“Now we’ll follow the dog, get a pheasant to settle on a tree, and then you may fire.”
“Would you have made up to Maryánka?”
“Attend to the dogs. I’ll tell you tonight,” said the old man, pointing to his favourite dog, Lyam.
After a pause they continued talking, while they went about a hundred paces. Then the old man stopped again and pointed to a twig that lay across the path.
“What do you think of that?” he said. “You think it’s nothing? It’s bad that this stick is lying so.”
“Why is it bad?”
He smiled.
“Ah, you don’t know anything. Just listen to me. When a stick lies like that don’t you step across it, but go round it or throw it off the path this way, and say ‘Father and Son and Holy Ghost,’ and then go on with God’s blessing. Nothing will happen to you. That’s what the old men used to teach me.”
“Come, what rubbish!” said Olénin. “You’d better tell me more about Maryánka. Does she carry on with Lukáshka?”
“Hush ... be quiet now!” the old man again interrupted in a whisper: “just listen, we’ll go round through the forest.”