that the echoes reached the farthest ends of the
valley, telling every one that not even the rocks were able to
withstand the Germans.
'Those Swabians are a hard race,' muttered Slimak, as he gazed on the
giants that had been dashed to pieces. He thought of the colonists for
whom the property had been bought, and who now wanted his land as well.
'They are not anywhere about,' he thought; 'perhaps they won't come
after all.'
But they came.
One morning, early in April, Slimak went out before sunrise as usual to
say his prayers in the open. The east was flushed with pink, the stars
were paling, only the morning star shone like a jewel, and was welcomed
from below by the awakening birds.
The peasant's lips moved in prayer, while he fixed his eyes on the
white mist which covered the ground like snow. Then it was that he
heard a distant sound from beyond the hills, a rumble of carts and the
voices of many people. He quickly walked up the lonely pine hill and
perceived a long procession of carts covered with awnings, filled with
human beings and their domestic and agricultural implements. Men in
navy-blue coats and straw hats were walking beside them, cows were tied
behind, and small herds of pigs were scrambling in and out of the
procession. A little cart, scarcely larger than a child's, brought up
the rear; it was drawn by a dog and a woman, and conveyed a man whose
feet were dangling down in front.
'The Swabians are coming!' flashed through Slimak's mind, but he put
the thought away from him.
'Maybe they are gipsies,' he argued. But no--they were not dressed like
gipsies, and woodcutters don't take cattle about with them--then who
were they?
He shrank from the thought that the colonists were actually coming.
'Maybe it's they, maybe not...' he whispered.
For a moment a hill concealed them from his view, and he hoped that the
vision had dissolved into the light of day. But there they were again,
and each step of their lean horses brought them nearer. The sun was
gilding the hill which they were ascending, and the larks were singing
brightly to welcome them.
Across the valley the church bell was ringing. Was it calling to
prayers as usual, or did it warn the people of the invasion of a
foreign power?
Slimak looked towards the village. The cottage-doors were closed, no
one was astir, and even if he had shouted aloud, 'Look, gospodarze, the
Germans are here!' no one would have been alarmed.
The string of noisy people now began to file past Slimak's cottage. The
tired horses were walking slowly, the cows could scarcely lift their
feet, the pigs squeaked and stumbled. But the people were happy,
laughing and shouting from cart to cart. They turned round by the
bridge on to the open ground.
The small cart in the rear had now reached Slimak's gate; the big dog
fell down panting, the man raised himself to a sitting position and the
girl took the strap from her shoulder and wiped her perspiring
forehead. Slimak was seized with pity for them; he came down from the
hill and approached the travellers.
'Where do you all come from? Who are you?' he asked.
'We are colonists from beyond the Vistula,' the girl answered. 'Our
people have bought land here, and we have come with them.'
'But have not you bought land also?'
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
'Is it the custom with you for the women to drag the men about?'
'What can we do? we have no horses and my father cannot walk on his own
feet.'
'Is your father lame?'
'Yes.'
The peasant reflected for a moment.
'Then he is hanging on to the others, as it were?'
'Oh no,' replied the girl with much spirit, 'father teaches the
children and I take in sewing, and when there is no sewing to do I work
in the fields.'
Slimak looked at her with surprise and said, after a pause: 'You can't
be German, you talk our language very well.'
'We are from Germany.'
'Yes, we are Germans,' said the man in the cart, speaking for the first
time.
Slimakowa and Jendrek now came out of the cottage and joined the group
at the gate.
'What a strong dog!' cried Jendrek.
'Look here,' said Slimak, 'this lady has dragged her lame father a long
way in the cart; would you do that, you scamp?'
'Why should I? Haven't they any horses, dad?'
'We have had horses,' murmured the man in the cart, 'but we haven't any
now.'
He was pale and thin, with red hair and beard.
'Wouldn't you like to rest and have something to eat after your long
journey?' inquired Slimak.
'I don't want anything to eat, but my father would like some milk.'
'Run and get some milk, Jendrek,' cried Slimak.
'Meaning no offence,' said Slimakowa, 'but you Germans can't have a
country of your own, or else you wouldn't come here.'
