"Why?"
"I want to see him."
"Well, I am he."
"How do you do?"
"Well, how do you do? What do you want?"
"I have a note to you."
The man was taller than I, with a large beard, broad shoulders, and heavily set. His face was sooty and his small, gray eyes could hardly be seen from under his thick eyebrows. His cap was set far back on his head and his hair was cut short. He looked like a peasant, yet not entirely so. Evidently he read with great difficulty. His face was all wrinkled and his mustache trembled. Suddenly his face cleared, his white teeth shone, he opened his good, childish eyes and the skin in his checks smoothed out.
"Ah," he cried, "he is alive, God's bird! That's good. Go, my dear, to the end of this street and turn to the left toward the wood. At the foot of the mountain there is a house with green shutters. Ask for the teacher. He is called Mikhail. He is my nephew. Show him the note. I will come soon."
He spoke like a soldier, giving his signal on a bugle. He made the speech, waved his hand and went away.
"He is kind and funny," I thought to myself. At the house an angular boy in a cotton shirt and an apron, met me. His sleeves were rolled up; his hands were white and thin. He read through the note and asked me: