Part 12

“Whatever is true, is true,” he assented. “Yes, Kiev is there, though I haven’t seen it. One certainly ought to believe what honest folks say. You see, I should like to--I want to ask you who told you the story?”

“Who told it to me? Bah! Who told you about Kiev?”

“Tut, tut, what a tongue you have! It’s sharper than a razor; may it shrivel in your head!”

“There’s no reason why my tongue should shrivel in my head. You’d better believe what people say when every one says it. If every one says it, it must be true. If it weren’t true, every one wouldn’t say it; only magpies like you would say it, so there!”

“Tut, tut, tut! For Heaven’s sake stop a minute! You rattle out your words like a pestle in a mortar. I see I was on the wrong track, but I only wanted to know how the story began.”

“It began because it happens every year. Whatever happens people will talk about; what doesn’t happen isn’t worth talking about.”

“What a fellow you are! Wait a minute, let me catch your prattle by the tail; you whirl like a wild mare in a bog. Only just tell me what really takes place, that’s all!”

“Eh hey, so you don’t know, I see, what takes place on the Day of Atonement?”

“I used to know, and that’s why I didn’t ask. I used to hear people chattering like you about Khapun, Khapun, but what the sense of it was I never could make out.”

“Then you ought to have said so at once, and I should have told you long ago. I don’t like proud people who, when they want a drink of gorelka, say they’d drink water if it didn’t taste so bad. If you want to know what happens I’ll tell you, because I’ve been about the world and am not a stay-at-home like you. I have lived in the city for more than a year, and this is the first time I have ever worked for a Jew.”

“And isn’t it a sin to work for a Jew?” asked the miller.

“It would be for any one else; a soldier can do anything. We get a paper given to us that says so.”

“Can a piece of paper really----”

Then the soldier began telling the miller very affably all about Khapun and how he carries off one Jew a year on this day.

And if you don’t know it, I might as well tell you that Khapun is a regular Hebrew devil. He is just like ours in every way, black, with horns just like him, and he has wings like a huge bat; the only difference is that he wears ringlets and a skull cap, and only has power over Jews. If a Christian meets him at midnight in the desert, or even on the shore of a pond, he runs away like a scared dog. But he can do what he likes with the Jews, so he catches one every year and carries him away.

And Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the day fixed for him to make his choice. Long before that day comes the Jews weep and tear their clothes, and even put ashes out of their stoves on their heads for some reason or other. On the evening of the day they bathe in the rivers and ponds, and as soon as the sun goes down the poor wretches all go to their churches, and you never heard in your life such screams as come from there then! They all bawl at the top of their lungs, keeping their eyes shut tight with terror all the time. Then, as soon as the sky grows dark and the evening star comes out, Khapun comes flying from where he lives, and hovers over the church. He beats on the windows with his wings, and looks in to choose his prey. But when midnight comes, that’s when the Jews begin to get really frightened. They light all the candles to give themselves courage, fall down on the floor, and begin to scream as if some one were cutting their throats. And while they are lying there squirming Khapun flies into the room in the shape of a great crow, and they all feel the cold wind of his wings blowing across their hearts. The Jew whom Khapun has already spotted through the window feels the devil’s claws sinking into his back. Ugh! It makes one’s flesh creep even to tell of it, so just think what the poor Jew must feel! Of course he yells as loud as ever he can. But who can hear him when all the rest of them are yelling like lunatics, too? And maybe one of his neighbours does hear him, and is only glad it isn’t himself who is in such a sorry plight.

Kharko himself had heard more than once the pitiful, clear, long-drawn notes of a trumpet floating out over the city. It was a novice in the synagogue trumpeting out a farewell call to his unfortunate brother, while the rest of the Jews were putting on their shoes in the entry--Jews always go into church in their stocking feet--or standing in little groups in the moonlight, whispering together on tip-toe, staring up at the sky. And when the last man has gone, one lonely pair of shoes is left lying in the entry, waiting for its owner. Ah, those shoes will have to wait a long time, for at that very moment Khapun is flying with their owner high over woods and fields, over valleys and hills and plains, flapping his wings, and keeping well out of sight of Christian eyes. The accursed one is glad when the night is cloudy and dark. But when it is clear and still like to-night, with the moon shining as bright as day, the devil’s work may very well come to naught.

