Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/240

216 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."