A TALE.
BY LEO TOLSTOY
________________________________________
I.
At seven o’clock in the evening, having taken my tea, I started from a station, the name of which I have quite forgotten, though I remember that it was somewhere in the region of the Don Cossacks, not far from Novocherkask. It was already dark when I took my seat in the sledge next to Alyoshka, and wrapped myself in my fur coat and the robes. Back of the station-house it seemed warm and calm. Though it was not snowing, not a single star was to be seen overhead, and the sky it seemed remarkably low and black, in contrast with the clear snowy expanse stretching out before us.
We had scarcely passed by the black forms of the windmills, one of which was awkwardly waving its huge wings, and had left the station behind us, when I perce-ived that the road was growing rougher and more drifted; the wind began to blow more fiercely on the left, and to toss the horses’ manes and tails to one side, and obstinately to lift and carry away the snow stirred up by the runners and hoofs. The little bell rang with a muffled sound; a draught of cold air forced its way through the opening in my sleeves, to my very back; and the inspector’s advice came into my head, that I had better not go farther, lest I wander all night, and freeze to death on the road.
“Won’t you get us lost?” said I to the driver,[1] but, as I got no answer, I put the question more explicitly: “Say, shall we reach the station, driver? We sha’n’t lose our way?”
“God knows,” was his reply; but he did not turn his head. “You see what kind of going we have. No road to be seen. Great heavens!”[2]
“Be good enough to tell me, do you hope to reach the station, or not?” I insisted. “Shall we get there?”
“Must get there,” said the driver; and he muttered something else, which I could not hear for the wind.
I did not wish to turn about, but the idea of wandering all night in the cold and snow over the perfectly shelterless steppe, which made up this part of the Don Cos-sack land, was very unpleasant. Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that I could not, by reason of the darkness, see him very well, my driver, somehow, did not ple-ase me, “nor inspire any confidence. He sat exactly in the middle, with his legs in, and not on one, side; his stature was too great; his voice expressed indolence; his cap, not like those usually worn by his class, was large and loose on all sides. Besi-des, he did not manage his horses in the proper way, but held the reins in both hands, just like the lackey who sat on the box behind the coachman; and, chiefly, I did not believe in him, because he had his ears wrapped up in a handkerchief. In a word, he did not please me; and it seemed as if that crooked, sinister back looming before me boded nothing good.
“In my opinion, it would be better to turn about,” said Alyoshka to me: “fi-ne thing it would be to be lost!”
“Great heavens! see what a snowstorm’s coming! No road in sight. It blinds one’s eyes. Great heavens!” repeated the driver.
We had not been gone a quarter of an hour when the driver stopped the horses, handed the reins to Alyoshka, awkwardly liberated his legs from the seat, and went to search for the road, crunching over the snow in his great boots.
“What is it? Where are you going? Are we lost?” I asked, but the driver made no reply, but, turning his face away from the wind, which cut his eyes, marched off from the sledge.
“Well, how is it?” I repeated, when he returned.
“Nothing at all,” said he to me impatiently and with vexation, as though I were to blame for his missing the road; and again slowly wrapping up his big legs in the robe, he gathered the reins in his stiffened mittens.
“What’s to be done?” I asked as we started off again.
“What’s to be done? We shall go as God leads.”
And we drove along in the same dog-trot over what was evidently an untrodden waste, sometimes sinking in deep, mealy snow, sometimes gliding over crisp, unbroken crust.
Although it was cold, the snow kept melting quickly on my collar. The low-flying snow-clouds increased, and occasionally the dry snowflakes began to fall.
It was clear that we were going out of our way, because, after keeping on for a quarter of an hour more, we saw no sign of a verst-post.
“Well, what do you think about it now?” I asked of the driver once more. “Shall we get to the station?”
“Which one? We should go back if we let the horses have their way: they will take us. But, as for the next one, that’s a problem…. Only we might perish.”
“Well, then, let us go back,” said I. “And indeed”—
“How is it? Shall we turn about?” repeated the driver.
“Yes, yes: turn back.”
The driver shook the reins. The horses started off more rapidly; and, though I did not notice that we had turned around, the wind changed, and soon through the snow appeared the windmills. The driver’s good spirits returned, and he began to be communicative.
“Lately,” said he, “in just such a snowstorm some people coming from that same station lost their way. Yes: they spent the night in the hayricks, and barely mana-ged to get here in the morning. Thanks to the hayricks, they were rescued. If it had not been for them, they would have frozen to death, it was so cold. And one froze his foot, and died three weeks afterwards.”
“But now, you see, it’s not cold; and it’s growing less windy,” I said. “Couldn’t we go on?”
“It’s warm enough, but it’s snowing. Now going back, it seems easier. But it’s snowing hard. Might go on, if you were a courier or something; but this is for your own sake. What kind of a joke would that be if a passenger froze to death? How, then, could I be answerable to your grace?”
[1]yamshchík.
[2]gospodi-bátiushka! Literally, Lord, little father.
II.
At this moment we heard behind us the bells of a troïka which was rapidly overta-king us.
“A courier’s bell,” said my driver. “There’s one such for every station.”
And, in fact, the bell of the courier’s troïka, the sound of which now came clearly to me on the wind, was peculiarly beautiful,—clear, sonorous, deep, and jangling a little. As I then knew, this was a huntsman’s team; three bells,—one large one in the centre, with the crimson tone, as it is called, and two small ones tuned in thirds. The sound of this triad and the tinkling fifth, ringing through the air, was extraordinarily effective and strangely pleasant in this dark desert steppe.
“The posht is coming,” said my driver when the foremost of the three troikas drew up in line with ours. “Well, how is the road? is it possible to go on?” he cried to the last of the drivers. But the yamshchík only shouted to his horses, and made no reply.
The sound of the bells quickly died away on the wind, almost as soon as the post-team passed us.
Of course my driver felt ashamed.
“Well, you shall go, bárin,” he said to me. “People have made their way through, now their tracks will be fresh.”
I agreed; and once more we faced the wind, and began to crawl along on the deep snow. I kept my eyes on one side on the road, so that we should not get off the track that had been made by the other sledges. For two versts the tracks were clearly visible, then there began to be only a slight irregularity where the runners had gone; and soon I really could no longer distinguish whether it was the track, or merely a layer of snow heaped up. My eyes grew weary of gazing at the monoto-nous stretch of snow under the runners, and I began to look ahead. The third verst-post we had already seen, but the fourth we could not find at all. As before, we went in the teeth of the wind, and with the wind, and to the right and to the left; and finally we reached such a state that the driver declared that we must have tur-ned off to the right. I declared that we must have turned off to the left, and Al-yoshka was sure that we ought to go back. Again we stopped a number of times, the driver uncoiled his long legs, and crawled along trying to find the road. But all in vain. I also got out once to see whether it were the road or something else that attracted my attention. But I had scarcely taken six steps with difficulty against the wind, and convinced myself that we were surrounded by the same monotonous white heaps of snow, and that the road existed only in my imagination, when I lost sight of the sledge. I shouted, “Yamshchík! Alyoshka!” but my voice,—I felt how the wind tore it right out of my mouth, and carried it in a twinkling far from me. I went in the direction where the sledge had been—the sledge was not there. I went to the right—not there either. I am ashamed to recollect what a loud, penetrating, and even rather despairing voice, I summoned to shout once more, “Yamshchík!” and there he was two steps away. His black figure, with his whip, and his huge cap hanging down on one side, suddenly loomed up before me. He led me to the sledge.
