I know, will help me on my way."

I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and
Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding
along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude
. . . . He read boredom in my face, and sighed.

"And my sister must be married by now," he said, thinking aloud,
and at once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top
of the rock and said:

"From that mountain one can see Izyum."

As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I
suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the
sole of his shoe.

"Tss!" he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare
foot without a stocking. "How unpleasant! . . . That's a complication,
you know, which . . . Yes!"

Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable
to believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time
frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue.

I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed
toes and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and
only wore them in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made
up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots.
He accepted them and said with dignity: