As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his shoe.

“Tss!” he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare foot without a stocking. “How unpleasant!⁠ ⁠… That’s a complication, you know, which⁠ ⁠… Yes!”

Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable to believe that the sole was ruined forever, he spent a long time frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue.

I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed toes and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and only wore them in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots. He accepted them and said with dignity:

“I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention.”

He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and even changed his plans.

“Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,” he said, thinking aloud. “In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just because I hadn’t any decent clothes.⁠ ⁠…”

When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:

“Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?”

He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself, and evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense of the Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off being lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my way.