“Well, then, go beyond the meadow”, said Joseph’s father with forced humility, not wishing that they should observe how impotent his commands had already become in presence of his son.
And so the harvesters went away to work in accordance with the young hospodar’s orders. After this old Loyka said to the servants, “You will stay at home and make straw-bands.”
“There is time enough for making straw-bands”, said Joseph. “Just go after the harvesters and help them in the field.”
Here again the servants did not know whether they had to stop in the court-yard or go off to the field. They looked from Joseph to old Loyka. And Joseph, perceiving their indecision, said, “Why do you hesitate? He that does not go to the field, let him look out for his place.”
After this the servants departed.
“And who will make straw-bands?” asked old Loyka.
“Seeing that there is no great hurry,” said Joseph, “I think that you alone might manage to make them.”
“Be it so, be it so”, said old Loyka with a laugh. “And I have to make straw-bands? I have to be like a day-labourer?”
“Like a day-labourer? Surely you know that we all buckle to at harvest time?” said Joseph.
“Just so. But how, pray? Am not I then still hospodar? Don’t you know, my dear son, that I never did such menial offices?”
“If you are not willing to work, good. It is easy to see that you are but a half-hearted hospodar when you shirk in this manner.”
“It is the duty of a hospodar to act as overseer; others can do manual work”, explained old Loyka.
“As for being overseer, that am I”, said Joseph.
“And I am like the fifth wheel on a carriage”, exclaimed Loyka angrily. But Joseph, just as if no words had passed between them, had already departed and left his father with a swarm of thoughts, so that he seemed to have his head full of drones and wasps. After this the father looked to heaven, and cried aloud in an explosion of bitterness, “Lord God! grant me some inspiration that I may make this cruel son aware that I am his father.”
“Drop a little ratsbane into his well”, murmured the voice of the irrepressible Vena. “Unless you do so, he will soon close it against you as you closed it against your father, and then you will never have another chance of poisoning it for him, pantata.”
