They were hopeful, for they had earned thirty roubles by the end of the autumn. They paid their rent, bought a cask of pickled cabbage, five bushels of potatoes, a 'sukmana,'[9] boots, some aprons and homespun for the woman, and linen for shirts. Thus they could last till the spring, when they would be able to earn by threshing and weaving at other people's houses. All of a sudden the steward considered it excessive to give thirty kopeks for two cubic yards. It struck him that no one would be tempted to patter about in a swamp from daybreak to nightfall unless on the verge of starvation, and these people had undertaken it without hesitation. 'Twenty kopeks is enough,' he said, 'if not,--well, go without.' There was nothing to be earned at this time of year, and the manor house had enough of its own people to attend to the threshing and machinery;--it was no use being fastidious in the matter. After this announcement Walek went to the inn, and made a beast of himself. Next day he beat his wife, and dragged her out to work for him. From that time forward--beginning when it grew light--they dug out the four cubic yards, never stopping work from daybreak until night. And now, indeed, night was drawing on from afar. The distant light-blue woods were growing dark, and melting into grey gloom. The radiance on the waters was extinguished. Immense shadows from the red firs standing towards the north fell on the summits of the hills, and along the clearings. The tree trunks alone remained crimson here and there, and then the stones. Small, fugitive rays were reflected from these points of light, and, falling into the deep wastes created among objects by the half-darkness, were refracted, quivered for an instant, and went out in turn. The trees and bushes lost their convexity and brilliance, their natural colours mingled with the grey distance, and they appeared only as flat and completely black forms with weird contours. A thick mist was already gathering in the low-lying country, chilling the man through as he worked. The darkness was coming on in unseen waves, creeping along the slopes of the hills, gathering to itself the dreary colours of the stubble-fields, the water-courses, the clefts in the hills, and the rocks. As the waves of mist met, others--white, transparent, and scarcely visible--which rose from the marshes, crept along in streaks, winding in balls round the undergrowth, trembling and curling over the surface of the water. The cold, damp wind drove the mist along the bottom of the valley, till it was stretched out flat like a face on the canvas of a picture.