me! What have they done with me? And it is alive, still alive! (Silent and listening.) It is crying, oh, how it is crying. (Runs to the cellar.)
Matréna (to Anísya). He is running down to get it buried, no doubt. Nikíta, do you want the lantern?
Nikíta (does not answer. Listening at the cellar). I do not hear it. It is quiet. (Goes away and stops.) Oh, how the bones crunched under me! Crr—crr—What have they done with me? (Listens again.) Again it cries, really it does. What is it? Mother, O mother! (Goes up to her.)
Matréna. What is it, my son?
Nikíta. Mother dear, I can't finish it. I can't. Mother dear, take pity on me!
Matréna. Oh, how frightened you are! Go, go, take some liquor to brace you up.
Nikíta. Mother dear, I am undone. What have you done with me? Oh, how those bones did crunch, and how it cried!—Mother dear, what have you done with me? (Walks away and sits down on the sleigh.)
Matréna. Go, my son, and take a drink! It makes one feel bad to do such things at night-time. But let day come, and let another day pass, and you will forget to think of it. Wait a bit, and we will get the girl married, and we will think no more of it. But you go and take a drink! I will fix everything in the cellar.
Nikíta (shuddering). Is there any liquor left? I will take a drink. (Exit. Anísya, who has been standing all the time near the vestibule, steps silently aside.)
Scene XV. Matréna and Anísya.
Matréna. Go, go, my dear! I will go down in the cellar myself, and will bury it. Where did he throw the spade? (Finds the spade and goes half-way down
