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Hamer sat down in the doorway, smoking his pipe and watching Slimak; he nodded contentedly to himself. 'I've been down to the village to ask Gryb and the other gospodarze to come and help you, for that is a Christian duty.... He waited for the peasant's thanks, but Slimak went on eating and did not look at him.
'Yes, I grudge him the room, the old man retorted viciously, 'the father is a dolt, let the son be a dolt too. Slimak's regret for the cow was drowned in his anger. 'All right, let them cut her throat, he thought, but remembering that the poor beast could not help his quarrel with Hamer, he sighed. There were fresh lamentations at home; Magda was blubbering because she had been given notice.
Their God is the same as ours. Gryb shook his clenched fist in his face. 'What! their God is the same as ours? I tell you, he must be a different God, or why should they jabber to him in German? But never mind, he changed his tone, 'all that's past and gone. You deserve well of us, because you did not let the Germans have your land. Hamer has already offered me his farm for midsummer.
He let them have the former without bargaining, but he refused the hay. 'Let us at least have a cartload of straw, they asked with their foreign accent. 'I won't. I haven't got any. The men got angry. 'That scoundrel Hamer is giving us no end of trouble, one cried, dashing his cap on the ground; 'he told us we should get fodder and everything at the farms.
He would ask me how I was to find his grave again, and Stasiek's, poor Stasiek who has laid down his head, thanks to you! Hamer was trembling with rage. 'What rubbish the man is talking! he cried, 'have not numbers of peasants settled afresh in Volhynia?
He went into the stable and lay down near his wife, who was moaning deliriously, and soon fell asleep. At noon old Hamer appeared, accompanied by a German woman who carried two bowls of hot soup. He stood over Slimak and poked him with his stick. 'Hey, get up! Slimak roused himself and looked about heavily; seeing the hot food he ate greedily.
Old Hamer seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument with Hirschgold and two other men. When he caught sight of the peasant he took them into the barn. 'Sly dog, murmured Slimak; 'he knows what I've come for. I'll tell him straight to his face when he comes out. But at every step his courage failed him more and more.
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