husband shouted back at her.

Grochowski fell on his neck.

'Don't make a hell of your house, brother, or grief will come to us
both.'

Maciek could not wonder enough at the changes wrought in men by vodka.
Here was the Soltys, known in the whole parish as a hard man, crying
like a child, and Slimak shouting like the bailiff and disobeying his
wife.

'Come to the barn, Soltys,' said Slimakowa, taking him by one arm while
Maciek took the other. He followed like a lamb, but while she was
preparing his bed on the straw, he fell upon the threshing-floor and
could not be moved by any manner of means.

'Go to bed, Maciek,' said the gospodyni; 'let that drunkard lie on the
manure-heap, because he has been so disagreeable.'

Maciek obeyed and went to the stable. When all was quiet, he began for
his amusement to pretend that he was drunk, and acted the part of
Slimak or the Soltys in turns. He talked in a tearful voice like
Grochowski: 'Don't make a hell of your house, brother...' and in order
to make it more real he tried to make himself cry. At first he did not
succeed, but when he remembered his foot, and that he was the most
miserable creature, and the gospodyni hadn't even given him a glass of
vodka, the tears ran freely from his eyes, until he too went to sleep.

About midnight Slimak awoke, cold and wet, for it had begun to rain.