Book 2 Chapter 6 Reflections of a Landlord

At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the
foreman's house two angry women's voices interrupting each other,
and now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman.
Nekhludoff listened.

"My strength's at an end. What are you about, dragging the very
cross [those baptized in the Russo-Greek Church always wear a
cross round their necks] off my neck," said an angry woman's
voice.

"But she only got in for a moment," said another voice. "Give it
her back, I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the
children, too, who want their milk?"

"Pay, then, or work it off," said the foreman's voice.

Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which
stood two dishevelled women--one of them pregnant and evidently
near her time. On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands
in the pockets of his holland coat, stood the foreman. When they
saw the master, the women were silent, and began arranging the
kerchiefs on their heads, and the foreman took his hands out of
his pockets and began to smile.

This is what had happened. From the foreman's words, it seemed
that the peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and
even their cows into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows
belonging to the families of these two women were found in the
meadow, and driven into the yard. The foreman demanded from the
women 30 copecks for each cow or two days' work. The women,
however, maintained that the cows had got into the meadow of
their own accord; that they had no money, and asked that the
cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without
food, piteously lowing, should be returned to them, even if it
had to be on the understanding that the price should be worked
off later on.