“Thank the Lord, it’s still warm!” said he. “To perish with the cold—awful! Great heavens!”[3]
“Let the horses find their own way, let us turn back,” said I, as I took my place in the sledge. “Won’t they take us back? hey, driver?”
“They ought to.”
He gave the horses the reins, cracked his whip three times over the saddle of the shaft-horse, and again we started off at hap-hazard. We went for half an hour. Sud-denly before us again I heard the well-known bell of the hunting establishment, and the other two. But now they were coming toward us. It was the same three troikas, which had already deposited the mail, and, with a change of horses attac-hed behind, were returning to the station. The courier’s troïka, with powerful hor-ses with the hunting-bell, quickly dashed ahead. A single driver sat in it on the dri-ver’s seat, and was shouting vigorously. Behind him, in the middle one of the empty troikas, were two other drivers; and their loud and hilarious talk could be heard. One of them was smoking a pipe; and the spark, brightened by the wind, lighted up a part of his face.
As I looked at them, I felt ashamed that I was afraid to go on; and my driver doubt-less had the same feeling, because we both said with one voice, “Let us follow them.”
[3]gospodi-bátiushka.
III.
My driver, without waiting for the last troïka to pass, began awkwardly to turn aro-und; and the thills hit the horses attached behind. One of the troïka teams shied, tore away the reins, and galloped off.
“Hey there, you squint-eyed devil! Don’t you see where you are turning? Running people down, you devil!” in a hoarse, discordant voice scolded one of the drivers, a short, little old man, as I judged by his voice and expression. He sprang hastily out of the hindmost sledge where he had been sitting, and started to run after the hor-ses, still continuing roughly and violently to vilify my yamshchík.
But the horses did not come back. The driver ran after them, and in one instant both horses and driver were lost from sight in the white mist of the storm.
“Vasi-i-i-li! bring the bay horse here. Can’t ketch him, so-o-o,” echoed his voice in the distance.
One of the drivers, a very tall fellow, got out of his sledge, silently unhitched his troïka, mounted one of the horses by the breeching, and crunching over the snow in a clumsy gallop, disappeared in the same direction.
Our own troïka, with the two others, followed on over the steppe, behind the cou-rier’s which dashed ahead in full trot, jingling its bell.
“How is it? He’ll get ‘em?” said my driver, referring to the one who had gone to catch the horses. “If that mare didn’t find the horses she wouldn’t be good for much, you know: she’d wander off, so that—she’d get lost.”
From the moment that my driver had the company of other teams he became more hilarious and talkative; and, as I had no desire to sleep, I did not fail, as a matter of course, to make the most of it. I took pains to ask him about his home and his fa-mily, and soon learned that he was a fellow-countryman of mine from Tula,—a peasant, belonging to a noble family from the village of Kirpitchnoé; that they had very little land, and the grain had entirely ceased to grow, owing to the cholera; that he and one of his brothers had staid at home, and a third had gone as a soldier; that since Christmas they had lacked bread, and had been obliged to work out; that his younger brother had kept the farm because he was married, but that he himself was a widower; that his villagers every year came here to exercise the trade of yamshchík, or driver; that, though he had not come as a regular driver, yet he was in the postal-service, so as to help his brother; that he earned there, thanks to God, a hundred and twenty paper rubles a year, of which he sent a hundred to his fa-mily; and that it would be good living, “but the couliers were very wild beasts, and the people here were impudent.”
“Now, what was that driver scolding about? Great heavens![4] did I mean to lose his horses for him? Did I treat him in a mean way? And why did he go galloping off after ‘em? They’d have come in of their own accord. Anyway, ‘twould be better for the horses to freeze to death than for him to get lost,” said the pious muzhík.
“What is that black thing I see coming?” I asked, pointing to some dark object in front of us.
“That’s a baggage-train. Splendid wheeling!” he added, as he came up with the hu-ge mat-covered vans on wheels, following one after the other. “See, not a soul to be seen—all asleep. The wise horse knows: you won’t drive her from the road, never…. We’ve driven in that same way—so we know,” he added.
It was indeed strange to see the huge vans covered with snow from the matted tops to the wheels, moving along, absolutely alone. Only the front corner of the snow-covered mat would be lifted by two fingers; and, for a moment, a cap would peer out as our bells jingled past the train. A great piebald horse, stretching out his neck, and straining his back, walked with measured pace over the drifted road, mo-notonously shaking his shaggy head under the whitened bell-bow,[5] and pricking up one snow-covered ear as we went by.
After we had gone still another, half-hour, the driver once more turned to me,—
“Well, what do you think, bárin? Are we getting along well?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Before, the wind blew in our faces, but now we go right along with it. No, we sha’n’t get there: we are off the track,” he said in conclusion, with perfect equani-mity.
It was evident, that, though he was very timid, yet, as “death in company with ot-hers is pleasant,” he was perfectly content to die now that there were a number of us, and he was not obliged to take the lead, and be responsible. He coolly made ob-servations on the mistakes of the head driver, as though it were not of the least consequence to himself. In fact, I had noticed that sometimes the front troïka appeared on my right, and again on my left. It seemed to me, too, that we were making a circle in very small space. However, it might be that it was an ocular de-ception, just as sometimes it seemed as if the front troïka were climbing up a mo-untain or were going along a slope or down a mountain, even when the steppe was everywhere perfectly level.
After we had gone on a little while longer, I saw, as it seemed to me, at a distance, on the very horizon, a long black, moving line; but it quickly became plain to me that it was the same baggage-train which we had passed. In exactly the same way, the snow covered the creaking wheels, several of which did not turn; in exactly the same way, the men were sleeping under the matted tops; and likewise the piebald leader, swelling out his nostrils, snuffed out the road, and pricked back his ears.
“See, we’ve gone round in a circle; we’ve gone round in a circle! Here’s the same baggage-train again!” exclaimed my driver in a discontented tone. “The coulier’s horses are good ones, so it makes no difference to him, even if he does go on a wild-goose chase. But ours will get tired out if we have to spend the whole night here.”
He had an attack of coughing.
“Should we go back, bárin, owing to the mistake?”
“No! Why? We shall come out somewhere.”
“Come out where? We shall have to spend the night in the steppe. How it’s snowing!… Great heavens!”[6]
Although it was clear to me that the head driver had lost both the road and the di-rection, and yet was not hunting for the road, but was singing at the top of his voi-ce, and letting his horses take their own speed; and so I did not like to part com-pany from them.
“Follow them,” said I.
The yamshchík drove on, but followed them less willingly than before, and no lon-ger had any thing to say to me.
[4]gospodi-bátiushka.
