Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed him and he frowned angrily and spat.
‘You have money on you,’ she continued in the same plaintive voice. ‘What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for goodness’ sake!’
‘Why? Don’t I know the road that I must needs take a guide?’ exclaimed Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing his lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and sellers.
‘Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God’s name!’ his wife repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.
‘There, she sticks to it like a leech!... Where am I to take him?’
‘I’m quite ready to go with you, Vasili Andreevich,’ said Nikita cheerfully. ‘But they must feed the horses while I am away,’ he added, turning to his master’s wife.
‘I’ll look after them, Nikita dear. I’ll tell Simon,’ replied the mistress.
‘Well, Vasili Andreevich, am I to come with you?’ said Nikita, awaiting a decision.
‘It seems I must humour my old woman. But if you’re coming you’d better put on a warmer cloak,’ said Vasili Andreevich, smiling again as he winked at Nikita’s short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the arms and at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe round the skirt, and had endured many things in its lifetime.
‘Hey, dear man, come and hold the horse!’ shouted Nikita to the cook’s husband, who was still in the yard.