# Tales from Tolstoi/Master and Man

​MASTER AND MAN
I.
It happened in the seventies, on the day after wintry Nicholas' Day. There had been a feast in the parish, and town councillor Vasily Andreich Brekhunov (he was also a merchant of the second guild) could not absent himself therefrom — he was a church elder — and had moreover to receive and entertain at home his kinsfolk and acquaintances. And now the last of the guests had gone, and Vasily Andreich began setting about departing immediately to a neighbouring squire, to buy of him a wood for which he had long been in treaty. Vasily Andreich made haste to depart, lest the merchants of the town should anticipate him by over-bidding him, and thus snatch away from him this profitable property. The young squire asked ten thousand for this wood, simply because Vasily Andreich had offered seven thousand for it. Seven thousand indeed was only a third of the actual value of the wood. Vasily Andreich might have been inclined to beat him down still further, because the ​wood happened to be in his district, and there had long been an understanding between him and the local merchants, that one merchant should not bid against another of the same district; but Vasily Andreich was aware that the Government forest contractors were after the Goryachkinsky wood, so he resolved to set out immediately and settle the business with the squire. So, as soon as the feast was over, he got out of his strong box 700 roubles, added to them the 2,300 bank-notes he had by him, making together 3,000 roubles, and, after carefully counting them all over, placed them in his pocketbook, and prepared to go.
Day-labourer Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich's labourers who was not drunk to-day, hastened to put the horse to. Nikita was not drunk to-day, because he had been a drunkard, and since the flesh-eating days had begun, previous to which he had drunk everything down to his clothes and his leather boots, he had solemnly renounced drink; and indeed he had drunk nothing during the second month; and now too he had not drunken despite the temptations of the wine flowing everywhere during the first two days of the feast.
Nikita was a muzhik of about fifty years of age, from the neighbouring village; no householder, as people said — living for the greater part of his life not at home, but amongst the people. Everywhere was he prized for his painstaking and his skill and strength as a workman, but principally for his good, friendly character. But he never stayed long in one place, because twice in the year, and now and then ​still oftener, he fell a-drinking, and then, besides drinking away all he had, he became noisy and quarrelsome likewise. Vasily Andreich had also driven him away once or twice, but taken him on again afterwards—he valued him for his honesty, for his love of animals, and principally for his cheapness. Vasily Andreich paid Nikita not at the rate of eighty roubles, as such a workman was well worth, but at the rate of forty roubles, which he gave him without any strict account, in driblets, and for the most part not in cash, but in wares out of his store, and at a dear rate.
The wife of Nikita, Martha, at one time a beauty, was a smart old woman, kept house at home, with a little lad and two girls to look after, and she did not call on Nikita to live at home, first because for twenty years she had been living with a cooper, a muzhik out of another village who dwelt with them in the house; and in the second place because, although she worried her husband as she willed when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he was drunk. Once when he had drunk himself mad drunk at home, Nikita, no doubt to revenge himself for all his sober submissiveness, had broken open her clothes' chest, dragged out all her most precious dresses, and catching up a chopper, chopped all her gowns and other garments into little pieces on the chopping-block. All the wages earned by Nikita went to his wife, and to this he made no objection. So now, too, two days before the feast, Martha had gone to Vasily Andreich and received from him white meal, tea, sugar, and a small flask of wine—the whole worth about three ​roubles; she also got five roubles in money, and thanked him therefore as for an especial favour, when, as a matter of fact, at the lowest estimate, twenty roubles were due from Vasily Andreich.
"Should we make any conditions with thee?" Vasily Andreich would say to Nikita. "Take that which thou needest — that which is thy due. I am not of those who say to their people, 'Wait a while, I owe you so much, and ye have forfeited so much or so much.' Honour is our watchword. Thou dost me service, and I will not desert thee. Thou dost want this or that? Good, be it so!" And in saying all this Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was Nikita's benefactor, so persuasively could he talk; and everyone, beginning with Nikita, shared his conviction, and said yes to him.
"Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich, it beseems a servant to look upon his master as a veritable father. I quite understand." Knowing very well all the time that Vasily Andreich was swindling him, yet feeling at the same time that it was of no use trying to clear up accounts with him, and that live he must somehow until he got another place, and so must take what was given him.
And now, receiving the order from his master to put the horse to, Nikita, now as always, willingly and cheerfully, with a light and free step of his waddling feet — he had somewhat of the gait of a goose — went to the outhouse, took down from the nail there the heavy leather tasselled saddle, and the somewhat worn and shabby bridle, and went to the safely fastened stable, in which stood, all by itself, that particular ​horse which Vasily Andreich had told him to harness.
"What, thou dost not know what to do with thyself, with all this standing still, thou old fool, eh?" said Nikita in reply to the faint whinny of welcome with which he was greeted by the middle-sized, neat, dark-brown stallion standing solitary in the stable. "Well, well, thou shalt soon be off now, thou old simpleton, if thou dost but wait an instant." He spoke to the horse precisely as we speak to creatures which understand human speech, and he put the bridle on the handsome head of the stallion, comfortably adjusted its ears and mane, and seizing it by the halter, led it out to water. Cautiously making its way out of the high stable, Brownie began to sport and neigh, pretending, as he trotted along, that he wanted to hit with his hind leg Nikita, who was running with him to the well.
"None of thy tricks, thou rascal!" admonished Nikita, well aware of the carefulness with which Brownie always flung out with his hind leg, managing just to graze his short fur jacket but not to hit him, and taking great delight in this trick.
Having drunk his fill of cold water, the horse stood still, drew in his breath, smacked his strong wet lips, from the hairs of which transparent drops of water dripped back into the trough, and snorted.
"Now ask not for any more, for thou wilt not get it, thou hast had enough," said Nikita, quite seriously, and circumstantially justifying his conduct to Brownie; and again he set off running, this time back to the stable again, tugging after him by the ​bridle the joyous young horse as it plunged and reared all along the courtyard.
There were no labourers about, there was only a strange man-cook there who had come to the feast.
"Dear soul!" said Nikita to this man, "go and ask to which sledge the horse is to be put, the big common one lined with best bark, or the little one?"
The man-cook went into the house, and soon returned with the tidings that it was the little one the master would have made ready. Meanwhile Nikita put on the horse-collar, fastened on the saddle, which was well studded with brass nails, and holding in one hand a light-coloured shaft-bow and leading the horse by the other, went on to the two sledges standing beneath the shed.
"So it is to be the little one, is it — the little one?" he kept on repeating to himself as he led between the shafts the shrewd young horse, which was pretending it wanted to bite him all the time, and began attaching him thereto with the assistance of the man-cook.
When all this was nearly ready and it only remained to lead him out, Nikita sent the man-cook to the barn for hay and to the store-house for a sack.
"That'll do nicely! But no tricks now, no tricks!" said Nikita, stuffing into the sledge the fresh, well-threshed oat-hay brought to him by the man-cook from the barn.
"And now that big piece of cloth," continued Nikita, "and let us place it so, and the sack atop of it. That's right — that's right — and now it will be ​nice to sit upon," said he, smoothing down the sacking over the straw on all sides round about the seat.
"There we are, and many thanks, dear soul," said Nikita to the man-cook, "the two of us together will soon be ready with the job;" and adjusting the reins so as to let them hang loosely, Nikita took his seat on the box and urged his good horse coaxingly over the frozen dung to the gate.
"Daddy Mikit! daddy, daddy!" cried a voice behind him. It was a little seven-year-old lad, who, after a great clicking of the latch, scurried out of the barn into the courtyard, dressed in a black half-jacket, new, white bast shoes, and a warm cap. "Give me a ride, give me a ride!" piped his shrill little suppliant voice, and he buttoned his little half-jacket as he scampered along.
"Come along, then; come along! my little dove," said Nikita, stopping for a moment to set up before him the little petitioner, his master's son, who was beaming with joy, and they rode out into the street.
It was three o'clock. There were ten degrees of frost, and it was overcast and windy; in the courtyard it had seemed so still. In the street a strong wind was blowing; from the roof of the neighbouring barn the snow was flying and whirling into a drift in the corner next the bath-house. At the very moment when Nikita drove out and brought the horse up at the foot of the flight of steps, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, and wearing a sheep-skin mantle girded tightly and low down by a stout girdle, ​came out of the vestibule on to the steps, the snow upon which crackled beneath the tread of his felt shoes, and stood still, smoothing away from both sides of his ruddy face — clean shaved, too, with the exception of a moustache — the corners of the collar of his sheep-skin mantle, lined inwardly with fur, lest the fur should be made wet and moist by his breathing.
"So you are perched up there already, you little rascal, eh?" said he, perceiving his little son in the sledge, and he showed his white teeth as he grinned. Vasily Andreich had been stimulated by drinking wine with his guests, and was therefore more than usually satisfied with everything which belonged to him and with everything which he did.
With her head and her shoulders enveloped in woollen wraps, so that only her eyes were visible, the thin and pale-faced wife of Vasily Andreich accompanied him, standing behind him in the vestibule.
"Nay, indeed, you should take Nikita with you," said she, boldly emerging from the door. Vasily Andreich said nothing; he only spat on the ground. "You have got money with you," she continued in a lamentable sort of voice. "Yes, and the weather shows no signs of lifting. You ought indeed, God knows."
"What! do you mean to say that I don't know the way then, that you are always bothering me to take a guide?" replied Vasily Andreich, with that peculiar unnatural stiffening of the lips with which he generally addressed buyers or sellers with whom he was haggling — obviously he loved the sound of his own voice. ​"Yes, indeed, you ought to take him. I pray you, in God's name, take him!" continued his wife, tightening her wraps.
"That's right, as noisy as a bath-broom! But where then shall I put him?"
"Look you, I am quite ready, Vasily Andreich," cried Nikita cheerily. "There will only be the horses' fodder to look after in my absence," added he, turning to his mistress.
"I'll see to it, Nikitushka. I'll give orders to Simon," said his mistress.
"Then am I to go, Vasily Andreich?" asked Nikita, expectant.
"Ah! I see you have a wholesome respect for the missus! But if go you must, you must put on clothes a little more decent and warmer," said Vasily Andreidh, smiling once more, and glancing out of his half-closed eyes at the ragged, soiled, and shabby fringes of Nikita's jacket peeping out everywhere from underneath his furs.
"Hie, my dear soul! come hither, and hold the horse!" cried Nikita to the man-cook standing in the courtyard.
"No, let me do it! I'll do it!" screamed the little lad, drawing his frost-numbed, pretty little hands out of his pockets, and seizing hold of the cold leather reins.
"Only look sharp about your swell get-up," cried Vasily Andreich, showing his teeth again as he cracked his joke at Nikita.
"In a trice, little father," cried' Nikita, and quickly shoving his socks inside his greasy, worn-down felt ​shoes, he ran into the courtyard towards the workmen's hut.
"Ho, there, Arinushka! give me my khalat from the stove corner. I am going with master!" cried Nikita, running into the hut and taking his girdle down from the nail.
The workwoman, who had just risen from her after-dinner sleep, and was just then placing the samovar before her husband, gave Nikita a merry look, and catching the contagion of his bustling haste, scuttled off as rapidly as he himself could have done, and fetched down from the stove where it was drying his threadbare cloth kaftan, shook it, and smoothed out the creases.
"No wonder you and master carry it off so comfortably together," said Nikita, out of the mere desire of a loquacious and good-natured man to say something pleasant and obliging to whomsoever he may come face to face with. And spanning around him the narrow, well-worn little belt, he drew in his stomach (it was meagre enough already), and girded himself right over his jacket with all his might.
"So, there you are!" said he, after this was done, addressing himself this time not to the cook but to his belt, as he tucked the ends of it in behind his sash. "Mind you stick there, that's all!" and rising up from his stooping position, and lowering his shoulders to give his hands greater freedom, he put on his khalat, using some force to make it fit closely to his back, so that it might not interfere with his ​hands, drew it down beneath his armpits, and picked up his gloves from the floor. "Well, now, I am all right!"
"It is your feet you ought to look to most," said the cook, "and those boots of yours are bad."
Nikita stood stock-still as if he would call to mind something.
"I ought to — yes! Well, I must go as I am. It will not be far."
And he ran into the courtyard.
"Won't you find it cold, Nikitushka?" said his mistress, when he had reached the sledge.
"Cold! why I'm warm all over!" replied Nikita, disposing the straw in the fore part of the sledge so as to cover his feet, and sticking under the straw the whip, which is quite unnecessary for a good horse.
Vasily Andreich was already sitting in his place, almost filling up the entire back part of the sledge with his well-clothed back wrapped in its double suit of furs, and seizing the reins at the same moment, he flicked the horse with them. Nikita, as they set off, bent forward a little to the left to get into an easier position, and stretched out one leg.
II.
The good horse set the sledge in motion (the curved sides of it creaking a little as they set off), and off they went at a smart trot along the level frozen road leading to the village.
"What do you mean by hanging on behind there? ​Give me the whip, Nikita," cried Vasily Andreich, evidently proud of his son, who was clinging on behind to the supports of the sledge. "I'll give it you! Run off to mamma, you son of a dog, you!"
The lad leaped off. The horse increased its pace, and presently broke into a gallop.
The hamlet in which stood the house of Vasily Andreich consisted of six houses. No sooner had they passed the last house (it was a smithy) than they perceived that the wind was much more violent than they had imagined. Already the road was scarcely visible. The track of the sledge vanished almost immediately, and the road was only distinguishable because it stood higher than all the rest of space. The whole plain before them was a-smoke with mist; it was impossible to make out where the earth ended and where the sky began.
The forest of Telyatin, always such a striking feature of the landscape, was now but a black shadow seen dimly through the snow dust. The wind blew from the left, persistently forcing sideways the mane on Brownie's hard-bitten neck and his tied-up tail, and pressing down the long collar of Nikita's khalat. Nikita was facing the wind, which blew full against him.
"His present pace is nothing, there's too much snow about," said Vasily Andreich, right proud of his good horse. "Once I sat behind him on the road to Pashutno, and he did the whole distance in half an hour."
"What?"
​"All the way to Pashutno, I say — he did the whole distance in half an hour."
"That's something to talk about! A good horse he is, and no mistake!" said Nikita.
They were silent for a time, but Vasily Andreich had a talking fit upon him.
"Well, how does your old woman get on with her friend the cooper?" said Vasily Andreich, so convinced that it ought to be very pleasant for Nikita to converse with such a sensible and distinguished man as himself, and so pleased with his own joke that it never entered his head whether his conversation might not be disagreeable to Nikita. Nikita, however, did not catch his master's words distinctly, as the wind carried the sound away from him.
Vasily Andreich repeated his jest about the cooper in his deep, full voice.
"God be with them, Vasily Andreich! I don't meddle in the matter. So long as she is kind to the little one, God be with her."
"Oh! that's it, is it?" said Vasily Andreich. "Well, are you going to buy that horse in the spring?" he asked, broaching another subject.
"I should like to have the chance," answered Nikita, turning aside the collar of his kaftan, and bending over towards his master.
The conversation had now grown interesting to Nikita, and he did not want to lose a word of it.
"He's very small, not much good even at ploughing, he's so very small," said he.
"Take him as he stands. I won't put too big a price upon it," shouted Vasily Andreich, feeling him​self growing excited as he plunged again into his favourite occupation, that swallowed up everything else — the driving of a bargain.
"And then, you know, for fifteen roubles I could pick and choose at the horse fair," said Nikita, well knowing that seven roubles was a very good price to pay for the horse that Vasily Andreich wanted to palm off upon him; and that if Vasily Andreich let him have the horse he would charge him twenty-five roubles for it, which would mean not seeing the colour of his money in wages for half a year.
"The horse is a good one. I would do you a good turn as well as myself. On my conscience I would A Brekhunov would injure no man. I seek not mine own, as do others. On my honour, a first-rate horse!" he cried, in the same tone of voice he always affected when haggling with buyers and sellers.
"No doubt," said Nikita; and fully persuaded that it was no longer of any use to listen, he put up with his hand the collar of his coat, which immediately covered up his face and ears.
For half an hour they went on in silence. The wind blew right into Nikita's side and arm just where his fur was ragged and torn. He hugged himself, and breathed hard into his collar, that covered his mouth, and his hard breathing seemed to burn him.
"Well what do you think? Shall we go in the direction of Karamnishevo, or straight on?" asked Vasily Andreich.
The Karamnishevo road was much the more frequented, with well-maintained posts on both sides — but it was the longer way. Straight on would be ​nearer, but the road was badly kept, and there were no sign-posts, or very sorry ones.
Nikita thought for a moment.
"By the Karamnishevo road," said he at last; "it is longer, but easier going."
"But if you go straight, you have only to pass the hollow — you can't miss it, and then you're all right again," said Vasily Andreich, who wanted to go straight on.
"As you please," said Nikita, and again he put up his collar.
Vasily Andreich did as he wished, and driving for half a mile past a small wood of tall oaks well swept by the wind, but still having a few dry leaves upon them here and there, he turned off to the left. On turning the comer the wind blew almost straight in their faces. Light snowflakes were falling from above. Vasily Andreich straightened himself up, puffed out his cheeks, and blew hard down into his moustaches. Nikita fell a-nodding. They drove along in silence for about ten minutes. All at once Vasily Andreich said something.
"What is it?" asked Nikita, opening his eyes.
Vasily Andreich answered nothing, but looked scared, peering backwards and forwards over the horse's head. The horse, beaded with sweat on the flanks and neck, was going at a foot-pace.
"What's amiss, I say?" repeated Nikita.
"Amiss! amiss!" mocked Vasily Andreich angrily. "I don't see the posts, we must have missed our way."
"Stop, then; I'll look along the road," cried Nikita, and lightly leaping from his perch, and snatching ​up the whip from under the straw, he struck to the left of the place where he had been sitting.
The snow that year was not deep, so that there was a way through it everywhere, yet here and there it reached up to a man's knee, and found its way into Nikita's boots. Nikita tramped along, and felt his way with his whip and his feet, but there was no sign of the road anywhere.
"Well, how is it?" said Vasily Andreich, when Nikita picked his way back to the sledge.
"There is no road this way. We must go along in the other direction."
"Look! What is that black thing in front? You go over yonder and see!" said Vasily Andreich.
Nikita went thither also, he went right up to the black thing in front — it was the ground that was black there, sprinkled over with bare-lying winter seed, which had coloured the snow black. After turning to the right also, Nikita returned to the sledge, brushed off the snow from his clothes, shook it out of his boots, and sat down in the sledge again.
"We must go to the right," said he decisively. "The wind was blowing upon my left side, and now it is right on my nose. Go to the right," said he in a decided tone.
Vasily Andreich listened to him, and turned to the right.
Still there was no sign of a road. Thus on they went for some time. The wind did not abate, and the light snowflakes continued to fall.
"We have plainly quite lost our way, Vasily Andreich," said Nitika suddenly, with an air of some​thing very like satisfaction. "What's that?" he added, pointing to a black potato-plant peeping forth from under the snow.
Vasily Andreich had already pulled up the horse, whose strong sides were wet with sweat.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
"I make this of it: that we are in the fields of Zakharovek — that is where we have gone astray."
"Lies!" cried Vasily Andreich, speaking in a very different tone to what he used at home, by his voice you would have taken him for a simple peasant.
"I lie not. I am speaking the truth, Vasily Andreich," said Nikita. "And it was plain from the sound made by the sledge itself that we were going over a potato field; and look at the bits of the plants that we have carried along with us. We are in the Zakharovek fields — not a doubt of it."
"A pretty round you've taken us out of our way!" said Vasily Andreich. "What are we to do now?"
"We must go straight on, that's all, wherever we may come out," said Nikita. "If we don't come out at Zakharovek, we shall come to some gentleman's farm or other."
Vasily Andreich obeyed, and let the horse go on again as Nikita had commanded. They went on thus for a pretty long time. Sometimes they drove along over bare fields of vegetables, whose ridges and bounds peering above the snow were strewn with the dust of the earth. Sometimes they got among stubble fields, or among fields sown with winter corn, or fields sown with summer corn, in which appeared at intervals from underneath the snow, shaking in the ​wind, patches of straw or wormwood; sometimes they drove into deep white plains of snow, everywhere uniform, above which notching was visible. Snow fell from above and rose up from below. Sometimes it seemed to them as if they were going uphill, and sometimes as if they were going down dale; sometimes it seemed to them as if they were standing stock-still in one place and the snowy plain was running past them. Both had grown silent. The horse was evidently weary to death — mottled and dripping with sweat, and going at a foot-pace. Suddenly it collapsed and sat down in some chasm or ditch. Vasily Andreidh would have stopped, but Nikita began shrieking at him.
"Why do you stop? Go on! We must get out of this. Come, come, my son!" he said in a cheery voice to the horse, leaping out of the sledge and into the chasm. The horse made a brave effort, and struggled out upon a frozen gravel-heap. It had evidently fallen into a ditch.
"Where are we, I wonder?" said Vasily Andreich.
"We must find out," answered Nikita. "Push on, anyhow, we shall come out somewhere."
"Surely that is the Goryachkinsky wood?" said Vasily Andreich, pointing to something black peeping out of the snow in front of them.
"Come and let us see what sort of a wood it is," said Nikita. Nikita had perceived that from the direction of this black something, dry, longish vine-leaves were being carried along by the wind, and therefore he knew it was not a wood, but human habitations to which they were coming, but he did ​not trust himself to speak. And in fact they had not proceeded more than twenty yards from the ditch when in front of them — there was no mistaking it — a village loomed forth blackly, and a new and melancholy sound was to be heard. Nikita had guessed rightly, this was no wood, but a row of low vines, with here and there a few leaves still shivering upon them. Making his way towards these vines, moaning sadly in the wind, the horse suddenly raised itself on its fore-feet till it was higher than the sledge, then struggled on to its hind legs also, and so extricated its knees from the snow. It had gained the road.
"So, here we are," said Nikita; "and we don't know where."
The horse proceeded without stumbling along the snow-bound road, and they had gone along it not more than forty yards when a row of fences loomed black before them, from which the snow never ceased to fall and spread about. On passing the fence the road turned in the direction of the wind, and they plunged into a snow-drift. But right in front of them a lane between the houses was visible, so that it was plain the drift had been blown together upon the road, and they would have to force their way through it. And, indeed, after forcing their way through the snow-drift they got upon the road again. On a rope in the furthermost courtyard some stiff-frozen clothes were fluttering desperately in the wind in every direction: two shirts, one red and one white; hose, socks, and a petticoat. The white shirt was turning about with particular desperation, and waving its sleeves.
​"Look, there lives a lazy old woman, or else she is dead, for she has not taken down her washing against the feast," said Nikita, looking at the fluttering shirts.
III.
At the beginning of the street it was also windy, and the road was snowy, but in the middle of the village it was quiet, warm, and cheerful. At one house a dog was barking, in another courtyard an old woman with a handkerchief round her head was running home from somewhere or other, and when she reached the door of the hut she remained standing on the threshold to look at the travellers passing by. From the middle of the village resounded the songs of some girls. In the village itself the wind, the snow, and the frost seemed less than elsewhere.
"I suppose this is Grishkino," said Vasily Andreich.
"Yes, it is," replied Nikita.
And indeed Grishkino it was. It now appeared that they had taken a wrong turn to the left, and had gone eight versts, not precisely in the direction they had wanted to go, nevertheless they had been moving towards their destination; for Goryachkina was only five versts distance from Grishkino.
In the middle of the village they came upon a tall man driving in the middle of the street.
"Who goes there?" bellowed this man, stopping short, and immediately afterwards, perceiving Vasily Andreich, he caught hold of the shafts, and leaping ​over them with the help of his hands, came up to the sledge, and sat down on the box-seat.