[5]dugá, the distinctive part of the Russian harness, rising high above the horse, and carrying the bells.
[6]gospodi-bátiushka.
IV.
The storm became more and more violent, and the snow fell dry and fine; it see-med as if we were in danger of freezing. My nose and cheeks began to tingle; more frequently the draught of cold air insinuated itself under my furs, and it became necessary to bundle up warmer. Sometimes the sledges bumped on the bare, icy crust from which the snow had been blown away. As I had already gone six hund-red versts without sleeping under roof, and though I felt great interest in the out-come of our wanderings, my eyes closed in spite of me, and I drowsed. Once when I opened my eyes, I was struck, as it seemed to me at the first moment, by a bright light, gleaming over the white plain: the horizon widened considerably, the lowe-ring black sky suddenly lifted up on all sides, the white slanting lines of the falling snow became visible, the shapes of the head troikas stood out clearly; and when I looked up, it seemed to me at the first moment that the clouds had scattered, and that only the falling snow veiled the stars. At the moment that I awoke from my drowse, the moon came out, and cast through the tenuous clouds and the falling snow her cold bright beams. I saw clearly my sledge, horses, driver, and the three troikas, ploughing on in front: the first, the courier’s, in which still sat on the box the one yamshchík driving at a hard trot; the second, in which rode the two drivers, who let the horses go at their own pace, and had made a shelter out of a camel’s-hair coat[7] behind which they still smoked their pipes as could be seen by the sparks glowing in their direction; and the third, in which no one was visible, for the yamshchík was comfortably sleeping in the middle. The leading driver, however, while I was napping had several times halted his horses, and attempted to find the road. Then while we stopped the howling of the wind became more audib-le, and the monstrous heaps of snow piling through the atmosphere seemed more tremendous. By the aid of the moonlight which made its way through the storm, I could see the driver’s short figure, whip in hand, examining the snow before him, moving back and forth in the misty light, again coming back to the sledge, and springing sidewise on the seat; and then again I heard above the monotonous whistling of the wind, the comfortable, clear jingling and melody of the bells. When the head driver crept out to find the marks of the road or the hayricks, each time was heard the lively, self-confident voice of one of the yamshchíks in the se-cond sledge shouting, “Hey, Ignashka![8] you turned off too much to the left. Strike off to the right into the storm.” Or, “Why are you going round in a circle? keep straight ahead as the snow flies. Follow the snow, then you’ll hit it.” Or, “Take the right, take the right, old man.[9] There’s something black, it must be a post.” Or, “What are you getting lost for? why are you getting lost? Unhitch the piebald hor-se, and let him find the road for you. He’ll do it every time. That would be the best way.”
The man who was so free with his advice not only did not offer to unhitch his off-horse, or go himself across the snow to hunt for the road, but did not even put his nose outside of his shelter-coat; and when Ignashka the leader, in reply to one of his proffers of advice, shouted to him to come and take the forward place since he knew the road so well, the mentor replied that when he came to drive a courier’s sledge, then he would take the lead, and never once miss the road. “But our horses wouldn’t go straight through a snowdrift,” he shouted: “they ain’t the right kind.”
“Then don’t you worry yourselves,” replied Ignashka, gayly whistling to his horses.
The yamshchík who sat in the same sledge with the mentor said nothing at all to Ignashka, and paid no attention to the difficulty, though he was not yet asleep, as I concluded by his pipe which still glowed, and because, when we halted, I heard his measured voice in uninterrupted flow. He was telling a story. Once only, when Ignashka for the sixth or seventh time came to a stop, it seemed to vex him becau-se his comfort in travelling was disturbed, and he shouted,—
“Stopping again? He’s missing the road on purpose. Call this a snowstorm! The surveyor himself could not find the road! he would let the horses find it. We shall freeze to death here; just let him go on regardless!”
“What! Don’t you know a poshtellion froze to death last winter?” shouted my dri-ver.
All this time the driver of the third troïka had not been heard from. But once while we were stopping, the mentor shouted, “Filipp! ha! Filipp!” and not getting any response remarked,—
“Can he have frozen to death? Ignashka, you go and look.”
Ignashka, who was responsible for all, went to his sledge, and began to shake the sleeper.
“See what drink has done for him! Tell us if you are frozen to death!” said he, sha-king him.
The sleeper grunted a little, and then began to scold.
“Live enough, fellows!” said Ignashka, and again started ahead, and once more we drove on; and with such rapidity that the little brown off-horse, in my three-span, which was constantly whipping himself with his tail, did not once interrupt his awkward gallop.
[7]armyák.
[8]diminished diminutive of Ignat.
[9]bratets tui moï; literally, “thou brother mine.”
V.
It was already about midnight, I judge, when the little old man and Vasíli, who had gone in search of the runaway horses, rejoined us. They had caught the horses, and had now overtaken us; but how in the world they had accomplished this in the thick, blinding snowstorm, in the midst of the bare steppe, was more than I could comprehend. The little old man, with his elbows and legs flying, came trotting up on the shaft-horse (the two other horses he had caught by the collars; it was impos-sible to lead them in the snowstorm). When they had caught up with me, he began to scold at my driver.
“You see, you cross-eyed devil! you”—
“O Uncle Mitritch,”[10] cried the talkative fellow in the second sledge, “you alive? Come along where we are!”
The old man did not answer him, but continued to scold. When he had satisfied himself, he rejoined the second sledge.
“Get em all?” was asked him.
“Why, of course we did.”
And his small figure leaped up and down on the horse’s back as he went off at full trot; then he sprang down into the snow, and without stopping caught up with the sledge, and sat in it with his legs hanging over the side. The tall Vasíli, just as before, took his place in perfect silence in the front sledge with Ignashka; and then the two began to look for the road together.
“What a spitfire! Great heavens!” muttered my driver.
For a long time after this we drove on without stopping, over the white waste, in the cold, pellucid, and wavering light of the snowstorm. When I opened my eyes, there before me rose the same clumsy, snow-covered cap; the same low dugá or bell-bow, under which, between the leathern reins tightly stretched, there moved always at the same distance the head of the shaft-horse with the black mane blown to one side by the wind. And I could see, above his back, the brown off-horse on the right, with his short braided tail, and the whiffletree sometimes knocking aga-inst the dasher of the sleigh. If I looked below, then I saw the scurrying snow stir-red up by the runners, and constantly tossed and borne by the wind to one side. In front of me, always at the same distance, glided the other troïkas. To left and right, all was white and bewildering. Vainly the eye sought for any new object: neither verst-post, nor hayrick, nor fence was to be seen; nothing at all. Everywhere, all was white, white and fluctuating. Now the horizon seems to be indistinguishably distant, then it comes down within two steps on every side; now suddenly a high white wall grows up on the right, and accompanies the course of the sledges, then it suddenly vanishes, and grows up in front, only to glide on in advance, farther and farther away, and disappear again.
As I look up, it seems light. At the first moment, I imagine that through the mist I see the stars; but the stars, as I gaze, flee into deeper and deeper depths, and I see only the snow falling into face and eyes, and the collar of my fur coat;[11] the sky has everywhere one tone of light, one tone of white,—colorless, monotonous, and constantly shifting. The wind seems to vary: at one moment it blows into my face, and flings the snow into my eyes; the next it goes to one side, and peevishly tosses the collar of my shuba over my head, and insultingly slaps me in the face with it; then it finds some crevice behind, and plays a tune upon it. I hear the soft, unceasing crunching of the hoofs and the runners on the snow, and the muffled tinkling of the bells, as we speed over the deep snow. Only occasionally when we drive against the wind, and glide over the bare frozen crust, I can clearly distingu-ish Ignat’s energetic whistling, and the full chords of the chime, with the resoun-ding jarring fifth; and these sounds break suddenly and comfortingly upon the me-lancholy character of the desert; and then again rings monotonously, with unendu-rable fidelity of execution, the whole of that motive which involuntarily coincides with my thoughts.
One of my feet began to feel cold, and when I turned round so as to protect it bet-ter, the snow which covered my collar and my cap sifted down my neck, and made me shiver; but still I was, for the most, comfortable in my warm shuba, and drowsiness overcame me.
[10]Condensed form for Dmitriyévitch, “son of Dmitri.” The peasants often call each other by the patronymic.
[11]shuba.
VI.
Things remembered and things conceived mixed and mingled with wonderful qu-ickness in my imagination.
“The mentor who is always shouting from the second sledge, what kind of a man must he be? Probably red-haired, thick-set, with short legs, a man somewhat like Feódor Filíppuitch our old butler,” is what I say to myself.
And here I see the staircase of our great house, and five of the house-servants who with towels, with heavy steps, carry the pianoforte from the L; I see Feódor Filíp-puitch with the sleeves of his nankeen coat tucked up, carrying one of the pedals, and going in advance, unbolting the door, taking hold of the door-knob here, there pushing a little, now crawling under the legs; he is here, there, and everywhere, crying with an anxious voice continually, “Look out, take more weight, you there in front! Be careful, you there at the tail-end! Up—up—up—don’t hit the door. There, there!”
“Excuse me, Feódor Filíppuitch! There ain’t enough of us,” says the gardener ti-midly, crushed up against the balustrade, and all red with exertion, lifting one end of the grand with all his remaining strength. But Feódor Filíppuitch does not hold his peace.
“And what does it mean?” I ask myself. “Does he think that he is of any use, that he is indispensable for the work in hand? or is he simply glad that God has given him this self-confident persuasive eloquence, and takes enjoyment in squan-dering it?”
And I somehow see the pond, the weary servants, who, up to their knees in the water, drag the heavy net; and again Feódor Filíppuitch, shouting to everybody, walking up and down on the bank, and only now and then venturing to the brink, taking with his hand the golden carp, and letting the dirty water run out from his watering-pot, so as to fill it up with fresh.
But here it is midday, in the month of July. Across the newly mown turf of the lawn, under the burning perpendicular rays of the sun, I seem to be going so-mewhere. I am still very young; I am free from yearnings, free from desires. I am going to the pond, to my own favorite spot between the rose-bushes and the birch-tree alley; and I shall lie down and nap. Keen is the sensation that I have, as I lie down, and look across the red thorny stems of the rose-bushes upon the dark gro-und with its dry grass and on the gleaming bright-blue mirror of the pond. It is a sensation of a peculiarly simple self-contentment and melancholy. All around me is so lovely, and this loveliness has such a powerful effect upon me, that it seems to me as if I myself were good; and the one thing that vexes me is, that no one is the-re to admire me.
It is hot. I try to go to sleep for comfort’s sake; but the flies, the unendurable flies, even here, give me no rest. They begin to swarm around me, and obstinately, inso-lently as it were, heavy as cherry-stones, jump from my forehead to my hands. A bee buzzes near me in the sunbeam. Yellow-winged butterflies fly wearily from flower to flower.
I gaze up. It pains my eyes. The sun shines too bright through the light fo-liage of the bushy birch-tree, gracefully waving its branches high above my head, and it grows hotter still. I cover my face with my handkerchief. It becomes stifling; and the flies seem to stick to my hands, on which the perspiration stands. In the rose-bush the sparrows twitter under the thick leaves. One hops to the ground al-most within my reach, makes two or three feints to peck energetically at the gro-und, and after making the little twigs crackle, and chirping gayly, flies away from the bushes; another also hops to the ground, wags his little tail, looks around, and, like an arrow, flies off twittering after the first. At the pond are heard the blows of the pounder on the wet clothes; and the noise re-echoes, and is carried far away, down along the shore. I hear laughter and talking, and the splashing of bathers. The breath of the wind sweeps the tops of the birches far above my head, and bends them down again. I hear it moving the grass, and now the leaves of the rose-bushes toss and rustle on their stems. And now, lifting the corner of my handkerc-hief, it tickles my sweaty face, and pours in upon me in a cooling current. Through the opening where the handkerchief is lifted a fly finds his way, and timidly buzzes around my moist mouth. A dry twig begins to make itself felt under my back. No: it becomes unendurable; I must get it out. But now, around the clump of bushes, I hear the sound of footsteps, and the frightened voice of a woman:—
“Mercy on me![12] what’s to be done? And no man anywhere!”
“What’s the matter?” I ask, running out into the sun, as a serving-woman, screa-ming, hurries past me. She merely glances at me, wrings her hands, and hurries along faster. And here comes also the seventy-year-old Matryóna, holding her handkerchief to her head, with her hair all in disorder, and hopping along with her lame leg in woollen stockings. Two girls come running, hand in hand; and a ten-year-old boy in his father’s jacket runs behind, clinging to the linen petticoat of one of them.
“What has happened?” I ask of them.
“A muzhík drowned!”
“Where?”
“In the pond.”
“Who is he? one of ours?”
“No, a tramp.”
The coachman Iván, bustling about in his big boots over the mown grass, and the fat overseer[13] Yakof, all out of breath, come hurrying to the pond; and I follow af-ter them.
I experience the feeling which says to me, “Now jump in, and pull the muzhík out, and save him; and all will admire you,” which was exactly what I wanted.
“Where is he? where?” I asked of the throng of domestics gathered on the shore.
“Over there in the deepest part, on the other shore, almost at the baths,” says the laundress, stowing away the wet linen on her yoke…. “I see him dive; there he co-mes up again, then he sinks a second time, and comes up again, and then he cries, ‘I’m drowning, help!’ And then he goes down again—and then a lot of bubbles. And while I am looking on, the muzhík gets drowned. And so I give the alarm: ‘Help! a muzhík is drowning!’”
And the laundress, lifting the yoke upon her shoulder, turning to one side, goes along the narrow footpath away from the pond.
“See! what a shame,” says Yakof Ivánof the overseer, in a despairing voice; “now there’ll be a rumpus with the police court[14]—we’ll have enough of it.”
One muzhík with a scythe makes his way through the throng of peasant women, children, and old men gathered round the shore, and, hanging the scythe on the limb of a willow, leisurely takes off his clothes.
“Where was it? where was he drowned?” I keep asking, having still the desire to jump in, and do something extraordinary.
They point out to me the smooth surface of the pond, which is now and then just ruffled by the puffs of the breeze. It is incomprehensible how he came to drown; for the water lies so smooth, beautiful and calm above him, shining golden in the midday sun, and it seems to me that I could not do any thing or surprise any one, the more as I am a very poor swimmer; but the muzhík is now pulling his shirt over his head, and instantly throws himself into the water. All look at him with hope and anxiety. After going into the water up to his neck, the muzhík turns back, and puts on his shirt again: he knows not how to swim.
People keep coming down to the shore; the throng grows larger and larger; the women cling to each other: but no one brings any help. Those who have just come, offer advice, and groan; fear and despair are stamped on all faces. Of those who had come first, some have sat down, or stand wearily on the grass, others have gone back to their work. The old Matryóna asks her daughter whether she shut the oven-door. The small boy in his father’s jacket industriously flings stones into the water.
And now from the house down the hill comes Trezorka, the butler’s dog, barking, and looking at the stupid people. And lo! there is Feódor’s tall figure hurrying from the hill-top, and shouting something as he comes out from behind the rose-bushes.
“What are you standing there for?” he shouts, taking off his coat as he runs. “A man drowning, and there you are standing around! Give us a rope.”
All look at Feódor with hope and fear while he, leaning his hand on the shoulder of one of the men-servants, pries off his left boot with the toe of the right.
“There it was, where the people are standing, there at the right of the willows, Feódor Filíppuitch, right there,” says some one to him.
“I know it,” he replies; and knitting his brows; probably as a rebuke to the manifes-tations of modesty visible among the women, he takes off his shirt and baptismal cross, handing them to the gardener-boy who stands officiously near him, and then stepping energetically across the mown grass comes to the pond.
Trezorka, unable to explain the reason for his master’s rapid motions, stands irreso-lute near the crowd, and noisily eats a few grass-blades on the shore, then looks questioningly at his master, and suddenly with a joyous bark plunges after him into the water. At first nothing can be seen except foam, and splashing water, which reached even to us. But soon the butler, gracefully spreading his arms in long stro-kes, and with regular motion lifting and sinking his back, swims across to the other shore. Trezorka, however, gurgling in the water, hastily returns, shakes himself near the crowd, and rolls over on his back upon the shore.
While the butler is swimming to the other side, two coachmen hasten to the wil-lows with a net fastened to a stake. The butler for some reason lifts up his hands, dives once, twice, three times, each time spewing from his mouth a stream of water, gracefully shaking his long hair, and paying no heed to the questions which are showered upon him from all sides. At last he comes to the shore, and, so far as I can see, arranges for the disposition of the net.
They haul out the net, but it contains nothing except slime and a few small carp flopping in it. They have just cast the net once more as I reach that side.
The voice of the butler giving directions, the water dripping from the wet rope, and the sighs of dismay, alone break the silence. The wet rope stretches to the right wing, covers up more and more of the grass, slowly emerges farther and farther out of the water.
“Now pull all together, friends, once more!” cries the butler’s voice. The net appe-ars, dripping with water.
“There’s something! it comes heavy, fellows,” says some one’s voice.
And here the wings with two or three carp flapping in them, wetting and crushing down the grass, are drawn to shore. And through the delicate strata of the agitated depths of the waters, something white gleams in the tightly stretched net. Not loud, but plainly audible amid the dead silence, a sigh of horror passes over the throng.
“Pull it up on the dry land! pull it up, friends!” says the butler’s resolute voice; and the drowned man is pulled up across the mown burdocks and other weeds, to the shelter of the willows.
And here I see my good old auntie in her silk dress. I see her lilac sunshade with its fringe,—which somehow is incongruous with this picture of death terrible in its very simplicity,—and her face ready this moment to be convulsed with sobs. I realize the disappointment expressed on her face, because it is impossible to use the arnica; and I recall the sickening melancholy feeling that I have when she says with the simple egoism of love, “Come, my dear. Ah! how terrible this is! And here you always go in swimming by yourself.”
I remember how bright and hot the sun shines on the dry ground, crumpling under the feet; how it gleams on the mirror of the pond; how the plump carp flap on the bank; how the schools of fish stir the smooth surface in the middle of the pond; how high in the air a hawk hangs, watching the ducklings which, quacking and spattering, swim through the reeds toward the centre; how the white tumulous thunder-clouds gather on the horizon; how the mud, brought up by the net, is scat-tered over the bank; and how, as I come to the dike, I again hear the blows of the clothes-pounders at work along the pond.
But the clothes-pounder has a ringing sound; two clothes-pounders, as it were, ring together, making a chord; and this sound torments, pains me, the more as I know that this clothes-pounder is a bell, and Feódor Filíppuitch does not cease to ring it. And this clothes-pounder, like an instrument of torture, squeezes my leg, which is freezing.—I fall into deep sleep.
I was waked by what seemed to me our very rapid progress, and by two voices spe-aking close to me.
“Say, Ignat, Ignat,” says the voice of my driver. “You take my passenger; you’ve got to go anyway; it’s only wasted labor for me: you take him.”
Ignat’s voice near me replies, “What fun would it be for me to answer for a passen-ger?… Will you treat me to a half-pint of brandy?”
“Now! a half-pint! Call it a glass.”
“The idea, a glass!” cries the other voice; “bother my horses for a glass of vodka!”
I open my eyes. Still the same unendurable whirling snowflakes dazzling me, the same drivers and horses, but next me I see some sledge or other. My driver has ca-ught up with Ignat, and for some time we have been going side by side.
Notwithstanding the fact that the voice from the other sledge advises not to take less than the half-pint, Ignat suddenly reins, up his troïka.
“Change the things; just your good luck! You’ll give me the brandy when we meet to-morrow. Have you got much luggage?”
My driver, with unwonted liveliness, leaps into the snow, makes me a bow, and begs me to change into Ignat’s sledge. I am perfectly willing. But evidently the pi-ous little muzhík is so delighted that he must needs express to every one his grate-fulness and pleasure. He bows to me, to Alyoshka, to Ignashka, and thanks us.
“Well, now, thank the Lord! What a scheme this is! Heavens and earth![15] we have been going half the night. Don’t know ourselves where we are. He will take you, sir;[16] but my horses are all beat out.”
And he transfers the luggage with vigorous activity.
When it was moved, I got into the other sledge in spite of the wind which almost carried me away. The sledge, especially on that side toward which was spread the coat as a protection against the wind, for the two yamshchíks, was quarter buried in the snow; but behind the coat, it was warm and cosey. The little old man was lying with his legs hanging over, and the story-teller was still spinning his yarn: “At that very same time when the general in the king’s name, you know, co-mes to Marya, you know, in the darkness, at this same time, Marya says to him, ‘General, I do not need you, and I cannot love you; and, you know, you are not my lover, but my lover is the prince himself’—At this very time,” he was going on to say; but, catching sight of me, he kept silence for a time, and began to puff at his pipe.
