“My last word: three and thirty!”—“Take it or leave it,” added the younger Jew phlegmatically, looking round for his staff, while the elder buttoned up his gaberdine. Thereupon Bylitsa said, patting the cow’s neck: “For such a beast as this!—O men, fear ye not God? A cow as large as a byre!—Why, her hide alone will be worth half a score of roubles—O ye swindlers! ye murderers of Christ!” But now the Jews began to chaffer eagerly, violently. Antek stood stubbornly to his price; and though he gave way a little, it was but little. Indeed, the cow Krasula was very valuable; and had he been selling it in spring and to another peasant, he would have got fifty roubles at least. But “Necessity drives to the mart, with Poverty drawing the cart.” This the Jews were perfectly aware of; and though they shouted louder and louder, and struck their hands in Antek’s with greater zeal to conclude the bargain, their offers rose by at most half a rouble each time. Finally it came to this pass, that they started home in high dudgeon, and Hanka was leading the cow back to her shed, while Antek himself was angered and ready to renounce selling the beast at all—when lo! back they came again, and shrieked and swore that they could not possibly offer a higher price, and struck their hands in Antek’s again ... till at last the man agreed to forty roubles, plus two _zloty_ for old Bylica, as the holder of the rope. They paid on the nail; the old man led the cow after them to the tavern where their sledge was waiting. Accompanied by the children, Hanka went with Krasula as far as the road, stroking her muzzle every now and then, affectionately bending over her, and quite unable to conceal her grief and affliction.... She stood long upon the road, looking at Krasula as she was led away, and pouring out execrations on those unchristened “Yellow Ones.” To lose such a cow as Krasula was!—No wonder if the poor woman felt her bosom overflow with gall! When she came back, she said: “It is as if one of us had been borne to the churchyard”; and she still continued to peep into the empty stall, or to gaze through the window at the pathway marked by the hoofs which had but now passed there; and often and often did she give way to her distress, and shed tears again and again. “Now then, will you have done?” Antek cried out, seating himself at the table where the money lay. “Why, the woman is for all the world like a calf; doth naught but weep and blubber.” “‘He that suffereth naught will for nothing have thought,’” was Hanka’s reply. “You suffered nothing, when you gave poor Krasula up to those Jews to be butchered.” “Aye, you’d rather have me open my own bowels to get you money!”