“All right, I’ll leave it at that. I’m not a Jew. I’m a decent sort of a fellow. Any one else would have charged you forty copecks at least, I know that for certain, and I’m only asking you twenty, and shall wait till St. Philip’s day for the money. But then you will have to look out. If you don’t pay, I’ll complain about you to the police.”
With these words he turned, bowed, and walked away across the pasture, without so much as a glance at the hut at whose door there shone for a long time a white embroidered blouse. It shone against the dark shade of the cherry trees like a little white star, and the miller could not see the black eyes weeping, the white arms stretched out toward him, the young breast sighing for his sake.
“Don’t cry, my honey; don’t cry, my sugar-plum!” the old woman soothed her child. “Don’t cry, it’s God’s will, my darling.”
“Okh, mother, mother, if only you had let me scratch out his eyes, perhaps I should feel better!”
III
After that adventure the miller’s thoughts became gloomier than ever.
“Somehow nothing ever goes right in this world,” he said to himself. “Unpleasant things are always happening, a man never knows why. For instance, that girl there drove me away. She called me a Jew. If I were a Jew and had as much money as I have and a business like mine, would I live as I do? Of course not! Look what my life is! I work in the mill myself; I don’t half sleep by night; I don’t half eat by day; I keep my eye on the water to see it doesn’t run out; I keep my eye on the stones to see they don’t come loose; I keep my eye on the shafts and the pinions and the cogs to see they run smoothly and don’t miss a stroke. Yes, and I keep my eye on that infernal workman of mine. How can one depend on a servant? If I turn my back for an instant the scoundrel runs off after the girls. Yes, a miller’s life is a dog’s life, it is! Of course, though, ever since my uncle—God rest his soul—fell into the mill-pond drunk, and the mill came to me, the money has been collecting in my pockets. But what’s the result? Don’t I have to tramp for hours after every single rouble I make, and get abused for it to my face, yes, to my very face? And how much do I get in the end? A trifle! A Christian never does get as much as a Jew. Now if only the devil would carry away that Jew Yankel I might be able to manage. The people wouldn’t go to any one but me then, whether they wanted flour or money for taxes. Oho! In that case I might even open a little inn, and then I could either get some one to run the mill for me, or else sell it. Bother the mill, say I! Somehow a man isn’t a man as long as he has to work. The fact is, one copeck begets another. Only fools don’t know that. If you buy yourself a pair of pigs, for instance—pigs are prolific animals—in a year you’ll have a herd of them, and money’s just the same. If you put it out to pasture among stupid folk you can sit still and yawn until the time comes to drive it home. Every copeck will have brought forth ten copecks, every rouble will have brought forth ten roubles.”
The miller had now reached the crest of a hill from where the road sloped gently to the river. From here, when the night breeze breathed into his face, he could faintly hear the sleepy water murmuring in the mill-race. Looking behind him, the miller could see the village sleeping among its gardens, and the widow’s little khata under its tall poplars. He stood plunged in thought for a few moments, scratching the back of his head.
“Ah, what a fool I am!” he said at last, resuming his journey. “If my uncle hadn’t taken it into his head to get drunk on gorelka and walk into the mill-pond I might have been married to Galya to-day, but now she’s beneath me. Okh, but that girl is sweet to kiss! Goodness, how sweet she is! That’s why I say that nothing ever goes right in this world. If that little face had a nice dowry behind it, if it had even as much as old Makogon is giving away with his Motria, there would be nothing more to be said!”
He cast one last look behind him, and turned on his way, when suddenly the stroke of a bell resounded from the village. Something seemed to have fallen from the church steeple that rose from a hill in the centre of the town, and to be flying, clanging and rocking, across the fields.