It was a fresh, early morning. The road went through the wood. They had now driven for a long time. It seemed as if the same meadows and woods, copses, streams, and bridges repeated themselves again and again. They began to ask the drivers:
“Are you sure you’re going the right way?”
“Perhaps you’ve lost your way.”
“I think it’s in that direction.”
The two towers of Trirodov’s house soon became visible. They appeared to the right, and yet it was impossible to find the way to them. For a long time they blundered. The roads spread and branched out at this point. At last the driver of the first carriage stopped his horses, and behind it the other carriages came to a standstill.
“I’ll have to ask some one,” said the driver. “There’s some sort of a boy coming this way.”
A ten-year-old, barefoot boy could be seen coming down the road from the wood. Shabalov shouted savagely at him:
“Stop!”
The boy glanced at the carriages and calmly walked on. Shabalov cried more furiously this time:
“Stop, you young brat! Off with your cap! Don’t you see that gentlemen are coming—why don’t you bow to them?”