It was an old acquaintance of Vasily Andreich, the muzhik Isai, well known all about those parts as a horse-thief.
"Why, Vasily Andreich! where on earth are you off to?" said Isai, sending a whiff of vodka in the direction of Nikita.
"We are going to Goryachkina."
"You have come out of your way then. You must go by way of Malakhovo then."
"Needs must then. I suppose we are a little out of it," said Vasily Andreich, stopping the horse.
"That's a good little nag of yours," said Isai, looking at the horse, and drawing his hand beneath the tail, slightly loosening the knot into which the tail was tied, after the manner of dealers in horse-flesh.
"Why not pass the night here?"
"Nay, brother, we must be going on."
"You had better stay — you ought."
"Tell us, dear soul," put in Nikita, "how to go so that we may not go astray again."
"How can you lose your way here? Return to the road straight, when you get there you'll find it all straightforward. Don't turn to the left. You'll come out by a big mound, and then turn to the left."
"We turn from the big mound, then — but in which direction, the summer side or the winter side?" asked Nikita.
"The winter side. Immediately when you come out there, you will see bushes, right opposite the ​bushes is a big post — an oaken, ragged-looking post, that is where it is."
Vasily Andreich turned his horse back, and drove past the village.
"You ought to pass the night here, I tell you!" bawled Isai after him. But Vasily Andreich made him no answer, but urged on the horse. Five miles of level road, two of which were protected by woods, did not seem to be much of a business to traverse, especially as the wind had died down somewhat, and the snow had ceased to fall.
Proceeding back again down the street along a roughish piece of road, darkened here and there by freshly fallen horse-dung, and passing the courtyard where the clothes were hung out (the white shirt had by this time wrenched itself loose, and was hanging by one frost-stiff arm only), they once more drove along by the fearfully moaning plantations of vines, and came out again into the open. Here the snowstorm, so far from subsiding, seemed to blow with greater fury than ever. The whole road was covered with snow, and it was only the tops of the posts that told them they had not lost their way. But it was difficult to distinguish the posts themselves very far ahead, as the wind was blowing full against them.
Vasily Andreich wrinkled his brow, bent his head, and kept a sharp look out for the posts; but it was best, he thought, to let the horse go his own way, and trust to him. And indeed the horse did not go astray, but went alternately, now to the right and now to the left, along the winding road, which it recognised beneath its feet. Consequently, despite the fact that ​the snowfall from above increased in violence, and the wind also blew more violently, the posts on the right side and the left continued to be visible.
And so they went on for the next ten minutes, when suddenly, right in front of the horse, appeared a black something, moving along in a perfect network of fine snow driven along by the wind. They were fellow-travellers travelling in the same direction. Brownie regularly ran them down, and grazed the box-seat of the sledge in front with his hoofs.
"Go round — go round in front!" cried the people in the other sledge.
Vasily Andreich set about going in front. There were three muzhiks and an old woman in the other sledge. Evidently they were guests returning home from a feast. One of the muzhiks was whipping up the horse from behind with a bundle of twigs. Two of the muzhiks in the front part of the sledge were waving their hands and screeching something. The woman, wrapped closely up and covered with snow, was sitting silently, like a big puffed-up bundle of clothes, in the back part of the sledge.
"Who do you belong to?" cried Vasily Andreich.
"A-a-a-sky!" was all that was audible.
"Who do you belong to, I say?"
"A-a-a-sky!" roared one of the muzhiks with all his might, and yet it was impossible to make out whom they meant.
The sledges grazed each other as they passed. They seemed interlocked one moment, and the next they were free of each other again, and then the peasants' sledge began to draw away.
​The shaggy little thickset horse, all covered with snow, panted heavily beneath the low shaft-bow, evidently exhausting its last reserve of strength as it dragged its short legs haltingly through the deep snow, frequently they almost doubled up beneath it. To judge from its snout it was evidently a young animal. It had a stiff drawn-out lower lip like a fish's with distended nostrils, and ears pressed close to its head in terror. For a few seconds it held itself close beside Nikita's shoulder, and then it began slowly to draw away.
"It is easy to see what sort they are," said Nikita, "they'll end by killing their poor little nag outright, savages that they are!"
For some moments the snorting of the overworked horse and the drunken cries of the muzhiks continued to be heard, presently the snorting ceased, and not long after that the drunken shouting died away also. And once more nothing was to be heard all around but the whistling of the wind about their ears, and now and again the faint creaking of the sides of the sledge as it went over the rough parts of the road.
This chance meeting had amused and stimulated Vasily Andreioh, and no longer taking note of the posts he boldly whipped the horse up and trusted to it to keep to the road.
Nikita had nothing to do, so he began to be drowsy. Suddenly the horse stood stock-still, and Nikita was almost pitched out, as it was he fell forward and hurt his nose.
"Something is amiss again; it is rather rough going, eh?" said Vasily Andreich.
​"What's up?"
"Not a post to be seen! We must have strayed away from the road again."
"Strayed away from the road, eh? — then we must find it again," said Nikita curtly. So out he jumped again, and began picking his way over the snow, treading very lightly, and with his feet turned inwards. He walked about for some time, disappearing from view, reappearing, and then again disappearing. At last he turned back.
"There is no road here; it may be somewhere ahead," said he, sitting down on the sledge.
It was beginning to grow sensibly dusky all around, the snowstorm had not increased in violence, but it showed no signs of abating.
"I wish we could hear those muzhiks," said Vasily Andreich.
"It's no good trying to overtake them, and besides, most likely they too have lost their way," said Nikita.
"In which direction shall we go then?" asked Vasily Andreich.
"We must leave that to the horse," said Nikita. "He will find his way. Give me the reins."
Vasily Andreich gave up the reins all the more readily as his hands were beginning to feel very cold, though covered by warm gloves.
Nikita took the reins and just held them loosely, trying not to move them: he was proud of the good sense of his pet nag. And indeed the shrewd horse, cocking first one ear in one direction and then the other ear in the other, gradually began to turn about.
​"Don't say a word," added Nikita, "see what he does! Bless you, he knows! That's it, that's it!"
The wind was now blowing behind their backs; it began to be warmer.
"Oh! he's a knowing one," continued Nikita, delighted to crack up his horse, "a Kirghiz nag may be as strong, but it is a fool to him. Look how his ears are working. He needs no telegraph post, not he! He can scent the road a mile off."
And not half an hour had passed before something black really loomed out in front of them — a wood, perhaps, or a village; and on the right side of the way the posts again appeared. Evidently they had once more got upon the road.
"Why, if it is not Grishkino again!" suddenly exclaimed Nikita.
And indeed, to the left of them, there was now that same row of buildings from which the snow drifted, and further on was that same rope with the frozen clothes, the shirts and breeches, all of which were still dancing frantically in the wind.
Again they drove into the main street; again they felt it quiet, warm, and pleasant there; again the dung-strewn road was visible; again were to be heard voices, songs, and the barking of dogs. Already it was sufficiently dark for lights to be burning in some of the windows.
In the middle of the street of the village Vasily Andreich turned the horse in the direction of a large house with two brick wings, and made it stop in front of the door.
"Go and call Taras!" he shouted to Nikita.
​Nikita went to the snowed-up, illuminated window, in the light of which the little fluttering snowflakes gleamed and sparkled, and tapped with the end of his whip.
"Who is there?" a voice exclaimed in answer to Nikita's summons.
"In the name of the Holy Cross, Brekhunov's people, dear man!" replied Nikita. "Come out for a moment!"
Someone moved away from the window, and the next moment could be heard the creaking of a distant door, then the lifting of a latch in the outhouse, and then, holding the door against the pressure of the wind, an old muzhik with a white beard poked out his head. He wore a high cap, and a short pelisse buttoned over his white Sunday shirt, and behind him was a youth in a red shirt and leather boots.
"At your service!" said the old man.
"The fact is, we have gone astray, my brother," said Vasily Andreich. "We were on our way to Goryachkina, and lighted hither at your place instead. We drove on again, and lo! we have strayed back again to the selfsame spot."
"Well, you have made a mess of it, I see," said the old man. "Pete! go and open the gate," he added, turning to the youth in the red shirt.
"All right," said the youth merrily, and he ran out to the sledge.
"Nay, brother, we will not stay the night," said Vasily Andreich.
"Whither would you go then, with night coming on? Nay, but you must stay!"
​"I should be glad to stay the night; but go on we must."
"Well, have a warm up, anyhow; come straight to the samovar," said the old man.
"Well, I don't mind having a warm up," said Vasily Andreich, "it cannot be much darker, nay, the moon is rising, so it will be quite light presently. What do you say, eh, Nik? Shall we go in and have a warm?"
"Yes, I think we may as well have a warm," said Nikita, who was more than half benumbed already, and would have given anything to warm his freezing limbs by the stove.
Vasily Andreich went with the old man into the room, while Nikita entered through the gate opened by Pete, and, directed by him, led the horse under the roof of the shed. This shed was used for housing manure and all sorts of creatures, and its lofty arch was supported on a cross beam. The cocks and hens, which had already gone to roost on this high perch, began to cackle somewhat impatiently and scrape the perch with their claws. Some startled sheep shuffled about on the frozen dung, and crowded to one side. A dog, obviously quite a young animal, whined piteously for fear, and then began barking at the stranger.
Nikita had a word for them all. He apologized to the fowls, reassured them, and begged them not to put themselves about any more; reproached the sheep for getting frightened at nothing at all; and all the time he was attending to the horse, never ceased haranguing the little dog.
"There you are; now you'll do nicely," said Nikita, ​knocking the snow from off him. Then, turning to the dog, he added, "You silly thing! what are you putting yourself about for? What's the matter, eh? Be quiet, you stupid! There are no thieves here."
"They say, you know, there are three persons who have a great deal to say in a house," observed the youngster, Pete.
"Who may they be?" asked Nikita.
"You'll find it all printed in Paulson's book: the thief creeps into the house — the dog barks — that means, 'Don't yawn in bed any longer!' The cock crows — that means, 'Get up.' The cat washes herself — that means, ''Tis a good guest, prepare to entertain him!'" The boy smiled as he repeated his lesson.
For little Pete was a lettered youngster, and knew almost by heart everything in Paulson, the one book he possessed and loved to quote, especially when he was a bit in liquor, as now; he loved to quote anything which seemed to him likely to improve the occasion.
"That's just it," said Nikita.
"You must be nearly frozen, uncle, eh?" added Pete.
"Pretty well on that way, I think," said Nikita. And they passed through the courtyard and the sheds into the dwelling-house.
IV.
The house at which Vasily Andreich had stopped was one of the richest in the village. The family ​cultivated five ordinary lots, and had other outlying land in reserve besides. There were six horses in the yard, three cows, two yoke-oxen, and twenty head of sheep. The family consisted of twenty-two souls, including four married sons, six grandchildren — of whom only Pete was married — two great-grandchildren, three orphans, and four daughters-in-law with their children. It was one of those few houses where, as yet, there were no divisions; but for some time past there had been some domestic unpleasantness, as is ever the case, beginning amongst the women, and due to petty squabbling which was bound, sooner or later, to end in downright division. Two of the sons lived at Moscow, among the water-carriers; and one was a soldier. There were now at home the old man, the old woman, the son who looked after the farm, a son who had arrived from Moscow for the feast, and all the women and children. Moreover, besides the people of the house, a guest was present — the neighbouring starosta.
Over the table in the living-room hung the lamp from a high support, brightly illuminating the tea-service beneath it, the water-bottle, the repast already spread forth, and the brick walling of the "beautiful corner," hung with ikons, with pictures on each side of them. In the place of honour at table sat Vasily Andreich, in a black half-pelisse, smoothing out his frozen moustaches, and blinking at all the people in the room with his prominent, hawk-like eyes. Besides Vasily Andreich, there were sitting at table a white-bearded, bald-headed old man, the master of the house, in a white shirt of home make; alongside ​of him, in a shirt of fine texture, with sturdy back and shoulders, his son who had come from Moscow for the feast; and yet another son, his broad-shouldered elder brother, who looked after the household; and there was also the starosta, a somewhat meagre, red-haired muzhik.
