“You⁠ ⁠… you are addressing me?” muttered Stepan Trofimovitch with mournful wonder.

“A merchant, for sure,” the peasant observed confidently. He was a well-grown man of forty with a broad and intelligent face, framed in a reddish beard.

“No, I am not exactly a merchant, I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… moi c’est autre chose. ” Stepan Trofimovitch parried the question somehow, and to be on the safe side he dropped back a little from the cart, so that he was walking on a level with the cow.

“Must be a gentleman,” the man decided, hearing words not Russian, and he gave a tug at the horse.

“That’s what set us wondering. You are out for a walk seemingly?” the woman asked inquisitively again.

“You⁠ ⁠… you ask me?”

“Foreigners come from other parts sometimes by the train; your boots don’t seem to be from hereabouts.⁠ ⁠…”