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"We'd have to pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them they're not Christians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last Thursday sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have some tea?" he added. While the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov over their tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for harvesting.
He was a stout, dark, red-faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose, similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly. Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he went up to him. "You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych.
As Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in Ferapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov returned and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs and laughter: "Loot everything, lads!
From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The cook began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen, just as Alpatych entered. "He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her about so!..." "What for?" asked Alpatych. "She kept begging to go away. She's a woman!
"You brute, you murderer!" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door at that moment and down the steps into the yard. Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the opposite room. "Going already?" said he.
Don't let those devils get it!" he cried, taking some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street. Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on filling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him: "Russia is done for!" he cried. "Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire myself. We're done for!..." and Ferapontov ran into the yard.
On reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in the Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapontov, where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years. Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice, had bought a wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn, and a corn dealer's shop in that province.
Alpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages and asked how much he owed. "We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?" asked Ferapontov. "What has been decided?" Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite. "With our business, how can we get away?" said Ferapontov.
"Well, it seems to be getting quieter," remarked Ferapontov, finishing his third cup of tea and getting up. "Ours must have got the best of it. The orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it seems.... They say the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river Marina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day."
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