ghbouring shed
and whirled about in the corner near the bath-house.

Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse's head to
the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the high porch in front
of the house with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing a cloth-covered
sheep-skin coat tightly girdled low at his waist, and stepped onto the
hard-trodden snow which squeaked under the leather soles of his felt
boots, and stopped. Taking a last whiff of his cigarette he threw it
down, stepped on it, and letting the smoke escape through his moustache
and looking askance at the horse that was coming up, began to tuck
in his sheepskin collar on both sides of his ruddy face, clean-shaven
except for the moustache, so that his breath should not moisten the
collar.

'See now! The young scamp is there already!' he exclaimed when he saw
his little son in the sledge. Vasili Andreevich was excited by the vodka
he had drunk with his visitors, and so he was even more pleased than
usual with everything that was his and all that he did. The sight of
his son, whom he always thought of as his heir, now gave him great
satisfaction. He looked at him, screwing up his eyes and showing his
long teeth.

His wife--pregnant, thin and pale, with her head and shoulders wrapped
in a shawl so that nothing of her face could be seen but her eyes--stood
behind him in the vestibule to see him off.

'Now really, you ought to take Nikita with you,' she said timidly,
stepping out from the doorway.

Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed him and he
frowned angrily and spat.

'You have money on you,' she continued in the same plaintive voice.
'What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for goodness' sake!'

'Why? Don't I know the road that I must needs take a guide?' exclaimed
Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing
his lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and
sellers.

'Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God's name!' his wife
repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.

'There, she sticks to it like a leech!... Where am I to take him?'

'I'm quite ready to go with you, Vasili Andreevich,' said Nikita
cheerfully. 'But they must feed the horses while I am away,' he added,
turning to his master's wife.

'I'll look after them, Nikita dear. I'll tell Simon,' replied the
mistress.

'Well, Vasili Andreevich, am I to come with you?' said N