The old man made a wry face, as if he were ready to cry. He drew the peasant a few steps aside, and said in a voice trembling with emotion: 'Why are you so hard on me, gospodarz? You see, my sons don't hit it off with each other. The elder is a farmer, and I want to set up the younger as a miller and have him near me. I haven't long to live, I am eighty years old, don't quarrel with me.'
'Can't you buy land elsewhere?'
'Not very well. We are a whole community settling together; it would take a long time to make other arrangements. My son Wilhelm does not like farming, and unless I buy him a windmill he will starve or go away from me. I am an old man, sell me your land! Listen,' he whispered, 'I will give you seventy-five roubles an acre. God is my witness, I am offering you more than the land is worth. But you will let me have it, won't you? You are an honest man and a Christian.'
Slimak looked with astonishment and pity at the old man, from whose inflamed eyes the tears were pouring down.
'You can't have much sense, sir, to ask me such a thing,' he said. 'Would you ask a man to cut off his hand? What could a peasant do without his land?'
'You could buy twice as much. I will help you to find it.'
Slimak shook his head. 'You are talking as a man talks when he digs up a shrub in the woods. "Come," he says, "you shall be near my cottage!" The shrub comes because it must, but it soon dies.'
The man with the beard approached and spoke to his father in German.
'So you won't sell me your land?' said the old man.
'I won't.'