“Well, bárin, you missed the story, didn’t you?” said the other, whom I have called the mentor.
“Yes; but you are finely provided for behind here,” said I.
“Out of sheer dulness,—have to keep ourselves from thinking.”’
“But, say, don’t you know where we are now?”
This question, as it seemed to me, did not please the yamshchíks.
“Who can tell where we are? Maybe we are going to the Kalmucks,” replied the mentor.
“But what are we going to do?” I asked.
“What are we going to do? Well, we are going, and will keep on going,” he said in a fretful tone.
“Well, what will keep us from getting lost? Besides, the horses will get tired in the snow. What then?”
“Well, nothing.”
“But we may freeze to death.”
“Of course we may, because we don’t see any hayricks just now; but we may come, you know, to the Kalmucks. First thing, we must look at the snow.”
“But you aren’t afraid of freezing to death, are you, bárin?” asked the little old man with quavering voice.
Notwithstanding that he was making sport of me, as it were, it was plain that he was trembling all over.
“Yes: it is growing very cold,” I replied.
“Ekh! bárin! You ought to do like me. No, no: stamp up and down,—that will warm you up.”
“Do it the first thing when you get to the sledge,” said the mentor.
[12]akh, bátiushki!
[13]prikáshchik.
[14]zemski sūt.
[15]gospodi-bátiushka..
[16]bátiushka-bárin.
VII.
“If you please: all ready!” shouted Alyoshka from the front sledge.
The storm was so violent that only by violent exertion, leaning far forward and holding down the folds of my cloak with both hands, was I able to make my way through the whirling snow, drifting before the wind under my very feet, over the short distance between me and the sledge. My former driver was still on his knees in the middle of the empty sledge; but when he saw me going he took off his big cap, the wind angrily tossing up his hair, and asked me for a fee. Apparently he did not expect me to give it to him, because my refusal did not affront him in the least. He even thanked me, waved his cap, and said, “Well, good luck to you, sir!”[17] and picking up the reins, and clucking to the horses, turned from us.
Immediately Ignashka straightened his back, and shouted to his horses. Again the sound of crunching hoofs, voices, bells, took the place of the howling wind which was chiefly audible when we stood still. For a quarter of an hour after my transfer I did not sleep, and I diverted my mind by contemplating the form of my new driver and horses. Ignashka was youthful in appearance, was constantly jumping up, cracking his whip over the horses, shouting out, changing from one leg to the ot-her, and leaning forward to fix the breeching for the shaft-horse, which was always slipping to one side. The man was not tall in stature, but well built as it se-emed. Over his unlined sheepskin coat[18] he wore an ungirdled cloak, the collar of which was turned back, leaving his neck perfectly bare; his boots were of leather, not felt; and he wore a small cap which he constantly took off and straightened. In all his motions was manifest not only energy, but much more, as it seemed to me, the desire to keep his energy alive. Moreover, the farther we went, the more frequ-ently he settled himself on his seat, changed the position of his legs, and addressed himself to Alyoshka and me: it seemed to me that he was afraid of losing his spi-rits. And there was good reason: though the horses were excellent, the road at each step grew heavier and heavier, and it was noticeable that the horses’ strength was flagging. It was already necessary to use the whip; and the shaft-horse, a good big, shaggy animal, stumbled once or twice, though immediately, as if frightened, it sprang forward and tossed up its shaggy head almost to the bell itself. The right off-horse, which I could not help watching, had a long leather breeching adorned with tassels, slipping and sliding to the left, and kept dropping the traces, and requ-ired the whip; but, being naturally a good and even zealous horse, seemed to be vexed at his own weakness, and angrily tossed his head, as if asking to be driven. Indeed, it was terrible to see how, as the storm and cold increased, the horses grew weak, the road became worse; and we really did not know where we were, or where we were going, whether to a station or to any shelter whatsoever. And strange and ridiculous it was to hear the bells jingling so merrily and carelessly, and Ignatka shouting so energetically and delightfully as though it were a sunny Christmas noon, and we were hurrying to a festival along the village street; and stranger than all it was to think that we were always riding and riding rapidly away from the place where we had been.
Ignat began to sing some song in a horrible falsetto, but so loud and with such stops, during which he whistled, that it was weird to listen to, and made one me-lancholy.
“Hey-y-y! Why are you splitting your throat, Ignat? Hold on a bit!” said the voice of the mentor.
“What?”
“Hold o-o-o-o-n!”
Ignat reined up. Again silence only broken by the wailing and whistling of the wind, while the snow began to pile up, rustling on the sledge. The mentor drove up to us.
“Well, what is it?”
“Say![19] where are you going?”
“Who knows?”
“Are your feet frozen, that you stamp so?”
“They’re frozen off.”
“Well, you ought to go this way. The way you were going means starvation,—not even a Kalmuck there. Get out, and it will warm your legs.”
“All right. Hold the horses—there.”
And Ignat stumped off in the direction indicated.
“Have to keep looking all the time, have to get out and hunt; then you find the way. But this way’s a crazy way to go,” said the mentor. “See how tired the horses are.”
All the time that Ignat was gone, and it was so long that I actually began to be af-raid that he had lost his way, the mentor kept talking to me in a self-confident, easy tone, telling me how it was necessary to behave in a snowstorm; how much better it was to unhitch one of the horses, and let her go as God Almighty should direct; how sometimes you can see the stars occasionally; and how, if he had taken the front place, we should have been at the station long before.
“Well, how is it?” he asked, as Ignat came back, ploughing with difficulty knee-deep in snow.
“Not so bad. I found a Kalmuck camp,” replied the driver, out of breath. “Still I don’t know where we are. It must be that we have been going toward Prolgovsky forest. We must turn to the left.”
“Why worry? It must be the camp just behind our station,” replied the mentor.
“I tell you it isn’t.”
“Well, I’ve seen it, and so I know. If it isn’t that, then it’s Tamuishevskoé. You must turn to the right; and soon we’ll be on the big bridge,—eight versts.”
“Say what you will, ‘tain’t so. I have seen it,” said Ignat angrily.
“Eh! what’s that? I am a yamshchík as much as you are.”
“Fine yamshchík! you go ahead, then.”
“Why should I go ahead? But I know.”
Ignat was evidently angry. Without replying, he climbed to his seat, and drove on.
“You see how cold one’s feet get. No way to warm them,” said he to Alyoshka, po-unding his feet more and more frequently, and brushing and shaking off the snow which had got into his boot-legs.
I felt an uncontrollable desire to sleep.
[17]Nu, daï Bog vam, bárin.
[18]polushubka; a garment of tanned sheepskin, the wool inwards, and reaching to the knees or even the ankles.
[19]da chïo!
VIII.
“Can it be that I am going to freeze to death?” I asked myself, as I dropped off. “Death, they say, always begins with drowsiness. It’s much better to drown than freeze to death, then they would pull me out of the net. However, it makes no dif-ference whether one drowns or freezes to death. If only this stake did not stick into my back so, I might forget myself.”
For a second I lost consciousness.