'This is our home,' the girl replied. 'I was born in this country, the
other side of the Vistula.'
Her father made an impatient movement and said in a broken voice: 'We
Germans have a country of our own, larger than yours, but it's not
pleasant to live in: too many people, too little land; it's difficult
to make a living, and we have to pay heavy taxes and do hard military
service, and there are penalties for everything.'
He coughed and continued after a pause: 'Everybody wants to be
comfortable and live as he pleases, and not as others tell him. It's
not pleasant to live in our country, so we've come here.'
Jendrek brought the milk and offered it to the girl, who gave it to her
father.
'God repay you!' sighed the invalid; 'the people in this country are
kind.'
'I wish you would not do us harm,' said Slimakowa in a half-whisper.
'Why should we do you harm?' said the man. 'Do we take your land? do we
steal? do we murder you? We are quiet people, we get in nobody's way so
long as nobody gets...'
'You have bought the land here,' Slimak interrupted.
'But why did your squire sell it to us? If thirty peasants had been
settled here instead of one man, who did nothing but squander his
money, our people would not have come. Why did not you yourselves form
a community and buy the village? Your money would have been as good as
ours. You have been settled here for ages, but the colonists had to
come in before you troubled about the land, and then no sooner have
they bought it than they become a stumbling-block to you! Why wasn't
the squire a stumbling-block to you?'
Breathless, he paused and looked at his wasted arms, then continued:
'To whom is it that the colonists resell their land? To you peasants!
On the other side of the Vistula[1] the peasants bought up every scrap
of our land.'
[Footnote 1: i.e. in Prussian Poland. One of the Polish people's
grievances is that the large properties are not sold direct to them but
to the colonists, and the peasants have to buy the land from them.
Statistics show that in spite of the great activity of the German
Colonization Commission more and more land is constantly acquired by
the Polish peasants, who hold on to the land tenaciously.]
'One of your lot is always after me to sell him my land,' said Slimak.
'To think of such a thing!' interposed his wife. 'Who is he?'
'How should I know? there are two of them, and they came twice, an old
man and one with a beard. They want my hill to put up a windmill, they
say.'
'That's Hamer,' said the girl under her breath to her father.
'Oh, Hamer,' repeated the invalid, 'he has caused us difficulties
enough. Our people wanted to go to the other side of the Bug, where
land only costs thirty roubles an acre, but he persuaded them to come
here, because they are building a railway across the valley. So our
people have been buying land here at seventy roubles an acre and have
been running into debt with the Jew, and we shall see what comes of
it.'
The girl meanwhile had been eating coarse bread, sharing it with the
dog. She now looked across to where the colonists were spreading
themselves over the fields.
'We must go, father,' she said.
'Yes, we must go; what do I owe you for the milk, gospodarz?'
The peasant shrugged his shoulders.
'If we were obliged to take money for a little thing like that, I
shouldn't have asked you.'
'Well, God repay you!'
'God speed you,' said Slimak and his wife.
'Strange folk, those Germans,' he said, when they had slowly moved off.
'He is a clever man, yet he goes about in that little cart like an old
beggar.'
'And the girl!' said Slimakowa, 'whoever heard of dragging an old man
about, as if you were a horse.'
'They're not bad,' said Slimak, returning to his cottage.
The conversation with the Germans had reassured him that they were not
as terrible as he had fancied.
When Maciek went out after breakfast to plough the potato-fields,
Slimak slipped off.
'You've got to put up the fence!' his wife called out after him.
'That won't run away,' he answered, and banged the door, fearful lest
his wife should detain him.
He crouched as he ran through the yard, wishing to attract her
attention as little as possible, and went stealthily up the hill to
where Maciek was perspiring over his ploughing.
'How about those Swabians?' asked the labourer.
Slimak sat down on the slope so that he could not be seen from the
cottage, and pulled out his pipe.
'You might sit over there,' Maciek said, pointing with his whip to a
raised place; 'then I could smell the smoke.'
