V
Bang—bang!
Bang—bang—bang! Bang—bang!
Some one was knocking so loudly at the door of the mill that the whole building was filled with noisy echoes that reverberated in every corner. The miller thought the devil might have come back—he and the Jew had not whispered together for nothing!—so he only buried his head under the pillow.
“Bang—bang! Bang—bang! Hey, master, unlock the door!”
“I won’t!”
“And why won’t you?”
The miller raised his head.
“Ah, that sounds like Gavrilo’s voice. Gavrilo, is that you?”
“Who else should it be?”
“Swear that it’s you!”
“What?”
“All right, then, I swear it’s me. How could I not be myself? And yet you want me to swear it! There’s a marvel for you!”
Even then the miller wouldn’t believe him. He went upstairs and peeped out of a window over the door, and there beneath him stood Gavrilo. The miller was much relieved and went down to open the door.
Gavrilo was actually staggered when the miller appeared in the doorway.
“Why, master, what has happened to you?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Why on earth have you smeared your face all over with flour? You’re as white as chalk!”
“Didn’t you come across the river?”
“I did.”
“And didn’t you look up?”
“Perhaps.”
“And didn’t you see some one?”
“Who?”
“Who? Fool! The creature that nabbed Yankel the inn-keeper.”
“Who the devil nabbed him?”
“Who, indeed? Why, the Jewish devil, Khapun. Don’t you know what day this has been?”
Gavrilo looked at the miller with troubled eyes and asked:
“Have you been to the village this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Did you drink any gorelka?”
“Bah, what’s the use of talking to a fool? I did have some gorelka at the priest’s, but all the same I have just seen with my own eyes the devil resting on the dam with the Jew in his claws.”
“Where?”
“Right there, in the middle of the dam.”
“And what happened next?”
“Well, and then——” the miller whistled and waved his hand in the air.
Gavrilo stared at the dam, scratched his top-knot, and looked up at the sky.
“There’s a marvel for you! What’ll we do now? How can we get along without the Jew?”
“Why are you so anxious to have a Jew here, hey?”
“It isn’t only me. One can’t—oh, don’t argue about it, master, things wouldn’t be the same without a Jew; one couldn’t get along without one.”
“Tut, tut! What a fool you are!”
“What are you scolding me for? I don’t say I’m clever, but I know millet from buckwheat. I work in the mill, but I drink vodka at the tavern. Tell me, as you’re so clever, who will be our inn-keeper now?”
“Who?”
“Yes, who?”
“You?”
Gavrilo stared at the miller with his eyes starting out of his head. Then he shook his head, clicked his tongue, and said:
“So, that’s your idea!”
The miller now noticed for the first time that Gavrilo was very uncertain on his legs and that the lads had given him another black eye. To tell the truth, the fellow looked so ugly and pale that you wanted to spit at the sight of him. He was a great hand with the girls, and the lads had more than once fallen upon him. Whenever they caught him they were sure to beat him almost to death. Of course it was no wonder they beat him; the wonder was there was ever anything for which to do it!
“There is no face in the world so ugly but some girl will fall in love with it,” thought the miller. “But they love him by threes and fours and dozens. Ugh! You scarecrow!”
“Come, Gavrilo, boy,” he nevertheless said in a coaxing voice, “come and sleep with me. When a man has seen what I have he feels a bit nervous.”
“All right, it’s all the same to me.”
A minute later a certain workman was whistling through his nose. And let me tell you, I spent the night at the mill once myself, and I have never heard any one whistle through his nose as Gavrilo did. If a man didn’t like it he had better not spend the night in the same house with him or he wouldn’t sleep a wink.
“Gavrilo!” said the miller. “Hey, Gavrilo!”
“Well, then, what is it? If I couldn’t sleep myself at least I wouldn’t keep others awake!”
“Did they beat you again?”
“What if they did?”
“Where have you been?”
“You want to know everything, don’t you? In Konda.”
“In Konda? Why did you go there?”
“Because! What else do you want to know? Hee, hee, hee!”
“Aren’t there girls enough for you in Novokamensk?”
“Bah! It makes me sick to look at them. There isn’t one there that suits me.”
“What about Galya, the widow’s daughter?”
“Galya? What do I care about Galya?”
“What, have you been courting her?”
“Of course I have; what do you think?”
The miller flounced over in bed.
“You’re lying, you hound; a plague seize your mother!”
“I’m not lying and I never lie. I leave that to cleverer men than I am.”
Gavrilo yawned and said in a sleepy voice:
“Do you remember, master, how my right eye was so swelled up for a week that you couldn’t even see it?”
“Well?”
“That devil’s child entertained me by doing that. Confound her, say I! Galya, indeed!”
“So that’s how things are, is it?” thought the miller. “Gavrilo! Hey, Gavrilo! Oh, the hound, he’s snoring again—Gavrilo!”
“What do you want? Have you gone crazy?”
“Do you want to get married?”
“I haven’t made my boots yet. When I’ve made my boots I’ll think about it.”
“But I’d give you boots, and tar for them, and a hat and a belt.”
“Would you? And I’ll tell you something better still.”
“What?”
“That the cocks are already crowing in the village. Can’t you hear them going it?”
It was true. In the village, perhaps at Galya’s cottage, a shrill-voiced cock was splitting his throat shouting “cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” answered other voices from far and near like water boiling in a kettle, and all the cracks in the wall of the little room began to gleam white, even down to the tiniest chink.
The miller yawned blissfully.
“Ah, now they are far away!” he thought. “How funny it was! He flew all the way from the city to my mill while the clock was striking twelve. Ha, ha, and so Yankel has gone! What a joke! Why, if I should tell it to any one, they’d call me a liar. But why should I lie? They’ll find it out for themselves to-morrow. Perhaps I’d better not mention it at all. They would say I ought to have—but what’s the use of arguing about it? If I had killed the Jew myself, or anything like that, I should have been responsible for what happened, but as it is, it doesn’t concern me at all. What need had I to interfere? Let sleeping dogs lie, say I. A shut mouth plays safe. They won’t hear anything from me.”
So Philip the miller reasoned with himself, and tried to ease his conscience a little. It was only as he was on the verge of falling asleep that a thought crept out of some recess of his brain like a toad out of a hole, and that thought was:
“Now, Philip, now’s your time!”
This thought chased all the others out of his mind and took possession of it.
With it he went to sleep.