"Oh, you, you...." she began.
Promtov, without moving from the spot, looked her straight in the face with his black eyes, and their expression was savage and malevolent.... The woman grew pale, trembled, and murmuring something, quickly entered the hut.
"Let us go," I proposed to Promtov.
"No, we'll wait till she brings out the bread."
"She'll bring out the men upon us with pitchforks."
"A lot you know!" observed this wolf with a sceptical smile.
He was right. The woman appeared before us, holding in her hands half a loaf of bread and a solid bit of fat. Bowing low and silently to Promtov, she said to him with the tone of a suppliant:
"Pray take it, oh, man of God! be not angry!"
"God deliver thee from the evil eye, from sorcery, and from the ague!" was the unctuous farewell with which Promtov parted from her, and so we went on our way.
"Listen now!" said I, when we were already a good way from the cottage, "what an odd way of begging alms you have—to say no more."