"Do ye remember," asked Lukash, "how the rooms were all bright from her presence? They would not have been brighter from a hundred burning candles. And she at one time stood up, at another sat down, and a third time she laughed. And when she looked at a man it was as warm in his bosom as if he had drunk heated wine that same instant. Let us take a glass now on our terrible sadness." They drank again; then Mateush struck a blow with his fist on the table, and shouted,-- "Ei! if she had not loved that Yatsek so!" "Then what?" asked Yan, angrily, "dost think that she would fall in love with thee right away? Look at him--my dandy!" "Well thou art no beauty!" retorted Mateush. And they looked at each other with ill-feeling. But Lukash, though given greatly to quarrels, began now to pacify his brothers. "Not for thee, not for thee, not for any of us," said he. "Another will get her and take her to the altar." "For us there is nothing but sorrow and weeping," blurted out Marek. "Then at least we will love one another. No one in this world loves us! No one!" "No one! no one!" repeated they all in succession, mingling their wine with their tears as they said so. "But she is sleeping up there!" added Yan on a sudden. "She is sleeping, the poor little thing," responded Lukash; "she is lying down like a flower cut by the scythe, like a lamb torn by a villainous wolf. My born brothers! is there no man here who will take even a pull at the wild beast?" "It cannot be but there is!" cried out Mateush, Marek, and Yan. And again they grew indignant, and the more they drank the oftener they gritted their teeth, first one, then another, or one of them struck his fist on the table. "I have an idea!" said the youngest on a sudden. "Tell it! Have God in thy heart!" "Here it is. We have promised Pan Serafin not to cut up that 'stump.' Have we not promised?" "We have, but tell what thou hast to say; ask no questions." "Though we have promised we must take revenge for our young lady. Old Krepetski will come here, as they said, to see if Pan Serafin will not give back the young lady. But we know that he will not give her, do we not?" "He will not! he will not!" "But think ye not this way: Martsian will hurry to meet his father on the road back, to see and inquire if he has succeeded." "As God is in heaven, he will do so." "On the road, half-way between Belchantska and Yedlinka, is a tar pit near the roadside. If we should wait at that tar pit for Martsian--?" "Well, but what for?" "Psh! quiet!" "Psh!" And they began to look around through the room, though they knew that save themselves there was not a living soul in it, and then they whispered. They whispered long, now louder, now lower. At last their faces grew radiant, they finished their wine at one draught, embraced one another, and in silence went out of the room one after the other, in goose fashion.