Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could
not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides,
there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole
history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin.

Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and
kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and
that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in
the morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but
now he had no pleasure in it. There was a heaviness in his head and
a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the
ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice.
When such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it
down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he
began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.

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