They grabbed the yoke, spilled the water, tore off their kerchiefs, and began to fight. Gavrílo drove up from the field, and he took his wife's part. Iván jumped out with his son, and they all fell in a heap. Iván was a sturdy peasant, and he scattered them all. He yanked out a piece of Gavrílo's beard. People ran up to them, and they were with difficulty pulled apart.
That's the way it began.
Gavrílo wrapped the piece of his beard in a petition and went to the township court to enter a complaint.
"I did not raise a beard for freckled Iván to pull it out."
In the meantime his wife bragged to the neighbours that they would now get Iván sentenced and would have him sent to Siberia, and the feud began.
The old man on the oven tried to persuade them to stop the first day they started to quarrel, but the young people paid no attention to him. He said to them:
"Children, you are doing a foolish thing, and for a foolish thing have you started a feud. Think of it,—the whole affair began from an egg. The children picked up the egg,—well, God be with them! There is no profit in one egg. With God's aid there will be enough for everybody. Well, you have said a bad word, so correct it, show her how to use better words! Well, you have had a fight,—you are sinful people. That, too, happens. Well, go and make peace, and let there be an end to it! If you keep it up, it will only be worse."
The young people did not obey the old man; they thought that he was not using sense, but just babbling in old man's fashion.
Iván did not give in to his neighbour.
"I did not pull his beard," he said. "He jerked it out himself; but his son has yanked off my shirt-button and has torn my whole shirt. Here it is."