“And why?” asked the miller, trembling lest the talkative Kharko should begin poking insults at him again. But this time the servant answered quietly enough:

“Well, you see, any Christian, no matter if he’s stupid, like you, can call to the devil: ‘Drop it! It is mine!’ and Khapun will drop the Jew at once. The devil will flutter his wings, and fly away with a shrill cry like a wounded hawk, to be left without prey for a year. The Jew will fall to the ground. It will be lucky for him if he wasn’t too high up and if he falls into a bog or some other soft spot. If he doesn’t, no one will profit by his fall, neither he nor the devil.”

“So that’s how it is!” said the miller, staring nervously at the sky, in which the moon was shining with all its might. The heavens were clear; only one little cloudlet like a bit of black down was flying swiftly along between the moon and the wood that shrouded the river bank. It was a cloud, of course, but one thing about it seemed strange to the miller. Not a breath of wind was stirring, the leaves on the bushes were motionless as if in a trance, and yet the cloud was flying like a bird straight toward the city.

“Come here; let me show you something!” the miller called to the servant.

Kharko came out of the inn, and leaning against the door post, said calmly:

“Well, what is it? A fine thing you have found to show me! That’s a cloud, that is; let it alone!”

“Take another look at it! Is there any wind blowing?”

“Well, well, well! That _is_ funny!” said the servant, perplexed. “It’s making straight for the city, too.”

And both men scratched their heads and craned their necks.

The same humming sounds came to their ears through the window as before; the miller caught a glimpse of lugubrious yellow faces, closed eyes, and motionless lips. The little Jews were crying and wriggling, and once more the miller seemed to see an alien presence in them weeping and praying for something unknown, long lost, and already half forgotten.

“Well, I must be going home,” said the miller, collecting his wits. “And yet I wanted to pay Yankel a few copecks.”

“That’s all right. I can take them for him,” said the servant, without looking at the miller.

But the miller pretended not to have heard this last remark. The sum was not so small that he cared to intrust it to a servant, much less to a vagabond soldier. With a sum like that the fellow might easily kick up his heels, as the saying is, and run away, not only out of the village, but even out of the District. If he did that, look for the wind in the fields, you would find it sooner than Kharko!

“Good night!” said the miller at last.

“Good night! And I’ll take the money if you’ll give it to me!”

“Don’t bother; I can give it to him myself.”

“Do as you like. But if I took it you wouldn’t be bothered about it any more. Well, well, it’s time to close the inn. You’re the last dog that’ll be round to-night, I’ll be bound.”

The servant scratched his back on the door post, whistled not very agreeably after the miller, and bolted the door on which were depicted in white paint a quart measure, a wine-glass, and a tin mug. Meanwhile the miller descended the hill, and walked down the road in his long white overcoat, with his coal-black shadow running beside him as before.

But the miller was not thinking of his shadow now. His thoughts were of something far different.

II

The miller had not gone more than a hundred yards when he heard a rustling and fluttering that sounded like two large birds taking flight from behind the hedge. But it was not a pair of birds; it was only a lad and a lass, startled by the miller’s sudden appearance out of the darkness. The lad, it seemed, was not to be frightened. Creeping into the shadows so that the two white figures were barely visible under the cherry trees, he put his arm firmly around the girl, and continued his low-toned discourse. A few yards farther on the miller heard something that halted him with annoyance.

“Hey, you there! I don’t know what your name is----” he cried. “But you might wait until I had gone by to do your kissing. Your smacks can be heard all over the village.”

And he walked right up to the hedge.

“You cur you, what do you mean by poking your nose into other people’s affairs?” a lad answered out of the darkness. “Wait a minute, I’ll kiss you on the nose with my fist! I’ll teach you to interfere with people!”

“Come, come, never mind!” said the miller, stepping back. “One would think you were doing something important! You’re a bad lad, you are, to smack a girl like that; you make a man envious. Oh, what are people coming to!”

