She heaved a mournful sigh over him, and then, darting a glance of hate at the sleeping Yagna, struck a pail with her foot. The noise did not wake the latter. She lay, her face turned towards the room, the coverlet thrown back from her bosom on account of the heat, so that her shoulders and throat were bare. Her parted lips, cherry-red, showed a row of shining teeth, like beads of the purest white; her dishevelled hair, fair as the finest sun-dried flax, was streaming over her coverlet and down to the floor. “Oh! I could dig my nails into that pretty face of yours so deep that it would never be pretty any more!” she hissed with fierce aversion, a sharp pang stabbing at her heart. She mechanically smoothed her hair and looked into the glass that hung by the window, but shrank back on beholding her own faded discoloured features and red-fringed eyelids. “She!... she has naught to try her; feeds abundantly, sleeps in a warm bed, brings forth no children: what should mar _her_ beauty?” And she slammed the door violently as she went out. This noise woke Yagna; but old Boryna lay as he had lain, staring straight before him. He had been thus ever since they had brought him home from the fight. At times only did he seem to rouse himself and, taking Yagna’s hand, strive to speak; but he always relapsed into insensibility, and could never utter a word. Roch had brought a doctor from the town, who had examined the man, written a recipe on a scrap of paper, and taken ten roubles. The medicine, too, was costly, and did no more nor less good than Dominikova’s incantations, recited gratis. It soon was clear to all that he would never mend, and so they let him be. All they now did was to change the wet bandages on his head, and give him a little water or milk to drink; solid food he could not take. Folk said, and Ambrose, who had experience in such matters, said too, that should Boryna not come to his senses again, he would die shortly, though of course without pain. This end, then, they were daily expecting, but it did not come, and the delay was irksome. It was Yagna’s right and duty to take care of the patient and stay by him; but how could she—she who was unable to remain there an hour? She had more than enough of him as it was; and she was, moreover, weary of the continual struggle with Hanka, who had usurped her place and set her completely aside. She therefore kept out of doors by preference, rejoicing to bask in the warm morning light, and to go out free into the village. She abandoned the care of her husband to Yuzka, and used to wander about, no one knew where, often returning only in the evening.