Slimak

“ Slimak groaned, but came out on to the threshing-floor. His face was bloated, he looked ashamed of himself, and his hair was full of straw.
'Just look at him,' jeered his wife: 'his sukmana is dirty and wet, he hasn't taken off his boots all night, and he scowls like a brigand. You are more fit for a scarecrow in a flaxfield than for talking to the squire. ”

“ Slimak looked towards the village. The cottage-doors were closed, no one was astir, and even if he had shouted aloud, 'Look, gospodarze, the Germans are here!' no one would have been alarmed.
The string of noisy people now began to file past Slimak's cottage. The tired horses were walking slowly, the cows could scarcely lift their feet, the pigs squeaked and stumbled. ”

“ Not only that the sparrows noisily criticized his work, and the chestnuts scornfully whisked their tails under his nose, but the harrows also objected, and resisted at every little stone or clod of earth. The tired horses continually stumbled, and when Slimak cried 'Woa, my lads!' and they went on, the harrows again resisted and pulled them back. When the worried harrows moved on for a bit, stones got into the horses' feet or under his own shoes, or choked up, and even broke the teeth of the harrows. Even the ungrateful earth offered resistance. ”

“ Slimak winced at the word 'farm-labourer', but he said nothing.
'And your gospodarze,' concluded Hamer, 'are brutes. They will do nothing for you.'
Before sunset a sledge conveyed the unconscious woman to the settlement. Slimak remained, recovered his money from under the manure, collected a few possessions and milked the cows. ”

“ He bit off a mouthful, but could not swallow it and burst into tears.
'Good gracious, Stasiek, what's the matter? Are you frightened?'
'No.'
'Then why are you so queer?'
'It hurts me here,' he said, pointing to his chest.
Slimak, who was depressed himself, thinking of his harvest, drew him to his knee, saying: 'Don't worry! God may destroy our crop, but we won't starve all the same. He is the smallest, and yet he has more sense than the others,' he said, turning to his wife; 'he's worrying about the gospodarstwo.'
Gradually, as the storm abated, the roar of the river struck them afresh. ”

“ Until sunset a man can go on harrowing, but after sunset it is no good trying to do anything more. So he patted the cow instead of leading her about. She seemed to understand the situation, for she turned her head towards him and touched his hand with her wet mouth. Slimak was so overcome with emotion that he very nearly kissed her, as if she were a human being. ”

“ Slimak sometimes dreamt that he would build a place like that, only with a different roof. Then he would jump up, because he felt he ought to go somewhere and do work, for he was bored and ashamed of idling; at times he would long for the manor-fields over which he had guided the plough, where the settlement now stood. Then a great fear would seize him that he would be powerless when the Germans, who had felled forests, shattered rocks and driven away the squire, should start on him in earnest. ”

“ Maciek could not wonder enough at the changes wrought in men by vodka. Here was the Soltys, known in the whole parish as a hard man, crying like a child, and Slimak shouting like the bailiff and disobeying his wife. ”

“ I will neither help them to stay here nor do myself harm for their benefit; when a man leaves the land of his fathers...'
'There will be trouble,' the schoolmaster said earnestly.
'Then let there be; I won't die because it pleases them.'
Slimak returned home without any further wish to see Hamer; he knew there could be no understanding between them.
Maciek had discovered at dawn one morning that a crowd had reached the river-bank by the ravines, and Slimak, hurrying thither, found some gospodarze from the village among the men. ”

“ Slimakowa looked him up and down, gave him a bowl of barszcz and another of potatoes, and told him to wash in the river. When her husband came home in the evening Maciek was introduced to him as the farm-hand who had already chopped wood and fed the cattle.
Slimak listened in silence. As he was tenderhearted he said, after a pause:
'Well, stay with us, good man. It will be better for us and better for you. And if ever—God grant that may not happen—there should be no bread in the cottage at all, then you will be no worse off than you are to-day. ”