He stood still for a moment, thought a bit, scratched his head, and finally turned aside, threw his leg over the hedge, and crossed a field to a widow’s cottage that stood a little way back from the road in the shade of a tall poplar tree.

The khata was a tiny, lop-sided affair, crumbling and falling to pieces. Its one little window was so minute that it would have been almost invisible had the night been at all dark. But now the whole cottage was glowing in the moonlight; its straw roof was shining like gold, its walls seemed to be made of silver, and the little window was blinking like a dark eye.

No light shone behind it. Probably the old woman and her daughter had no fuel and nothing to cook for supper.

The miller paused a moment, then knocked twice at the window and went a few steps aside.

He had not long to wait before two plump girlish arms were wound tightly around his neck, and something glowed among his whiskers that felt very much like two lips pressed to his mouth. Hey ho, what more is there to tell! If you have ever been kissed like that you know yourself how it feels. If you haven’t, it’s no use trying to tell you.

“Oh, Philipko, my darling for whom I have longed!” crooned the girl. “You have come, you have come! And I have been waiting so wearily for you. I thought I should parch up with longing, like grass without water.”

“Eh hey, she hasn’t parched up, though, thank God!” thought the miller, as he pressed the girl’s not emaciated form to his breast. “Thank God, she is all right yet!”

“And when shall we have the wedding, Philip?” asked the girl with her hands still lying on Philip’s shoulders, while she devoured him with burning eyes as dark as an autumn night. “Saint Philip’s day will soon be here.”

This speech was less to the miller’s liking than the girl’s kisses.

“So that’s what she’s driving at!” thought he. “Ah, Philip, Philip, now you’re going to catch it!”

But he summoned all the courage he had, and, turning his eyes away, answered:

“What a hurry you’re in, Galya, I declare! Thinking about the wedding already, are you? How can we get married when I am a miller and may soon be the richest man in the village, and you are only a poor widow’s daughter?”

The girl staggered back at these words as if a snake had bitten her. She jumped away from Philip and laid her hand on her heart.

“But I thought--oh, my poor head--then why did you knock at the window, you wicked man?”

“Eh hey!” answered the miller. “You ask why I knocked. Why shouldn’t I knock when your mother owes me money? And then you come jumping out and begin to kiss me. What can I do? I know how to kiss as well as any man----”

And he stretched out his hand toward her again, but the moment he touched the girl’s body she started as if an insect had stung her.

“Get away!” she screamed, so angrily that the miller fell back a step. “I’m not a rouble bill that you can lay your hands on as if I belonged to you. If you come back again I’ll warm you up so that you’ll forget how to make love for three years.”

The miller was taken aback.

“What a little firebrand it is! Do you think I’m a Jew that you howl at me so hatefully?”

“If you’re not a Jew, then what are you? You charge half a rouble for every rouble you lend, and then you come to me for interest besides! Get away, I tell you, you horrid brute!”

“Well, my girl!” said the miller, nervously covering his face with his hand as if she had really hit him with her fist. “I see it’s no use for a sensible man to talk to you. Go and send your mother to me.”

But the old woman had already come out of the hut, and was making a low curtsey to the miller. Philip enjoyed this more than he had the words of the girl. He stuck his arms akimbo, and the head of his black shadow rubbed so hard against the wall that he wondered his hat didn’t come off.

“Do you know what I’ve come for, old woman?” he asked.

“Oh, how should I not know, poor wretch that I am! You have come for my money.”

“Ha, ha, not _your_ money, old woman!” the miller laughed. “I’m not a robber; I don’t come at night and take money that isn’t mine.”

“Yes, you _have_ come for money that isn’t yours!” retorted Galya, angrily falling upon the miller. “You _have_ come for it!”

“Crazy girl!” exclaimed the miller, stepping back. “Upon my word there isn’t another girl in the whole village as crazy as you are. And not in the village alone, in the whole District. Just think a minute what you have said! If it weren’t for your mother, who probably wouldn’t testify against you, I’d have you up in court before Christmas for cheating me. Come, think a little what you’re doing, girl!”