The muzhiks, after eating and drinking, had just assembled together to drink tea; the samovar standing on the floor near the stove was beginning to sing. There were children peeping forth here and there on the stove and on the polati In one comer a woman was sitting over a cradle. The old woman of the house — she had a face covered in every direction with tiny wrinkles, her very lips were wrinkled — was devoting herself personally to Vasily Andreich. At the moment when Nikita entered the room she was pouring out of a thick glass bottle a little glass of vodka for Vasily Andreich.
"Nay, but you must, Vasily Andreich. One must keep well, you know, this weather," the old man of the house was saying.
The sight and smell of the vodka, especially now, when he was half frozen and half dead with hunger, profoundly affected Nikita. He frowned, and, shaking his cap and kaftan free of snow, he planted himself in front of the holy images, and just as if he perceived nothing else, crossed himself thrice and made obeisance; then he turned to the old man of the house, and bowed first to him, then to all who were at the table, and then to the women who were ​standing around the stove, and after uttering the greeting, "Be it well with you!" proceeded to strip off his outer garments.
"Why, thou art all frosted, uncle!" said the elder brother, regarding Nikita's face, eyes, and beard in their frame of snow. Nikita took off his kaftan, shook it once more, hung it up against the stove, and drew near to the table. To him also vodka was presented. For an instant a torturing struggle went on within him, he was very nearly accepting the little glass and tossing down his throat the pungently fragrant, sparkling fluid; but he glanced at Vasily Andreich, called to mind his promise, called to mind the boots he had drunk away, called to mind the cooper, called to mind his little one for whom he had promised to buy a horse in the spring — and he sighed, and refused it.
"I won't drink it, thank you, crying your pardon," said he frowning, and he sat down on the bench opposite the second window.
"Why, how's that?" asked the elder brother.
"I won't drink, and I don't drink," said Nikita, not raising his eyes, and stroking his moustache and beard free of the icicles which still clung to them.
"It is not good for him," said Vasily Andreich, sipping away at his own well-filled glass.
"Then have a cup of tea," said the kindly old hostess. "Why, you're half frozen, frozen to the bone, I should think. Hie, you women there, what are you about with that samovar?"
"It is quite ready," replied one of the young women, coming forward with the cloth-covered, heavy ​samovar; with difficulty she raised and carried it, and plumped it down on the table.
Meanwhile Vasily Andreich was telling how they had lost their way, how they had twice come back to the selfsame village, how they had gone astray and come across the party of drunken revellers. Their hosts were astonished. They explained to them why and where they had missed the road, they told them who the drunken folks were whom they had met, and made it clear to them how they ought to go.
"Why a little child could find his way as far as Molchanovka, there's a bush there you could not mistake. And yet you could not get there after all!" said the starosta.
"Won't you stay the night, then? The women will soon get a bed ready," said the old hostess.
"You can go on very well in the morning, you know. The business will wait surely," insisted the old host.
"Impossible, my brother! Business is business," said Vasily Andreich. "Lose an hour, and you won't make it up in the whole year," he added, thinking of the little wood, and of the merchants who might outbid him and spoil his bargain." We can manage it, surely," he continued, turning towards Nikita.
Nikita did not answer for some time, he seemed to be entirely engrossed with smoothing out his beard and moustaches.
"We shall not go astray again," observed he at last moodily. Nikita was moody, because he had still a burning desire for the vodka; the only thing ​that could stifle this desire was tea, and no tea had yet been offered to him.
"If only we get to the turning, it will all be plain sailing, for there is a wood all the way along right up to the place," said Vasily Andreich.
"It is for you to decide whether we go or not, Vasily Andreich," said Nikita, taking the cup of tea now offered to him.
"Let us drink our tea, then, and be off."
Nikita said nothing, he only shook his head, and cautiously pouring out his tea into the saucer, began to warm his half-frozen hands over the steam; then, biting off a tiny little bit of sugar from the lump he held in his hand, he bowed to his host, and exclaimed, "Your health," and drank up the steaming fluid.
"Can anyone guide us to the turning?" asked Vasily Andreich.
"Of course, of course," said the elder son, "Pete can put to and guide you to the turning."
"Put to, then, put to, my brother, and you shall have my best thanks."
"Why, dear soul!" said the courteous old hostess, "as if we were not right glad to do it."
"Pete, go and saddle the mare!" said the elder son.
"All right," said Pete, smiling, and immediately snatching his cap off a nail he went out to saddle the mare.
While the horses were being got ready, the conversation went back to the point where it had been broken off when Vasily Andreich had first approached the window. The old host began complaining to his ​neighbour, the starosta, of his third son who had sent him no present for the feast, although he had sent his wife a very nice French kerchief.
"Our young folks are getting out of hand," said the old man.
"Getting out of hand indeed! everything is out of gear nowadays," said the starosta. "We are all so frightfully knowing! Look at that Dravotchkin fellow, for instance, who has just broken his father's arm. It all comes of having too much mind, forsooth — that's quite plain."
Nikita listened, and looked in the faces of the talkers, and it was plain that he also wanted to take part in the conversation; but his mouth was full of tea, so he only nodded his head approvingly. He drank glass after glass, and began to grow ever warmer and warmer, and more and more friendly. The conversation continued to turn for a long time round one and the same subject, viz., the mischief of the division of property. It was no abstract discussion, that was plain. They were discussing the evil of the division of the property of that very family; a division demanded by the second son, who was actually sitting there, listening in moody silence. This was evidently a sore point. It was a question which occupied all the people in the house; but out of regard for the stranger they did not emphasize their own personal interests. But at last the old man could stand it no longer, and, with tears in his voice, began to say that he would not give in to the proposed division. So long as he lived his house should remain his to the glory of God." Once begin with ​your divisions, and everything would go to the Mir again."
"Look ye, Mathew's people!" said the starosta. "As things were, this was a real proper home, but if you fall to dividing there will be nothing for anyone."
"And that is how, I suppose, you would have it," said the old man, turning to his son.
The son made no reply, and an awkward silence ensued. This silence was broken by Pete, who by this time had put the horses to, and had come into the room again a few minutes before, and stood listening with a smile upon his face the whole time.
"There's a fable something like this in Paulson," said he, "A parent gives to his sons a bath-broom to break up. While it is all bound up together they cannot break it up; but taking it twig by twig they break it easily. That's how it is," said he, with a grin all over his mouth — "All is ready!" added he.
"If it be ready we will go," said Vasily Andreich. "And as to this division matter, old Daddy, don't you give in! You have been building the place up all your life — and you are master here. Hand it over to the Mir people. They'll put it all to rights."
"They're such a set of sharpers," whined the old man, "that there's no doing anything at all with them. Plague take 'em!"
Nikita, meanwhile, having drunk five cups of tea, stood on one side without turning round, hoping that a sixth would be offered him. But there was no more water in the samovar; the hostess did not pour him ​out any more; and, what is more, Vasily Andreich stood up to put on his things. There was nothing for it but to do likewise. So Nikita also got up, put back into the sugar-basin his lump of sugar which he had nibbled round on every side, wiped with a cloth all round his face, still wet with sweat, and went to put on his khalat.
When it had been put on he sighed heavily, and having thanked his host and hostess, and taken leave of them, went out of the warm, bright sitting-room into the dark, cold outhouses, full of the whistling, rushing wind, strewn with snow which had drifted through the chinks in the door, and so from thence into the still darker courtyard.
Pete in his pelisse was standing beside his horse in the middle of the courtyard, and with a smile upon his face was repeating verses out of Paulson. He was saying:
"The lowering tempest hides the sky, The whirlwind brings the driving snow,
Now like a wild beast it doth cry, Now like a child it whimpers low."
Nikita nodded his head approvingly, and began to unloose the reins.
The old host, accompanying Vasily Andreich, had brought out a lantern into the shed, and wanted to light it, but the wind immediately blew the light out. It was plain to those standing in the courtyard that the snowstorm had increased in violence.
"It's quite a little storm," thought Vasily Andreich; "I half wish I wasn't going. But what's ​to be done? Business is business. Besides, I am all ready now. Our host's horse, moreover, is put to. Go we must, and God be with us!" The old host was also of opinion that they ought not to go; but he had already advised them not to go, and they had not listened to him. "Perhaps age has made me fearful," thought he, "and they'll get there all right. Yet if the worst comes to the worst, we could put them up for the night without trouble."
Pete also perceived that it was dangerous to go, and he felt very uncomfortable himself, but he would not have shown it on any account, so he strengthened his heart, and persuaded himself that he did not care a bit, and was quite fortified by the reflection that the verses about
"The whirlwind brings the driving snow,"
exactly described what was going on just then in the courtyard. As for Nikita, he was altogether against going, but he had too long been accustomed to have no opinion of his own and obey others. Thus there was none to keep back the departing guests.
V.
Vasily Andreich went to the sledge, with difficulty making out in the darkness where it was, got into it, and seized the reins.
"Go on!" cried he.
Pete, kneeling in his own sledge, let his horse go. ​Brownie, scenting the mare in front of him, rushed after her, and they emerged into the road. Once more they passed through the village by the same road, past the courtyard where the frozen white clothes were fluttering in the wind (now, however, they were no longer visible), past the outhouses which were snowed up almost to the roof, from which masses of snow plunged down incessantly; past those sadly rustling, whistling, and moaning vine-hedges, and once more came out into that vast snowy sea, where the tempest was raging up and down. The wind was now so strong that when the passengers sailed in the teeth of it, and it caught them sideways, it made the sledge heel over, and smote full upon the flank of the horse. Pete urged his good mare forward at a sharp trot, and shouted to her encouragingly. Brownie dashed after her.
Ten minutes or so elapsed. Pete turned round and shrieked something; neither Vasily Andreich or Nikita could hear him for the wind. They never guessed that they had arrived at the turning. In fact, Pete had turned to the right, and the wind which had been blowing sideways now once more struck them full in the face, and on the right, through the snow, something black was distinguishable. This was the bush at the turning.
"And now God be with you!"
"Thanks, Pete!"
"The lowering tempest hides the sky!" cried Pete, and with that he vanished.
"Quite a bit of a rhymester, eh?" observed Vasily Andreich, tugging at the reins.
​"Yes, a good youngster and a true man," said Nikita.
They proceeded on their way. Nikita, wrapping himself well up, and huddling his head well down between his shoulders so that his short beard might lie all round about his neck, sat there in silence, trying not to lose the warmth with which the tea had filled him. Right in front of him he saw the straight lines of the sledge-shafts perpetually deluding him into the belief that they were on a smooth, level road; the waggling hind-quarters of the horse, with the turned-up knob of the tail hanging over on one side; and, further on in front, the lofty arched crosspiece of the sledge, and the head and neck of the horse, with its long streaming mane bobbing up and down. Now and then his eyes fell upon a post here and there, so he knew that so far they were keeping to the road, and there was nought for him to do.
Vasily Andreich simply drove straight on, leaving it to the horse itself to keep to the road. But Brownie, notwithstanding the fact that he had rested at the village, trotted on unwillingly, and made as though he would have turned aside from the road, so that Vasily Andreich had once or twice to put him right.
"There's one post yonder on the right, and then a second, and then a third," calculated Vasily Andreich, "and right in front is the wood," thought he, looking at some black object in front of him. But what had appeared to him a wood was only a bush. They passed the bush, they went on further some twenty fathoms, and there was no fourth post and no wood.
​"The wood is bound to show up immediately," thought Vasily Andreich, and, excited by the vodka and the tea, he never stopped, but kept twitching the reins, and the good, humble horse obeyed him, and went now at a walking pace and now at a jog-trot in the direction they were sending him, although he knew very well that they were not at all sending him in the direction they ought to have gone. Ten minutes passed by and still there was no sign of a road.
"There now, we have lost our way again!" said Vasily Andreich, stopping the horse.
Nikita slipped softly out of the sledge, and holding fast his khalat, which now clung tightly to him from the impact of the wind, and now was wrenched away from him and fluttered behind him, began picking his way through the snow, going first in one direction and then in another. Three times he was quite hidden from view. At last he returned, and took the reins out of the hands of Vasily Andreich.
"We must go to the right," said he, sternly and decidedly, turning the horse round.
"To the right? Very well, to the right, by all means!" said Vasily Andreich, giving up the reins and thrusting his benumbed hands down his long sleeves. "If only we were back in Grishkino," said he.
Nikita answered not a word.
"Now, my little friend, put your shoulder to it!" shrieked he to the horse; but the horse, despite the shaking of the reins, only went at a foot-pace. The snow in some places was up to its knees, and the ​sledge swayed obliquely to and fro at every movement of the horse. Nikita got out the whip hanging up in front, and laid on with it. The good horse, unaccustomed to the whip, started forward at a trot, but very soon slackened down again to a walking pace. And so five minutes elapsed. It was so dark and misty above and below that sometimes the ends of the sledge were invisible. Sometimes the sledge seemed to be standing stock-still and the whole plain to be running backwards. Suddenly the horse drew up abruptly, evidently feeling that there was something wrong in front. Again Nikita leaped lightly from the sledge, threw the reins aside, and went in front of the horse to see what it was stopping at; but scarcely had he taken a step in advance of the horse when his legs gave way beneath him, and he rolled down some steep declivity.
"Whew, whew, whew!" said he to himself, falling all the time, and trying to stop; but he could not stay himself, and only came to a standstill when he found himself sprawling at the bottom of a deep hole in the road which had been covered with a thick layer of snow.
The heap of snow lying on the edge of this ravine, disturbed by the fall of Nikita, plumped down upon him and covered him with snow up to the collar.
"To serve me out like that! 'Tis too bad of you!" said Nikita reproachfully, turning towards the heap of snow and the chasm, and shaking the snow out of his collar.
"Nick! Nick!" shrieked Vasily Andreidh from aloft. But Nikita did not shriek back to him. He ​had something else to think about. First of all he shook himself free of snow, then he sought for the whip in the drift—it had escaped from his hand when he had plunged down into the chasm. Having at last found the whip he tried to climb back the straightest way—the way by which he had fallen. But there an ascent was impossible. He kept on slipping back, so that he was obliged to grope his way about below in order to find an exit from the chasm. Three or four fathoms from the place where he had rolled down he with difficulty crept to the top on all-fours, and came out on that side of the chasm where the horse ought to have been. But he saw no trace either of the horse or the sledge. When, however, he turned his face towards the wind, before he saw them, he heard the shouting of Vasily Andreich and the neighing of Brownie.
"I'm coming. I'm coming!" cried he.
As soon as he got near the sledge he perceived the horse, and Vasily Andreich standing beside it—he loomed forth hugely.
"Where the deuce have you been hiding, eh? We must go back, even if we return to Grishkino." It went against him to bandy words with his serving-man.
"I should be glad to turn back, Vasily Andreich, but whither shall we go? The place is full of holes, and if we fall into one we should never get out again. I stuck so fast yonder that only with difficulty did I struggle out again."
"Well, don't stand there doing nothing. We must go somewhere, I suppose," cried Vasily Andreich.
​Nikita made no answer. He sat him down on the sledge with his back to the wind, pulled off his boots and shook the snow out of them, and, gathering a handful of straw, proceeded carefully to stuff it into a hole inside his left boot.
Vasily Andreicb remained silent, as if resolving now to leave everything to Nikita. After having set his boots to rights and put them on again, Nikita thrust his legs into the sledge again, put on his gloves, seized the reins, and carefully guided the horse alongside the chasm. But they had not gone one hundred steps further when the horse again stopped short. There was another chasm in front of it.
Nikita again got out, and again began groping his way about amidst the snow. He was away a pretty long time. At last he reappeared on the opposite side.
"Vasily Andreich, art thou alive?" he cried.
"Here I am!" Vasily Andreich shouted back. "What is it?"
"I can make out nothing, it is so dark and the place is full of big holes. We must go again against the wind."
Again they went on for a little while, again Nikita got out and tumbled about the snow, again he took his seat in the sledge; again he tumbled about, and at last, thoroughly blown, stopped by the side of the sledge.
"Well, what's the matter? " asked Vasily Andreich.
"What's the matter! why I'm at my wits' end, and the horse seems to be so too, for he also has stopped short."
​"What are we to do, then?"
"Wait a moment!" and again Nikita was off: very shortly he came back.
"Hold on to me and come in front of the horse!"
Vasily Andreich henceforth gave no more orders, but meekly did everything which Nikita bade him do.
"Come after me!" bawled Nikita, moving quickly to the right, at the same time seizing Brownie by his bridle and leading him towards the snow-drift. At first the horse resisted, but presently it pulled itself together and made a great effort to leap across the snow-drift, but it could not clear it, and sank in the snow up to its collar. "Get out!" cried Nikita to Vasily Andreich, who had continued sitting in the sledge; and seizing one of the shafts, he began to push the sledge after the horse. "'Tis a little bit difficult, my brother!" said he turning towards Brownie, "but we must put our shoulders to the wheel and do the best we can. Come now! just a wee bit more!" he shouted. Once more the horse exerted itself, and once again, but all the same it did not move from the spot, and indeed sank down again. It moved its ears about, sniffed at the snow, and lowered its head as if it were meditating something. "How now, brother! not so easy, is it?" cried Nikita encouragingly. "Come along, one more try!" and again Nikita pushed away at the shaft on his own side, and Vasily Andreich did the same on the other. The horse shook its head, and then suddenly put forth all its strength again.
"Look there! you do not stick fast after all you see!" shouted Nikita.
​One good spring, another, and then a third, and at last the horse had found its way out of the drift, and stood there, breathing heavily and shaking in every limb. Nikita would have led him on further, but Vasily Andreich in his double set of furs had got so winded that he could not go any further, and fell back into the sledge.
"Give me time to breathe," said he, untying his kerchief, which he had fastened round the collar of his fur cloak in the village.
"There's no need for you to do anything, you lie where you are," said Nikita, "I'll lead him along." And with Vasily Andreich in the sledge he led the horse by the bridle some two steps downwards, and then a little way upwards, and stood still.
The place where Nikita had stopped was not in the hollow; here and there were some patches of snow, but it was partially protected from the wind by the hill. There were moments when the wind behind the hill dropped for a bit, but this did not last long, and as if to indenmify itself for this respite, the wind immediately afterwards blew down with tenfold force, and raged and tore more evilly than ever. Just such an onslaught of the wind took place at the very moment when Vasily Andreich, having recovered his breath, had got out of the sledge, and was going to Nikita in order to consult with him what was to be done. Both of them instinctively bent down, and waited till the fury of the assault had passed over before they spoke. Brownie also involuntarily pressed down his ears and shook his head. No sooner had the gale abated somewhat, than Nikita, ​taking off his gauntlets and sticking them into his girdle, and blowing upon his hands to warm them, began to unfasten the harness from the shafts of the sledge.
"What are you about there?" asked Vasily Andreich.
"I am taking out the horse, what else is there to be done? I have no more strength left in me," answered Nikita, as if by way of apology.
"And you are not going anywhere out of this?"
"Going anywhere? No! We are only torturing the horse uselessly. Look at him, poor old fellow! he is not himself," said Nikita, pointing at the horse standing patiently there, ready for anything, but well-nigh spent and with his flanks all wet and strained. "We must pass the night here," continued he, as if making up his mind to fix his night-quarters at some regular place of call, and he set about unloosening the strings of the horse-collar.
"But surely we shall be frozen?" cried Vasily Andreich.
"What an idea! Don't refuse my proposal, or freeze you may, perhaps!" said Nikita.
Vasily Andreich in his double furs was quite warm, especially after all his bustling about in the chasm; but a cold shiver ran right down his back when he understood that he would have to pass the night here. To compose himself somewhat he continued sitting in the sledge, and provided himself with cigarettes and matches.
Nikita, meanwhile, was taking out the horse. He unfastened the belly-girth and the saddle-strap, laid ​them on one side, undid the thongs of the horse-collar, took it off, and all the time never ceased talking to the horse in order to encourage it.
"Out you come, out you come!" he said, leading it out of the shafts, "and now we're going to tie you up. I'll give you some nice straw, and let you go," he continued, doing what he said. "Taste and tell me if you are not having a nice time of it?"
But Brownie, visibly, was not soothed by Nikita's words, and indeed was very ill at ease. He fidgeted about from foot to foot, and pressed hard against the sledge, stood with his back to the wind, and rubbed his head on Nikita's sleeve.
Just as if he did not want to refuse Nikita's hospitality with the straw, which Nikita had thrust beneath his snout, Brownie did, indeed, petulantly snatch a bit of straw out of the sledge, but immediately afterwards he decided that this was no time for straw, and threw it away, and instantly the wind caught it, scattered it, and covered it with snow.
"And now we'll make a sign," said Nikita, turning to the sledge so as to face the wind, and fastening the saddle-strap to the shafts, he raised them aloft, and fixed them so that they faced frontwards. "So there we are, and good people will catch sight of the shafts and the fluttering strap, and will find us and dig us out," said Nikita, "just as our elders have told us."
Meanwhile Vasily Andreich, unloosening his fur jacket, and crouching beneath its folds, was striking match after match on his steel match-box, but his hands trembled, and the matches either did not ignite ​at all, or were blown out by the wind at the very moment when he raised them to his cigarette. At last one little match burnt brightly and lit up for an instant the fur of his cloak, his hand with the gold ring on the inwardly crooked index finger, and the oaten straw sprinkled with snow which had forced its way out of the big sack beneath him—and his cigarette was lighted. Once or twice he greedily sucked away, swallowed the smoke, puffed it out through his lips, and would have lit up again, but the tobacco and the matches dropped from his grasp and were lost somewhere or other amidst the straw.
Yet even those few whiffs of tobacco had cheered up Vasily Andreich.
"Well, if we are to stay the night here, we must make the best of it!" said he decidedly. And catching sight of the elevated shafts, the desire seized him to make this sign of distress still more forcible and give Nikita a lesson. "You just wait a bit, and I'll make a flag of it," said he, picking up his handkerchief, which he had taken from his neck and thrown into the sledge; and taking off his gloves and stretching forward to reach the shafts, he fastened the hand-kerchief with a thick knot to the saddle-strap at the end of the shafts.
The little bit of cloth immediately began shivering violently, now clinging to the shafts, now suddenly bulging out, stretching, and fluttering.
"What do you say, to that?" cried Vasily Andreich, delighted with his handiwork, and he crept into the sledge again. "'Twould be warmer if we both sat close together, and you won't, I suppose," said he.
​"Oh, I'll find a place," said Nikita, "but I must first cover the horse, the poor thing is all over sweat. Pray let go!" he added; and approaching the sledge, he drew out the large sack from beneath Vasily Andreich, and having got hold of it, he folded it in two, and covered Brownie with it, first of all unloosening and taking off his harness.
"You'll be all the warmer for it, you little fool," said he, placing over the horse, on the top of the sack, the saddle and the heavy harness.
"And now, if you don't want it, I'll have the big apron, and let me have some straw too," said Nikita, and having finished with the horse he turned back to the sledge.
And taking both apron and straw from beneath Vasily Andreich, he went to the back of the sledge, dug himself out a hole in the snow, filled it with straw, and pressing his hat down over his eyes, wrapping himself round in his kaftan and covering himself over with the apron, he sat on the heaped-up straw, leaning against the back of the sledge, which protected him from the wind and the snow.
Vasily Andreich shook his head disapprovingly at what Nikita was doing (he disapproved in general of the stupidity and want of culture of all muzhiks), and then he set about making himself comfortable for the night.
He smoothed out all the straw remaining in the sledge, tucked it more closely beneath and around him, drew his hands up his sleeves, and disposed his head comfortably in the front corner of the sledge, where he was sheltered from the wind and snow. ​He did not want to sleep. He lay a-thinking—thinking always of one and the same thing, that constituted the end and the aim and the pride and the joy of his life—of how he had made a lot of money, and might make still more money, of how many other people he knew were making and had made money, and how these other people kept on making and would continue to make money, and how he, just like them, might still earn lots and lots of money.
"The oak wood will do for sledge-shafts, they'll make capital beams as they stand; there's quite thirty fathoms of firewood too, per desyatin," he calculated, thinking of the copse inspected by him in the autumn, and which he was now going to purchase. "I won't give 10,000 for it, all the same, but only 8,000, for something ought to be deducted for t!hat little field. I'll grease the palm of the surveyor with a hundred or a hundred and fifty, he'll measure me the field at about five desyatins. And I can let it afterwards as an eight desyatin field. There's 3,000 profit down on the nail. Never fear, I'll manage it," thought he, fumbling with the tips of his fingers after the memorandum book in his pocket. "And how we managed to lose the turning God only knows. There ought to be a wood and a keeper's hut hereabouts. We ought to be hearing a dog too. Why can't the cussed things bark when they are wanted to bark?" He opened his collar a little and began to listen and look about him. The only thing visible in the dark​ness was the blackening head of Brownie, and his back, on which the large sack was flapping; and the only thing to be heard was the whistling of the wind, the fluttering and shivering of the piece of cloth on the upright sledge-shaft, and the pattering of the snow on the back of the sledge. He covered himself up again, "Well, if we must make a night of it, we must, that's all. 'Tis all one if we wait for tomorrow. It will only be a day lost, and the others will never be able to get there in such weather." And then he recollected that on the 9th he ought to receive money from the butcher for a gelded ram. "He will come himself, he won't find me, and my wife does not understand money matters: she has no manners, and doesn't understand polite intercourse at all," he continued thinking, calling to mind how she had not known how to converse with the local magistrate who had been among his guests at the feast the evening before. "But of course, where did the woman ever see the like before? What sort of a place was her parents' home, after all? Why, her father was but a rich village muzhik, with a pot-house and that sort of thing, and that's all. But what haven't I done during these last fifteen years? Why, I've set a-going a shop, two inns, and a mill. And I rent two properties. And I've got a house with a storeroom under an iron roof," he proudly reflected. "I got nothing from my parents. And whose voice is it now that lays down the law in the neighbourhood? Why, Brekhunov's, of course!
​"And how did it come about? Why, because I recollect what I am about, and put my shoulder to the wheel, and don't loaf about and do foolishly, as do the others. Why, I don't even sleep o' nights. Snowstorm or no snowstorm, off I go. And there's a way of doing things, too. Some people think that making money is a mere joke. Not a bit of it, one has to take a little trouble, and rack one's brains about it. They think it's all a matter of luck. Look at the Mironovs, they are millionaires, and why? because they took trouble! God gives His help, too, no doubt; and ah! if He would but give the health and strength!" And the bare thought that he, too, like Mironov, who began the world with nothing—that he, too, might become just such another millionaire, so inspired Vasily Andreich that he felt the necessity of talking to someone else. But there was no one to talk to. If only he could get to Goryachkina, he could speak a bit with the landowner there, and teach him a thing or two.
"Whew, how it blows! And all the roads will be so snowed up that they'll never get us out of this to-morrow," thought he, listening to the wailing of the wind, which was blowing full upon the front of the sledge, bending it inwards and flogging it with lumps of snow.
"And all for nothing have I listened to Nikita," thought he. "We ought to have gone on. We should have come out somewhere. We might have gone back to Grishkino and passed the night at Taras'. And now we shall have to sit here all night long. A nice thing, I must say. What a lot I have to put up ​with, and yet I am neither a loafer nor a vagabond, nor yet a blockhead. Never mind, I'll smoke a bit." So he sat down, managed to fish out his cigarette box again, lay down flat on his stomach, and shielded the fire from the wind with his sleeve; yet the wind found its way in and extinguished the matches one after the other. At last he cunningly managed to dodge the wind. The cigarette was lit, and the idea of having got his own way again, after all, pleased him mightily. Although the wind got much more of the cigarette than he did, he nevertheless inhaled the tobacco smoke several times, and again felt merry. He again curled himself away in the back part of the sledge, wrapped himself up, and again began calculating and reflecting, and so he fell asleep. Suddenly something or other touched him and woke him. Whether it was Brownie that plucked at him from without, or whether something within him had twitched him, who shall say—anyhow he awoke, and his heart fell a-beating so rapidly and so violently that the very sledge seemed to be surging up and down beneath him. He opened his eyes. Around him everything was the same as before, only it seemed much lighter. "It is the dawn," thought he, "it won't be very long now, surely, till morning." But immediately he bethought him that it could only be because the moon had risen that it was so much brighter. He raised himself up and looked first of all at the horse. Brownie was standing with his hind-quarters to the wind and shaking all over. The large sack, covered with snow, had half turned over, the harness was all awry, and the horse's head, all covered with snow, ​stood out all the more plainly, with its fluttering mane. Nikita was sitting in precisely the same position in which he had sat at first. The coarse cloth or apron with which he had covered himself, together with his feet, were thickly covered with snow. "I wonder the muzhik isn't frozen with only those wretched rags on him. I am responsible for him still, I suppose. He's tired with skipping about; he's not a very good investment for me, either, I fancy," reflected Vasily Andreich, and he would liked to have taken the sack off the horse and covered Nikita with it; but it would have made him cold all over to have stood up and turned round, and then he was afraid that the horse might get frozen instead. "Why did I ever take him? It is all her stupidity!" reflected Vasily Andreich, thinking of his wife, and again he rolled himself up comfortably in his former place in the front part of the sledge. "Besides, an uncle of mine once passed a whole night in the snow, and was none the worse for it," he reflected. "But then there was Sebastian, whom they dug up"—recalling another case—"he was quite dead, frozen hard all over, like a salted porpoise."
"I ought to have stayed the night at Grishkino, and nothing would have happened." And very carefully wrapping himself up again, so that not a bit of the warm furs was wasted, and he could feel the warmth of them everywhere—in his neck, in his knees, and in the soles of his feet, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But try as he would he could not forget where he was, such a wakeful, lively feeling possessed him. Again he began calculating his ​profits and losses, again he began to exalt himself for his own satisfaction, and rejoice in himself and his position—but now, through it all, he was constantly interrupted by a subtly creeping fear, and the irritating thought: "Why did I not stay and sleep at Grishkino?" Now and then he would turn him round, rearrange his things, and try and find a more comfortable position—a position more sheltered from the wind. But he never could manage it, everything seemed wrong. Again he raised himself up, changed his position, wrapped his feet up again, closed his eyes, and lay still. But either his feet, cramped in his big, stiff top-boots, began to ache, or a blast blew upon him from some whither, and he couldn't lie long in one place; and again came the angry reflection how he might now be lying comfortably in a warm room at Grishkino; and again he would raise himself and turn round and rearrange his wraps, and again lay him down.
Once it seemed to Vasily Andreich as if he heard far, far away the crowing of cocks. Full of joy, he turned down his fur collar and strained his ears to listen, but no sooner did he bend all his faculties to listen, than there was nothing to be heard except the sound of the wind whistling in the shafts, and the snow pattering against the sides of the sledge. Nikita was sitting just as he had sat the evening before, without moving, and not even replying to the observations of Vasily Andreich, who once or twice called out to him. "There's very little the matter with him, he must be asleep surely," thought Vasily Andreich peevishly, looking through the back of the ​sledge at the form of Nikita, which was all covered with snow.
And thus Vasily Andreich rose and changed his place twenty times. It seemed to him as if this night would never come to an end. "It ought to be quite near to morning now," thought he on one of these occasions, raising himself up and looking around. " If I could only look at a watch. A fellow might freeze here if he unbuttoned. If I only knew that morning was close at hand I should feel all right. We could then inspan." Now at the bottom of his soul Vasily Andreich was well aware that it could not yet be morning; but he was beginning to be more and more violently afraid, and would fain prove and deceive himself at the same time. He cautiously unfastened the little hook of his pelisse, and thrusting his arm into his bosom, he groped about for a long time till he managed to reach his waistcoat. With great difficulty—with great, great difficulty—he drew forth his silver flower-enamelled watch, and began a-staring at it. Without a light nothing was visible. Again he lay down on one side, just as when he had begun smoking, managed to get the matches, and fell a-striking them. He now set about the business more methodically, and groping with his fingers, so as to pick out the match with the largest bit of phosphorus on it, he struck it alight at the first attempt. Thrusting the face of the watch beneath the light, he looked and did not believe his own eyes. It was only ten minutes past one. The whole night still lay before him.
"Oh, the long, long night!" thought Vasily ​Andreich to himself, as a cold shiver ran down his back, and buttoning and covering himself up again, he squeezed himself fast against the corner of the sledge. Suddenly, amidst the monotonous wail of the wind, he distinctly heard a sort of strange piercing sound. This sound gradually increased in volume, and after reaching its highest pitch began to diminish just as gradually. There could not be the least doubt that it was the howl of a wolf. And this wolf was so close that when the wind blew in the right quarter the stretching of the beast's jaws could be plainly heard as he modulated the sound of his voice. Vasily Andreich put aside his collar and listened intently. Brownie also listened fixedly, twitching his ears about the while; and when the wolf had ended its performance the horse shifted its feet uneasily and neighed. After that, Vasily Andreich not only could not sleep, but could no longer feel at his ease. However much he now might try to think of his accounts, of his affairs, of his glory, his dignity, and his riches, fear began to master him more and more, and from henceforth the thought, "Why did I not pass the night at Grishkino?" crept in among and dominated all other thoughts.
"If it hadn't been for this wood I'm after, plague take it! I should have passed the night there. Ah! why didn't I?" he thought to himself. "They say the tipsy are never frozen," he continued to meditate, "and I took a tidy drop myself." And paying more attention to his sensations, he became aware that he was beginning to tremble, and he himself did not know whether it was from cold or from fear that he ​was trembling. He tried to wrap himself up and lie down as before, but this he was no longer able to do. He could not settle down in one place. He wanted to stand up and do something, so as to choke off the feeling of terror that was gripping him, and against which he felt himself helpless. Again he got out his cigarettes and matches, but there were only three matches left, and all of them of the worst. All three fizzled out without lighting anything.
"Mischief take you, accursed one!" he cried—though whom he was cursing he would have been hard put to it to say—as he threw away the crushed cigarette. He would have liked to have crushed the match-box also, but he went no further than the wish, and stuck it back into his pocket again. And now such a restlessness came over him that he could no longer stop in one place. So he got out of the sledge, and standing with his back to the wind, began to gird himself up again tightly and low down.
"To go on lying down here means certain death. Up in the saddle and quick march!" was the idea that suddenly came into his head." Get once on the nag's back and he won't stop for anything. As for him "(it was Nikita he meant now), "it doesn't much matter whether he dies or not. What sort of a life does he live—why, he wouldn't regret losing it one bit, I'm sure. But as for me, I really have got something to live for, thank God! …"
And leading forth the horse he threw the reins over its neck, and would have leaped on its back, but missed his footing. Then he stood on the sledge and would have mounted from there, but the sledge ​swerved aside under his weight, and again he fell down. At last, for the third time, he brought the horse alongside the sledge, and cautiously standing on the edge of it, by dint of much striving contrived at last to get his stomach across the neck of the horse. Lying there, he wriggled forward once or twice, and at last succeeded in bringing one leg across the back of the horse, and presently found himself sitting on its back, supporting himself in lieu of stirrups with the soles of his feet. The lurch of the oscillating sledge awoke Nikita; he stood up, and it seemed to Vasily Andreich as if he were saying something.
"To listen to you would be folly. What! do you think that I'm going to perish without one effort?" screeched Vasily Andreich, and adjusting under his knees the bulging folds of his pelisse, he turned the horse, and urged it away from the sledge in the direction in which he imagined the forest and the forester's hut must needs be.
VII.
Nikita, from the time when he had sat him down wrapped up in the sacking at the back of the sledge, had sat immovable. Like all people who live naturally, and know something of want, he had grown to be long-suffering, and could wait calmly for hours, and even days, without experiencing either disquietude or irritation. He heard his master calling to him, but he did not reply, because he did not want to move. ​The thought that he might, and in all probability would die that very night, had occurred to him when he had sat down behind the sledge. Although still warm from the tea he had drunk, and from moving about so much among the snow-drifts, he knew that this warmth would not last long, and that he would not be able to warm himself any more by mere locomotion, for he felt himself growing very weary; he felt himself in the condition a horse feels himself to be when he stops short, and has to be fed in order that he may go on working. Moreover, one of his feet in its bursted foot was frost-bitten, and his big toe had lost all sense of feeling. And his whole body was growing colder and colder.
The thought that he would die that very night did not strike him as particularly unpleasant or as particularly dreadful. The thought of it did not strike him as particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had never been a perpetual feast; on the contrary it had been an interminable servitude of which he was beginning to weary. The thought of death was not particularly terrible, because he felt himself dependent not only upon those masters, like Vasily Andreich, whom he had served here below, but also upon that Chief Master who had sent him into this life, and he knew that even when he died he would still be in the power of that Master, and that that Master would do him no harm.
"'Tis a pity to chuck away as useless what one has lived into and got accustomed to; but how can it be helped?—one must get accustomed to a new state of things, that's all."
​"And how about sins?"—that was the next idea that got into his head, and he bethought him of his drunkenness, of the money he had squandered, of his bad treatment of his wife, of his cursing and swearing, of his neglect of church-going, of his non-observance of the fasts, and of all that the priest had talked to him about at confession. "Yes, there are sins, certainly. But did I saddle myself with them, to begin with? Did not God make me just as I am? Still, they are sins all the same, no doubt. How will you get rid of them?"
Thus, then, did he think of what might happen to him that night, and decided the matter by abandoning himself freely to those random reflections and recollections which chanced to come into his head. And he called to mind the coming of Marfa, and the drunkenness of the workpeople, and his own renunciation of drink, and the present expedition, and the room at the Tarases, and the talk about the division of the property. And he called to mind his little one, and Brownie, who was now growing warm beneath the horse-cloth, and his master who made the sledge creak as he turned and twisted. "I suppose now he is in a pretty fume because he came here," thought he. "He doesn't like dying out of such a life as his is—our brother is in a very different boat." And all these thoughts and recollections began to mingle and mix together in his head, and he fell asleep.
When Vasily Andreich had got astride the horse, £ind jolted the sledge, and the back part of it against which Nikita was leaning was shoved aside altogether ​and struck Nikita in the back with its curved top, he awoke, and was compelled, willy-nilly, to change his position. With difficulty he straightened out his legs, and brushing the snow off them, rose to his feet; and immediately the murderous cold ran through his whole body. Understanding now what was the matter, he wanted Vasily Andreich to leave him the big sack which was no longer necessary for the horse, so that he might cover himself therewith; it was about that that he had called to his master.
But Vasily Andreich did not stop, but disappeared in the snowy dust. Abandoned thus, Nikita thought for a moment what he should do. He no longer felt able to go and seek a dwelling; to sit down in his old place was impossible, it was covered with snow already. In the sledge itself he was sensible he could not get warm, because he had nothing to cover himself with—for any warming purposes his kaftan and furs were quite useless. He was as cold as if he were standing there in nothing but his shirt. He stood there pondering a little while, then heaved a sigh, and, without taking the coarse cloth web from off his head, rolled into the sledge in the place where his master had lain.
He squeezed himself into a ball at the very bottom of the sledge, but nohow could he get warm. Thus he lay for five minutes shivering all over; then the shivering feeling passed away, and he began to lose consciousness. Whether he were dying or slumbering he did not know, but he felt just as ready for one as for the other. If God bade him wake up again alive in this world to live as before by the labour of ​his hands—to go on taking care of other people's horses, to go on carrying other people's corn to the mill, and loafing about generally, so as thereby to earn more money to give to his wife, why then. His Holy Will be done. Or if God bade him wake up in that other world, where everything would be so new and joyful, just as things are all so new and joyful here below in our first childhood, with our mother's caresses, and the games with other children, and the pleasant woods and meadows, and skating and sliding in the winter, so that there's nothing ever like it afterwards—if God bade him wake up in that other life where all is new—then likewise. His Holy Will be done! And then Nikita lost consciousness altogether.
VIII.
Meanwhile Vasily Andreich with his feet and the ends of the reins was urging on the horse in the direction where, somehow or other, he had persuaded himself lay the forest and the forester's hut. The snow blinded his eyes, and the wind seemed to wish to stop him; but still he pressed forward, perpetually seizing the folds of his pelisse, and thrusting them between himself and the cold brass bosses of the saddle, which prevented him from sitting properly, yet never ceasing to urge on the horse. The horse, not without difficulty, yet doggedly, continued to go at a foot-pace in the direction whither he was guided.
For five minutes he went, as he fancied, quite ​straight, seeing nothing but the head of the horse and the white wilderness, and hearing nothing but the whistling of the wind about the ears of the horse and the collar of his pelisse.
Suddenly something black loomed out before him. His heart beat joyfully within him, and he went straight towards this black something, seeing in it already the walls of the houses of a village. But this black thing was not motionless, for it went on and on; it was not a village, but a boundary ridge overgrown with lofty mugwort peeping up above the snow, and beaten all awry by the force of the wind whistling through it. And somehow or other the sight of this mugwort thus tormented by the pitiless wind, made Vasily Andreich tremble in sympathy, and he hastily urged his horse away, not observing as he did so that he had completely changed his former bearings, and was now urging his horse in quite another direction and away from where the forester's hut might have been. The horse indeed kept on turning to the right, whilst he himself for that very reason twisted him round to the left.
Again something black appeared in front of him. He rejoiced, for now, he fancied, this was really the village. But it was again the boundary ridge overgrown with the weeds of the steppes. Again the steppe-grass shivered tremulously, thereby inspiring Vasily Andreich with terror. Nor was this all. Not only was this the selfsame steppe-grass that he had seen before, but close beside him was a horse's track, ​partly obliterated by the wind. Vasily Andreich stopped, bent down, and looked at it fixedly; it was indeed the faintly outlined track of a horse, and could be nothing but the track of his own horse. He had obviously gone in a circle, and that, too, within no very great space. "So it is all up with me," thought he; but in order not to give way to his terror, he began to urge the horse on more violently than ever, gazing the while into the white, snowy mist, in which nothing was to be seen except now and then sundry little points of light suddenly appearing and as quickly vanishing again. Sometimes it seemed to him as if he heard the barking of a dog or a wolf's howl, but these sounds were so faint and undefined that he did not know whether he heard the sound or whether he only imagined he heard it; and stopping short, he began to listen very intently.
Suddenly a terrible, all-engulfing shriek resounded about his very ears, and everything beneath him shivered and trembled. Vasily Andreich seized his horse by the neck, but the very neck of the horse was also shuddering; and the frightful shriek grew still more terrible. For some seconds Vasily Andreich could not rally his wits or understand what had happened. Yet all that had happened was this: Brownie, either to put heart into himself, or to call to someone to help, had screeched his loudest with his shrill, piercing voice.
"Whew! what a fright I was in!" said Vasily Andreich to himself.
But although he now understood the true cause of his terror, he could not drive it away.
​"I must be steady, and think it all over," he said to himself; and yet for all that he could not take things quietly, but kept urging the horse on, not observing that he was now going with the wind instead of against it. His body, especially the part touching the saddle and uncovered by the furs, was freezing cold, very painful, and trembling all over. He had now forgotten to think of the forester's hut. His mind was now fixed on one thing only: to get back to the sledge, so as not to perish all alone, like that bit of mugwort in the midst of the snowy wilderness.
Suddenly the horse stumbled beneath him, and sinking into a gap, began plunging about and fell upon its side. Vasily Andreich fell with it, clinging on to the harness, in which his foot was entangled, and to the saddle, which turned over with him. No sooner had Vasily Andreich fallen off than the horse righted itself, rushed ahead, took a plunge forward and then another, neighed again, and dragging after it the trailing sacking and the harness, disappeared, leaving Vasily Andreich alone in the pit. Vasily Andreich rushed after him, but the snow was so deep, and the furs he had on him were so heavy, that he sank up to the knee at each stride—he began to pant, and stopped short to breathe after no more than the first twenty paces. "The spinny, the stallions, the shops, the taverns, the land to be rented—what will become of it all? What does it all amount to now? Nothing can come of it all!" This was the thought that now flashed through his head. And then he called to mind again the clump of mugwort swaying ​in the wind, which he had already passed twice, and such a terror fell upon him that he did not believe in the reality of what was actually happening to him. "Is not all this a dream?" he thought of himself; and he wanted to awake from his dream, but there could be no awakening, for it was reality. It was really snow which stung his face like a whip and threatened to overwhelm him; it was really a wilderness in which he now found himself all alone, like that clump of black mugwort, awaiting a rapid, an inevitable, an unthinkable death.
"O Heavenly Queen! O Wonder-working Nicholas. Teach me the way of abstinence!" he began, calling to mind the vesper prayers, and the holy image with the black face and the golden ornaments, and the tapers which he had bought for this holy image—the tapers which had been brought back to him immediately, and which he had hidden away in his strong box, though they had scarce been more than lighted. And yet now he was praying this selfsame Nicholas, the Wonder-worker, to save him, and was promising him prayers and fresh tapers. But now, too, he clearly understood, without any doubt, that this image, this rich ornamentation, these tapers and the clergy with their prayers—all these things were very important and necessary in church, but that here they could do nothing for him, for between those tapers and those images and his present miserable condition there was not and could not be any connection.
"I must not lose heart, I must follow up the traces of the horse, though both they and it are now covered ​with snow." This was the idea that came into his head next, and he plunged forward. But despite his resolution of going quietly, he set off running, fell continually, rose up, and again fell down. The track of the horse was now scarcely distinguishable in the places where the snow was not thick. "It is all up with me," thought Vasily Andreich, "I am losing even this track." But the same instant, looking forward, he perceived something black. It was Brownie, and not only Brownie, but the sledge and the upright shafts. Brownie with the broken saddle all awry, and the harness and the sacking, was standing there, not in his former place, but nearer to the shafts, and was moving about his head, which was drawn somewhat downwards by the dragging reins. Apparently Vasily Andreich had sunk into the same drift into which he and Nikita together had fallen before, the horse had led him back to the sledge, and he had leaped from the horse not more than fifty paces from the place where the sledge was.
IX.
Staggering up to the sledge, Vasily Andreich clutched hold of it and stood for a long time immovable, trying to calm himself and recover his breath. Nikita was no longer in his former place, but in the sledge something was lying already covered with snow; and Vasily Andreich guessed that this was Nikita. Vasily Andreich's terror had now quite passed over, and if there was anything he feared now it was only the return of that horrible ​feeling of terror he had experienced on horseback, and also and especially when he had been left all alone in the pit. He must, above all things, prevent this terror from getting at him again; and for that reason he felt he must think no more about himself, but think of someone else, and above all do something. And therefore the first thing he did was this: he stood with his back to the wind and unbuttoned his pelisse. After that, when he had recovered his breath a little, he shook the snow out of his boots and gloves, girded himself tightly and low down, as he was wont to do when he went forth from his store to buy bread from the wagons of the itinerant muzhiks, and prepared for work. The first thing which it occurred to him to do was to free the legs of the horse from the harness. This, then, Vasily Andreich proceeded to do, and having freed the horse, he tied Brownie again to the iron hook in front of the sledge, in the old place, and then went round to the other side of the horse to set right the saddle, bridle, and sacking coverlet. But at that moment he observed something beginning to move in the sledge under its layer of snow, and the head of Nikita peeped up. Obviously only with great exertion, the muzhik rose up into a sitting position and made an odd motion with his hand, as if he were driving away a fly from his face, and said something or other, calling him, or so it seemed to Vasily Andreich.
Vasily Andreich left the sacking where it was without arranging it, and approached the sledge.
"What do you want?" he asked, "what do you say?"
​"I—I'm a-dy—dy—ing, that's what's the matter," gasped Nikita in a broken voice; his words seemed to come with difficulty. "Give what I have earned to my little one. Nay, to my old woman—but it is all one."
"What, are you frost-bitten?" asked Vasily Andreich.
"I feel—death is at hand. … Forgive!—for Christ's sake!" said Nikita in a tearful voice, continuing all along to move his hands about as if he were brushing a fly away from his face.
For half a moment Vasily Andreich stood there in silence without moving. Then, with the selfsame energy with which he used to clap his hands at the result of a successful bargaining, he took a step backwards, stripped back the sleeves of his pelisse, and proceeded with both hands to sweep the snow off Nikita and out of the sledge. After sweeping out the snow, Vasily Andreich swiftly ungirded himself, spread out his pelisse, and failing on Nikita, lay down upon him, covering him not only with his pelisse but with the whole of his body, now warm with working.
Stretching out the folds of the pelisse with his hands between the sides of the sledge and Nikita, and pressing it down at the sides with his knees, Vasily Andreich lay there right across the sledge, as low as he could, leaning his head against the front part of it; and now he heard neither the movements of the horse nor the whistling of the storm—Nikita's breathing was all he could hear. For a long time Nikita lay there motionless—presently he sighed deeply and began to move, evidently growing warmer.
​"Why, there you are, getting on nicely! and yet just now you said you were dying. Lie still and get warm! We're all right you see … !" Thus began Vasily Andreich …
But farther than that, to his great astonishment, he could not get, for the tears gushed out of his eyes and his lower jaw was all quivering. He ceased to speak, and simply swallowed what had got into his throat.
"I've a little overdone it, that's plain, I'm quite weak," thought he to himself. Yet this same weakness was not only not unpleasant to him, but afforded him a peculiar sort of joy, the like of which he had never experienced before.
"Yes, here we are," said he to himself, experiencing a sort of compassionate triumph. And thus he lay silent for a pretty long time, drying his eyes on the fur of his pelisse, and keeping well beneath his knee the right-hand corner of the pelisse, which kept flapping in the wind. But he had such an eager desire to talk to someone, so joyous did he feel. "Nick, lad!" said he.
"I'm nice and warm," resounded from the sledge beneath him.
"That's right, my brother! I had almost perished, and you had all but frozen to death; and as for me …"
But at this point his jaws became all tremulous again, and his eyes again filled with tears, and he could say no more.
"Well, it doesn't matter," he said to himself. "I in my own heart know what I know!" and he was silent.
​Now and then he looked at the horse, and saw that its back was uncovered, and the sacking and the harness were hanging in the snow; and he felt he ought to get up and cover the horse, but he could not make up his mind to leave Nikita for a moment, and disturb that happy condition in which he found himself. He felt no thought of terror now.
He felt warm below from contact with Nikita, and warm above from the pelisse; only his hands, with which he was holding fast the comers of the pelisse close to Nikita's sides, and his feet, from which the wind was constantly blowing away the pelisse, began to be frost-bitten. But he did not think of them, he only thought of warming the muzhik lying beneath him. "Never fear, we won't give in," said "he to himself, at the idea of keeping the muzhik warm, with the same boastful self-confidence with which he had been wont to talk of his buying and selling.
And thus Vasily Andreich lay there for a pretty long time. At first his imagination was occupied with impressions of the snowstorm, the raised shafts of the sledge, and the horse beneath the harness, all of which glimmered Before his eyes, and with thoughts of Nikita lying beneath him. Presently there intermingled with these thoughts recollections of the feast, of his wife, of the magistrate, of the candle-chest; and then his mind flew back again to Nikita, who seemed to be lying beneath this chest. Then he began to see before him muzhiks buying and selling, and white walls, and houses with iron roofs, beneath which Nikita was lying. And presently all this was mixed up together, and passed into something else, ​and, like flowery meadows uniting together into one wide, wide world, all these various impressions ended in a mere blank, and he fell asleep. He slept for a long time without dreaming, but just before dawn visions again appeared He imagined that he was standing before the candle-chest, and Tikhinov's old woman asked of him a penny candle against the feast. He would have taken a candle and given it to her, but his hands would not lift up, but remained fast fixed in his pockets. He wanted to go round the chest, but his legs would not move, and his new brightly polished goloshes grew into the stone floor, and he could not lift them up, nor could he draw his feet out of them. And suddenly the candle-chest was no longer the candle-chest, but a bed, and Vasily Andreich saw himself lying prone on the candle-chest that was really his own bed in his own house. There he lay upon his bed, and could not stand up, and he had to stand up because the magistrate, Ivan Matvyeich, was just coming to see him, and he had to go with Ivan Matvyeich on business about some wood or other, or to adjust Brownie's harness, he was not sure which. And he kept on asking his wife, "What! hasn't he called?" "Nay," she said, "he has not called." And then he heard someone passing by the door. "Here he is—it must be he." "No, he has passed by." "Then it's Mikolama, eh? Or is there nobody at all?" "There's nobody." And there he lay on his bed, and all the time he could not get up, and he was expecting something, and this expectation was both grievous and pleasant at the same time. And at last the pleasurable feeling got the upper hand, ​and he whom he expected was coming, and it was not the magistrate, Ivan Matvyeich, but someone else, and yet this other someone was the person whom he was expecting. And the expected One came and called him, and He who now called him was the self-same person who had commanded him to lie on Nikita. And Vasily Andreich was glad that this Someone had called for him. "I am coming!" he cried joyfully. And his own cry awoke him.
And he awoke, but he awoke no longer the man he was when he fell asleep. He would have stood up, but he could not. He would have moved his hand, but he could not. He would have moved his foot, but he could not. He would have turned his head round, and this also he could not do. And he was surprised thereat, but by no means troubled. He understood that this was death, but the thought thereof gave him no anxiety, and he recollected that Nikita lay beneath him, and that he had grown warm and was alive; and it seemed to him as if he were Nikita, and Nikita was he, and that he lived not in himself but in Nikita. He strained his hearing, and could hear the faint breathing of Nikita. "Nikita is alive, and that is the same as my being alive!" he said to himself triumphantly. And a feeling quite new to him, a feeling he had never felt all his life long before, now came over him.
And he bethought him of his money, and his shop, and of his buying and selling, and of the millions of the Mironovs, and it was hard for him to understand why that man whom they called Vasily Brekhunov ​had occupied himself with all those things which he had occupied himself with. "Why, he did not know what his real business was at all," thought he of Vasily Brekhunov. "He did not know as I know now—yes, now I do know all about it, and no mistake." And again he heard the voice of Him Who was calling him. And his whole being cried out joyfully and intelligently, "I am coming! I am coming! "And he felt that he was free, and that nothing held him any longer.
And Vasily Andreich saw and heard and felt nothing more in this world.
And all around there was the same blank whiteness, like fine smoke. And the same snowstorms went whirling round, and they covered up the pelisse of the dead Vasily Andreich, and the all-trembling body of Brownie, and the sledge now scarcely visible, and Nikita lying warm at the bottom of the sledge beneath the body of his dead master.
X.
Nikita awoke before morning. He was awakened by the cold, which had penetrated to his back once more. He had dreamt that he was coming from the mill with a wagon-load of his master's meal, and as he was passing by the bridge at Lyafrin the wagon stuck fast. And he saw in his dream how he went under the wagon to lift it up, arching his back to do so. But, marvellous to relate, the wagon did not move, but clave to his back, and he could neither raise ​the wagon nor get out from under it! He used his whole strength to it And ugh! how cold it was! Creep out from it he must. "And I'll do it, too!" he said to someone who was pushing his back with the wagon. "Take out the sacks!" But the wagon kept pressing upon him, and it got ever colder and colder, and suddenly something gave him a harder bump than usual, and he woke up and remembered everything. The cold wagon was his dead and frozen master lying upon him. And the someone who had bumped was Brownie kicking out twice with his hoofs against the sledge.
"Andreich! Andreich!" cried Nikita, already foreseeing something of the truth, calling warily to the form of his master, who was weighing down his back. But Andreich did not answer, and his stomach and his legs were stiff and cold, and as heavy as weights.
"He must be dead," thought Nikita. "May he rest in the Kingdom of Heaven!"
He turned his head round, dug away the snow in front of him with his arm, and opened his eyes. It was quite light. The wind was still whistling through the shafts, and the snow was still sweeping down; but with this difference, that it was no longer smiting against them, but was noiselessly enveloping the sledge and the horse, rising ever higher and higher, and the movements and breathing of the horse were no longer audible. "He too must have frozen to death," thought Nikita of Brownie. And indeed those hoof-kicks against the sledge which had awakened Nikita had been the last dying efforts of the already half-frozen Brownie to keep his legs.
​"Lord and Father! it is plain that Thou art calling me also," said Nikita, "Thy Holy Will be done. It is very hard. Well, I hope there will soon be two deaths, and not one be taken and the other left. I only hope it will soon all be over. …" And again he hid his arms, closed his eyes, and surrendered himself to his fate, fully persuaded that he was now really and truly about to die.
By dinner-time next day the muzhiks had already dug out Vasily Andreich and Nikita with their spades. They were lying about thirty fathoms from the road, and half a mile from the village.
The snow had risen higher than the sledge, but the shafts and the piece of cloth tied to them were still visible. Brownie, up to his stomach in the snow, with the sacking and harness still dangling from his back, was standing there all white, pressing his dead head against his stone-hard, stone-cold neck; his nostrils were covered with icicles, his eyes were frost-bitten, and were frozen all round with what looked like congealed tears. He had gone so thin in a single night that nothing remained of him but hide and bones. Vasily Andreich was as hard and stiff as a cured and salted porpoise. His prominent vulture-like eyes were frozen hard, his mouth beneath his well-clipped moustaches was full of snow. Nikita was still alive, though all frost-bitten. When they awoke Nikita he was persuaded that now indeed he was dead, and the things they were doing to him were going on not in this but in the other world. But when he heard the cries of the muzhiks digging him out, and saw them dragging from off him the stone-​cold Vasily Andreich—he was at first astonished that even in that other world the muzhiks should make such a racket. When, then, he was at last made to understand that he was still in this world, he was rather angry than pleased at it, especially when he felt that the toes on both his feet were frost-bitten.
Nikita lay in the hospital for two months. Three of his fingers were amputated, the rest were restored to life, so that he could still work; and for twelve years longer he lived, at first among working people, and afterwards, in his old age, as a watchman. Only this very year he died at home, just as he had wished to die, beneath the holy images, with a lighted wax taper in his hands. Before his death he asked pardon of his old woman, and forgave her her trespasses; and he died sincerely glad that by his death he was relieving his son and daughter-in-law of the burden of finding him his daily bread, and that he was now really passing from a life that had always been so troublesome to him, to that other life which every year and every hour had been growing more and more intelligible to him and more tempting. Was it better or worse with him, when he awoke again after thus really dying at last? Was he disillusioned, or did he really find there all that he anticipated? We shall all of us, my readers, know for ourselves very, very soon.
* ↑ Diminutive of Nikita.
* ↑ A sort of long frock-coat.
* ↑ Sleeping-places in the peasants' hut.
* ↑ The peasant community.
* ↑ A desyatin = 2,400 sq. fathoms.
* ↑ Himself.
* ↑ Himself.
* ↑ Artemisia
* ↑ Himself.