Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/236

212 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."