knows how we missed the turning. The forest ought to be there,
and a watchman's hut, and dogs barking. But the damned things don't
bark when they're wanted.' He turned his collar down from his ear and
listened, but as before only the whistling of the wind could be heard,
the flapping and fluttering of the kerchief tied to the shafts, and the
pelting of the snow against the woodwork of the sledge. He again covered
up his ear.

'If I had known I would have stayed the night. Well, no matter, we'll
get there to-morrow. It's only one day lost. And the others won't travel
in such weather.' Then he remembered that on the 9th he had to receive
payment from the butcher for his oxen. 'He meant to come himself, but
he won't find me, and my wife won't know how to receive the money. She
doesn't know the right way of doing things,' he thought, recalling
how at their party the day before she had not known how to treat the
police-officer who was their guest. 'Of course she's only a woman! Where
could she have seen anything? In my father's time what was our house
like? Just a rich peasant's house: just an oatmill and an inn--that was
the whole property. But what have I done in these fifteen years? A shop,
two taverns, a flour-mill, a grain-store, two farms leased out, and a
house with an iron-roofed barn,' he thought proudly. 'Not as it was in
Father's time! Who is talked of in the whole district now? Brekhunov!
And why? Because I stick to business. I take trouble, not like others
who lie abed or waste their time on foolishness while I don't sleep of
nights. Blizzard or no blizzard I start out. So business gets done. They
think money-making is a joke. No, take pains and rack your brains! You
get overtaken out of doors at night, like this, or keep awake night
after night till the thoughts whirling in your head make the pillow
turn,' he meditated with pride. 'They think people get on through luck.
After all, the Mironovs are now millionaires. And why? Take pains and
God gives. If only He grants me health!'

The thought that he might himself be a millionaire like Mironov, who
began with nothing, so excited Vasili Andreevich that he felt the need
of talking to somebody. But there was no one to talk to.... If only
he could have reached Goryachkin he would have talked to the landlord
and shown him a thing or two.

'Just see how it blows! It will snow us up so deep that we shan't be
able to get out in the morning!' he thought, listening to a