The young woman was offended, and said more than she should have done. Her neighbour answered back with interest, and the women began abusing each other. Iván’s wife, who had been to fetch water, happening to pass just then, joined in too. Gabriel’s wife rushed out, and began reproaching the young woman with things that had really happened and with other things that never had happened at all. Then a general uproar commenced, all shouting at once, trying to get out two words at a time, and not choice words either.
“You’re this!” and “You’re that!” “You’re a thief!” and “You’re a slut!” and “You’re starving your old father-in-law to death!” and “You’re a good-for-nothing!” and so on.
“And you’ve made a hole in the sieve I lent you, you jade! And it’s our yoke you’re carrying your pails on—you just give back our yoke!”
Then they caught hold of the yoke, and spilt the water, snatched off one another’s shawls, and began fighting. Gabriel, returning from the fields, stopped to take his wife’s part. Out rushed Iván and his son and joined in with the rest. Iván was a strong fellow, he scattered the whole lot of them, and pulled a handful of hair out of Gabriel’s beard. People came to see what was the matter, and the fighters were separated with difficulty.
That was how it all began.
Gabriel wrapped the hair torn from his beard in a paper, and went to the District Court to have the law of Iván. “I didn’t grow my beard,” said he, “for pockmarked Iván to pull it out!” And his wife went bragging to the neighbours, saying they’d have Iván condemned and sent to Siberia. And so the feud grew.
The old man, from where he lay on the top of the oven, tried from the very first to persuade them to make peace, but they would not listen. He told them, “It’s a stupid thing you are after, children, picking quarrels