“Who has goaded you?” asked the Toyon.
Yes, all his life long he had been goaded. The bailiff had goaded him; the tax assessor and the policeman had goaded him, demanding taxes and tallage; hunger and want had goaded him; cold and heat, rain and drought had goaded him; the frozen earth and the ruthless forest had goaded him. The horse had trudged on with its eyes on the ground, ignorant of its journey’s end; so had he trudged through life. Had he known the meaning of what the priest read in church or for what his tithes were demanded? Had he known why his eldest son had been taken away as a soldier and whither he had gone? Had he known where he had died and where his poor bones had been laid?
He had drunk, it was charged, too much vodka; so he had, for his heart had craved it.
“How many bottles did you say that he drank?” the Toyon asked.
“Four hundred,” answered Father Ivan, with a glance at the book.
That might be so, pleaded Makar, but was it really all vodka? Three quarters of it was water; only one quarter was vodka, and that was stiffened with vile mahorka. Three hundred bottles might well be deducted from his account.
“Is what he says true?” asked the ancient Toyon of Father Ivan, and it was plain that his anger was not yet appeased.
“Absolutely true,” the priest answered quickly, and Makar continued his tale.
It was true that he had added three thousand poles to his account, but what if he had? What if he had only cut sixteen thousand? Was that so small a number? Besides, while he had cut two thousand his first wife had been ill. His heart had been aching, he had longed to sit by her bedside, but want had driven him into the forest, and in the forest he had wept, and the tears had frozen on his eye-lashes, and because of his grief, the cold had struck into his very heart, and still he had chopped.
And then his old woman had died. He had to bury her, but he had no money to pay for the burial. So he had hired himself out to chop wood to pay for his wife’s abode in the world beyond. The merchant had seen how great was his need, and had only paid him ten kopecks—and his old woman had lain all alone in the icy hut while he had once more chopped wood and wept. Surely each one of those loads should be counted as four or even more!