'What's the good of the smoke to you? I'll give you my pipe to finish,
and meanwhile it does not grieve the old woman to see me sitting here
wasting my time.' He lit his pipe very deliberately, rested his elbows
on his knees and his head in his hands and looked into the valley,
watching the crowd of Germans.
With their covered carts they had enclosed a square into which they had
driven their cattle and horses; inside and outside of this the people
were bustling about. Some put a portable manger on a stand and fed the
cows, others ran to the river with buckets. The women brought out their
saucepans and little sacks of vegetables and a crowd of children ran
down the ravine for fuel.
'What crowds of children they have!' said Slimak; 'we have not as many
in the whole village.'
'Thick as lice,' said Maciek.
Slimak could not wonder enough. Yesterday the field had been empty and
quiet, to-day it was like a fair. People by the river, people in the
ravines, people on the fields, who chop the bushes, carry wood, make
fires, feed and water the animals! One man had already opened a
retail-shop on a cart and was obviously doing good business. The women
were pressing round him, buying salt, sugar, vinegar. Some young
mothers had made cradles of shawls, suspended on short pitchforks, and
while they were cooking with one hand they rocked the cradle with the
other. There was a veterinary surgeon, too, who examined the foot of a
lame horse, and a barber was shaving an old Swabian on the step of his
cart.
'Do you notice how quickly they work? It's farther for them to fetch
the firewood than for us, yet we take half the day over it and they do
it before you can say two prayers.'
'Oh! oh!' said Maciek, who seemed to feel this remark as an aspersion.
'But, then, they work together, 'continued Slimak; 'when our people go
out in a crowd every one attends to his own business, and rests when he
likes or gets into the way of the others. But these dogs work together
as if they were used to each other; if one of them were to lie down on
the ground the others would cram work into his hand and stand over him
till he had finished it. Watch them yourself.'
He gave his pipe to Maciek and returned to the cottage.
'They are quick folk, those Swabians,' he muttered, 'and clever!'
Within half an hour he had discovered the two secrets of modern work:
organization and speed.
About noon two colonists came to the gospodarstwo and asked Slimak to
sell them butter and potatoes and hay. He let them have the former
without bargaining, but he refused the hay.
'Let us at least have a cartload of straw,' they asked with their
foreign accent.
'I won't. I haven't got any.'
The men got angry.
'That scoundrel Hamer is giving us no end of trouble,' one cried,
dashing his cap on the ground; 'he told us we should get fodder and
everything at the farms. We can't get any at the manor either; the Jews
from the inn are there and won't stir from the place.'
Just as they were leaving, a brichka drove up containing the two
Hamers, whose faces were now quite familiar to Slimak. The colonists
rushed to the vehicle with shouts and explanations, gesticulating
wildly, pointing hither and thither, and talking in turns, for even in
their excitement they seemed to preserve system and order.
The Hamers remained perfectly calm, listening patiently and
attentively, until the others were tired of shouting. When they had
finished, the younger man answered them at some length, and at last
they shook hands and the colonists took up their sacks of potatoes and
departed cheerfully.
'How are you, gospodarz?' called the elder man to Slimak. 'Shall we
come to terms yet?'
'What's the use of talking, father?' said the other; 'he will come to
us of his own accord!'
'Never!' cried Slimak, and added under his breath: 'They are dead set
on me--the vermin! Queer folk!' he observed to his wife, looking after
the departing brichka, 'when our people are quarrelling, they don't
stop to listen, but these seem to understand each other all the same
and to smooth things over.'
'What are you always cracking up the Swabians for, you old silly?'
returned his wife. 'You don't seem to remember that they want to take
your land away from you.... I can't make you out!'
'What can they do to me? I won't let them have it, and they can't rob
me.'
'Who knows? They are many, and you are only one.'
'That's God's will! I can see they have more sense than I have, but
when it comes to holding on, there I can match them! Look at all the
woodpeckers on that little tree; that tree is like us peasants. The
squire sits and hammers, the parish sits and hammers, the Jews and the
Germans sit and hammer, yet in the end they all fly away and the tree
is still the tree.'
The evening brought a visit from old Sobieska, who stumbled in with her
demand of a 'thimbleful of whisky'.
