Clothes were hanging on lines stretched across the yard; she snatched off her petticoats and blouses still wet and flung them into the deaf man’s arms.  Then in her fury she dashed about the yard by the linen, tore down all of it, and what was not hers she threw on the ground and trampled upon.

“Holy Saints, take her away,” moaned Varvara.  “What a woman!  Give her Butyokino!  Give it her, for the Lord’s sake!

“Well!  Wha-at a woman!” people were saying at the gate.  “She’s a wo-oman!  She’s going it—­something like!”

Aksinya ran into the kitchen where washing was going on.  Lipa was washing alone, the cook had gone to the river to rinse the clothes.  Steam was rising from the trough and from the caldron on the side of the stove, and the kitchen was thick and stifling from the steam.  On the floor was a heap of unwashed clothes, and Nikifor, kicking up his little red legs, had been put down on a bench near them, so that if he fell he should not hurt himself.  Just as Aksinya went in Lipa took the former’s chemise out of the heap and put it in the trough, and was just stretching out her hand to a big ladle of boiling water which was standing on the table.

“Give it here,” said Aksinya, looking at her with hatred, and snatching the chemise out of the trough; “it is not your business to touch my linen!  You are a convict’s wife, and ought to know your place and who you are.”

Lipa gazed at her, taken aback, and did not understand, but suddenly she caught the look Aksinya turned upon the child, and at once she understood and went numb all over.

“You’ve taken my land, so here you are!” Saying this Aksinya snatched up the ladle with the boiling water and flung it over Nikifor.

After this there was heard a scream such as had never been heard before in Ukleevo, and no one would have believed that a little weak creature like Lipa could scream like that.  And it was suddenly silent in the yard.

Aksinya walked into the house with her old naive smile....  The deaf man kept moving about the yard with his arms full of linen, then he began hanging it up again, in silence, without haste.  And until the cook came back from the river no one ventured to go into the kitchen and see what was there.

VIII

Nikifor was taken to the district hospital, and towards evening he died there.  Lipa did not wait for them to come for her, but wrapped the dead baby in its little quilt and carried it home.

The hospital, a new one recently built, with big windows, stood high up on a hill; it was glittering from the setting sun and looked as though it were on fire from inside.  There was a little village below.  Lipa went down along the road, and before reaching the village sat down by a pond.  A woman brought a horse down to drink and the horse did not drink.

“What more do you want?” said the woman to it softly.  “What do you want?”