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Updated: May 25, 2025
Mitri went back to the hut, and changing his birch-bark shoes and the linen bands on his legs, started off to see the squire. After he had got three roubles from Volgin, and the same sum from Nicholas Petrovich, he returned to his house, gave the money to his wife, and went to his neighbour's. The thrashing machine was humming, and the driver was shouting.
There, in the little house, a lamp was lighted; his mother stood at the doorway looking out for him. Breathless, he informed her of his encounter with the Mission ladies, and the priest's vile trick to shame him. "Aha," she laughed, "a famous joker is our father Mîtri. I would give much to have seen the faces of those harridans!
Mitri woke up before dawn as usual. He groaned as the memory of the day before broke in upon him how the horse had struggled and struggled, and then fallen down. Now there was no horse, and all he had was the price of the skin, four roubles and eighty kopeks. Getting up he arranged the linen bands on his legs, and went through the yard into the hut.
Their bodies bulged now here, now there, like sacks of grain, obedient to the motion of the trotting donkeys. "There they go, mothers of all contention, shameless meddlers!" said Mîtri, peering after them in the twilight. "Ha, ha! I angered them, the praise to Allah. I made them tremble for their nursling!" Iskender made no answer, feeling angry with the priest.
She held her tongue suddenly, finding herself within the hearing of Mîtri, who, however, took no notice of her, but welcomed Iskender fatherly and bade him enter. She entered with them unrebuked, and sat by while they argued, feasting her eyes upon her son's good looks.
Even at me they look askance, I fancy, as if I had a finger in the mess. Come indoors where we can talk privately. The worthy priest will let me enter with thee. What made thee go and change thy faith just now?" "I have not yet changed it, O my mother. I do but hear the reasoning of our father Mîtri." "Well, that is something. I will tell them that."
Ah, they were well repaid for their treatment of Iskender; and they knew it! But Mîtri broke in, crying: "Hast thou brought the picture?" "Be sure I have!" replied Iskender cheerfully. Opening one of the saddlebags he produced it, wrapped in a linen cloth, which he removed. A howl of delight went up from all the company. "Ma sh' Allah! It is Mar Jiryis himself!" "May we be helped through him!"
Then, after a year or two, return and speak to us of marriage. We shall hear thee favourably. Have I said well, O my daughter?" The child was silent. The weight of her father's words had stilled and solemnised her, removing every trace of coquetry. Her head was bowed as at the benediction; she was sobbing. Mîtri patted her head and bade her run indoors.
"I suffer much from unkind thin's beeble say about me. They haf ruined me in my brofession." Mîtri silenced the old man. With a Protestant missionary for his guest, the priest thought all words wasted that were not employed on controversial subjects. "Thou art a good man, O khawâjah," he observed politely but with a certain malice.
"Thy sword, if thou hast one, is of wood, O braggart!" laughed one of his captors, at the same time giving him a shove which sent him reeling up against another of the band, who straight returned him. "Nay, nay," he protested, in his passage through the air. "By Allah, I possess one, of the finest steel. Ask Mîtri, ask Iskender; they have seen it!"
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