'I nearly gave up the ghost,' she cried, 'I've run so fast to tell you
the news.'
She was rewarded with a thimble which a giant could well have worn on
his finger.
'Oh, Lord!' she cried, when she had drained it, 'this is the judgment
day for some people in the village! You see, Gryb and Orzchewski had
always taken for granted that the colonists wouldn't come, and they had
meant to drive a little bargain between them and keep some of the best
land and settle Jasiek Gryb on it like a nobleman, and he was to marry
Orzchewski's Paulinka. You know, she had learnt embroidery from the
squire's wife, and Jasiek had been doing work in the bailiff's office
and now goes about in an overcoat on high-days and holidays and...give
me another thimbleful, or I shall feel faint and can't talk....
Meanwhile, as I told you, the colonists had paid down half the money to
the Jew, and here they are, that's certain! When Gryb hears of it, he
comes and abuses Josel! "You cur of a Jew, you Caiaphas, you have
crucified Christ and now you are cheating me! You told me the Germans
wouldn't pay up, and here they are!" Whereupon Josel says: "We don't
know yet whether they will stay!" At first Gryb wouldn't listen and
shouted and banged his fists on the table, but at last Josel drew him
off to his room with Orzchewski, and they made some arrangement among
themselves.'
'He's a fool,' said Slimak; 'he wasn't cute enough to buy the land, he
won't be able to cope with the Germans.'
'Not cute enough?' cried the old woman. 'Give me a thimbleful...Josel's
clever enough, anyway...and his brother-in-law is even better...they'll
deal with the Swabians...I know what I know...give me a
thimbleful...give me a thim...' She became incoherent.
'What was that she was saying?' asked Slimakowa.
'The usual things she says when she's tipsy. She is in service with
Josel, so she thinks him almighty.'
When night came, Slimak again went to look at the camp. The people had
retired under their awnings, the cattle were lying down inside the
square, only the horses were grazing in the fields and ravines. At
times a flame from the camp fires flared up, or a horse neighed; from
hour to hour the call of a sleepy watchman was heard.
Slimak returned and threw himself on his bed, but could find no rest.
The darkness deprived him of energy, and he thought with fear of the
Germans who were so many and he but one. Might they not attack him or
set his house on fire?
About midnight a shot rang out, followed by another. He ran into the
back-yard and came upon the equally frightened Maciek. Shouts, curses,
and the clatter of horses' hoofs came from beyond the river. Gradually
the noise subsided.
Slimak learned in the morning from the colonists that horse-thieves had
stolen in among the horses.
The peasant was taken aback. Never before had such a thing happened in
the neighbourhood.
The news of the attack spread like wildfire and was improved upon in
every village. It was said that there was a gang of horse-stealers
about, who removed the horses to Prussia; that the Germans had fought
with them all night, and that some had been killed.
At last these rumours reached the ears of the police-sergeant, who
harnessed his fat mare, put a small cask and some empty bags into his
cart, and drove off in pursuit of the thieves.
The Germans treated him to smoked ham and excellent brandy, and Fritz
Hamer explained that they suspected two discharged manor-servants, Kuba
Sukiennik and Jasiek Eogacz, of stealing the horses.
'They have been arrested before for stealing locks off the doors, but
had to be released because there were no witnesses,' said the sergeant.
'Which of the gentlemen shot at them? Has he a licence to carry
firearms?'
Hamer, seeing that the question was becoming ticklish, led him aside
and explained things so satisfactorily to him that he soon drove off,
recommending that watch should be kept, and that the colonists should
not carry firearms.
'I suppose your farm will soon be standing, sir?' he asked.
'In a month's time,' replied Hamer.
'Capital!...we must make a day of it!'
He drove on to the manor-house, where Hirschgold's agent was so
delighted to see him that he brought out a bottle of Crimean wine. On
the topic of thieves, however, he had no explanation to offer.
'When I heard them shooting I at once snatched up my revolvers, one in
each hand, and I didn't close my eyes all night.'
'And have you a licence to carry firearms?'
'Why shouldn't I?'
'For two?'
'Oh well, the second is broken; I only keep it for show.'
'How many workmen do you employ?'
'About a hundred.'
'Are all their passports in order?'
The agent gave him a most satisfactory account as to this in his own
way and the sergeant took leave.
'Be careful, sir,' he recommended, 'once robbery begins in the village
it will be difficult to stop it. And in case of accident you will do
well to let me know first before you do anything.' He said this so
impressively that the agent henceforward took the two Jews from the
manor-house to sleep in the bailiff's cottage.
Slimak's gospodarstwo was the sergeant's next destination. Slimakowa
was just pouring out the peeled-barley soup when the stout
administrator of the law entered.
'The Lord be praised,' he said. 'What news?'
'In Eternity. We are all right.'
The sergeant looked round.
'Is your husband at home?'
'Where else should he be? Fetch your father, Jendrek.'
'Beautiful barley; is it your own?'
'Of course it is.'
'You might give me a sackful. I'll pay you next time I come.'
'I'll get the bag at once, sir.'
'Perhaps you can sell me a chicken as well?'
'We can.'
'Mind it's tender, and put it under the box.'
Slimak came in. 'Have you heard, gospodarz, who it was that tried to
steal the horses?'
'How should I know?'
'They say in the village that it was Sukiennik and Rogacz.'
'I don't know about that. I have heard they cannot find work here,
because they have been in prison.'
'Have you got any vodka? The dust makes one's throat dry.'
Vodka and bread and cheese were brought.
'You'd better be careful,' he said, when he departed, 'for they will
either rob you or suspect you.'
'By God's grace no one has ever robbed me, and it will never happen.'
The sergeant went to Josel, who received him enthusiastically. He
invited him into the parlour and assured him that all his licences were
in order.
'There is no signboard at the gate.'
'I'll put one up at once of whatever kind you like,' said the innkeeper
obsequiously, and ordered a bottle of porter.
The sergeant now opened the question of the night-attack.
'What night-attack?' jeered Josel. 'The Germans shot at one another and
then got frightened and made out that there was a gang of robbers
about. Such things don't happen here.'
The sergeant wiped his moustache. 'All the same Sukiennik and Rogacz
have been after the horses.'
Josel made a wry face. 'How could they, when they were in my house that
night.'
'In your house?'
'To be sure,' Josel answered carelessly. 'Gryb and Orzchewski both saw
them...dead drunk they were. What are they to do? they can't get
regular work, and what a man perchance earns in a day he likes to drink
away at night.'
'They might have got out.'
'They might, but the stable was locked and the key with the foreman.'
The conversation passed on to other topics.
'Look after Sukiennik and Rogacz,' the sergeant said, on his departure,
when he and his mare had been sufficiently rested.
'Am I their father, or are they in my service?'
'They might rob you.'
'Oh! I'll see to that all right!'
The sergeant returned home, half asleep, half awake. Sukiennik and
Rogacz kept passing before his vision; they had their hands full of
locks and were surrounded by horses. Josel's smiling face was hovering
over them and now and then old Gryb and his son Jasiek jeered from
behind a cloud. He sat up...startled. But there was nothing near him
except the white hen under the box and the trees by the wayside. He
spat.
'Bah...dreams!' he muttered.
The peasants were relieved when day after day passed and there was no
sign of building in the camp. They jumped to the conclusion that either
the Germans had not been able to come to terms with Hirschgold, or had
quarrelled with the Hamers, or that they had lost heart because of the
horse-thieves.
'Why, they haven't so much as measured out the ground!' cried
Orzchewski, and washed down the remark with a huge glass of beer.
He had, however, not yet wiped his mouth when a cart pulled up at the
inn and the surveyor alighted. They knew him directly by his
moustaches, which were trimmed to the resemblance of eels, and by his
sloeberry-coloured nose.
While Gryb and Orzchewski sorrowfully conducted each other home, they
comforted themselves with the thought that the surveyor might only be
spending the night in the village on his way elsewhere.
'God grant it, I want to see that young scamp of a Jasiek settled and
married, and if I let him out of my sight he goes to the dogs
directly.'
