Page 1309 - war-and-peace

and the good weather for harvesting.
‘Well, it seems to be getting quieter,’ remarked Ferapon-
tov, finishing his third cup of tea and getting up. ‘Ours must
have got the best of it. The orders were not to let them in.
So we’re in force, it seems.... They say the other day Mat-
thew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river Marina and
drowned some eighteen thousand in one day.’
Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the
coachman who had come in, and settled up with the inn-
keeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and bells was heard from
the gateway as a little trap passed out.
It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was
in shadow, the other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych
looked out of the window and went to the door. Suddenly
the strange sound of a far-off whistling and thud was heard,
followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull roar that
set the windows rattling.
He went out into the street: two men were running past
toward the bridge. From different sides came whistling
sounds and the thud of cannon balls and bursting shells
falling on the town. But these sounds were hardly heard in
comparison with the noise of the firing outside the town
and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town
was being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which
Napoleon had ordered up after four o’clock. The people did
not at once realize the meaning of this bombardment.
At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only
aroused curiosity. Ferapontov’s wife, who till then had not
ceased wailing under the shed, became quiet and with the

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