“Let him alone, Kolya. Let’s go on.”
“Nothing could stop me, now I am once off. Hey, good morning, peasant!”
A sturdy-looking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard, who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy. He seemed not quite sober.
“Good morning, if you are not laughing at me,” he said deliberately in reply.
“And if I am?” laughed Kolya.
“Well, a joke’s a joke. Laugh away. I don’t mind. There’s no harm in a joke.”
“I beg your pardon, brother, it was a joke.”
“Well, God forgive you!”
“Do you forgive me, too?”
“I quite forgive you. Go along.”
“I say, you seem a clever peasant.”
“Cleverer than you,” the peasant answered unexpectedly, with the same gravity.
“I doubt it,” said Kolya, somewhat taken aback.
“It’s true, though.”
“Perhaps it is.”