“How will all this end?” I suddenly ask myself in thought, for a moment opening my eyes, and gazing at the white expanse,—”how will it end? If we don’t find some hayricks, and the horses get winded, as it seems likely they will be very soon, we shall all freeze to death.”
I confess, that, though I was afraid, I had a desire for something extraordinarily tragic to happen to us; and this was stronger than the small fear. It seemed to me that it would not be unpleasant if at morning the horses themselves should bring us, half-frozen, to some far-off, unknown village, where some of us might even perish of the cold.
And while I have this thought, my imagination works with extraordinary clearness and rapidity. The horses become weary, the snow grows deeper and deeper, and now only the ears and the bell-bow are visible; but suddenly Ignashka appears on horseback, driving his troïka past us. We beseech him, we shout to him to take us: but the wind carries away our voices; we have no voices left. Ignashka la-ughs at us, shouts to his horses, whistles, and passes out of our sight in some deep snow-covered ravine. A little old man climbs upon a horse, flaps his elbows, and tries to gallop after him; but he cannot stir from the place. My old driver, with his great cap, throws himself upon him, drags him to the ground, and tramples him into the snow. “You’re a wizard!” he cries. “You’re a spitfire. We are all lost on your account.” But the little old man flings a snowball at his head. He is no longer a litt-le old man, but only a hare, and bounds away from us. All the dogs bound after him. The mentor, who is now the butler, tells us to sit around in a circle, that not-hing will happen to us if we protect ourselves with snow: it will be warm.
In fact, it is warm and cosey: our only trouble is thirst. I get out my travelling-case; I offer every one rum and sugar, and drink myself with great satisfaction. The story-teller spins some yarn about the rainbow, and over our heads is a roof of snow and a rainbow.
“Now each of you,” I say, “make a chamber in the snow, and go to sleep.” The snow is soft and warm like wool. I make myself a room, and am just going into it; but Feódor Filíppuitch, who has caught a glimpse of my money in my travelling-case, says, “Hold! give me your money, you won’t need it when you’re dead,” and seizes me by the leg. I hand him the money, asking him only to let me go; but they will not believe that it is all my money, and they are going to kill me. I seize the old man’s hand, and with indescribable pleasure kiss it: the old man’s hand is tender and soft. At first he takes it away from me, but afterwards he lets me have it, and even caresses me with his other hand. Nevertheless, Feódor Filíppuitch comes near and threatens me. I hasten to my chamber; it is not a chamber, but a long white corridor, and some one pulls back on my leg. I tear myself away. In the hand of the man who holds me back, remain my trousers and a part of my skin; but I feel only cold and ashamed,—all the more ashamed because my auntie with her sunshade, and homœopathic pellets, comes arm in arm with the drowned man to meet me. They smile, but do not understand the signs that I make to them. I fling myself after the sledge; my feet glide over the snow, but the little old man follows after me, flapping his elbows. He comes close to me. But I hear just in front of me two church-bells, and I know that I shall be safe when I reach them. The church-bells ring nearer and nearer; but the little old man has caught up with me, and falls with his body across my face, so that I can scarcely hear the bells. Once more I sei-ze his hand, and begin to kiss it; but the little old man is no longer the little old man, but the drowned man, and he cries,—
“Ignashka, hold on! here are Akhmet’s hayricks! just look!”
That is strange to hear! no, I would rather wake up.
I open my eyes. The wind is flapping the tails of Alyoshka’s cloak into my face; my knees are uncovered. We are going over the bare crust, and the triad of the bells rings pleasantly through the air with its dominant fifth.
I look, expecting to see the hayricks; but instead of hayricks, now that my eyes are wide open, I see something like a house with a balcony, and the crenellated walls of a fortress. I feel very little interest in seeing this house and fortress; my desire is much stronger to see the white corridor where I had been walking, to hear the sound of the church-bells, and to kiss the little old man’s hand. Again I close my eyes and sleep.
IX.
I sleep sound. But all the time I can hear the chords of the bells, and in my dream I can see a dog barking and jumping after me; then the organ, one stop of which I seem to draw out; then the French poem which I am composing. Then it seems to me that this triad is some instrument of torture with which my right foot is cons-tantly compressed. This was so severe that I woke up, and opening my eyes I rub-bed my leg. It was beginning to grow numb with cold.
The night was, as before, light, melancholy, white. The sledge and its passengers were still shaken by the same motion; there was Ignashka sitting on one side and stamping his feet. There was the off-horse as before, straining her neck, lifting her feet, as she trotted over the deep snow; the tassel slipping along the reins, and whipping against the horse’s belly; the head of the shaft-horse, with the waving mane, alternately pulling and loosening the reins attached to the bell-bow as it nodded up and down. But all this was covered and hidden with snow far more than before. The snow was whirled about in front of us, and covered up our runners, and reached above the horses’ knees, and fell thick and fast on our collars and caps. The wind blew now from the right, now from the left, and played with the collar and tails of Ignashka’s cloak, the mane of the horses, and howled above the bell-bow and the shafts.
It had become fearfully cold; and I had scarcely lifted my head out of my collar ere the frosty dry snow made its way, rustling, into my eyelids, nose, and mouth, and ran down my neck. Looking around, all was white, light, and snowy; nothing anywhere except a melancholy light and the snow. I felt a sensation of real terror. Alyoshka was sitting cross-legged in the very depths of the sledge; his whole back was covered with a thick deposit of snow.
Ignashka still kept up his spirits; he kept constantly pulling at the reins, stamping and pounding his feet. The bell also sounded strange. The horses sometimes snor-ted, but plunged along more quietly, though they stumbled more and more often. Ignashka again sprang up, swung his mittens, and began to sing in his clear, strong voice. Not ceasing to sing, he stopped the troïka, tossed the reins on the dasher, and got out. The wind howled madly; the snow, as though shovelled down, was dashed upon the folds of my furs.
I looked around. The third troïka was nowhere to be seen (it had stopped somewhe-re). Next the second troïka, in a mist of snow, could be seen the little old man ma-king his way with long strides. Ignashka went three steps from the sledge, sat down in the snow, took off his girdle, and began to remove his boots.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Must change my boots: this leg is frozen solid,” he replied, and went on with his work.
It was cold for me to keep my neck out of my collar to watch what he was doing. I sat straight, looking at the off-horse, which, with legs spread, stood feebly switc-hing its snow-covered tail. The thump which Ignat gave the sledge as he clambered to his place startled me.
“Well, where are we now?” I asked. “Are we getting anywhere in the world?”
“Don’t you worry. We shall get there,” he replied. “Now my feet are thoroughly warm, since I changed them.”
And he drove on; the bells jingled, the sledge again began to rock, and the wind whistled under the runners, and once more we struggled to swim through the li-mitless ocean of snow.
X.
