“Yes. Well?”
“Well, form your own opinion of humanity when I tell you that he was the chief of that band! Is it not incredible?”
Yaroslav Ilyitch was vastly excited over his story. Now he could form a true estimate of his fellow-men. Indeed, he had never failed to do so, for such was his way.
“And the rest of the band? And Murin?” asked Ordynov in a low voice.
“Ah! Murin, Murin! That noble, that venerable, old man! . . . But pardon me. You have suddenly inspired me with an idea.”
“An idea? Was he too one of the band?” Impatience was coming near to choking Ordynov’s heart within his breast.
“Oh dear, no! What makes you ask that?” Yaroslav Ilyitch looked searchingly at his friend (a sure sign that he was reflecting). “Murin could not possibly have been one of them, since, quite three weeks ago, he left for the country, together with his wife. I had that straight from the dvornik, the little Tartar. Doubtless you remember him?”
7 The sect known as the Old Believers, who hold to the Scriptures as they existed in the version before revisal, in 1655, by the Patriarch Nikon.
8 A diminutive of Alexis.
9 In Russia tea is served in tumblers, not in cups.
10 Fishermen of the Volga.