At this moment from behind the corner of the station suddenly appeared a crowd of workmen in bark shoes, wearing sheepskin coats and carrying bags on their backs.  The workmen went up to the nearest carriage with soft yet determined steps, and were about to get in, but were at once driven away by a guard.  Without stopping, the workmen passed on, hurrying and jostling one another, to the next carriage and began getting in, catching their bags against the corners and door of the carriage, but another guard caught sight of them from the door of the station, and shouted at them severely.  The workmen, who had already got in, hurried out again and went on, with the same soft and firm steps, still further towards Nekhludoff’s carriage.  A guard was again going to stop them, but Nekhludoff said there was plenty of room inside, and that they had better get in.  They obeyed and got in, followed by Nekhludoff.

The workmen were about to take their seats, when the gentleman with the cockade and the two ladies, looking at this attempt to settle in their carriage as a personal insult to themselves, indignantly protested and wanted to turn them out.  The workmen—­there were 20 of them, old men and quite young ones, all of them wearied, sunburnt, with haggard faces—­began at once to move on through the carriage, catching the seats, the walls, and the doors with their bags.  They evidently felt they had offended in some way, and seemed ready to go on indefinitely wherever they were ordered to go.

“Where are you pushing to, you fiends?  Sit down here,” shouted another guard they met.

“Voila encore des nouvelles,” exclaimed the younger of the two ladies, quite convinced that she would attract Nekhludoff’s notice by her good French.

The other lady with the bracelets kept sniffing and making faces, and remarked something about how pleasant it was to sit with smelly peasants.

The workmen, who felt the joy and calm experienced by people who have escaped some kind of danger, threw off their heavy bags with a movement of their shoulders and stowed them away under the seats.

The gardener had left his own seat to talk with Taras, and now went back, so that there were two unoccupied seats opposite and one next to Taras.  Three of the workmen took these seats, but when Nekhludoff came up to them, in his gentleman’s clothing, they got so confused that they rose to go away, but Nekhludoff asked them to stay, and himself sat down on the arm of the seat, by the passage down the middle of the carriage.

One of the workmen, a man of about 50, exchanged a surprised and even frightened look with a young man.  That Nekhludoff, instead of scolding and driving them away, as was natural to a gentleman, should give up his seat to them, astonished and perplexed them.  They even feared that this might have some evil result for them.

However, they soon noticed that there was no underlying plot when they heard Nekhludoff talking quite simply with Taras, and they grew quiet and told one of the lads to sit down on his bag and give his seat to Nekhludoff.  At first the elderly workman who sat opposite Nekhludoff shrank and drew back his legs for fear of touching the gentleman, but after a while he grew quite friendly, and in talking to him and Taras even slapped Nekhludoff on the knee when he wanted to draw special attention to what he was saying.