direction of the fire, he didn’t hear the shouts or the howling and moaning, he was just bending over his plow and plowing. I didn’t know which world to believe in, this one or the next. Truth be told, I didn’t really feel much like coming back to this world. But the next one just seemed like a continuation of this one. Till I felt that I was lying soaked in blood, and that the lark above me was a lark from earth. Though I wasn’t glad about it at all. It felt like I’d died in the next world and I’d come to this one to live.
I figured it’d be almost fall before I got out of the hospital, maybe I’d be home after the potato lifting. Because I wasn’t in any kind of a hurry. For what? I was just a bit worried about Michał. But they told me he was getting by more or less. One day this person would bring him something to eat, another day someone else. The people from the farmers’ circle were supposed to take in the harvest for me, or if not them, the neighbors. As for the potatoes and the beets, someone would agree to do them in return for a third of the harvest, that was what I was offering.
Except that one day the doctor came. He told me to get out of bed and walk up and down across the ward, with sticks and without. He said he ought to keep me in till the fall, but he knew, he knew I’d want to be getting home for the harvest. So they discharged me, I just had to come back for checkups. I was going to tell him there wasn’t anything I particularly had to rush back for, that the farmers’ circle would take in my harvest for me and if not the neighbors would do it, like they’d done the previous two years. It wasn’t as if I was about to pick up a scythe myself from the get-go. When you’re working with a scythe your legs need to be as healthy as your arms. Mowers even say that with proper mowing, you use your legs and your back, that all your arms do is swing back and forth. But I didn’t say anything. I thought, you’ve been through umpteen harvests and now all of a sudden you’re going to try and get out of one, and here in front of a doctor. There were plenty of men on the ward who dreamed of getting out for the harvest, at least one last onebefore they died. Just to touch the spikes of wheat with their living hand, maybe see the mowing one last time, take a look at the fields, breathe in the earth. For a good many of them it’d be easier to leave for the next world if they knew there were harvests waiting for them there too. It’s common knowledge, a person lives by the earth, so they ought to be drawn to the harvest like a dog to a bitch.
And so I came home. And right away on the third day I headed out for the cemetery to take a look around. I took a tape measure, a pencil, and a piece of paper, because I wanted to measure some of the graves to see what would be best for me.
Our cemetery is just outside the village. You pass the last houses, hang a left, and walk uphill a bit. When they’re taking a dead person in his casket from one of the houses you can make it all the way with three changes of bearers, four at the most. Even from the farthest places, from the mill or by the school. I’ve been a bearer many a time, always at the head. The head is a lot heavier than the legs, because from the stomach up you’ve got the back and the shoulders and the head, while what is there to carry at the legs, just thighs and shins and ten toes. But I could’ve gone the whole way without being spelled, except it wouldn’t be right not to have a change of bearers. And that’s probably what made me think the cemetery was close. Besides, I’d forgotten that my legs weren’t the same legs they used to be, and every step was like a hundred steps before.
I looked to see if there wasn’t someone driving that could give me a ride part of the way. But I’d picked the wrong time – it was noon, everyone was in the fields. My hands went numb from the walking sticks, the uphill part at the end was the
I figured it’d be almost fall before I got out of the hospital, maybe I’d be home after the potato lifting. Because I wasn’t in any kind of a hurry. For what? I was just a bit worried about Michał. But they told me he was getting by more or less. One day this person would bring him something to eat, another day someone else. The people from the farmers’ circle were supposed to take in the harvest for me, or if not them, the neighbors. As for the potatoes and the beets, someone would agree to do them in return for a third of the harvest, that was what I was offering.
Except that one day the doctor came. He told me to get out of bed and walk up and down across the ward, with sticks and without. He said he ought to keep me in till the fall, but he knew, he knew I’d want to be getting home for the harvest. So they discharged me, I just had to come back for checkups. I was going to tell him there wasn’t anything I particularly had to rush back for, that the farmers’ circle would take in my harvest for me and if not the neighbors would do it, like they’d done the previous two years. It wasn’t as if I was about to pick up a scythe myself from the get-go. When you’re working with a scythe your legs need to be as healthy as your arms. Mowers even say that with proper mowing, you use your legs and your back, that all your arms do is swing back and forth. But I didn’t say anything. I thought, you’ve been through umpteen harvests and now all of a sudden you’re going to try and get out of one, and here in front of a doctor. There were plenty of men on the ward who dreamed of getting out for the harvest, at least one last onebefore they died. Just to touch the spikes of wheat with their living hand, maybe see the mowing one last time, take a look at the fields, breathe in the earth. For a good many of them it’d be easier to leave for the next world if they knew there were harvests waiting for them there too. It’s common knowledge, a person lives by the earth, so they ought to be drawn to the harvest like a dog to a bitch.
And so I came home. And right away on the third day I headed out for the cemetery to take a look around. I took a tape measure, a pencil, and a piece of paper, because I wanted to measure some of the graves to see what would be best for me.
Our cemetery is just outside the village. You pass the last houses, hang a left, and walk uphill a bit. When they’re taking a dead person in his casket from one of the houses you can make it all the way with three changes of bearers, four at the most. Even from the farthest places, from the mill or by the school. I’ve been a bearer many a time, always at the head. The head is a lot heavier than the legs, because from the stomach up you’ve got the back and the shoulders and the head, while what is there to carry at the legs, just thighs and shins and ten toes. But I could’ve gone the whole way without being spelled, except it wouldn’t be right not to have a change of bearers. And that’s probably what made me think the cemetery was close. Besides, I’d forgotten that my legs weren’t the same legs they used to be, and every step was like a hundred steps before.
I looked to see if there wasn’t someone driving that could give me a ride part of the way. But I’d picked the wrong time – it was noon, everyone was in the fields. My hands went numb from the walking sticks, the uphill part at the end was the
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