He went on lamenting for some time, examined the cow, tried to make her stand up, and looked into her mouth. She was breathing heavily, with a rattle in her throat. Her blood had quite ceased to flow and formed hard, black clots like cinders. “What’s to be done? She must be killed: I’ll save at least as much as that will bring us.” Thus making up his mind, he went into the barn for a scythe. After sharpening it with a few turns of a grindstone that stood under the eaves of the cow-house, he pulled off his coat, tucked up his shirt-sleeves, and set about his grim task. Hanka and Yuzka began to weep as Red-and-White, as though feeling death close at hand, raised her heavy head and, moaning faintly, fell flat, with her throat cut. Her legs jerked convulsively once or twice. The dog lapped the blood, which was already beginning to clot. Antek, who had just arrived, angrily addressed his weeping wife: “What have you to weep over, foolish one? Father’s cow is father’s loss, not ours!” And he set to unharnessing the horses, which Vitek took to the stable. “Is the potato crop good?” Boryna inquired as he was washing his hands by the well. “Why shouldn’t it be good? Twenty sacks or thereabouts,” was the reply. “They must be brought in this very day.” “Bring them in yourself, then,” said Antek. “I am dead tired and ready to drop. The off-horse, too, is lame in one foreleg.” “Yuzka, go and tell Kuba to stop digging. Let him put the young mare to instead of the off-horse, and bring the potatoes home to-day. It may rain.” Boryna was boiling over with anger and mortification. Every now and then he went to gaze at the slaughtered cow and swore outrageously. Then he strode across the yard, looked into the byre, the barn, and all the sheds, being so confused by his loss that he did not know what he was doing. “Vitek! Vitek!” he roared at length, unfastening the broad leather girdle round his waist. But Vitek did not answer his call. All the neighbours had disappeared, feeling that such sorrow for so great a loss was likely to end in blows, and Boryna was at no time indisposed for a fight. To-day, however, he did nothing but curse and swear. Going toward the hut, he cried through the open window: “Hanka, give me something to eat!” and passed in to his own quarters. The hut was the usual peasants’ cabin, divided into two parts by a very wide passageway. The back looked out upon the yard; the four front windows, upon the orchard and the road. Boryna and his daughter, Yuzka, occupied the side next the garden; Antek and his family lived on the other side; while the herdsman and the labourer slept in the stable.