War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [455]
“What for?” asked Alpatych.
“She was begging to leave. It’s a woman’s thing! ‘Take me away,’ she says, ‘don’t let me and the little children perish. People have all left,’ she says, ‘what about us?’ And he started beating her. How he beat her, how he dragged her!”
Alpatych seemed to nod his head approvingly at these words, and, not wishing to know any more, went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper’s, where he had left his purchases.
“You villain! Murderer!” a thin, pale woman cried out at that moment, and, a baby in her arms, the kerchief torn from her head, she burst through the door and ran down the steps to the yard. Ferapontov came out after her and, seeing Alpatych, straightened his waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the room.
“So you mean to leave already?” he asked.
Without answering the question or turning to look at the innkeeper, Alpatych, sorting his purchases, asked how much he owed for his stay.
“I’ll reckon up! Well, have you been to the governor’s?” asked Ferapontov. “What’s the decision?”
Alpatych replied that the governor had told him decidedly nothing.
“The way we are here, how can we leave?” said Ferapontov. “Seven roubles a cart as far as Dorogobuzh. Like I said, it’s heathenish!” he said.
“Selivanov, he was in luck on Thursday, sold flour to the army at nine roubles a sack. Well, do you want tea?” he added. While the horses were being hitched up, Alpatych and Ferapontov drank their tea and talked about the price of wheat, about the crops and the good weather for harvesting.
“It’s quieting down, though,” said Ferapontov, having drunk three cups of tea and getting up. “Must be our side won. They said they wouldn’t let them. So they’re strong…And today I heard tell that Matvei Ivanych Platov drove them into the river Marina, got some eighteen thousand drownded in one day.”
Alpatych gathered up his purchases, gave them to the entering coachman, and paid the innkeeper. From the gates came the sound of wheels, hoofs, and bells from the little kibitka rolling out.
It was already long past noon; half the street was in shadow, the other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych glanced out the window and went to the door. Suddenly there came the strange sound of a distant whistling and a thud, and after that the merging roar of cannon fire, which made the windows shake.
Alpatych went outside; two men were running down the street towards the bridge. From different sides came the whistle and thud of cannonballs and the explosions of shells falling on the town. But the inhabitants scarcely heard or paid attention to these noises in comparison with the sound of gunfire outside town. This was the bombardment of the town which Napoleon had ordered opened from a hundred and thirty cannon starting at four o’clock. At first people did not understand the meaning of this bombardment.
The sounds of the falling shells and cannonballs aroused only curiosity at first. Ferapontov’s wife, who till then had not stopped wailing in the shed, fell silent and came out to the gates with the baby in her arms, looking silently at people and listening to the sounds.
The cook and the shop clerk came out to the gates. Everyone tried with merry curiosity to catch sight of the projectiles racing over their heads. Several men came around the corner, talking animatedly.
“Some force!” said one. “It just smashed the roof and ceiling to splinters.”
“Rooted up the earth like a pig,” said another. “That’s a grand thing, that cheers you up!” he said, laughing. “Lucky you jumped out of the way, or it would have flattened you.”
People began to address these men. They stopped and told how a cannonball had struck a house right next to them. Meanwhile more projectiles, now cannonballs with their quick, grim whistle, now shells with their pleasant whine, went on flying over people’s heads; but not a single one fell nearby, they all carried too far. Alpatych was getting into the little kibitka. The innkeeper was standing at the gate.
“As if there’s anything to see!” he shouted to