“Why need I think when I’m doing right?”

“How can it be right for the old woman to borrow money from me and not pay?”

“You lie! You lie like a dog! You came courting me when you were still a workman at the mill; you came to our khata and never said a word about wanting anything in return. And then, when your uncle died and you came to be a miller yourself, you collected the whole debt, and now even that won’t satisfy you!”

“And the flour?”

“Well, what about the flour? How much do you ask for it?”

“Sixty copecks a pood, not less! No one would let you have it cheaper than that, no, not if you threw your precious self in with it into the bargain.”

“And how much have you already collected from us?”

“Tut, tut, how she does talk! You’ve a tongue in your head as bad as Kharko’s, girl. I’ll answer that by asking you for the interest. Have you paid it?”

But Galya was silent. It is often that way with girls. They talk and talk and rattle along like a mill with all its stones grinding, and then they suddenly stop dead. You’d think they had run short of water. That’s how Galya did. She burst into a flood of bitter tears, and went away wiping her eyes on the wide sleeve of her blouse.

“There now!” said the miller, a little confused but satisfied in his heart. “That’s what comes of attacking people. If you hadn’t begun shouting at me there wouldn’t have been anything to cry for.”

“Hold your tongue! Hold your tongue, you foul creature!”

“Hold your own tongue, if that’s what you think!”

“Be quiet, be quiet, my honey!” the mother joined in, heaving a deep sigh. The old woman was evidently afraid of irritating the miller; it was clear she could not pay him now that her time was up.

“I won’t be quiet, mother, I won’t, I won’t!” answered the girl, as if all the wheels in her mill had begun turning again. “I won’t be quiet; and if you want to know, I’m going to scratch out his eyes so that he won’t dare to get me gossiped about for nothing, and come knocking at my window and kissing me! Tell me what you meant by knocking, or I’ll catch you by the top-knot without stopping to ask if you are a miller and a rich man or not. You never used to be proud like that; you came courting me yourself and pouring out tender words. But now you hold your nose so high that your hat won’t stay on your head!”

“Oi, honey, honey, do be quiet, my poor dear little orphan!” begged the old woman with another grievous sigh. “And you, Mr. Miller, don’t think ill of the poor silly girl. Young hearts and young wisdom are mates; they are like new beer in a ferment. They boil and foam, but if you will let them stand awhile they will grow sweet to a man’s taste.”

“What do I care?” answered the miller. “I don’t ask for either bitter or sweet from her, because you are not my equals, either of you. Give me the money, old woman, and I’ll never come near your khata again.”

“Okh, but we have no money! Wait a little; we will work for some, my daughter and I, and then we will pay you. Oh, misery me, Philipko, dearie, what a time I do have with you and with her! You know yourself I have loved you like a son; I never thought, I never guessed, you would cast my debts in my teeth and with the interest, too! Oh, if I could only get my daughter married! A good husband would be easy to find, but she won’t have any one. Ever since you have come courting the girl you seem to have cast a spell over her. ‘I’d rather be buried in the cold ground than marry any one else,’ she says. I was foolish ever to let you stay here until dawn. Oi, misery me!”

“But what can I do?” asked the miller. “You don’t understand these things, old woman. A rich man has many calls on his money. I pay the Jew what I owe him; now you must pay me.”

“Wait just one month!”

The miller rubbed his head and reflected. He felt a little sorry for the old woman, and Galya’s embroidered blouse was gleaming in the distance.

“Very well, then, only I’ll have to add thirty copecks to the debt for interest. You’d better pay at once.”

“What can I do? It’s my fate not to pay, I can see that.”

“All right, I’ll leave it at that. I’m not a Jew. I’m a decent sort of a fellow. Any one else would have charged you forty copecks at least, I know that for certain, and I’m only asking you twenty, and shall wait till St. Philip’s day for the money. But then you will have to look out. If you don’t pay, I’ll complain about you to the police.”

With these words he turned, bowed, and walked away across the pasture, without so much as a glance at the hut at whose door there shone for a long time a white embroidered blouse. It shone against the dark shade of the cherry trees like a little white star, and the miller could not see the black eyes weeping, the white arms stretched out toward him, the young breast sighing for his sake.

