III

After that adventure the miller’s thoughts became gloomier than ever.

“Somehow nothing ever goes right in this world,” he said to himself.

“Unpleasant things are always happening, a man never knows why. For

instance, that girl there drove me away. She called me a Jew. If I

were a Jew and had as much money as I have and a business like mine,

would I live as I do? Of course not! Look what my life is! I work in

the mill myself; I don’t half sleep by night; I don’t half eat by day;

I keep my eye on the water to see it doesn’t run out; I keep my eye on

the stones to see they don’t come loose; I keep my eye on the shafts

and the pinions and the cogs to see they run smoothly and don’t miss

a stroke. Yes, and I keep my eye on that infernal workman of mine.

How can one depend on a servant? If I turn my back for an instant the

scoundrel runs off after the girls. Yes, a miller’s life is a dog’s

life, it is! Of course, though, ever since my uncle--God rest his

soul--fell into the mill-pond drunk, and the mill came to me, the money

has been collecting in my pockets. But what’s the result? Don’t I have

to tramp for hours after every single rouble I make, and get abused for

it to my face, yes, to my very face? And how much do I get in the end?

A trifle! A Christian never does get as much as a Jew. Now if only the

devil would carry away that Jew Yankel I might be able to manage. The

people wouldn’t go to any one but me then, whether they wanted flour or

money for taxes. Oho! In that case I might even open a little inn, and

then I could either get some one to run the mill for me, or else sell

it. Bother the mill, say I! Somehow a man isn’t a man as long as he

has to work. The fact is, one copeck begets another. Only fools don’t

know that. If you buy yourself a pair of pigs, for instance--pigs are

prolific animals--in a year you’ll have a herd of them, and money’s

just the same. If you put it out to pasture among stupid folk you can

sit still and yawn until the time comes to drive it home. Every copeck

will have brought forth ten copecks, every rouble will have brought

forth ten roubles.”

The miller had now reached the crest of a hill from where the road

sloped gently to the river. From here, when the night breeze breathed

into his face, he could faintly hear the sleepy water murmuring in

the mill-race. Looking behind him, the miller could see the village

sleeping among its gardens, and the widow’s little khata under its tall

poplars. He stood plunged in thought for a few moments, scratching the

back of his head.

“Ah, what a fool I am!” he said at last, resuming his journey. “If my

uncle hadn’t taken it into his head to get drunk on gorelka and walk

into the mill-pond I might have been married to Galya to-day, but now

she’s beneath me. Okh, but that girl is sweet to kiss! Goodness, how

sweet she is! That’s why I say that nothing ever goes right in this

world. If that little face had a nice dowry behind it, if it had even

as much as old Makogon is giving away with his Motria, there would be

nothing more to be said!”

He cast one last look behind him, and turned on his way, when suddenly

the stroke of a bell resounded from the village. Something seemed to

have fallen from the church steeple that rose from a hill in the centre

of the town, and to be flying, clanging and rocking, across the fields.

“Eh, hey, it is midnight on earth,” the miller mused, and with a great

yawn he turned and walked rapidly down the hill, thinking of his flock

as he went. He saw his roubles as if they had been alive, passing from

hand to hand and from business to business, grazing and multiplying. He

laughed to recall that some fools thought they worked for themselves.

And when the time was ripe, he, the owner of the flock, would drive it

and its increase back into his iron chest.

These thoughts were all pleasant ones, but the recollection of the

Jew spoilt them again. The miller was provoked because that son of

Israel had seized all the grazing for himself, leaving his poor roubles

nowhere to feed and nothing to grow fat on, like a flock of sheep in

a field where Jewish goats had already been pasturing. Every one knew

they never could fatten there!

“Oh, I wish the devil would get him, the foul brute!” the miller said

to himself, and he decided it was the thought of the Jew that depressed

him so. That’s what was wrong with the world. Those infernal Jews

prevented Christians from collecting their lawful profits.

Half way down the hill, where the peaceful, drowsy sound of the water

in the mill-race came unintermittently to his ears, the miller suddenly

stopped and struck his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Ha! What a joke it would be! It would be a grand joke, I swear! This

the Day of Atonement. What if the Hebrew devil should take a fancy to

our inn-keeper Yankel? But he won’t! It couldn’t possibly happen. The

town is crammed with Jews, and Yankel is a tipsy old wretch, as bony as

a hedgehog. Who would want him? No,” thought the miller, “I’m not lucky

enough for Khapun to choose our Yankel out of thousands of others.”

Then, like a nest of ants in a turmoil, another train of thought began

to pass through his head.

“Ah, Philip, Philip!” he said to himself. “It isn’t right for a

Christian to think such things! Recollect yourself! Yankel would leave

children behind him, as well as debts. And another reason why it is

sinful: Yankel has never done you any harm. If others have reason to

blame the old inn-keeper, you yourself are not guiltless of usury.”

But the miller hastily sent other and angrier thoughts to attack these

last unpleasant reflections that had begun to bite his conscience like

vicious dogs.

“But after all, a Sheeny is only a Sheeny, and isn’t in the same class

with Christians at all. Even if I do lend money--and I do, there’s no

use denying it--it’s better for Christians to pay interest to a brother

Christian than to a heathen Jew.”

