accepting it as a term of endearment cheerfully goes on with her
task. Her face is covered with a kerchief tied round her head. She
is wearing a pink smock and a green beshmet. She disappears inside
the lean-to shed in the yard, following the big fat cattle; and
from the shed comes her voice as she speaks gently and
persuasively to the buffalo: 'Won't she stand still? What a
creature! Come now, come old dear!' Soon the girl and the old
woman pass from the shed to the dairy carrying two large pots of
milk, the day's yield. From the dairy chimney rises a thin cloud
of kisyak smoke: the milk is being used to make into clotted
cream. The girl makes up the fire while her mother goes to the
gate. Twilight has fallen on the village. The air is full of the
smell of vegetables, cattle, and scented kisyak smoke. From the
gates and along the streets Cossack women come running, carrying
lighted rags. From the yards one hears the snorting and quiet
chewing of the cattle eased of their milk, while in the street
only the voices of women and children sound as they call to one
another. It is rare on a week-day to hear the drunken voice of a
man.

One of the Cossack wives, a tall, masculine old woman, approaches
Granny Ulitka from the homestead opposite and asks her for a
light. In her hand she holds a rag.

'Have you cleared up. Granny?'

'The girl is lighting the fire. Is it fire you want?' says Granny
Ulitka, proud of being able to oblige her neighbour.

Both women enter the hut, and coarse hands unused to dealing with