by Leo Tolstoy
‘I say I once went to Pashútino in half an hour,’ shouted Vasíli Andréevich.
‘It goes without saying that he’s a good horse,’ replied Nikíta.
They were silent for awhile. But Vasíli Andréevich wished to talk.
‘Well, did you tell your wife not to give the cooper any vodka?’ he began in the same loud tone, quite convinced that Nikíta must feel flattered to be talking with so clever and important a person as himself, and he was so pleased with his jest that it did not enter his head that the remark might be unpleasant to Nikíta.
The wind again prevented Nikíta’s hearing his master’s words.
Vasíli Andréevich repeated the jest about the cooper in his loud, clear voice.
‘That’s their business, Vasíli Andréevich. I don’t pry into their affairs. As long as she doesn’t ill-treat our boy – God be with them.’
‘That’s so,’ said Vasíli Andréevich. ‘Well, and will you be buying a horse in spring?’ he went on, changing the subject.
‘Yes, I can’t avoid it,’ answered Nikíta, turning down his collar and leaning back towards his master.
The conversation now became interesting to him and he did not wish to lose a word.
‘The lad’s growing up. He must begin to plough for himself, but till now we’ve always had to hire someone,’ he said.
‘Well, why not have the lean-cruppered one. I won’t charge much for it,’ shouted Vasíli Andréevich, feeling animated, and consequently starting on his favourite occupation – that of horse-dealing – which absorbed all his mental powers.
‘Or you might let me have fifteen rubles and I’ll buy one at the horse-market,’ said Nikíta, who knew that the horse Vasíli Andréevich wanted to sell him would be dear at seven rubles, but that if he took it from him it would be charged at twenty-five, and then he would be unable to draw any money for half a year.
‘It’s a good horse. I think of your interest as of my own – according to conscience. Brekhunóv isn’t a man to wrong anyone. Let the loss be mine. I’m not like others. Honestly!’ he shouted in the voice in which he hypnotized his customers and dealers. ‘It’s a real good horse.’
‘Quite so!’ said Nikíta with a sigh, and convinced that there was nothing more to listen to, he again released his collar, which immediately covered his ear and face.
They drove on in silence for about half an hour. The wind blew sharply onto Nikíta’s side and arm where his sheepskin was torn.
He huddled up and breathed into the collar which covered his mouth, and was not wholly cold.
‘What do you think – shall we go through Karamýshevo or by the straight road?’ asked Vasíli Andréevich.
The road through Karamýshevo was more frequented and was well marked with a double row of high stakes. The straight road was nearer but little used and had no stakes, or only poor ones covered with snow.
Nikíta thought awhile.
‘Though Karamýshevo is farther, it is better going,’ he said.
‘But by the straight road, when once we get through the hollow by the forest, it’s good going – sheltered,’ said Vasíli Andréevich, who wished to go the nearest way.
‘Just as you please,’ said Nikíta, and again let go of his collar.
Vasíli Andréevich did as he had said, and having gone about half a verst came to a tall oak stake which had a few dry leaves still dangling on it, and there he turned to the left.
On turning they faced directly against the wind, and snow was beginning to fall. Vasíli Andréevich, who was driving, inflated his cheeks, blowing the breath out through his moustache. Nikíta dozed.
So they went on in silence for about ten minutes. Suddenly Vasíli Andréevich began saying something.
‘Eh, what?’ asked Nikíta, opening his eyes.
Vasíli Andréevich did not answer, but bent over, looking behind them and then ahead of the horse. The sweat had curled Mukhórty’s coat between his legs and on his neck. He went at a walk.
‘What is it?’ Nikíta asked again.
‘What is it? What is it?’ Vasíli Andréevich mimicked him angrily. ‘There are no stakes to be seen! We must have got off the road!’
‘Well, pull up then, and I’ll look for it,’ said Nikíta, and jumping down lightly from the sledge and taking the whip from under the straw, he went off to the left from his own side of the sledge.
