It was abominable weather: the wind was cutting, and something between rain and snow, and now and then fine hail, beat on Polikéy’s face and on his bare hands which held the reins—and over which he kept drawing the sleeves of his coat—and on the leather of the horse-collar, and on the old head of Drum, who set back his ears and half closed his eyes.
Then suddenly the rain stopped, and it brightened up for a moment. The bluish snow-clouds stood out clear, and the sun seemed to come out, but uncertainly and cheerlessly, like Polikéy’s own smile. Nevertheless, Polikéy was deep in pleasant thoughts. He whom they threatened to exile and enlist, whom only those who were too lazy did not scold and beat, who was always shoved into the worst places, he was now driving to fetch a sum of money, and a large sum, and his mistress trusted him, and he was driving in the steward’s cart behind Drum—with whom the lady herself had driven out—just as if he were some innkeeper, with leather collar-strap and reins instead of ropes. And Polikéy settled himself straighter, pushed in the bits of wadding hanging out of his cap, and again wrapped his coat closer.
However, if Polikéy imagined that he looked like a wealthy peasant proprietor, he deluded himself. It is true that everyone knows that tradesmen worth ten thousand roubles drive in carts with leather harness; only this was not quite the thing. A bearded man in a blue or black coat drives past, sitting alone inside a cart, driving a well-fed horse, and you just glance to see if the horse is sleek and he himself well fed, and at the way he sits, at the horse’s harness, and the tyres of the cartwheels and at his girdle, and you know at once whether the man has a turnover of a hundred or a thousand roubles. Every experienced person looking closer at Polikéy, at his hands, his face, his newly-grown beard, his girdle, at the hay carelessly thrown into the cart, at the bony Drum, at the worn tyres, would know at once that it was only a serf driving past, and not a merchant, or a cattle-dealer, or even a peasant proprietor, and that he was not worth a thousand, or a hundred, or even ten, roubles.