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!" Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, deals him a single blow which knocks him from the back of the young fellow, and, turning to the crowd, says with an informing air: "THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!" "Brutes! Villains!" screams the woman from Riazan, as she bends over the young fellow. Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushed face of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes are flashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as to disclose a set of fine, level teeth. Konev, pecking up to her, says with an air of advice: "You had better take him away, and give him some water." Upon this the fair-headed muzhik, rising to his knees, stretches a fist towards the man from Tambov, and exclaims: "Why should he have gone and bragged of his strength, pray?" "Was that a good reason for thrashing him?" "And who are you?" "Who am I?" "Yes, who are YOU?" "Never mind. See that I don't give you another swipe!" Upon this the onlookers plunge into a heated debate as to who was actually the beginner of the disturbance, while the lithe young fellow continues to wring his hands, and cry imploringly: