“If I had known I would have stayed the night. Well, no matter, we’ll get there tomorrow. It’s only one day lost. And the others won’t travel in such weather.” Then he remembered that on the 9th he had to receive payment from the butcher for his oxen. “He meant to come himself, but he won’t find me, and my wife won’t know how to receive the money. She doesn’t know the right way of doing things,” he thought, recalling how at their party the day before she had not known how to treat the police-officer who was their guest. “Of course she’s only a woman! Where could she have seen anything? In my father’s time what was our house like? Just a rich peasant’s house: just an oatmill and an inn⁠—that was the whole property. But what have I done in these fifteen years? A shop, two taverns, a flour-mill, a grain-store, two farms leased out, and a house with an iron-roofed barn,” he thought proudly. “Not as it was in Father’s time! Who is talked of in the whole district now? Brekhunóv! And why? Because I stick to business. I take trouble, not like others who lie abed or waste their time on foolishness while I don’t sleep of nights. Blizzard or no blizzard I start out. So business gets done. They think moneymaking is a joke. No, take pains and rack your brains!