I sunk into a sound sleep. When Alyoshka awoke me by punching me in the leg, and I opened my eyes, it was morning. It seemed even colder than it had been du-ring the night. There was nothing to be seen but snow; but a strong dry wind still swept the powdery snow across the field, and especially under the hoofs of the hor-ses, and the runners of the sledge. The sky on the right toward the east was of a deep purple color, but the bright reddish-orange rays of the sunrise kept growing more and more clearly defined in it; above our heads, between the hurrying white clouds, scarcely tinged as yet, gleamed the sickly blue of the sky; in the west the clouds were bright, light, and fluctuating. Everywhere around, as far as the eye co-uld see, lay the snow, white and deep, in sharply defined strata. Everywhere could be seen gray hillocks where lay the fine, dry, powdery snow. Nothing was to be seen,—not even the shadow of a sledge, nor of a human being, nor of a beast. The outline and color of the driver’s back, and of the horses, began to stand out clear and sharp against the white background. The rim of Ignashka’s dark-blue cap, his collar, his hair, and even his boots, were white. The sledge was perfectly covered. The whole right side and the mane of the brown shaft-horse were plastered with snow. The legs of my off-horse were thick with it up to the knee, and the whole of the shaggy right flank had the same sticky covering. The tassel leaped up and down in some sort of rhythm, the structure of which it would not be easy to represent; and the off-horse also kept to it in her gait: only by the gaunt belly rising and sinking, and by the hanging ears, could it be seen how tired she was.
Only one new object attracted the attention: this was a verst-post, from which the snow had been blown away, leaving it clear to the ground, and making a perfect mountain on one side; while the wind was still sweeping it across, and drifting it from one side to the other.
It was odd to me to think that we had gone the whole night without change of hor-ses, not knowing for twelve hours where we were, and not coming to our destina-tion, and yet not really missing the road. Our bells seemed to sound more cheerful than ever. Ignat buttoned his coat up, and began to shout again. Behind us snorted the horses, and jingled the bells, of the troïka that carried the little old man and the mentor; but the one who was asleep had wandered away from us somewhere on the steppe.
After going half a verst farther, we came upon the fresh, and as yet unobliterated, traces of a sledge and troïka; and occasionally drops of blood, caused by the whip on the horses’ side, could be seen.
“That was Filipp. See, he’s got in ahead of us,” said Ignashka.
And here appears a little house with a sign, alone by itself, near the road, standing in the midst of the snow which covers it almost to the roof. Near the inn stands a troïka of gray horses, their hair rough with sweat, with wide-spread legs and droo-ping heads. At the door, the snow is shovelled away, and the shovel is stan-ding in it; but it still falls from the roof, and the roaring wind whirls the snow aro-und.
Out from the door at the sound of our bells comes a big ruddy, red-headed driver, with a glass of wine in his hand, and shouts something. Ignashka turns to me, and asks permission to stop. Then for the first time I fairly see his face.
XI.
His features were not dark, dry, and regular, as I had reason to expect from his hair and build. His face was round, jolly, with a snub nose and a big mouth, and clear-shining eyes, blue and round. His cheeks and neck were like well-worn cloth. His eyebrows, his long eyelashes, and the beard which evenly covered the lower part of his face, were crusted thick with snow, and perfectly white.
The distance to the station was all of a half-verst, and we stopped.
“Only be quick about it,” I said.
“Just a minute,” replied Ignashka, springing down from his seat, and going up to Filipp.
“Let us have it, brother,” said he, taking the glass in his right hand; and throwing his mitten and whip down on the snow, tipping back his head, he drank down at a gulp the glass of vodka.
The inn-keeper, who must have been a discharged Cossack, came, with a bottle in his hand, out of the door.
“Who have you got there?” he asked.
The tall Vasíli, a lean, blond muzhík with a goatee, and the fat mentor, with white eyebrows, and a thick white beard framing his ruddy face, came up and also drank a glass. The little old man joined the group of drinkers; but no one offered him any thing, and he went off again to his horses, fastened behind, and began to stroke one of them on the back and side.
The little old man was pretty much what I had imagined him to be; small, ugly, with wrinkled, strongly marked features, a thin little beard, a sharp nose, and worn yellow teeth. He wore a driver’s cap, perfectly new; but his sheepskin jacket[20] was old, soiled with oil, and torn on the shoulders and flaps, and did not cover his knees or his hempen trousers tucked into his huge felt boots. He himself was bent, and frowned all the time, and, with trembling lips and limbs, tramped around his sledge in his efforts to keep warm.
“Well, Mitritch, you ought to have a drink; it would warm you up,” said the men-tor to him.
Mitritch gave a start. He arranged the horses’ harness, straightened the bell-bow, and then came to me.
“Say, bárin,” said he, taking his cap off from his white hair and bowing very low, “all night long we have been wandering together; we have found the road. We would seem to deserve a bit of a drink. Isn’t that so, sir, your eminence?[21] just enough to get warmed,” he added with an obsequious smile.
I gave him a quarter-ruble. The inn-keeper brought out a glass of vodka, and han-ded it to the old man. He laid aside his mitten and whip, and took the glass in his small, dark hand, bony and somewhat bluish; but strangely enough he could not control his thumb. Before he had lifted the glass to his lips, he dropped it in the snow, spilling the wine.
All the drivers burst out laughing.
“See, Mitritch-to is half-frozen like; he can’t hold his wine.”
But Mitritch was greatly vexed because he had spilt the wine.
They brought him, however, another glass, and poured it into his mouth. He im-mediately became jolly, went into the inn, lighted his pipe, began to show his yel-low worn teeth, and to scold at every word. After they had taken their last drinks, the drivers came back to their troikas, and we set off.
The snow kept growing whiter and brighter, till it made one’s eyes ache to look at it. The orange-colored reddish streaks stretched brighter and brighter, higher and higher, across the heavens; now the red circle of the sun appeared on the horizon through the bluish clouds; the blue sky came out in constantly increasing brilliancy and depth. On the road around the station the tracks were clear, distinct, and yel-low; in some places were cradle-holes. In the frosty, bracing atmosphere, there was a pleasant exhilaration and freshness.
My troïka glided along very swiftly. The head of the shaft-horse, and the neck with the mane tossing up to the bell-bow, constantly made the same quick, swinging motions under the hunting-bell, the tongue of which no longer struck, but scraped around the rim. The good side-horses, in friendly rivalry tugging at the frozen twis-ted traces, energetically galloped on, the tassels striking against their ribs and necks. Occasionally the off-horse would plunge into some drift, and kick up the snow, filling the eyes with the fine powder. Ignashka kept shouting in his gay te-nor. The runners creaked over the dry, frosty snow. Behind us, with a loud festival sound, rang the two sledge-chimes; and the voices of the drivers, made jolly by wi-ne, could be heard.
I looked back: the gray shaggy side-horses arching their necks, regularly puffing out the breath, with their curved bits, galloped over the snow. Filipp was flouris-hing his whip and adjusting his cap. The little old man, with his legs hanging out, was reclining as before in the middle of his sledge.
At the end of two minutes the sledge scraped against the boards of the well-cleared entrance of the station-house; and Ignashka turned to me, his jolly face covered with snow, where his breath had turned to ice, and said,—
“Here we are, bárin!”
[20]polushúbchishka.
[21]bátiushka, váshe siátelstvo.
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