“ Our peasants are all muscle and stomach; they leave reason and energy to their wives. Slimak is one of the most intelligent, yet I will bet you anything that I can immediately give you a proof of his being a donkey. Josef,' he said, turning to Slimak, 'your wife told you to drive a good bargain?'
'Certainly, sir, what is true is true.'
'Do you know what Lukasiak pays me yearly?'
'They say ten roubles.'
'Then you ought to pay twenty roubles for the two acres.'
'If you will be lenient, sir,' began Slimak.
'... and let me off three roubles,' completed the squire. Slimak looked confused. ”

“ The schoolmaster came up behind him, walking heavily.
'Did you come to see how we teach our children?' he asked, smilingly.
'Nothing of the kind,' said Slimak; 'I've come to tell Hamer that he is a scoundrel.' He related his experience.
'What have I done?' he asked. 'Soon I may not be able to earn anything; is one to starve because it pleases them?'
'The truth is,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you are a thorn in their flesh.'
'Why?'
'Your land is right in the middle of Hamer's fields and that spoils his farm, but that is not the reason as much as your hill; he wants it for a windmill. ”

“ Even Maciek burst into tears. Slimak hid his face in his sukmana like a
Roman senator and would not let his grief be looked upon.
And a voice in his heart whispered: 'Father! father! if you had made a fence, your child would not have been drowned!'
But he answered: 'I am not guilty; he died because his hour had come.'
CHAPTER IX Autumn came with drab, melancholy stubble fields; the bushes in the ravines turned red; the storks hastily left the barns and flew south; in the few woods that remained, the birds were silent, human beings had deserted the fields ”

“ We are a whole community settling together; it would take a long time to make other arrangements. My son Wilhelm does not like farming, and unless I buy him a windmill he will starve or go away from me. I am an old man, sell me your land! Listen,' he whispered, 'I will give you seventy-five roubles an acre. God is my witness, I am offering you more than the land is worth. But you will let me have it, won't you? You are an honest man and a Christian.'
Slimak looked with astonishment and pity at the old man, from whose inflamed eyes the tears were pouring down. ”

“ It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski." [1] He is the devil's own son, for ever and ever. Amen.'
[Footnote 1: The ending ski denotes nobility.]
She would fall into a furrow and sleep until sundown, though she was paid for a full day's work. As she had a sharp tongue, Slimak had no wish to offend her. When he haggled about the money, she would kiss his hand and say: 'Why should you fall out with me, sir? Sell one chicken more and you'll be all right.'
'Cheek always pays!' thought Maciek. ”

“ Nothing can be more interesting than to watch the slime-mould as its plasmodium accomplishes this its last migration. If hitherto its habitat has been the soft interior of a rotten log, it now begins to ooze out in all directions, to well up through the crevices of the bark as if pushed by some energy acting in the rear, to stream down upon the ground, to flow in a hundred tiny streams over all the region round about, to climb all stems, ascend all branches, to the height of many inches, all to pass suddenly as if by magic charm into one widespread, dusty field of flying spores. ”

“ The possession of walls is an indication of some maturity. In the slime-mould the assumption of walls is indeed delayed. Walls at length appear and when they do come they are like those of the lily; they are cellulose. The myxomycetes may be regarded as a section of the organic world in which the forces of heredity are at a maximum whatever those forces may be. Slime-moulds have in smallest degree responded to the stimulus of environment. They have, it is true, escaped the sea, the fresh waters in part, and become adapted to habitation on dry land, but nothing more. ”

“ Beneath me was a limitless tract of grey slime which rose and fell torpidly as with the breathing of a somnolent subterranean thing. The moonlight burned brightly on it, and crawling across it from some remote place came—trees?—snaky-rooted things whose prehensile branches bore, instead of leaves, flexible lenses.... They left behind them red trails on the slime, and excrementory ribbons of thin blue vapor streamed from their topmost appendages. Occasionally they paused to feed, focussing their lenses upon the gelatinous ground, which became luminously white under the concentrated light. ”

