"I have no more strength. You want the cross on my breast," said an exasperated voice.
"She only ran in," said another voice. "Give her up, I say. Why do you torture the beast, and keep the milk from the children?"
Nekhludoff walked around the house where he saw two disheveled women, one of whom was evidently pregnant, standing near the staircase. On the stairs, with his hands in the pockets of his crash overcoat, stood the clerk. Seeing their master, the women became silent and began to arrange their 'kerchiefs, which had fallen from their heads, while the clerk took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
The clerk explained that the peasants purposely permitted their calves, and even cows, to roam over the master's meadows. That two cows belonging to these women had been caught on the meadow and driven into an inclosure. The clerk demanded from the women thirty copecks per cow, or two days' work.
"Time and again I told them," said the smiling clerk, looking around at Nekhludoff, as if calling him to witness, "to look out for cows when driving them to feed."
"I just went to see to the child, and they walked away."
"Don't leave them when you undertake to look after them."
"And who would feed my child?"
"If they had only grazed, at least, they would have no pains in their stomachs. But they only walked in."
"All the meadows are spoiled," the clerk turned to Nekhludoff. "If they are not made to pay there will be no hay left."