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.