This temporary weakness, by which he was for the moment overcome, frightened him on the child's account and not on his own; he began to sigh heavily, and his old friend, as she busied herself with her cooking, understood very well that he was in need of counsel and comfort.
"Now, you see, good man," said she to him, "I told you how it would be; when you took the baby, I knew you would not be able to raise it. But perhaps you are over-anxious and have been unfortunate today, for you sigh so sadly."
"Yes, yes, it is true,--all true, neighbour. I realize now that I am no longer twenty years old; for when I return from the fields, I am good for nothing but to lie down in my grave, I am so sick and weary. But what is to be done? I must work or die of hunger. And Hudny would drive me out of my poor den if I did not give him his twenty florins at Michaelmas; and I must eat and take care of the baby. Think of it, I can earn only twenty coppers a day, and I have a broken back."
"But I tell you now, as I have often told you before, that you must find some other means of earning your bread. You have spent your whole life seated by a table in an office, with little work to do, and suddenly you take a notion to handle the reaping-hook and the scythe just as those do who have been accustomed to it all their lives. Why do you not try to find some other sort of work?"
"Because, really I do not know how to do anything else."
"But you did not know how to read a while ago, and now you tell me you have learned. Can't you learn how to do something else?"
"Do you think I could?"
"Indeed?" answered the old woman, in that interrogative formula which often in the language of peasants takes the place of affirmation.
"What?"
"How do I know? Any sort of trade. You do not want for sense; you have seen and observed a great many things; you would learn much faster than any number of young giddy-heads."