The snow was not deep that year, so that it was possible to walk anywhere, but still in places it was knee-deep and got into Nikíta’s boots. He went about feeling the ground with his feet and the whip, but could not find the road anywhere.
‘Well, how is it?’ asked Vasíli Andréevich when Nikíta came back to the sledge.
‘There is no road this side. I must go to the other side and try there,’ said Nikíta.
‘There’s something there in front. Go and have a look.’
Nikíta went to what had appeared dark, but found that it was earth which the wind had blown from the bare fields of winter oats and had strewn over the snow, colouring it. Having searched to the right also, he returned to the sledge, brushed the snow from his coat, shook it out of his boots, and seated himself once more.
‘We must go to the right,’ he said decidedly. ‘The wind was blowing on our left before, but now it is straight in my face. Drive to the right,’ he repeated with decision.
Vasíli Andréevich took his advice and turned to the right, but still there was no road. They went on in that direction for some time. The wind was as fierce as ever and it was snowing lightly.
‘It seems, Vasíli Andréevich, that we have gone quite astray,’ Nikíta suddenly remarked, as if it were a pleasant thing. ‘What is that?’ he added, pointing to some potato bines that showed up from under the snow.
Vasíli Andréevich stopped the perspiring horse, whose deep sides were heaving heavily.
‘What is it?’
‘Why, we are on the Zakhárov lands. See where we’ve got to!’
‘Nonsense!’ retorted Vasíli Andréevich.
‘It’s not nonsense, Vasíli Andréevich. It’s the truth,’ replied Nikíta. ‘You can feel that the sledge is going over a potato-field, and there are the heaps of bines which have been carted here. It’s the Zakhárov factory land.’
‘Dear me, how we have gone astray!’ said Vasíli Andréevich. ‘What are we to do now?’
‘We must go straight on, that’s all. We shall come out somewhere – if not at Zakhárova then at the proprietor’s farm,’ said Nikíta.
Vasíli Andréevich agreed, and drove as Nikíta had indicated. So they went on for a considerable time. At times they came onto bare fields and the sledge-runners rattled over frozen lumps of earth. Sometimes they got onto a winter-rye field, or a fallow field on which they could see stalks of wormwood, and straws sticking up through the snow and swaying in the wind; sometimes they came onto deep and even white snow, above which nothing was to be seen.
The snow was falling from above and sometimes rose from below. The horse was evidently exhausted, his hair had all curled up from sweat and was covered with hoar-frost, and he went at a walk. Suddenly he stumbled and sat down in a ditch or water-course. Vasíli Andréevich wanted to stop, but Nikíta cried to him:
‘Why stop? We’ve got in and must get out. Hey, pet! Hey, darling! Gee up, old fellow!’ he shouted in a cheerful tone to the horse, jumping out of the sledge and himself getting stuck in the ditch.
The horse gave a start and quickly climbed out onto the frozen bank. It was evidently a ditch that had been dug there.
‘Where are we now?’ asked Vasíli Andréevich.
‘We’ll soon find out!’ Nikíta replied. ‘Go on, we’ll get somewhere.’
‘Why, this must be the Goryáchkin forest!’ said Vasíli Andréevich, pointing to something dark that appeared amid the snow in front of them.
‘We’ll see what forest it is when we get there,’ said Nikíta.
He saw that beside the black thing they had noticed, dry, ob
long willow-leaves were fluttering, and so he knew it was not a forest but a settlement, but he did not wish to say so. And in fact they had not gone twenty-five yards beyond the ditch before something in front of them, evidently trees, showed up black, and they heard a new and melancholy sound. Nikíta had guessed right: it was not a wood, but a row of tall willows with a few leaves still fluttering on them here and there. They had evidently been planted along the ditch round a threshing-floor. Coming up to the willows, which moaned sadly in the wind, the horse suddenly planted his forelegs above the height of the sledge, drew up his hind legs also, pulling the sledge onto higher ground, and turned to the left, no longer sinking up to his knees in snow. They were back on a road.
‘Well, here we are, but heaven only knows where!’ said Nikíta.
