home, did not check him. All was well—at any rate, so Polikéy imagined; and he gave himself up to dreams of his mistress’s gratitude, of the five roubles which she would give him, and of the joy of his family. He took off his cap, felt for the envelope, and, smiling, put the cap tighter on his head. The velveteen crown of the cap was very rotten, and just because Akoulína had carefully sewn up the rents in one place, it burst open in another; and the very movement by which Polikéy in the dark had thought to push the envelope with the money deeper under the wadding, tore the cap farther, and pushed out a corner of the envelope through the velveteen crown.
The dawn was appearing, and Polikéy, who had not slept all night, began to drowse. Pulling his cap lower down, and thereby pushing the envelope still farther out, Polikéy let his head droop forward towards the front of the cart. He awoke near home, and was about to catch hold of his cap; but, feeling that it sat firmly on his head, he did not take it off, convinced that the envelope was inside. He gave Drum a touch, arranged the hay in the cart again, put on the appearance of a well-to-do peasant, and, proudly looking about him, rattled homewards.
There was the kitchen; there the domestic serfs’ quarters. There was the joiner’s wife carrying some linen cloth; there was the office, and there the house of the proprietress, where in a few moments Polikéy would be proving himself to be a trustworthy and honest man. “One can say anything about anybody,” he would say; and the lady would reply, “Well, thank you, Polikéy! Here are three (or perhaps five, perhaps even ten) roubles,” and she would order tea for him, or even vodka. “It would not be amiss, after being out in the cold. With ten roubles we would have a treat on the holiday, and buy boots, and return Nikíta his four and a half roubles (it can’t be helped! … He has begun bothering). …”
When he was some hundred steps from his home, Polikéy wrapped his coat round him, pulled his girdle straight, took off his cap, smoothed his