“Why, I can’t see Avtonomov,” interrupted the plaintive voice of the young wanderer.
“Neither can I,” grunted Andrey Ivanovich.
“What a misfortune!” said the young wanderer sorrowfully. “I’ve been abandoned by my protector....”
His voice was so filled with despair that we both looked ahead involuntarily in search of the lost Avtonomov. Suddenly, rather to one side, we heard a dull sound as if some one had stepped upon an old bridge.
“There he is!” said Andrey Ivanovich. “He went to the left.”
“The road must have turned.”
In truth the road soon forked. We also turned to the left. Ivan Ivanovich sighed from relief.
“What are you grieving so over?” asked Andrey Ivanovich. “Is he your brother or who is he? He’s a freak, begging your pardon.”
“He’s closer than a brother. I’d be lost without him; I can’t beg myself. And in our condition not to—is absolute ruin....”
“Why do you wander around?”