The horse kept straight along the road through the drifted snow, and before they had gone another hundred yards the straight line of the dark wattle wall of a barn showed up black before them, its roof heavily covered with snow which poured down from it. After passing the barn the road turned to the wind and they drove into a snow-drift. But ahead of them was a lane with houses on either side, so evidently the snow had been blown across the road and they had to drive through the drift. And so in fact it was. Having driven through the snow they came out into a street. At the end house of the village some frozen clothes hanging on a line – shirts, one red and one white, trousers, leg-bands, and a petticoat – fluttered wildly in the wind. The white shirt in particular struggled desperately, waving its sleeves about.
‘There now, either a lazy woman or a dead one has not taken her clothes down before the holiday,’ remarked Nikíta, looking at the fluttering shirts.
III
AT the entrance to the street the wind still raged and the road was thickly covered with snow, but well within the village it was calm, warm, and cheerful. At one house a dog was barking, at another a woman, covering her head with her coat, came running from somewhere and entered the door of a hut, stopping on the threshold to have a look at the passing sledge. In the middle of the village girls could be heard singing.
Here in the village there seemed to be less wind and snow, and the frost was less keen.
‘Why, this is Gríshkino,’ said Vasíli Andréevich.
‘So it is,’ responded Nikíta.
It really was Gríshkino, which meant that they had gone too far to the left and had travelled some six miles, not quite in the direction they aimed at, but towards their destination for all that.
From Gríshkino to Goryáchkin was about another four miles.
In the middle of the village they almost ran into a tall man walking down the middle of the street.
‘Who are you?’ shouted the man, stopping the horse, and recognizing Vasíli Andréevich he immediately took hold of the shaft, went along it hand over hand till he reached the sledge, and placed himself on the driver’s seat.
He was Isáy, a peasant of Vasíli Andréevich’s acquaintance, and well known as the principal horse-thief in the district.
‘Ah, Vasíli Andréevich! Where are you off to?’ said Isáy, enveloping Nikíta in the odour of the vodka he had drunk.
‘We were going to Goryáchkin.’
‘And look where you’ve got to! You should have gone through Molchánovka.’
‘Should have, but didn’t manage it,’ said Vasíli Andréevich, holding in the horse.
‘That’s a good horse,’ said Isáy, with a shrewd glance at Mukhórty, and with a practised hand he tightened the loosened knot high in the horse’s bushy tail.
‘Are you going to stay the night?’
‘No, friend. I must get on.’
‘Your business must be pressing. And who is this? Ah, Nikíta Stepánych!’
‘Who else?’ replied Nikíta. ‘But I say, good friend, how are we to avoid going astray again?’
‘Where can you go astray here? Turn back straight down the street and then when you come out keep straight on. Don’t take to the left. You will come out onto the high road, and then turn to the right.’
‘And where do we turn off the high road? As in summer, or the winter way?’ asked Nikíta.
‘The winter way. As soon as you turn off you’ll see some bushes, and opposite them there is a way-mark – a large oak one with branches – and that’s the way.’
Vasíli Andréevich turned the horse back and drove through the outskirts of the village.
‘Why not stay the night?’ Isáy shouted after them.
But Vasíli Andréevich did not answer and touched up the horse. Four miles of good road, two of which lay through the forest, seemed easy to manage, especially as the wind was apparently quieter and the snow had stopped.
Having driven along the trodden village street, darkened here and there by fresh manure, past the yard where the clothes hung out and where the white shirt had broken loose and was now attached only by one frozen sleeve, they again came within sound of the weird moan of the willows, and again emerged on the open fields. The storm, far from ceasing, seemed to have grown yet stronger. The road was completely covered with drifting snow, and only the stakes showed that they had not lost their way. But even the stakes ahead of them were not easy to see, since the wind blew in their faces.