At that moment the last notes of the bell pealed out from the belfry.

Probably Ivan Kadilo, the bell-ringer, had gone to sleep in the church

and had pulled the bell rope in his sleep, so long had he taken to

sound the hour of midnight. To atone for his neglect, this last tug was

so violent that the miller actually jumped as the sound came rolling

over the hill, over his head, across the river, across the wood, and

away over the distant fields through which wound the road to the city.

“Every one is asleep now,” the miller thought, and something gripped

his heart. “Every one is asleep where he wants to be; all but the Jews

crowded weeping into their churches, and I, who am standing here by my

mill-pond like a lost soul, thinking wicked thoughts.”

And everything seemed very strange to him.

“I hear the sound of the bell dying away over the fields,” thought he,

“and I feel as if something invisible were running, moaning, through

the country. I see the woods beyond the river drenched with dew and

shining in the moonlight, and I begin to wonder why they should be

covered with frost on a summer’s night. And when I remember that my

uncle was drowned in that pond, and how glad I was that it happened,

I seem to lose heart entirely. I don’t know whether to go down to the

mill or to stay where I am.”

“Gavrilo! Hey, Gavrilo!” he shouted at last. “There now! The mill is

empty, and that scamp has made off to the village again after the

girls.”

Philip stepped out into a bright spot of moonlight on the dam, and

stood listening to the water trickling through the sluices. It

seemed to him to be stealing out of the pond and creeping toward the

mill-wheels.

“I had better go to bed,” he thought. “But I’ll see that everything is

all right first.”

The moon had long since climbed to the zenith, and was looking down

into the water. The miller wondered that the little river should be

deep enough to hold the moon, and the dark blue sky with all its stars,

and the little black cloudlet that was flying along all alone like a

bit of down from the direction of the city.

But as his eyes were already half blind with sleep he did not wonder

long. Having opened the outer door of the mill and bolted it again from

the inside so that he should hear his reprobate workman when he came

home, he lay down to sleep.

“Hallo, get up, Philip!” he suddenly thought to himself, and he jumped

out of bed in the darkness as if some one had hit him with an axe. “I

forgot that that little cloud was the same one the Jew’s servant and I

saw flying toward the city, and wondered as we watched it how it could

move without wind. There isn’t much wind now, and what there is isn’t

coming from that quarter. Wait a minute, Philip, there’s something

queer about this!”

The miller was very sleepy, but, nevertheless, he went out barefoot on

to the dam, and stood in the middle of it scratching his chest and back

(the mill was not free from fleas). A light breeze was blowing from

the mill-pond behind him, and yet there was that little cloud flying

directly in his face. Only it now no longer looked feathery-light,

neither did it fly as swiftly and freely as before. It seemed to be

swaying a little and falling to earth like a wounded bird. As it flew

across the moon the miller at last saw very clearly what it was, for

against that bright orb were silhouetted a pair of dark, flapping

wings, and below them was hanging a human form with a long, quivering

beard.

“Aha, here’s a pretty to do!” thought the miller. “He’s carrying one of

them away. What shall I do? If I shout to him: drop it, it is mine! the

poor Jew may break his neck or fall into the pond. He’s pretty high up.”

But he soon saw that the situation was changing. The devil was circling

over the mill with his burden, and beginning to sink to the ground.

“He was greedy and chose a morsel too big for him,” the miller said to

himself. “Now I can rescue the Jew; he’s a living soul, after all, and

isn’t to be compared to a devil. Come then, God bless me, let me shout

my loudest!”

But instead of shouting he strangely enough ran away from the dam as

fast as his legs could carry him, and hid under the sycamores that

stood like nixies at the edge of the mill-pond, bathing their green

branches in its dark water. The darkness was as deep under them as in

a barrel, and the miller felt sure that no one could see him. To tell

the honest truth, his teeth were chattering madly and his hands and

feet were trembling as the shafts trembled when his mill was running.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t resist the temptation of peeping out to see

what would happen next.

First the devil fell almost to earth with his prey, and then rose again

above the tree-tops, but it was plain to see that his load was too

heavy for him. Twice he actually touched the water, so that the ripples

spread in circles from the Jew’s feet, but each time he flapped his

wings, and rose again with his prey as a sea-gull rises from the water

with a heavy fish. At last, after circling about two or three times,

the devil fell heavily on to the dam, and lay as if dead, with the

fainting Jew inanimate at his side.

And I must tell you--I had nearly forgotten it--that our friend the

miller had long ago seen whom the Jewish Khapun had brought from the

city. And when he recognised him--need I conceal it when he has

confessed it himself?--he grew merry at heart and thought:

“Thank God, it is no other than our inn-keeper from Novokamensk! What

happens next is none of my business, because I don’t think I ought to

interfere in other people’s affairs. When two dogs are fighting there’s

no reason a third should jump in. Again I say, let sleeping dogs lie.

What if I hadn’t have happened to be here? I’m not the Jew’s guardian.”

And he also thought:

“Aha, Philipko, now your time has come in Novokamensk!”