VII
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 to the 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 denying it. 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 I feel 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 Motria is 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 you something 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’d talk 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——”