'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!... Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly. '_C'est le mauvais côté de la médaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do, you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ... that'll do. You can go, I tell you.' Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards. Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide, looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space. The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning their heads, went on their way. Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting, accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked him whether he knew the agent there. 'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!' 'What sort of man is he?' 'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him between here and Kursk.' 'Really?' 'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr. Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.' 'You don't say so!' 'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.' 'They haven't much land, I suppose?' 'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's what he is!' 'How is it they don't make complaints of him?' 'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try it on.... No, he'd let you know....' I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.