ll and that he was leaving
Butyokino, the very place where she had set up a brickyard, to Nikifor,
his grandson. She was informed of this in the morning when old Tsybukin
and Varvara were sitting near the steps under the birch-tree, drinking
their tea. She closed the shop in the front and at the back, gathered
together all the keys she had, and flung them at her father-in-law's
feet.

"I am not going on working for you," she began in a loud voice, and
suddenly broke into sobs. "It seems I am not your daughter-in-law, but
a servant! Everybody's jeering and saying, 'See what a servant the
Tsybukins have got hold of!' I did not come to you for wages! I am not a
beggar, I am not a slave, I have a father and mother."

She did not wipe away her tears, she fixed upon her father-in-law eyes
full of tears, vindictive, squinting with wrath; her face and neck were
red and tense, and she was shouting at the top of her voice.

"I don't mean to go on being a slave!" she went on. "I am worn out. When
it is work, when it is sitting in the shop day in and day out, scurrying
out at night for vodka--then it is my share, but when it is giving away
the land then it is for that convict's wife and her imp. She is mistress
here, and I am her servant. Give her everything, the convict's wife, and
may it choke her! I am going home! Find yourselves some other fool, you
damned Herods!"

Tsybukin had never in his life scolded or punished his children, and had
never dreamed that one of his family could speak to him rudely or behave
disrespectfully; and now he was very much frightened; he ran into
the house and there hid behind the cupboard. And Varvara was so much
flustered that she could not get up from her seat, and only waved her
hands before her as though she were warding off a bee.

"Oh, Holy Saints! what's the meaning of it?" she muttered in horror.
"What is she shouting? Oh, dear, dear!... People will hear! Hush. Oh,
hush!"

"He has given Butyokino to the convict's wife," Aksinya went on bawling.
"Give her everything now, I don't want anything from you! Let me alone!
You are all a gang of thieves here! I have seen my fill of it, I have
had enough! You have robbed folks coming in and going out; you have
robbed old and young alike, you brigands! And who has been selling vodka
without a licence? And false money? You've filled boxes full of false
coins, and now I am no more use!"

A crowd had by now collected at the open gate and was stari