click here to see fragment from the 1955 movie
excerpt
As he arrived at Mill O'Luck on Easter Sunday, around breakfast time, together with Raut and Paun, another fellow of theirs, all three of them on horseback, Lica was rather cross at finding Ghita not alone, as they had agreed. Still he said nothing, just tossed in a corner a bag of tools that he had brought along."I couldn't rid myself of her!" spoke Ghita."You couldn't!? You've got to rid yourself," Lica answered harshly. "You mean to say I am to come or go as you please. I brought money, gold and silverware and I can't carry'em along with me. Have her go away.""How can I do that?""What do I care!? Make her and that's that. How? That's your business."To Ghita it seemed he could see again the waggon forsaken in the gutter with the dead child beside."God save you from people who have a soft spot for some woman!" Lica went on hotly."Soft spot I have not," spoke the innkeeper."So you've not!" said the swineherd again. "All right! Get it into that head of yours that we've got to get this over with once and for all. Never mind, I'll get it over with. It's all the better that she stayed. I've got this bad yearning inside of me today," he added as to himself and with his foot shoved the bag behind a crate that lay nearby.Having done this he went out through the pub, where Uta was leaning against the door frame, pinched her thigh so hard that it made her scream and went on towards Ana, who was sitting on the porch pondering what might be going on inside. "I'll wager," he said, "that before half an hour's over the gypsies will get here. They've got a nose keener than a hound. And then we'll fix up a day for ourselves the likes of which there hasn't been any. I've got an itching of the worst kind and you should know that I'm hard to quench when the itching takes me.""I'm in the mood, too," Ana answered rather loathingly.Lica slunk even closer to her and spoke in her ear, in jest seemingly:"I'll come up with some excuse for Ghita to go away and leave us alone."Ana's breath stopped. It was a joke, all right; but even as a joke it was pretty cheeky and touched her where she was most sensitive."Provided you can," she said, holding her head up and looking at him over her shoulder, as if she would add 'Mighty wrong you are if you reckon my husband cares so little about me.'"Now she's upset," he said, changing to a smile. "I went right to your heart, ain't I!? Well, if I didn't know how much he cares for his woman, long ago I'd've stolen her away from him."This too was a joke, but one more to Ana's liking.Lica's guess had been right. Before long the gypsies showed up and, just as people in Ineu were going into the church, at Mill O'Luck there broke out the most shameless and wanton of merrymakings.Ana refused to dance during the Divine Liturgy and was offended at seeing Uta even more brazen than usual; but Lica, impish out of his nature, put his arms around her and took her to dance against her will. She riveted her gaze on Ghita; he however, far from looking annoyed, pulled Uta away from Raut's arms and took to making merry himself, but as people do when seeking to spite another. But debauchery has a certain charm and Ana had slowly grown used and taken a secret fancy to it. For the merrymaking to be even jollier, after a while Lica took four bills out from his money belt, spat on them and then stuck one to each of the fiddlers' foreheads. "Now play till your strings snap asunder!" he shouted and then grabbed Ana again, who purposefully abandoned herself to his will and grew all the more naughty as Ghita seemed more unconcerned.And Ghita was brimming over with anger and only found comfort in the thought that it's a wretched man as has to watch his woman, and so was trying his best to be gay and show he is not such a man. Such was the merriment that the house seemed ready to rise with them into the air: Lica was dancing Ana so wildly that her feet barely touched the floor; Ghita and Raut had taken Uta between them, Paun and Marti were clapping their hands and shrieking their heads off, the gypsies were working the fiddlesticks for dear life, beaming contentedly and stealing leering glances at the bills stuck to their brows, while Ghita's dogs were lying on the threshold with their heads on their paws and staring dumbly at the goings on. Exhausted at least with his dancing, Lica sat down on the bench, seated Ana down on his knees and started, as if in jest, to kiss and squeeze her.Ghita could contain his wrath no longer and, feigning not to notice anything, went out on the porch to cool his head."Now let me be," spoke Ana choking, "lest he might take it amiss.""Can't you tell it's just what I want," answered Lica. "Let us tease him a bit. Hey, Ghita!" he called, "you'll let me have her, won't you, just this once, on Easter day?""Do what you please with her!" Ghita joked; but underneath the joke there oozed his blind, insatiable rage. Ana freed herself from Lica's arms and for a while the mirth died down around them, although Ana was only just beginning to get in the mood and felt like making merry for all she was worth. All this time Ghita was plotting with himself, pondering on how he could leave and make for Ineu without raising suspicion, track down Pintea and come back with him to Mill O'Luck and deliver Lica up to him.It was one hour past noon when Lica drew him aside and said:"It's settled: you make sure you go away somewhere and leave me here alone with her. You need not tell her aught: just be off, so she will find herself alone with me. I'll tell the others you went to sleep above the stables, so that no man other than us will guess a thing."Ghita had expected that; but now, with no time to weigh the matter over, he was struck dumb."It's gonna be hard this once," said Lica, "but from now on you're cured for good. You can see she's throwing herself to me willingly; women are like that."Ghita's eyes were bloodshot. On horseback he could sneak over to Ineu in two hours – two hours later, about the time it grows dark, he could be back to Mill O'Luck with Pintea."It's God's will!" he said to himself. "It was my lot."As he was thinking that he felt so assured that, despite all he had seen, he thought it beyond belief that Ana, his Ana, would yield alive to a man like Lica. "And if she yields, then it's for the better," he added. "Let her make up her mind once and for all; and so I'll know where I stand, for my life's cursed anyhow, if I fail now.""All right," he then said to Lica. "And when shall I come back?""'Morrow morning.""Mind this, though," Ghita added, "whatsoever you do, don't bring shame on me, make sure no man guesses aught.""That goes without saying; she wouldn't let me come close to her any other way," spoke Lica and walked away.Ghita stood for a while watching him go, then turned towards the stables with the eagerness of the man who, driven and blinded by one single thought, gambles his life to show he is not afraid to lose it. 1884
by Ioan Slavici (1848-1925)
