The innkeeper was sleeping most soundly behind the counter; on the candle-wicks mushrooms had grown; the man at the organ ceased to play, for what he saw amused him. Then there was silence, which was broken by the sudden plashing of horses’ feet before the door, and a voice calling to the horses,— “Prrr!” Voytek Margula walked into the inn with a lighted lantern in his hand. He put down the lantern, began to slap his arms to warm them, and at last said to the innkeeper,— “Give half a quarter.” “Margula, thou chestnut,” cried Kulik, “thou wilt take the little girl to Leschyntsi.” “I’ll take her, for they told me to take her,” replied Margula. Then looking closely to the two women he added,— “But ye are as drunk as—” “May the plague choke thee,” retorted Kulik. “When I tell thee to be careful with the child, be careful. She is an orphan. Knowest thou, fool, who is above her?” Voytek did not see fit to answer that question, but determined evidently to raise another subject, and began,— “To all of you—” But he didn’t finish, for he drank the vodka, made a wry face, and putting down the glass with dissatisfaction, said,— “That’s pure water. Give me a second from another bottle.” The innkeeper poured from another. Margula twisted his face still more: “Ai! haven’t you arrack?” Evidently the same danger threatened Margula that threatened the women; but at that very time, in the mansion at Lupiskory, the landowner was preparing for one of the journals a long and exhaustive article, “On the right of landowners to sell liquor, this right being considered as the basis of society.” But Voytek co-operated only involuntarily to strengthen the basis of society, and that all the more because the sale here, though in a village, was really by the landowner. When he had co-operated five times in succession he forgot, it is true, his lantern, in which the light had gone out, but he took the half-sleeping little girl by the hand, and said,— “But come on, thou nightmare!” The women had fallen asleep in a corner, no one bade farewell to Marysia. The whole story was this: Her mother was in the graveyard and she was going to Leschyntsi. Voytek and the girl went out, sat in the sleigh. Voytek cried to the horses, and they moved on. At first the sleigh dragged heavily enough through the slush of the town, but they came out very soon to fields which were broad and white. Movement was easy then; the snow barely made a noise under the sleigh-runners. The horses snorted at times, at times came the barking of dogs from a distance.