What sort of woman is she?"

"Small and dark. Plump."

"I like plump women myself," Kracha admitted.

"Her belly is Hke a pillow, I give you my word. And what breasts!"

Kracha pulled at his mustache. "On the boat coming over I met a dark girl. From Zemplinska."

"Married?"

Kracha sighed. "Yes. This is between ourselves, you understand."

Dubik nodded.

"I would have given every penny I had for half an hour alone with her." Kracha hesitated. "As a matter of fact — "

"Well, go on."

"She had a birthday coming over. To celebrate I bought some whisky and a bottle of wine. Well, the money I spent for all this, you understand, this money was the money that — well, to be brief it was the money — "

"That was to have paid for your railroad ticket here."

Kracha let out a deep sigh. "Yes."

"And your pocket was no more picked than mine."

"Good God, would you have had me tell Francka the truth?"

Dubik laughed.

"The devil of it was," Kracha said ruefully, "I got nothing for my money."

"Nothing? Not even a kiss?"

"I slid my hand under her dress and she almost knocked me down."

''Jezis! Did she think you were spending money on her because you liked the color of her eyes ? She owes you a debt and if you ever meet her again make her pay. With interest."

"She is in Pittsburgh now."

"You were too easy with her."

"Well, it*s all over and done with now. But keep it to yourself. If Francka ever found out . . ." He shuddered.

His secret was safe with Dubik. Chance had made them buddies, sharing the same room, the same bed; time made them good friends. They never had to learn about each other, feeling their way; as Kracha once said, they spoke the same language. They had honestly liked each other almost from the hour they met. In build and coloring they were much alike, with Dubik a shade the taller and thinner. They were the same age, twenty-one, but Kracha always thought of Dubik as younger than himself, as an extremely likable younger brother who was too gay, too trusting, too careless of the future for

his own good. His exuberant joy in living, in things he could see and feel and taste and do, endowed him with a sort of eternal youth. He had a sweetheart in the old country to whom he wrote regularly.

4

I

N MARCH Kracha got word from the old country that Elena had borne a son. He weighed six pounds at birth and was christened Djuro, after his father. Kracha drank his first-born's health. In April a letter came: his son had died of a fever. "God be good to him," said Kracha. "I've had a son and lost him without ever laying an eye on him."

As the year advanced the priest who wrote their letters for Elena and her mother-in-law began ending them with suggestions that Kracha send for his wife as soon as possible. Her health had not been of the best since the birth of her child and it might do her more good than medicine to be with her husband again. He reminded Kracha that no house — and this particular house was a peasant's one-room hut with the naked earth for a floor — was big enough for a wife and her mother-in-law.