Vasíli Andréevich screwed up his eyes, bent down his head, and looked out for the way-marks, but trusted mainly to the horse’s sagacity, letting it take its own way. And the horse really did not lose the road but followed its windings, turning now to the right and now to the left and sensing it under his feet, so that though the snow fell thicker and the wind strengthened they still continued to see way-marks now to the left and now to the right of them.
So they travelled on for about ten minutes, when suddenly, through the slanting screen of wind-driven snow, something black showed up which moved in front of the horse.
This was another sledge with fellow-travellers. Mukhórty overtook them, and struck his hoofs against the back of the sledge in front of him.
‘Pass on … hey there … get in front!’ cried voices from the sledge.
Vasíli Andréevich swerved aside to pass the other sledge. In it sat three men and a woman, evidently visitors returning from a feast. One peasant was whacking the snow-covered croup of their little horse with a long switch, and the other two sitting in front waved their arms and shouted something. The woman, completely wrapped up and covered with snow, sat drowsing and bumping at the back.
‘Who are you?’ shouted Vasíli Andréevich.
‘From A-a-a …’ was all that could be heard.
‘I say, where are you from?’
‘From A-a-a-a!’ one of the peasants shouted with all his might, but still it was impossible to make out who they were.
‘Get along! Keep up!’ shouted another, ceaselessly beating his horse with the switch.
‘So you’re from a feast, it seems?’
‘Go on, go on! Faster, Simon! Get in front! Faster!’
The wings of the sledges bumped against one another, almost got jammed but managed to separate, and the peasants’ sledge began to fall behind.
Their shaggy, big-bellied horse, all covered with snow, breathed heavily under the low shaft-bow and, evidently using the last of its strength, vainly endeavoured to escape from the switch, hobbling with its short legs through the deep snow which it threw up under itself.
Its muzzle, young-looking, with the nether lip drawn up like that of a fish, nostrils distended and ears pressed back from fear, kept up for a few seconds near Nikíta’s shoulder and then began to fall behind.
‘Just see what liquor does!’ said Nikíta. ‘They’ve tired that little horse to death. What pagans!’
For a few minutes they heard the panting of the tired little horse and the drunken shouting of the peasants. Then the panting and the shouts died away, and around them nothing could be heard but the whistling of the wind in their ears and now and then the squeak of their sledge-runners over a windswept part of the road.
This enco
unter cheered and enlivened Vasíli Andréevich, and he drove on more boldly without examining the way-marks, urging on the horse and trusting to him.
Nikíta had nothing to do, and as usual in such circumstances he drowsed, making up for much sleepless time. Suddenly the horse stopped and Nikíta nearly fell forward onto his nose.
‘You know we’re off the track again!’ said Vasíli Andréevich.
‘How’s that?’
‘Why, there are no way-marks to be seen. We must have got off the road again.’
‘Well, if we’ve lost the road we must find it,’ said Nikíta curtly, and getting out and stepping lightly on his pigeon-toed feet he started once more going about on the snow.
He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now reappearing, and finally he came back.
‘There is no road here. There may be farther on,’ he said, getting into the sledge.
It was already growing dark. The snow-storm had not increased but had also not subsided.
‘If we could only hear those peasants!’ said Vasíli Andréevich.
‘Well they haven’t caught us up. We must have gone far astray. Or maybe they have lost their way too.’
‘Where are we to go then?’ asked Vasíli Andréevich.
‘Why, we must let the horse take its own way,’ said Nikíta. ‘He will take us right. Let me have the reins.’
Vasíli Andréevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.
Nikíta took the reins, but only held them, trying not to shake them and rejoicing at his favourite’s sagacity. And indeed the clever horse, turning first one ear and then the other now to one side and then to the other, began to wheel round.
‘The one thing he can’t do is to talk,’ Nikíta kept saying. ‘See what he is doing! Go on, go on! You know best. That’s it, that’s it!’
The wind was now blowing from behind and it felt warmer.
‘Yes, he’s clever,’ Nikíta continued, admiring the horse. ‘A Kirgiz horse is strong but stupid. But this one – just see what he’s doing with his ears! He doesn’t need any telegraph. He can scent a mile off.’