“Then do, brother, and I’ll thank you.”
“What nonsense, love!” said the kindly old woman. “Bless you, we’re glad to help.”
“Petrushka, go and harness the mare,” said the older son.
“Right away,” said Petrushka with a smile. Promptly snatching his cap from its nail, he ran out.
While the horse was being seen to, the conversation turned back to the subject Vassili Andreyich had interrupted by his arrival at the window. The old man was complaining to his neighbor, the village elder, about his third son, who had sent his father nothing for the festival, while the son’s wife got a fine French shawl.
“There’s no holding young people nowadays,” said the old man.
“They’ve got completely out of hand,” agreed the neighbor. “They’re so sharp they’ll cut themselves. Take that Demochkin now—he broke his father’s arm for him. Too much learning, that’s what it is.”
Nikita listened, glancing at their faces, clearly wanting to take part in the conversation. But he was too busy with his tea and could only nod approvingly. He was drinking glass after glass, getting warmer and warmer and more and more comfortable. The talk went on for a long time about one thing only—the evils of dividing up a household. It was clearly not theoretical but a real question of division in this very house—a division demanded by the second son, sitting right there in gloomy silence. The topic was evidently a painful one, preoccupying all the family, but out of politeness they didn’t discuss their private affairs in front of outsiders. In the end, though, the old man could bear it no longer and with tears in his voice started saying that he wouldn’t allow anyone to divide anything while he was alive, that thank God they had a good home, and if it was broken up they’d all have to go out into the wide world as beggars.
“Just like the Matveyevs,” said the neighbor. “They had a fine home, but they split it and now no one has anything.”
“And that’s what you want,” said the old man to his son.
The son made no reply, and an uncomfortable silence fell. It was interrupted by Petrushka, who had already harnessed the mare and come back indoors, still smiling, a few minutes earlier.
“Pullson has a fable about that,” he said. “A father gave his sons a broom of birch twigs to break. In one go they couldn’t do it, but twig by twig it was easy. It’s just the same here,” he said with a broad grin. “I’m ready!” he added.
“If you’re ready, we’ll be off,” said Vassili Andreyich. “But as far as division’s concerned, grandfather, don’t give in. You earned it; you’re the master. Take it up with the village elder. He’ll sort it out.”
“But he pesters me so! He just won’t let go,” the old man kept saying tearfully. “There’s no peace to be had—it’s as though the devil’s got into him.”
Meanwhile Nikita finished his fifth glass of tea and still didn’t upend it, laying it on its side in the hope they’d pour him a sixth. But there was no water left in the samovar, the women gave him nothing more, and Vassili Andreyich started getting dressed. There was nothing to be done. Nikita got up as well, put the lump of sugar he had nibbled from every side back into the bowl, wiped his face, damp with sweat, with the hem of his jacket, and went to put on his kaftan.
Once dressed, he sighed heavily, thanked his hosts, took his leave of them, and went out of the warm, bright living quarters into the dark, cold passageway, where a droning wind tore past, driving snow in through the trembling outer doors. From there, he went out into the black yard.
Petrushka was standing in his overcoat in the middle of the courtyard beside his mare, smiling and reciting a poem from Paulson. “Storms hides the heavens in darkness, spinning the snowflakes wild, ah it howls like an animal, ah it cries like a child.”14
Nikita nodded his head approvingly, untangling the reins.
The old man came out with Vassili Andreyich, carrying a lantern into the passage to light his way. The wind put it out instantly. Even in the yard you could tell the blizzard was far fiercer than before.
“A tidy little breeze!” thought Vassili Andreyich. “I mayn’t get there after all—but I have to go. Business is business. I’m all ready—and what’s more, my host’s harnessed his horse on my account. God willing, we’ll get there all right.”
The old man was also thinking they ought not to go, but he’d already tried to dissuade them and been ignored. No point in further persuasion. “Maybe age makes me overcautious, and they’ll get there quite safely,” he thought. “And at least we’ll get to bed early, without extra bother.”
