‘God rest her that I think on of an evening; now that were a wife, a proper housekeeper! Aye, a curmudgeon maybe, and a shrew, never a good word for anyone and always at loggerheads with the other women…but a wife and a housekeeper!’ And here he sighed piously in her memory, and even greater regret choked him as he remembered how things used to be…
He’d come back from work dog-tired. There’d always be a hearty meal, and time and time again she’d slip him some sausage, hidden from the children…And how everything flourished! There were calves, and goslings, and piglets…every fair there’d be plenty to take to town, and always cash to hand, put aside from livestock she raised…As for her cabbage-with-peas no one could match it….
Władysław Reymont, “The Peasants”, 1909
