Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/271

 “You've spoiled all the cabbage, accursed; may you choke; threefold anathemas; plagues, there is no peace with you!”

She saw the two girls, threw down her stick, took up a bundle of brushwood, and seizing Sasha's shoulders with fingers dry and hard as tree-forks, began to beat her. Sasha cried from pain and terror; and at that moment a gander, swinging from foot to foot and stretching out its neck, came up and hissed at the old woman; and when he returned to the geese, all welcomed him approvingly: go-go-go! Thereafter grandmother seized and whipped Motka, and again Motka's shirt went over her shoulders. Trembling with terror, crying loudly, Sasha went back to the hut to complain, and after her went Motka, also crying in her bass voice. Her tears were unwiped away, and her face was wet as if she had been in the river.

“Lord in heaven!” cried Olga as they entered the hut. “Mother of God, what's this?”

Sasha began her story, and at that moment, screaming and swearing, in came grandmother. Fekla lost her temper, and the whole hut was given over to noise.

“Never mind, never mind!” consoled Olga, pale and unnerved, stroking Sasha's head. “She's your grandmother; you've no right to be angry. Never mind, child!”