A dastardly service,
Your duties are evil,
You damnable wretch! 360
And who deserves beating
As richly as Shutov?
Not we alone beat him:
From Tiskov, you know,
Fourteen villages lie
On the banks of the Volga;
I warrant through each
He's been driven with blows."

The seven are silent.
They're longing to get 370
At the root of the matter.
But even the Elder
Is now growing angry.

It's daylight. The women
Are bringing their husbands
Some breakfast, of rye-cakes
And--goose! (For a peasant
Had driven some geese
Through the village to market,
And three were grown weary, 380
And had to be carried.)
"See here, will you sell them?
They'll die ere you get there."
And so, for a trifle,
The geese had been bought.