"And our girls! Hah! There aren't such girls anywhere. For example, do you ever see one like them here? When they were all together, and you came up, they were like flowers—like the lilies themselves. And when you heard them tittering, 'Hi! hi! hi!' and saw their bright eyes behind their aprons, you didn't know yourself that you were calling out: 'Heh there! Go ahead, you fellows! Now then, fiddler, strike up something lively! Come along, my dear!'"
Maciej was about to start off dancing, for he burst out with the 'Heh there!' so energetically that it set our ears tingling. But a scornful remark of the shoemaker checked him.
"They hid behind their aprons? What vulgar foolishness!"
Maciej, who had already started up, sat down, but would not allow the shoemaker's words to pass.
"Vulgar? Everyone knows it's not like in a town. But don't be disagreeable. Now, among these girls the best-looking seemed to me——"
"Kaśka?" interposed the shoemaker.
"No, not Kaśka, but Marya. She was the best girl in Mocarze, and though she had no mother, and was alone at home, she was tidy and hard-working, and everything round her was clean.
"In the field she always went at the head of the mowers. She could always be seen when she was standing in the corn, it never hid her. My Marya was a fine girl, well grown, and red like a poppy or cherries in the sun. And her body was so healthy—it was as hard as a nut. When I wanted to pinch her——"
"Did you pinch her cheek?" the shoemaker interrupted impertinently.
"Don't talk bosh! Am I a gentleman, or do I come from a town, that I should pinch a girl's cheek, to say nothing of the girl being my Marya? I pinched where we are all used to pinching the girls——"