"I've seen many, many different villages, and I've looked at many different people. I've seen the big Tartar villages, and the Russian settlements, as large as towns, and the villages on the River Angara and behind Lake Baikal, and where the Poles are so well off;[4] but nowhere, nowhere have I seen villages like our Mocarze.
"There isn't a thing you can't find there. Everything's there. My God!" And Maciej stretched out his arms.
"And those meadows and fields and the hay timee! Oh! those young oak-woods, and the corn, too, like gold!
"Here everything is big, but somehow it's dreary. What can you see in the taiga? What's there to enjoy in the fields? It's like a grave all round you: a vulture crying above, a bear growling in the taiga, and that's all the pleasure you get! At home it's different.
"There, if you go out in the morning through the fields with the dew on them, and shout, it sounds like a bell ringing in the open air. You watch the cheerfulness of the animals, and listen to the birds chirping on the ground and above, and you feel cheerful too. And if you breathe the air coming from those fields and meadows, as if it came from a censer in church, you feel its strength going into you. I've never felt so strong anywhere as at sunrise at Mocarze, when I used to say 'Good-morning!' to the sun. Here the morning's no morning—there's no pleasure in it; none of the birds or animals or people know anything about it. At home it's different.
"I've seen so many countries; I've been through all this big Siberia, and a good bit of the Lake Baikal country, but I've never seen a country like ours anywhere. But I've learnt that since being here. Yes, here! Am I the only one? We've clever people at home—priests and gentlemen and peasants with heads on their shoulders—but none of them know what they have!"
"Each of these villages called Mocarze has its own name. They call the one that's the oldest, Korzeniste; the second, Suche; and the third, which is the newest, Mokry. I am from Mocarze-Suche.
"It's a big village. Pan Olszeski was our master, and we were his serfs. Everyone knows it's not very pleasant to be that. When I was about twenty, Olszeski took me into his service at the house.
"He was a very quick-tempered man, yellow, dry, and small—the very devil, I can tell you! He wasn't really bad, only when he was angry; but he got angry about everything, and then he'd just be beside himself with rage—oh my goodness! Yet not for long. He'd shout and run up and down and get yellower still; but when he'd finished you could say anything to him, and, though he'd tremble, he'd listen and say nothing. He was just. It can't be said that the young men liked him, but the older ones—the farmers—always told us: 'Don't take any notice of his shouting; his bark is worse than his bite.' And they were right. He never harmed and never worried people; but this I only knew later. At the time I only knew that Olszeski was bad-tempered, and I feared him like fire, and—well, every bad thing. But I don't know how it came about; the farther I went from him, the more he came after me. He was always at me, scolding, cursing, and shouting. But I remembered what my father had said: 'Don't take any notice of his being angry, but remember that he's just'; so I stood it—stood it and never said a word. And I should have stood it longer if Olszeski hadn't gone too far. But he said everything he could think of against me, and at last, on purpose to wound my feelings, he began to call me a 'stupid great booby' and 'greenhorn.' Even now I don't like to think about it. He happened to come into the yard. Though I was at work, and he didn't see me, and I ran away from him like a hare from a dog, he at once began to shout: 'Eh, there! you stupid great booby, you greenhorn!' His voice was like himself, thin and shrill, and so penetrating it sounded like a whistle. When he called me all those names I boiled over with rage. It was only he who thought me stupid, not my own people. There wasn't a fellow in the village equal to me, either with the fiddle at the inn or at the hardest field work. For I never shirked work any more than play. And I was so strong—I'm speaking seriously—not as I am now; if there was ever anything anyone couldn't do, Maciej did it.