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And now, when this foreman's question hung in the balance, he noticed that the whole of his past life was stirred and dug up again till it was as thick as the grounds in a coffee-cup from the old police and fighting story right back to his childhood's days among the timber-stacks. These old stories were Nikolai's smarting wounds.
So I pass the time in Nikolai's workshop, where there are many kinds of planes and saws and drills and lathes, and there I fashion strange things. For the small boys of the neighboring farm, I make a windmill that will really turn in the wind. It whirls and rattles well, and I remember my own childhood when we called this apparatus onomatopoeically a windwhirr.
He would sit there as quiet as a mouse in the corner by the wood-box, carving himself boats, which he put under his blouse when he carried Holman's dinner down to the workshop near the quay. To represent, however, that Nikolai's existence was passed, so to speak, in the coal-cellar, or under blows on back and ear from Mrs. Holman's warm hands, would be an exaggeration.
But I don't want to tell him now either; I don't ever want to tell him. Why? Well, I don't owe you any explanation. But I don't mind your knowing yes, I want to tell you, please! You see, it's not because I'm afraid of Nikolai's anger, but of his forgiveness I couldn't bear to go on living as though nothing had happened.
My men came to me after their mid-day sleep with very cheerful countenances, and assured me that there was no doubt but that I should surely soon meet with success, for the palm of Nikolai's hand had been itching, and he had dreamed of blood and a big dog fighting, while Lofka's eyelid trembled. My hunters told me in all seriousness that these signs never failed.
Her ample figure, in addition to her effects, almost filled Nikolai's narrow little bedroom.
He heard both exclamations and taunts. "Now then! now then!" came from the crowd. Nikolai only worked his way towards the door. If once he stood there ! "Ticket?" Nikolai did not answer. "Ticket, man? Ticket?" Nikolai only pressed boldly a step nearer. The police-constable made a movement, but met a look in Nikolai's face which made him feel justified in restraining himself.
A peasant carter, in a state of great uncertainty about his load, had stopped outside the eating-house. Part of the load was made up of his mother's big chest, which the man had undertaken to drive to town, and leave for the meantime at Nikolai's. Barbara herself was to follow in a day or two. She must have some project in her head! Perhaps she was thinking of going out to service again.
It roared so strangely down there in the dark. It seemed as if in some way or other she belonged to it. All night she lay with a dull feeling of what had happened, and writhed under an unspeakable terror for the result of Nikolai's act. Now and then she groaned out a suffering sigh.
It was with her Veyergang was joking from the window, and she shook her head and laughed, and looked up for a moment she dared not answer because of Mrs. Holman. It was as if a pair of pincers with many claws had suddenly taken hold of Nikolai's heart, and he all at once remembered so vividly the day when he had had Ludvig Veyergang under his fists.
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