I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his appearance. Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the extraordinary strangeness of his expression. 'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me. 'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for it.' 'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to foot. 'Hunters.' 'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?... the wild things of the woods?... And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent blood?' The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in its softness. 'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.' 'But can I get one in the village?' 'Not much of a village here!... No one has an axle here.... And there is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground. I had not at all expected this conclusion. 'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a kindness, help me.' 'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he said, and drew his cloak over his head. 'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I don't want your money.' 'But please, old man.' He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs. 'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest, and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.' 'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.' 'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place. 'And is it far to this clearing?' 'Three miles.' 'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.' 'Oh, no....' 'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting for us in the road.' The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'