'My Paulinka is a match for him; she'll look after him!'
'You don't know what you're talking of, neighbour; it will take the
three of us to look after him. Lately he hasn't spent a single night at
home, and sometimes I don't see him for a week.'
The surveyor started work in the manor-fields the next morning, and for
several days was seen walking about with a crowd of Germans in
attendance on all his orders, carrying his poles, putting up a portable
table, providing him with an umbrella or a place in the shade where he
could take long pulls out of his wicker flask. The peasants stood
silently watching them.
'I could measure as well as that if I drank as much as he does,' said
one of them.
'Ah, but that is why he is a surveyor,' said another, 'because he has a
strong head.'
No sooner had he departed than the Germans drove off and returned with
heavy cartloads of building materials. One fine day a small troop of
masons and carpenters appeared with their implements. A party of
colonists went out to meet them, followed by a large crowd of women and
children. They met at an appointed place, where refreshments and a
barrel of beer had been provided.
Old Hamer, in a faded drill-jacket, Fritz in a black coat, and Wilhelm,
adorned with a scarlet waistcoat with red flowers, were busy welcoming
the guests; Wilhelm had charge of the barrel of beer.
Maciek had noticed these preparations and gave the alarm, and all the
inhabitants of the gospodarstwo watched the proceedings with the
keenest interest. They saw old Hamer taking up a stake and driving it
into the ground with a wooden hammer.
'Hoch!...Hoch!' shouted the workmen. Hamer bowed, took a second stake
and carried it northwards, accompanied by the crowd. The women and
children were headed by the schoolmaster in his little cart. He now
lifted his cap high into the air, and at this sign the whole crowd
started to sing Luther's hymn:
'A stronghold sure our God remains,
A shield and hope unfailing,
In need His help our freedom gains,
O'er all our fear prevailing;
Our old malignant foe
Would fain work us woe;
With craft and great might
He doth against us fight,
On earth is no one like him.'
At the first note Slimak had taken off his cap, his wife crossed
herself, and Maciek stepped aside and knelt down. Stasiek, with
wide-open eyes, began to tremble, and Jendrek started running down the
hill, waded through the river, and headed at full speed for the camp.
While Hamer was driving the stake into the ground the procession,
slowly coming up to him, continued:
'Our utmost might is all in vain,
We straight had been rejected,
But for us fights the perfect Man
By God Himself elected;
Ye ask: Who may He be?
The Lord Christ is He!
The God, by hosts ador'd,
Our great Incarnate Lord,
Who all His foes will vanquish.'
Never had the peasants heard a hymn like this, so solemn, yet so
triumphant, they who only knew their plainsongs, which rose to heaven
like a great groan: 'Lord, we lay our guilt before Thine eyes.'
A cry from Stasiek roused the parents from their reverie.
'Mother...mother...they are singing!' stammered the child; his lips
became blue, and he fell to the ground.
The frightened parents lifted him up and carried him into the cottage,
where he recovered when the singing ceased. They had always known that
the singing at church affected him very deeply, but they had never seen
him like this.
Jendrek, meanwhile, although wet through and cold, stood riveted by the
spectacle he was watching. Why were these people walking and singing
like this? Surely, they wanted to drive away some evil power from their
future dwellings, and, not having incense or blessed chalk, they were
using stakes. Well, after all, a club of oakwood was better against the
devil than chalk! Or were they themselves bewitching the place?
He was struck with the difference in the behaviour of the Germans. The
old men, women, and children were walking along solemnly, singing, but
the young fellows and the workmen stood in groups, smoking and
laughing. Once they made a noisy interruption when Wilhelm Hamer, who
presided at the beer-barrel, lifted up his glass. The young men shouted
'Hoch! hurrah!' Old Hamer looked round disapprovingly, and the
schoolmaster shook his fist.
As the procession drew near, Jendrek heard a woman's voice above the
children's shrill trebles, Hamer's guttural bass and the old people's
nasal tones; it was clear, full, and inexpressively moving. It made his
heart tremble within him. The sounds shaped themselves in his
imagination to the picture of a beautiful weeping-willow.