“Don’t cry, my honey; don’t cry, my sugar-plum!” the old woman soothed her child. “Don’t cry, it’s God’s will, my darling.”

“Okh, mother, mother, if only you had let me scratch out his eyes, perhaps I should feel better!”

III

After that adventure the miller’s thoughts became gloomier than ever.

“Somehow nothing ever goes right in this world,” he said to himself. “Unpleasant things are always happening, a man never knows why. For instance, that girl there drove me away. She called me a Jew. If I were a Jew and had as much money as I have and a business like mine, would I live as I do? Of course not! Look what my life is! I work in the mill myself; I don’t half sleep by night; I don’t half eat by day; I keep my eye on the water to see it doesn’t run out; I keep my eye on the stones to see they don’t come loose; I keep my eye on the shafts and the pinions and the cogs to see they run smoothly and don’t miss a stroke. Yes, and I keep my eye on that infernal workman of mine. How can one depend on a servant? If I turn my back for an instant the scoundrel runs off after the girls. Yes, a miller’s life is a dog’s life, it is! Of course, though, ever since my uncle--God rest his soul--fell into the mill-pond drunk, and the mill came to me, the money has been collecting in my pockets. But what’s the result? Don’t I have to tramp for hours after every single rouble I make, and get abused for it to my face, yes, to my very face? And how much do I get in the end? A trifle! A Christian never does get as much as a Jew. Now if only the devil would carry away that Jew Yankel I might be able to manage. The people wouldn’t go to any one but me then, whether they wanted flour or money for taxes. Oho! In that case I might even open a little inn, and then I could either get some one to run the mill for me, or else sell it. Bother the mill, say I! Somehow a man isn’t a man as long as he has to work. The fact is, one copeck begets another. Only fools don’t know that. If you buy yourself a pair of pigs, for instance--pigs are prolific animals--in a year you’ll have a herd of them, and money’s just the same. If you put it out to pasture among stupid folk you can sit still and yawn until the time comes to drive it home. Every copeck will have brought forth ten copecks, every rouble will have brought forth ten roubles.”

The miller had now reached the crest of a hill from where the road sloped gently to the river. From here, when the night breeze breathed into his face, he could faintly hear the sleepy water murmuring in the mill-race. Looking behind him, the miller could see the village sleeping among its gardens, and the widow’s little khata under its tall poplars. He stood plunged in thought for a few moments, scratching the back of his head.

“Ah, what a fool I am!” he said at last, resuming his journey. “If my uncle hadn’t taken it into his head to get drunk on gorelka and walk into the mill-pond I might have been married to Galya to-day, but now she’s beneath me. Okh, but that girl is sweet to kiss! Goodness, how sweet she is! That’s why I say that nothing ever goes right in this world. If that little face had a nice dowry behind it, if it had even as much as old Makogon is giving away with his Motria, there would be nothing more to be said!”

He cast one last look behind him, and turned on his way, when suddenly the stroke of a bell resounded from the village. Something seemed to have fallen from the church steeple that rose from a hill in the centre of the town, and to be flying, clanging and rocking, across the fields.

“Eh, hey, it is midnight on earth,” the miller mused, and with a great yawn he turned and walked rapidly down the hill, thinking of his flock as he went. He saw his roubles as if they had been alive, passing from hand to hand and from business to business, grazing and multiplying. He laughed to recall that some fools thought they worked for themselves. And when the time was ripe, he, the owner of the flock, would drive it and its increase back into his iron chest.

These thoughts were all pleasant ones, but the recollection of the Jew spoilt them again. The miller was provoked because that son of Israel had seized all the grazing for himself, leaving his poor roubles nowhere to feed and nothing to grow fat on, like a flock of sheep in a field where Jewish goats had already been pasturing. Every one knew they never could fatten there!

“Oh, I wish the devil would get him, the foul brute!” the miller said to himself, and he decided it was the thought of the Jew that depressed him so. That’s what was wrong with the world. Those infernal Jews prevented Christians from collecting their lawful profits.