'You a peasant, Akim Semyonitch? You are as good as a merchant, let
alone a house-serf! What do you mean? Don't distress yourself for
nothing. Won't you have some tea?'
'No, thank you, I don't want it. So you have got hold of my house
between you,' he added, moving away from the wall. 'Thank you for
that. I wish you good-bye, my lady.'
And he turned and went out. Kirillovna straightened her apron and went
to her mistress.
'So I am a merchant, it seems,' Akim said to himself, standing before
the gate in hesitation. 'A nice merchant!' He waved his hand and
laughed bitterly. 'Well, I suppose I had better go home.'
And entirely forgetting Naum's horse with which he had come, he
trudged along the road to the inn. Before he had gone the first mile
he suddenly heard the rattle of a cart beside him.
'Akim, Akim Semyonitch,' someone called to him.
He raised his eyes and saw a friend of his, the parish clerk, Yefrem,
nicknamed the Mole, a little, bent man with a sharp nose and
dim-sighted eyes. He was sitting on a bundle of straw in a wretched
little cart, and leaning forward against the box.
'Are you going home?' he asked Akim.
Akim stopped
'Yes.'
'Shall I give you a lift?'
'Please do.'
Yefrem moved to one side and Akim climbed into the cart. Yefrem, who
seemed to be somewhat exhilarated, began lashing at his wretched
little horse with the ends of his cord reins; it set off at a weary
trot continually tossing its unbridled head.
They drove for nearly a mile without saying one word to each other.
Akim sat with his head bent while Yefrem muttered to himself,
alternately urging on and holding back his horse.
'Where have you been without your cap, Semyonitch?' he asked Akim
suddenly and, without waiting for an answer, went on, 'You've left it
at some tavern, that's what you've done. You are a drinking man; I
know you and I like you for it, that you are a drinker; you are not a
murderer, not a rowdy, not one to make trouble; you are a good
manager, but you are a drinker and such a drinker, you ought to have
been pulled up for it long ago, yes, indeed; for it's, a nasty
habit.... Hurrah!' he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice,
'Hurrah! Hurrah!'
'Stop! Stop!' a woman's voice sounded close by, 'Stop!'
Akim looked round. A woman so pale and dishevelled that at first he
did not recognise her, was running across the field towards the cart.
'Stop! Stop!' she moaned again, gasping for breath and waving her
arms.
Akim started: it was his wife.
He snatched up the reins.
'What's the good of stopping?' muttered Yefrem. 'Stopping for a woman?
Gee-up!'
But Akim pulled the horse up sharply. At that instant Avdotya ran up
to the road and flung herself down with her face straight in the dust.
'Akim Semyonitch,' she wailed, 'he has turned me out, too!'
Akim looked at her and did not stir; he only gripped the reins
tighter.
'Hurrah!' Yefrem shouted again.
'So he has turned you out?' said Akim.
'He has turned me out, Akim Semyonitch, dear,' Avdotya answered,
sobbing. 'He has turned me out. The house is mine, he said, so you can
go.'
'Capital! That's a fine thing ... capital,' observed Yefrem.
'So I suppose you thought to stay on?' Akim brought out bitterly,
still sitting in the cart.
'How could I! But, Akim Semyonitch,' went on Avdotya, who had raised
her head but let it sink to the earth again, 'you don't know, I ...
