The cows were lying in a row, leisurely chewing the cud; but the approach of the lantern and the voices caused them to snort and scramble heavily to their feet, turning their great heads away from the light. “You, Yagna, are mistress here; it is yours to divide this bread amongst them: so will they thrive and not take any sickness. But let them not be milked till to-morrow evening, or they will give no more milk at all.” Yagna broke an altar-bread into five pieces, made the sign of the cross over each cow between her horns, and laid the thin bit of wafer upon her broad rough tongue. Yuzka wanted to know whether the horses were also to get their share of the bread. “It must not be; there were no horses in the byre where Christ was born.” When they had returned, Roch spoke thus: “Every being, every meanest blade of grass, every little pebble, nay, even the star that is all but unseen to the eye—everything feels to-day, everything knows that the Lord is born.” “My God!” Yagna exclaimed. “What! even clods and stones?” “I speak sooth: it is so. Everything has its soul. All beings in the world have feeling, and await the hour when Jesus, taking pity on them, shall say: “‘Awake, O soul, and live, and merit Heaven!’—Yes, and the tiniest worm, the swaying grass even, can after its fashion have merit, and praise the Lord in its own way.... And to-night, of all nights in the year, they all rise up, full of life, and listen, waiting for His Word! “And to some it comes now, but to others not yet: they lie patient in the dark, expecting the dawn; stones, waterdrops, clods, trees, and whatever God has appointed each of them to be!” Mute, they all pondered over the words he said; for he had spoken, and in sapient wise, and words which touched the heart. Yet both Boryna and Dominikova had doubts as to the truth of these; and, much as they turned them over and over in their minds, they could not clear up the matter. For, though God’s Omnipotence was indeed marvellous and beyond all thought, still—that everything should have a soul!—this was what they could not grasp. But now, the smith having come in with his family, they set these thoughts aside. “We shall sit up with you, Father, and then go together to midnight mass,” he said. “Sit down,” said Boryna; “it will be more pleasant with you. We shall be all together, save for Gregory.” Yuzka looked indignantly at her father, for she thought of Antek: but she durst not say anything. Once more they took their seats on benches by the fire; but Pete went out into the yard to chop firewood against the coming great Day of Rest, Vitek taking the chopped wood in his arms and piling it up in the passage. “Ah! but I had forgotten!” cried the smith. “The Voyt ran and asked me to tell Dominikova she was to come at once; for his wife is in travail and screams so that she is likely to be confined this very night.”