Nikolai has got his tawny lady working on the farm; she's harnessed to a neat cart that he has made himself and banded with iron. And now the lady carts manure. The tiny farm with its few head of cattle doesn't yield too much of this precious substance, so it is soon spread. Then the lady draws the plow, and looks as though it were no more than the heavy train of a ball dress behind her! Nikolai has never heard of such a horse before, and neither has his wife.
I take a walk down to the newly dug field and look at it from every angle. Then I take soil in my hand and feel it and nod, exactly as though I knew something about it. Rich, black soil--sheer perfection.
I walk so far that I can see the gargoyles on Petra's hotel--and suddenly turn off the path into the woods, to sheltered groves and catkins and peace. The air is still; spring will soon be here.
And so the days wear on.
I am comfortable and feel very much at home; how I should like to stay here! I should pay well for my keep, and make myself useful and popular; I shouldn't harm a fly. But that evening I tell Nikolai that I must think of moving on; this will not do.... And perhaps he will mention it....
"Can't you stop a while longer?" he says. "But I suppose it isn't the kind of place--"
"God bless you, Nikolai; it is the kind of place, but--well, it's spring now, and I always travel in the spring. I should have to be very low before I gave that up. And besides, I expect you're both pretty tired of me, at least your wife."
This, too, I hoped he would mention.
Then I packed my knapsack and waited. No--no one came to take the knapsack out of my hand and forbid me to pack any farther. So perhaps Nikolai hasn't mentioned it. The man never does open his mouth. So I placed the knapsack on a chair in the middle of the room, all packed and ready, for everyone to see that we're leaving. And I waited for the morning of the next day, and this time the knapsack was observed. No, it wasn't. So I had to wait till the housewife called us to the midday meal, and tell her then, pointing to what was in the middle of the room:
"I'm afraid I shall have to be leaving today."