“Where is there a village near?” I asked.
The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my question louder than before.
“A village?—But what do you want?”
“Why, shelter from the rain?”
“What?”
“Shelter from the rain.”
“Ah!” He scratched his sunburnt neck. “Well, now, you go,” he said suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, “so—as you go by the copse—see, as you go—there’ll be a road; you pass it by, and keep right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on.—Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you’d go to Sitovka.”
I followed the old man with difficulty. His mustaches muffled his voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
“Where are you from?” I asked him.
“What?”