Yegorushka examined his coat.  It was a little grey overcoat with big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat.  At home, being a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his mother’s dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on holidays.  Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it.  He thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.

A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face, sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka.  It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not.  Deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again.

“There are Varlamov’s men!” someone shouted in the street.

After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street.  The waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway.  The drenched waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn.  Yegorushka looked at them and thought:  “How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!” He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.

“Grandfather, I’m cold,” he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up his sleeves.

“Never mind, we shall soon be there,” yawned Panteley.  “Never mind, you will get warm.”

It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot.  Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth.  As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill again.  Feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint:  “I am so dreary!” Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms.  And how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!

Once—­it was towards evening—­he raised his head to ask for water.  The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river.  There was black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a steamer with a barge in tow.  Ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks.

Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad rivers.  Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face.  He merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale.  He was sick.  Panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head.