Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
to throw the mire into his own wheelbarrow shovelful after shovelful.
He worked swiftly, furiously, a shovelful with every breath. When
he had filled the barrow he dragged it off, running at a trot and saying
as he went:
"You bring yours along too, lazybones!"
She understood this gracious concession to her love, this brutal
bounty, this rough, harsh kind of caress, for if they both were to dig
out the earth the work could be finished much sooner. Now she imitated
his swift and precipitate movements, like a monkey j she threw up the
mud four times as quickly—now no longer with her muscles, and not
with the peasant's prudent economy of effort, but with the strength of
her nerves. There was a rattle in her throat, dazzling colours flickered
beneath her eyelids, she had a nausea in her chest, and tears, bitter,
heavy tears of senseless grief fell from her eyes into the cold and evilsmelling
mire. With every thrust of her spade into the earth she
glanced to see how far it was to the stake $ when her load was ready
she seized the barrow handles and ran off at full speed in imitation of
her husband.
The mists climbed high, trailed to the reeds, and stood above the
summits of the alders in an immobile wall. Through them one could
distinguish the trees like patches of indefinite colour and extravagantly
gigantic forms, and the miserable wretches running across the hollow,
like enormous, monstrous apparitions.
Their heads sank to their chests, their arms executed their movements
mechanically, their bodies cowered to the ground.
The wheels of the wheelbarrow rattled and groaned; waves like
milk diluted with water undulated between the sombre downs.
In the depth of heaven the evening star was kindled: it glowed
tremblingly and pressed its meagre little light through the gloom.
Stefan Zeromski, the author of this story, was born in Russian Poland
in 1864 and died in 1925. Educated at Warsaw University he turned to
private teaching as a profession, travelling all through Poland in the course
of his work. He began writing in 1890 with contributions to the Press, but
he soon adopted the form of the novel, which remained his chief medium of
expression. Zeromski's Harbingers of Spring, published in 1925, aroused the
whole Polish nation by its daring treatment of post-war Poland. Possessed of
a fine literary appreciation, he was the first to introduce Conrad to Conrad's
kinsmen by birth. Conrad was himself a great admirer of Zeromski's work,
and there is a striking affinity between the literary styles of the two writers.
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