He knew that it must be the voice of the schoolmaster's daughter, whom
he had seen before. At that time the dog had engaged his attention more
than the girl, but now her voice took entire possession of the boy's
soul, to the exclusion of everything else he heard or saw. He, too,
wanted to sing, and began under his breath:
'The Lord is ris'n to-day.
The Lord Jesus Christ...'
It seemed to fit in with the melody which the Germans were just
singing.
He was roused from this state by the young men's voices; he caught
sight of the schoolmaster's daughter and unconsciously moved towards
her. But the young man soon brought him to his senses. They pulled his
hat over his ears, pushed him into the middle of the crowd, and, wet,
smeared with sand, looking more like a scarecrow than a boy, he was
passed from hand to hand like a ball. Suddenly his eyes met those of
the girl, and a wild spirit awoke in him. He kicked one young man over
with his bare legs, tore the shirt off another one's back, butted old
Hamer in the stomach, and then stood with clenched fists in the space
he had cleared, looking where he might break through. Most of the men
laughed at him, but some were for handling him roughly. Fortunately old
Hamer recognized him.
'Why, youngster, what are you up to?'
'They're bullying me,' he said, while the tears were rising in his
throat.
'Don't you come from that cottage? What are you doing here?'
'I wanted to listen to your singing, but those scoundrels...'
He stopped suddenly when he saw the grey eyes of the schoolmaster's
daughter fixed on him. She offered him the glass of beer she had been
drinking from.
'You are wet through,' she said. 'Take a good pull.'
'I don't want it,' said the boy, and felt ashamed directly; it did not
seem well-mannered to speak rudely to one so beautiful.
'I might get tipsy...' he cried, but drained the glass, looked at her
again and blushed so deeply that the girl smiled sadly as she looked at
him.
At that moment violins and cellos struck up; Wilhelm Hamer came heavily
bounding along and took the girl away to dance. Her yearning eyes once
more rested on Jendrek's face.
He felt that something strange was happening to him. A terrible anger
and sorrow gripped him by the throat; he wanted to throw himself on
Wilhelm and tear his flowered waistcoat off his back; at the same time
he wanted to cry aloud. Suddenly he turned to go.
'Are you going?' asked the schoolmaster. 'Give my compliments to your
father.'
'And you can tell him from me that I have rented the field by the river
from Midsummer Day,' Hamer called after him.
'But dad rented it from the squire!' Hamer laughed...'The squire! We
are the squires now, and the field is mine.'
As Jendrek neared the road he came upon a peasant, hidden behind a
bush, who had been watching. It was Gryb.
'Be praised,' said Jendrek.
'Who's praised at your place?' growled the old man; 'it must be the
devil and not the Lord, since you are taking up with the Germans.'
'Who's taking up with them?'
The peasant's eyes flashed and his dry skin quivered.
'You're taking up with them!' he cried, shaking his fist, 'or perhaps I
didn't see you running off to them like a dog through the water to
cadge for a glass of beer, nor your father and mother on the hill
praying with the Swabians...praying to the devil! God has punished them
already, for something has fallen on Stasiek. There will be more to
come...you wait!'
Jendrek slowly walked home, puzzled and sad. When he returned to the
cottage, he found Stasiek lying ill. He told his father what Gryb had
said.
'He's an old fool,' replied Slimak. 'What! should a man stand like a
beast when others are praying, even if they are Swabians?'
'But their praying has bewitched Stasiek.' Slimak looked gloomy.
'Why should it have been their prayers? Stasiek is easily upset. Let a
woman but sing in the fields and he'll begin to shake all over.'
The matter ended there. Jendrek tried to busy himself about the
cottage, but he felt stifled indoors. He roamed about in the ravines,
stood on the hill and watched the Germans, or forced his way through
brambles. Wherever he went, the image of the schoolmaster's daughter
went with him; he saw her tanned face, grey eyes, and graceful
movements. Sometimes her powerful, entrancing voice seemed to come to
him as from a depth.
'Has she cast a spell over me?' he whispered, frightened, and continued
to think of her.