'Rent that field, and you will have fodder.'

'Fear God, Jagna! what are you saying? How am I to rent that field?'

'Go to the manor and ask the square; say you will pay up the rent in a year's time.'

'As God lives, the woman is mad! our beasts pull a little from that field now for nothing; I should be worse off, because I should have to pay both for the cow and for the field. I won't go to the squire.'

His wife came close up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You won't go?'

'I won't go.'

'Very well, then I will take what fodder there is and your horses may go to the devil; but I won't let that cow go, I will buy her!'

'Then buy her.'

'Yes, I will buy her, but you have got to do the bargaining with
Grochowski; I haven't the time, and I won't drink vodka with him.'

'Drink! bargain with him! you are mad about that cow!'