“Keep your tresses, do; they will serve Boryna, when he beats you. He’ll twist them round his hand, and so use his stick better upon you. And then you will cut them off by yourself.... I knew a woman....” But here she broke off. Vitek had come to call her. She was staying with Boryna since Antek’s expulsion, Yuzka proving too young for a housekeeper. Now helping Eva in the cooking, she would once in a while run round to the house to see to things there, as the old man’s brain was topsyturvy that day. Ever since morning, Yuzka had been at the blacksmith’s, smartening herself; and Kuba lay continually ill in bed. The lad had come in a hurry. “Kuba wants you sorely: pray come this instant.” “Off at once!—Good friends, I shall just see what it is, and be back here directly.” “Hurry, Yagna; we are expecting the bridesmaids,” said Dominikova warningly. But she made no haste at all, seemingly in a drowsy fit.... Her work fell from her fingers, and she would stand sometimes gazing vacantly out of window. Her soul was as though turned to water within her—water that flowed hither and thither, and now and again splashed and broke on some rock of memory. In the cottage, the hubbub was ever increasing, with the constant arrival of many a dame—now a kinswoman, now a housewife: these, according to ancient custom, bringing Dominikova fowls, or a loaf of wheaten bread, cake, salt, flour, pieces of bacon, or a silver rouble wrapped up in paper—all these things as thank-offerings for the invitation, and to make up for the heavy expenses incurred. Each of them drank a little nip of sweetened vodka, chatted a few minutes with the old dame, admired everything, and hurried away. Dominikova herself superintended the cooking, cleared things away, and saw that everything was duly done; not omitting to scold her sons for laziness; and, indeed, they dawdled much, and each of them slipped out whenever he could into the village to the Voyt’s, where the musicians and the bridesmen had gathered already. Few people attended High Mass, and this vexed his Reverence, because folk had forgotten the Divine Service on account of a mere wedding. Which was very true; but people also said to themselves that such a wedding was not to be witnessed every Sunday. All those invited came driving in at once after the noonday meal from the neighbouring villages. The sun, shedding a dim hazy splendour over the autumn fields, had begun to roll westward; the ground seemed shiny and glistening as if with dew, the pond shimmered tremulously, the roadside ditches had a glassy gleam; the whole landscape was soaked in the dying light and the cooling heat of the last autumn days. Burning down like a candle, the day was slowly approaching extinction. The village of Lipka, however, was inspired with all the animation of a fair. No sooner had the Vesper bells rung for the first time than all the musicians at the Voyt’s sallied forth into the road.