et, to tell you the truth, I no sooner
perceive myself to be growing superfluous in a place than I spit upon
that place, and clear out of it."

Never to this sturdy, inveterate rascal does it seem to occur to
insinuate that he has been doing work of any kind, or that he in the
least cares to do any; while at the same time all self-pity is eschewed
in his narrative, and he relates his experiences much as though they
are the experiences of another man, and not of himself.

Presently, as the Cossack and the boy draw level with us, the former,
fingering his moustache, inquires thickly:

"Whence are you come?"

"From Russia."

"All such folk come from there."

Thereafter, with a gesture of disdain, this man of the abnormally broad
nose, eyes floating in fat, and flaxen head shaped like a flounder's,
resumes his way towards the porch of the church. As for the boy, he
wipes his nose and follows him while the dog sniffs at our legs, yawns,
and stretches itself by the churchyard wall.

"Did you see?" mutters Konev. "Oh yes, I tell you that the folk here
are far less amiable than our own folk in Russia... But hark! What is
that?"

To our ears there have come from behind the corner of the churchyard
wall a woman's scream and the sound of dull blows. Rushing thither, we
behold the fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of the
young fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blow
after blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, while
counting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the woman
from Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her female
companion is shrieking, and the crowd at large has leapt to its feet,
and, collected into a knot, is shouting gleefully, "THAT'S the way!
THAT'S the way!"

"Five!" the fair-headed peasant counts.

"Why are you doing this?" the prostrate man protests.

"Six!"

"Oh dear!" ejaculates Konev, dancing with nervousness. "Oh dear, oh
dear!"

The smacking, smashing blows fall in regular cadence as, prone on his
face, the young fellow kicks, struggles and puffs up the dust.
Meanwhile a tall, dour man in a straw hat is rolling up a shirt-sleeve,
and alternately bending and stretching a long arm, whilst a lithe,
white-headed young stripling is hopping, sparrow-like, from one
onlooker to another, and exclaiming in suppressed, cautious tones:

"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating a
disturbance!"