Sascha pulled off his coat and threw it on the ground, and, turning up his sleeves, spat on his hands and said:
"If that is so, we will fight about it."
I did not want to fight. My courage was undermined by depression; I felt uneasy as I looked at the wrathful face of my cousin. He made a rush at me, struck my chest with his head, and knocked me over. Then he sat astride of me and cried:
"Is it to be life or death?"
But I was stronger than he and very angry. In a few minutes he was lying face downward with his hands behind his head and a rattling in his throat. Alarmed, I tried to help him up, but he thrust me away with his hands and feet. I grew still more alarmed. I went away to one side, not knowing what else to do, and he raised his head and said:
"Do you know what you have brought on yourself? I will work things so that when the master and mistress are not looking I shall have to complain of you, and then they will dismiss you."
He went on scolding and threatening me, and his words infuriated me. I rushed to the cave, took away the stones, and threw the coffin containing the sparrow over the fence into the street. I dug Out all the inside of the cave and trampled it under my feet.
Sascha took my violence strangely. Sitting on the ground, with his mouth partly covered and his eyebrows drawn together, he watched me, saying nothing. When I had finished, he stood up without any hurry, shook out his clothes, threw on his coat, and then said calmly and ominously:
"Now you will see what will happen; just wait a little! I arranged all this for you purposely; it is witchcraft. Aha!"
I sank down as if his words had physically hurt me, and I felt quite cold inside. But he went away without glancing back at me, which accentuated his calmness still more. I made up my mind to run away from the town the next day, to run away from my master, from Sascha with his witchcraft, from the whole of that worthless, foolish life.