Avdotya Sergyevna's sister. Perhaps your honour
remembers her; she broke her leg falling out of her carriage on her
way to a ball. Now her honour lives near the monastery, and I am in her
service. And now as your honour sees, I am on my way to the town to see
my kinsfolk."

"Quite so, quite so."

"I felt so pleased when I saw you, you used to be so kind to me,"
Anisim smiled delightedly. "But where are you travelling to, sir, all by
yourself as it seems.... You've never been a journey alone, I fancy?"

Stepan Trofimovitch looked at him in alarm.

"You are going, maybe, to our parts, to Spasov?"

"Yes, I am going to Spasov. _Il me semble que tout le monde va a
Spassof._"

"You don't say it's to Fyodor Matveyevitch's? They will be pleased to
see you. He had such a respect for you in old days; he often speaks of
you now."

"Yes, yes, to Fyodor Matveyevitch's."

"To be sure, to be sure. The peasants here are wondering; they make out
they met you, sir, walking on the high road. They are a foolish lot."

"I... I... Yes, you know, Anisim, I made a wager, you know, like an
Englishman, that I would go on foot and I..."

The perspiration came out on his forehead.

"To be sure, to be sure." Anisim listened with merciless curiosity. But
Stepan Trofimovitch could bear it no longer. He was so disconcerted that
he was on the point of getting up and going out of the cottage. But the
samovar was brought in, and at the same moment the gospel-woman, who
had been out of the room, returned. With the air of a man clutching at a
straw he turned to her and offered her tea. Anisim submitted and walked
away.

The peasants certainly had begun to feel perplexed: "What sort of person
is he? He was found walking on the high road, he says he is a teacher,
he is dressed like a foreigner, and has no more sense than a little
child; he answers queerly as though he had run away from some one, and
he's got money!" An idea was beginning to gain ground that information
must be given to the authorities, "especially as things weren't quite
right in the town." But Anisim set all that right in a minute. Going
into the passage he explained to every one who cared to listen that
Stepan Trofimovitch was not exactly a teacher but "a very learned man
and busy with very learned studies, and was a landowner of the district
himself, and had been living for twenty-two years with her excellency,
the general's widow, the stout Madame Stavrogin, and was by way