"She is quite right, there," said Habermann, seriously, "you are not a fit person to go, for, with your hasty, inconsiderate behavior, you do nothing but mischief;" and leaving him he went over to Bräsig, who was running up and down the room, puffed up like an adder: "Bräsig, he couldn't have meant it so."
"It is no consequence to me, Karl, what such an uncouth, malicious, miserable beast thinks of me. Riding in on a donkey? Fie, it is nothing but the meanest envy."
"I did'nt mean you!" cried Kurz, running up and down the other side of the room, "I meant my brother-in-law, Baldrian, and the dyer, and the other blockheads. And is'nt it enough to drive one crazy? First, the quarrel with my wife, about the Reformverein, then a quarrel with my shopman,--he slept till nine o'clock this morning, was out singing on the streets last night, and at the beer-house, till four o'clock; then a quarrel with the stable-boy and the horse-doctor,--my saddle-horse has got the influenza,--then another quarrel with my wife, she don't want me to have anything to do with farming."
"There she is right again," interrupted Habermann. "All your farming amounts to nothing, because you don't understand it."
"So! I don't understand it? Nothing but vexations! Afterwards the stupid servant maid, she put on a table-cloth for dinner that came down to the floor; well, we sit there, a customer rings, I am provoked with the shopman because he doesn't start up immediately, start up myself, catch the table-cloth between my feet, and pull off the soup-tureen, and the whole concern, on the floor. Do you see, then my wife comes, and holds me fast, and says, 'Kurz, go to bed, you are unlucky to-day;' and every time that I get angry, she says, 'Kurz, go to bed!' It is enough to drive one crazy."
"And your wife was right again," said Habermann, "if you had stayed in bed, you would not have come here to make trouble."
"So?" cried Kurz, "did you ever lie in bed all day, with sound limbs, merely because it was an unlucky day? I will never do it again, no matter how much my wife begs me. One worries himself to death! She took away my boots and my trousers, and I lay there and fretted, because I could not get up, if I wanted to."
Uncle Bräsig began to laugh heartily.
"Well," said Habermann, "then you came over here, and got vexed again."
"Eh, how?" said Kurz, "I did'nt mean that at all, I only came over to ask you two Herr Inspectors if you would go with me to my field, and see if it was ready for ploughing."