For hard upon an hour, Antek stayed there, expectant, but at last made for the yard to go and seek Franek and also to rouse himself up somewhat, feeling overcome with slumber. The way out led through the waiting-room, which he was just going to enter, and his hand was upon the latch, when what he heard Matthew saying made him stop on a sudden. “Yes, the old fellow boils the milk and tea, and takes it to her in bed! They say that he, along with Yagustynka, does all the kine want done for them, and will not let her soil her hands; nay, that he has bought something for her in town, lest she catch cold by going out behind the barn!” Here followed a burst of loud laughter, and then a hailstorm of jests. Antek, by an instinctive movement, returned to where he had sat before and, flinging himself again upon the sacks, gazed vacantly at the streak of ruddy light that came from the door which stood ajar. Now he could hear no more, for the din made the talk inaudible; a grey mist of flour-dust rose and dimmed everything round him; the lamps, which hung by cords from the ceiling, twinkled through the white fog, and glowed athwart it, as yellow as cats’ eyes, and vibrated continually. But he was too restless to stay seated; again he rose, and quietly and on tiptoe approached the door, and bent his ear. “... She explained everything!” Matthew said. “Dominikova assured him that the girl had been in a hurry, scrambling over a fence ... it was a thing that very frequently happened ... had occurred to herself when a maiden. A most convenient explanation! And he believed her, the old ram! Such a clever man! and he believed her.” The laughter became a hurricane; they all were in paroxysms, and made the house ring again. Nearer and nearer crept Antek, now almost on the very threshold, pale as a corpse, with fists clenched, crouching and gathered together for a spring. When they had done, Matthew continued: “But as to what they say of Antek’s being on too friendly terms with Yagna, I happen to know that to be false. I myself heard him whining like a dog outside her bedroom door, till she drove him out with a besom! He stuck to her like a burr to a dog’s tail, but she got rid of him for all that.” Someone here inquired: “Did you see that? In the village they talk otherwise.” “Did I see?—Why, I was in there with her, and she herself complained how he teased her!” “You lying cur!” Antek shrieked, as he darted past the threshold. Matthew instantly sprang at him. But, swift as thought, Antek was upon him with the leap of a wolf. One hand clutching at his throat, stopping both breath and voice, the other grasping his belt, he whirled him up in the air like a bush you root out, burst open the door with a kick, and rushed with him beyond the sawmill to the river-fence, against which he hurled him with such fury that four rails broke like reeds, and Matthew fell into the stream like a log!