Slimak, silently acknowledging the justice of the remark, took a thick comb from behind the looking-glass and smoothed his hair till it looked like polished glass, then he applied the soap to his neck so energetically that his fingers left large, dark streaks. 'Where is Grochowski?' he asked in a more cheerful voice, for the cold water had added to his good temper. 'He has gone.' 'What about the money?' 'I paid him, but he wouldn't take the thirty-three roubles; he said that Jesus Christ had lived in this world for thirty-three years, so it would not be right for him to take as much as that for the cow.' 'Very proper,' Slimak agreed, wishing to impress her with his theological knowledge, but she turned to the stove and took off a pot of hot barley soup. Offering it to him with an air of indifference: 'Don't talk so much,' she said. 'Put something hot inside you and go to the manor-house. But just try and bargain as you did with the Soltys and I shall have something to say to you.' He sat humbly, eating his soup, and his wife took some money from the chest. 'Take these ten roubles,' she said, 'give them to the squire himself and promise to bring the rest to-morrow. But mind what he asks for the field, and kiss his hands, and embrace his and the lady's feet so that he may let you off at least three roubles. Will you remember?' 'Why shouldn't I remember?' He was obviously repeating his wife's admonitions, for he suddenly stopped eating and tapped the table rhythmically with the spoon. 'Well, then, don't sit there and think, but put on your sukmana and go. And take the boys with you.' 'What for?' 'What for? They are to support you when you ask the squire, and Jendrek will tell me how you have bargained. Now do you know what for?' 'Women are a pest!' growled Slimak, when she had unfolded her carefully laid plans. 'Curse her, how she lords it over me! You can see that her father was a bailiff.' He struggled into his sukmana, which was brand new and beautifully embroidered at the collar and pockets with coloured thread; put on a broad leather belt, tied the ten roubles up in a rag and slipped them into his sukmana. The children had long been ready, and at last they started. They had no sooner gone than loneliness began to fill Slimakowa's heart. She went outside the gate and watched them; her husband, with his hands in his pockets, was strolling along the road, Jendrek on his right and Stasiek on his left. Presently Jendrek boxed Stasiek's ears and as a result he was walking on the left and Stasiek on the right. Then Slimak boxed both their ears, after which they were both walking on the left, Jendrek in the ditch, so that he could threaten his brother with his fist. 'Bless them, they always find some nice amusement for themselves,' she whispered, smiling, and went back to put on the dinner. Having settled the misunderstanding between his sons, Slimak sang softly to himself: