The Collected Stories

paid four dollars and seventy cents for the trip and I tipped him thirty cents. The driver cast a murderous look at me. I barely had time to remove my valise before he started up and shot away with suicidal speed. No one came out to meet me. I heard a cow bellowing. As a rule, a cow bellows a few times and then becomes silent, but this cow bellowed without ceasing and in the tone of a creature which has fallen into an insufferable trap. I opened a door into a room with an iron stove, an unmade bed with dirty linen, a torn sofa. Against a peeling wall stood sacks of hay and feed. On the table were a few reddish eggs with hen’s dirt still stuck to them. From another room came a dark-skinned girl with a long nose, a fleshy mouth, and angry black eyes beneath thick brows. A faint black fuzz grew on her upper lip. Her hair was cut short. If she hadn’t been wearing a shabby skirt, I would have taken her for a man.
    “What do you want?” she asked me in a harsh voice.
    I showed her the advertisement. She gave a single glance at the newspaper and said, “My father is crazy. We don’t have any rooms and board, and not for this price either.”
    “What is the price?”
    “We don’t need any boarders. There is no one to cook for them.”
    “Why does the cow keep on screaming?” I asked.
    The girl appraised me from head to foot. “That is none of your business.”
    A woman entered who could have been fifty-five, sixty, or sixty-five years old. She was small, broad, one shoulder higher than the other, with a huge bosom which reached to her belly. She wore tattered men’s slippers, her head was wrapped in a kerchief. Below her uneven skirt I could see legs with varicose veins. Even though it was a hot summer day she had a torn sweater on. Her slanted eyes were those of a Tartar. She gazed at me with sly satisfaction as if my coming there was the result of a practical joke. “From the paper, huh, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Tell my husband to make a fool of himself instead of others. We don’t need boarders. We need them like a hole in the head.”
    “I told him the same thing,” the girl added.
    “I am sorry but I got here with a taxi and it has gone back to the village. Perhaps I could stay for one night?”
    “One night, huh? We have for you neither a bed nor linen. Nothing,” the woman said. “If you like, I will call you another taxi. My husband is not in his right mind and he does everything for spite. He dragged us out here. He wanted to be a farmer. There is no store or hotel here for miles and I don’t have the strength to cook for you. We ourselves eat out of tin cans.”
    The cow did not stop bellowing, and although the girl had just given me a nasty answer, I could not restrain myself and I asked, “What’s the matter with the cow?”
    The woman winked at the girl. “She needs a bull.”
    At that moment the farmer came in, as small and broad-boned as his wife, in patched overalls, a jacket which reminded me of Poland, and a cap pushed back on his head. His sunburned cheeks sprouted white stubble. His nose was veined. He had a loose double chin. He brought in with him the smells of cow dung, fresh milk from the udder, and newly dug earth. In one hand he held a spade and, in the other, a stick. His eyes under bushy brows were yellow. When he saw me he asked, “From the paper, huh?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why didn’t you call? I would have come with my horse and buggy to meet you.”
    “Sam, don’t make a fool of the young man,” his wife interrupted. “There’s no linen for him, no one to cook for him, and what are ten dollars a week? It would cost us more.”
    “This leave to me,” the farmer answered. “I have advertised, not you, and I am responsible. Young man”—he raised his voice—“I am the boss, not they. It’s my house, my ground. Everything you see here belongs to me. You should have written a card first or phoned, but since you are here, you are a welcome guest.”
    “I am sorry, but your wife and your daughter—”
    The farmer didn’t let me finish. “What they say is not worth more than the dirt under my nails.” He showed me a hand with muddy fingers. “I will clean up your room. I will make your bed, cook your food, and provide you with everything. If you receive mail I will bring it to you from the village. I go there every second or third day.”
    “Meanwhile, perhaps I can sleep here tonight? I’m tired from the trip and—”
    “Feel at home. They have