“Nothing more?”

“What more do you want?  We’ll also have a little milk,” said the old woman, looking towards the door.  The door stood open, and the passage outside was full of people—­boys, girls, women with babies—­thronged together to look at the strange gentleman who wanted to see the peasants’ food.  The old woman seemed to pride herself on the way she behaved with a gentleman.

“Yes, it’s a miserable life, ours; that goes without saying, sir,” said the old man.  “What are you doing there?” he shouted to those in the passage.  “Well, good-bye,” said Nekhludoff, feeling ashamed and uneasy, though unable to account for the feeling.

“Thank you kindly for having looked us up,” said the old man.

The people in the passage pressed closer together to let Nekhludoff pass, and he went out and continued his way up the street.

Two barefooted boys followed him out of the passage the elder in a shirt that had once been white, the other in a worn and faded pink one.  Nekhludoff looked back at them.

“And where are you going now?” asked the boy with the white shirt.  Nekhludoff answered:  “To Matrona Kharina.  Do you know her?” The boy with the pink shirt began laughing at something; but the elder asked, seriously: 

“What Matrona is that?  Is she old?”

“Yes, she is old.”

“Oh—­oh,” he drawled; “that one; she’s at the other end of the village; we’ll show you.  Yes, Fedka, we’ll go with him.  Shall we?”

“Yes, but the horses?”

“They’ll be all right, I dare say.”

Fedka agreed, and all three went up the street.

CHAPTER V.

MASLOVA’S AUNT.

Nekhludoff felt more at case with the boys than with the grown-up people, and he began talking to them as they went along.  The little one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the elder one.

“Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?” asked Nekhludoff.

“The poorest?  Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very poor.”

“And Anisia, she is still poorer; she’s not even got a cow.  They go begging,” said little Fedka.

“She’s not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha’s family are five,” objected the elder boy.

“But the other’s a widow,” the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.

“You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow,” said the elder boy; “she’s also no husband.”

“And where is her husband?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Feeding vermin in prison,” said the elder boy, using this expression, common among the peasants.

“A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord’s forest,” the little pink boy hurried to say, “so he was locked up; now he’s sitting the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging.  There are three children and a sick grandmother,” he went on with his detailed account.