“No; his nephew.⁠ ⁠…”

“Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it’s easier without my boots⁠ ⁠… easier, youngster⁠ ⁠… without boots, I mean.⁠ ⁠… So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in him.⁠ ⁠… God give him health.⁠ ⁠… No harm in him⁠ ⁠… I mean Ivan Ivanitch.⁠ ⁠… He has gone to the Molokans’.⁠ ⁠… O Lord, have mercy upon us!”

The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen. As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed stern.

Two wagons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to himself.