'I paid him, but he wouldn't take the thirty-three roubles; he said that Jesus Christ had lived in this world for thirty-three years, so it would not be right for him to take as much as that for the cow.'
'Very proper,' Slimak agreed, wishing to impress her with his theological knowledge, but she turned to the stove and took off a pot of hot barley soup. Offering it to him with an air of indifference: 'Don't talk so much,' she said. 'Put something hot inside you and go to the manor-house. But just try and bargain as you did with the Soltys and I shall have something to say to you.'
He sat humbly, eating his soup, and his wife took some money from the chest. 'Take these ten roubles,' she said, 'give them to the squire himself and promise to bring the rest to-morrow. But mind what he asks for the field, and kiss his hands, and embrace his and the lady's feet so that he may let you off at least three roubles. Will you remember?'
'Why shouldn't I remember?'
He was obviously repeating his wife's admonitions, for he suddenly stopped eating and tapped the table rhythmically with the spoon.
'Well, then, don't sit there and think, but put on your sukmana and go.
And take the boys with you.'
'What for?'
'What for? They are to support you when you ask the squire, and Jendrek will tell me how you have bargained. Now do you know what for?'
'Women are a pest!' growled Slimak, when she had unfolded her carefully laid plans. 'Curse her, how she lords it over me! You can see that her father was a bailiff.'
He struggled into his sukmana, which was brand new and beautifully embroidered at the collar and pockets with coloured thread; put on a broad leather belt, tied the ten roubles up in a rag and slipped them into his sukmana. The children had long been ready, and at last they started.