In the cornet's house there were lights and the sound of voices.

In the yard girls were crowding round the porch and the windows, and running backwards and forwards between the hut and the outhouse.

Some Cossacks rushed out of the hut and could not refrain from shouting, re-echoing the refrain of Daddy Eroshka's song and his shots.
'Why are you not at the betrothal ?' asked Olenin.
'Never mind them! Never mind them!' muttered the old man, who had evidently been offended by something there.

'Don't like them, I don't.
Oh, those people! Come back into the hut! Let them make merry by themselves and we'll make merry by ourselves.' Olenin went in.
'And Lukashka, is he happy?
Won't he come to see me ?' he asked.
'What, Lukashka?
They've lied to him and said I am getting his girl for you,' whispered the old man.

'But what's the girl?
She will be ours if we want her.