But then he avoided us all.
Upon a lovely afternoon Nikitin and I were alone in the wild little garden, he lying full length on the grass, I reading a very ancient English newspaper, with my back against a tree.
He looked up at me with a swift penetrating glance, as though he were seeing me for the first time and would wish at once to weigh my character and abilities.
"Your Englishman," he said.

"He's not happy, I'm afraid." "No," I said, feeling the surprise of his question--it had become almost a tradition with me that he never spoke unless he were first spoken to.

"He feels strange and a little lonely, perhaps ...

it's natural enough!" "Yes," repeated Nikitin, "it's natural enough.

What did he come for ?" "Oh, he'll be all right," I said hastily, "in a day or two." Nikitin lay on his back looking at the green, layer upon layer, light and dark, with golden fragments of broken light leaping in the breeze from branch to branch.