houlders.

Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured,
he set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies
had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at
the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman
in Shuteykino and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt
by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of
holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. The snow had sunk
away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it
were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off
it when he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever since the
morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .

A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.
Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to
its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling
out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges
moved slowly by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the
sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women
saying about him, "There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with
compassion at his horse, said quickly:

"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They
are worn out with it!"

Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account
of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him.
And perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he
felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed
to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer
next day to Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless night,
he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all
sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the
stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had
brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, every merchant
tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed that he
was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine,
and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and
soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering
to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain
. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yako