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Slimakowa would not look at him, and Slimak said: 'You are hopeless, Maciek, you'll never get on, for the devil always leads you into bad company. So it happened that Maciek went without new boots, but a few weeks later he acquired a possession he had never dreamt of. It was a rainy September evening; the more the day declined, the heavier became the layers of clouds.
The encroaching line seemed to him like the tongue of some vast reptile, and the mounds of earth to forebode four graves, his own and those of his wife and children. Maciek also had been watching its progress, which he considered an entire revolution of the laws of nature.
Here was the Soltys, known in the whole parish as a hard man, crying like a child, and Slimak shouting like the bailiff and disobeying his wife. 'Come to the barn, Soltys, said Slimakowa, taking him by one arm while Maciek took the other. He followed like a lamb, but while she was preparing his bed on the straw, he fell upon the threshing-floor and could not be moved by any manner of means.
At once Gerwazy, for it was he, pressed through the crowd into the middle of the room, carrying his flashing penknife; then, lowering the point before Maciek as a sign of greeting, he said:— “The penknife bows to the switch. Brothers, gentlemen of Dobrzyn, I will give you no advice. Not at all; I will only tell you why I have assembled you; but what to do and how to do it, decide for yourselves.
But when he remembered what he was doing, he was seized with such passionate grief that he threw down his tools and ran out, he knew not whither. On the third day Maciek harnessed the horses to the cart, and they drove to the village church, Jendrek keeping close to the coffin and steadying it, so that it should not rock. He even tapped, and listened if his brother were not calling.
Maciek led the cow to the shed; she looked about and whisked her tail so heartily that Slimak could not take his eyes off her. 'It's God's will, he murmured. 'I'll bargain for her. He crossed himself at the door, but his heart was trembling in anticipation of all the difficulties.
The frozen river, into which his child would never gaze again; the empty, hideous homestead; he longed to escape from it all and go far away and forget Stasiek and Maciek and the whole accursed gospodarstwo. He could buy land more cheaply elsewhere with the money he would get from the Germans. What was the good of the land if it was ruining the people on it?
'Go to bed, Maciek, said the gospodyni; 'let that drunkard lie on the manure-heap, because he has been so disagreeable. Maciek obeyed and went to the stable. When all was quiet, he began for his amusement to pretend that he was drunk, and acted the part of Slimak or the Soltys in turns.
'What crowds of children they have! said Slimak; 'we have not as many in the whole village. 'Thick as lice, said Maciek. Slimak could not wonder enough. Yesterday the field had been empty and quiet, to-day it was like a fair. People by the river, people in the ravines, people on the fields, who chop the bushes, carry wood, make fires, feed and water the animals!
The middle column, emboldened, began to call in mighty whispers. Then they halted angrily, stood still in their places and seemed to roar: 'Go away! go away, and do not hinder us! But Maciek was only a poor labourer, and though he was afraid of the giants, and would gladly have made room for them, he could not leave until he had loaded up his sledge.
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