“Why, we’ve not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It’s all nonsense. … I said then that it was not in order,” voices were heard bickering with one another.
“There! What did I say?” said Alpátych, coming into his own again. “It’s wrong, lads!”
“All our stupidity, Yákov Alpátych,” came the answers, and the crowd began at once to disperse through the village.
The two bound men were led off to the master’s house. The two drunken peasants followed them.
“Aye, when I look at you! …” said one of them to Karp.
“How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of, you fool?” added the other—“A real fool!”
Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the Boguchárovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the proprietor’s goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at Princess Márya’s wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was standing in the yard directing the men.
“Don’t put it in so carelessly,” said one of the peasants, a man with a round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. “You know it has cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord where it’ll get rubbed? I don’t like that way of doing things. Let it all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the bast matting and cover it with hay—that’s the way!”
“Eh, books, books!” said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andréy’s library cupboards. “Don’t catch up against it! It’s heavy, lads—solid books.”