“ The ground was very unstable all about us. I could feel slow waves rolling sluggishly under my feet, caused by my own and my companions’ footsteps on the thin carpet of vegetable matter covering the morass. When I tested the patch I found it to be slime. Correction southerly, all southerly now, to edge away from the wood. The areas of slime increased in number, multiplied, flowed together. The third I came to seemed to offer some resistance to the probing staff at first, then the pole went in as into water. I lost my balance. My left foot swung forward, to find another hold. ”

“ Grim is never weary of rubbing against the soft, muddy peat.
Half-decayed remains of dead stalks form a network all over the great cushion at the bottom, and fresh remains of cell-tissue and organic things just dead are always on their way down. But from the depth new life rises once more; the sun is ever setting free tiny, green, mossy balls of slime that lie moored, as it were, to a single fine umbilical cord, and twirl and sway down on the bottom. All at once the cord breaks, and they rise through the water in a cluster like bubbles, and expand into large, fringed umbels. ”

“ What we dreaded more were the sluggish streams, through which we must wade waist deep in black, foul-smelling slush or half-acres of nauseating green slime, cesspools that seemed designed to harbor poisonous snakes. Once we despaired for a time of continuing our way. We had been halted by a stagnant rivulet more than a furlong wide, too deep to be waded, too thickly covered with stewing slime to be swum. ”

“ Noon found them still searching for some pocket of stale rain-water; but once only did they discover the slightest trace of moisture—a crust of slime in a rocky basin, and from it a blind lizard was slowly creeping—a heavy, lustreless, crippled thing that toiled aimlessly and painfully up the rock, only to slide back into the slime again, leaving a trail of iridescent moisture where its sagging belly dragged.
In a grove of saplings there were a few ferns; and here McKay dug with his trench knife; but the soil proved to be very shallow; everywhere rock lay close to the surface ”

“ Clouds of dense yellow fog belched from countless projectors in the hands of the bluish-gray hosts, and beneath that deadly miasma all animal and plant life on the doomed planet was crumbling, dying, and rotting into a liquid slime. Then even the slime was swiftly obliterated, and the Xoranians were left triumphant upon a world starkly desolate. ”

“ The banks of the river are shining slime giving off fetid exhalations under the burning sun; there is a general smell of vegetable decomposition, and miasma fever (one would suppose) is exhaling from every bubble of the teeming slime and swamp.
In the veranda of Mr. Hawley's house a number of forlorn-looking Rajahs are sitting, each with his forlorn-looking train of followers, and in front of the police station a number of forlorn-looking Malays are sitting motionless hour after hour. ”

“ The process is probably identical with that seen in Limax, but the thread, instead of preventing the animal's fall, prevents its sudden rise to the surface. The animal, gradually raising the anterior part of its foot from the bottom on which it is travelling, crawls upwards through the water upon its slime, which, left behind in the form of a thread, retains the animal as it slowly ascends to the surface, to which, or to the slime-film now deposited there, the thread is fixed; subsequently, crawling down the thread thus fixed, the creature uses it as a means of descent to its former position. ”

“ For, according to them, the deposits of glistening gray slime had been left by the tides not only along the Atlantic coast but along the Pacific also, and not only along American shores but upon those of Europe and Asia and Africa, upon all the shores of all earth's seas, in fact. Upon the jungle-bordered beaches of the Philippines, and the cold gray Norwegian shores, and the shelving sands of the Chilean coast, and the rocky cliffs of England, the retreating tides had left the same thick coatings of jelly-like, living slime. ”

“ Before one's view there stretches away what appears to be a verdant meadow, dead level, and clad in rich green grass. Walk out on it, and you find it is bog, soft as pulp—millions of flat-topped, quivering tussocks, each separated by narrow intervals of squashy slime, knee-deep if you are lucky; the tussocks afford no foothold, the slime no stability—you cannot stand still, yet hardly dare advance. Before you, behind you, to the right and left, rise snipe in scores—in clouds: the air resounds with petulant, tantalizing cries. ”