After the sudden and unexpected meeting with Liza, which I have already described, he went on in even greater self-abandon. The high road passed within a quarter mile of Skvoreshniki, and—strangely—he did not even notice at first how he had come upon it. Sound reasoning, or clear awareness at the least, was unbearable to him at that moment. A drizzling rain kept stopping and starting again; but he did not notice the rain, either. He also did not notice how he had shouldered his bag, and how this made it easier for him to walk. He must have gone a half or three quarters of a mile when he suddenly stopped and looked around. Ahead of him the old, black, and deeply rutted road stretched in an endless thread, planted out with its willows; to the right—a bare place, fields harvested long, long ago; to the left—bushes, and beyond them—woods. And far away—far away the faintly noticeable line of the railroad running obliquely, with the smoke of some train on it; but the sound could no longer be heard. Stepan Trofimovich grew a bit timid, but only for a moment. He sighed aimlessly, placed his bag against a willow, and sat down to rest. As he went to sit down, he felt a chill and wrapped himself in a plaid; then, noticing the rain, he opened the umbrella over him. For quite a long time he went on sitting like that, occasionally munching his lips, the handle of the umbrella grasped tightly in his hand. Various images swept before him in feverish succession, rapidly supplanting one another in his mind. "Lise, Lise, " he thought, "and ce Maurice with her... Strange people... But what was this strange fire there, and what were they talking about, and who was murdered? ... I suppose Stasie hasn't had time to find anything out yet and is still waiting for me with coffee... Cards? Did I ever lose people at cards? Hm ... in our Russia, during the time of so-called serfdom... Ah, my God, and Fedka?"
He started up in fright and looked around: "And what if this Fedka is sitting here somewhere behind a bush? They say he has a whole band of highway robbers someplace around here. Oh, God, then I... then I'll tell him the whole truth, that I am to blame... and that I suffered for ten years over him, longer than he was there as a soldier, and... and I'll give him my purse. Hm, j'ai en tout quarante roubles; il prendra les roubles et il me tuera tout de même. "[clxiv]
In fear he closed his umbrella, who knows why, and laid it down beside him. Far away, on the road from town, some cart appeared; he began peering anxiously:
"Grace à Dieu it's a cart, and it's moving slowly; that can't be dangerous. These broken-down local nags ... I always talked about breeding ... It was Pyotr Ilych, however, who talked about breeding in the club, and then I finessed him, et puis, but what's that behind, and ... it seems there's a woman in the cart. A woman and a peasant— cela commence à être rassurant. The woman behind and the peasant in front—c'est très rassurant. They have a cow tied behind by the horns, c'est rassurant au plus haut degré. "[clxv]
The cart came abreast of him, a rather sturdy and roomy peasant cart. The woman was sitting on a tightly stuffed sack, the peasant on the driver's seat, his legs hanging over on Stepan Trofimovich's side. Behind there indeed plodded a red cow tied by the horns. The peasant and the woman stared wide-eyed at Stepan Trofimovich, and Stepan Trofimovich stared in the same way at them, but after letting them go on about twenty paces, he suddenly got up in haste and went after them. Naturally, it felt more trustworthy in the vicinity of the cart, but when he caught up with it he at once forgot about everything again and again became immersed in his scraps of thoughts and imaginings. He was striding along and certainly did not suspect that for the peasant and the woman he constituted at that moment the most mysterious and curious object one could meet on the high road.
"You, I mean, what sorts are you from, if it's not impolite my asking?" the wench finally could not help herself, when Stepan Trofimovich suddenly glanced at her distractedly. She was a wench of about twenty-seven, sturdy, black-browed, and ruddy, with kindly smiling red lips, behind which her even, white teeth flashed.
"You... you are addressing me?" Stepan Trofimovich muttered in doleful surprise.
"Must be from merchants," the peasant said self-confidently. He was a strapping man of about forty, with a broad, sensible face and a full, reddish beard.
"No, I'm not actually a merchant, I. . . I. . . moi c'est autre chose,"[clxvi] Stepan Trofimovich parried anyhow, and, just in case, dropped behind a little to the rear of the cart, so that he was now walking next to the cow.
"Must be from gentlefolk," the peasant decided, hearing non-Russian words, and pulled up on the nag.
"So here, to look at you, it's as if you're out for a walk?" the wench began to pry again.
"Is it ... is it me you're asking?"
"There's visiting foreigners come by rail sometimes, you're not from these parts with boots like that..."
"Military-type," the peasant put in, complacently and significantly.
"No, I'm not actually from the military, I..."
"What a curious wench," Stepan Trofimovich thought vexedly, "and how they're studying me... mais, enfin... Strange, in a word, just as if I were guilty before them, yet I'm not guilty of anything before them."
The wench whispered with the peasant.
"No offense, but we could maybe give you a lift, if only it's agreeable."
Stepan Trofimovich suddenly recollected himself.
"Yes, yes, my friends, with great pleasure, because I'm very tired, only how am I to get in?"
"How amazing," he thought to himself, "I've been walking next to this cow for such a long time, and it never occurred to me to ask if I could ride with them ... This 'real life' has something rather characteristic about it..."
The peasant, however, still did not stop his horse.
"And where are you headed for?" he inquired, with some mistrust.
Stepan Trofimovich did not understand at once.
"Khatovo, must be?"
"Khatov? No, not actually to Khatov... And I'm not quite acquainted; I've heard of him, though."
"It's a village, Khatovo, a village, five miles from here."