Petrushka wasn’t even thinking about danger, he knew the road and the surrounding countryside so well. Besides, the line about “spinning snowflakes wild” cheered him, it expressed so exactly what was happening out of doors.
As for Nikita, he didn’t want to go at all, but long ago he’d got used to giving up his own wishes for the whims of the people he served.
So there was no one to stop them setting out on their journey.
5
Vassili Andreyich went up to the sledge, scarcely able to make out where it was in the darkness. He got in and took the reins.
“You go first!” he shouted.
Petrushka, kneeling in his low, wide sledge, let his horse go. Muk-horty had been neighing for some time. Scenting the mare in front of him, he started after her, and they drove out into the street. Once again they went through the outskirts by the familiar road, past the yard with its frozen washing on the line—quite invisible now. Past the threshing barn, almost completely snowed under, snow still pouring off its roof. Past the same dismally moaning, whistling, and tossing willows. Out they came into the snowy sea, raging above and below them. The wind was so strong when it hit them sideways the travelers leaned against it like yachtsmen. The sledge tilted, and the horse was shouldered to one side. Petrushka drove his mare at an easy trot, cheerfully shouting back to them. Mukhorty strained after the mare.
When they had driven on like that for about ten minutes, Petrushka turned around and shouted something to them. Neither Vassili Andreyich nor Nikita could hear for the wind, but they guessed they’d come to the turn. True enough, Petrushka turned to the right, the wind shifted from the side full into their faces again, and on their right something dark could be glimpsed through the snow. It was the little bush at the turning.
“Well, God be with you!”
“Thank you, Petrushka!”
“Storms hide the heavens in darkness!” Petrushka shouted, and vanished from sight.
“There’s a poet for you,” said Vassili Andreyich, and flicked the reins.
“Yes, a fine lad, a real good sort,” said Nikita.
They drove on.
Nikita sat huddled in silence, his chin tucked in tight so his skimpy beard covered his neck, trying to conserve the warmth of his tea at the farm. In front of him the straight lines of the shafts constantly deceived him into thinking they were the verges of a beaten highway. He could see the horse’s swaying haunches, its knotted tail swinging to one side, and ahead, the high yoke, Mukhorty’s tossing head, neck, and streaming mane. Occasionally the roadside markers swam into view, reassuring him that, so far, they were keeping to the road and there was nothing for him to do.
Vassili Andreyich held the reins, leaving it to Mukhorty to choose his own way. But in spite of his rest in the village, Mukhorty ran reluctantly and seemed to be pulling to one side of the road, so that Vassili Andreyich had to correct him several times.
“That’s one stake on the right, and there’s another, and that’s a third,” Vassili Andreyich counted to himself. “And that’s the forest ahead,” he thought, looking at something dark ahead. But what he had taken for a forest was only a bush. They passed the bush, and went on for another twenty-five meters, but neither the forest nor the fourth stake appeared. “It must be the forest in a minute,” thought Vassili Andreyich, and, invigorated by the vodka and the tea, cracked the reins. The good little horse obediently kept going
—now at an amble, now at a slow trot—in the direction he was told, although he knew quite well that it was the wrong direction.
“We’ve gone and lost it again!” said Vassili Andreyich, pulling the horse up.
Without a word, Nikita got off the sledge, holding tight to his kaftan, which the wind kept plastering against him, then blowing wide, tearing it from his shoulders. He set off, plunging about in the snow again, first on one side, then the other. Three times he vanished from sight completely. At last he returned and took the reins from Vassili Andreyich.
“We need to go right,” he said, sternly and decisively, turning the horse.
“Well, if you want to go right, then go right,” said Vassili Andreyich, handing over the reins and pushing his frozen hands into his sleeves.
Nikita didn’t reply.
“Come on, flower; make an effort,” he shouted to the horse, but in spite of the shaken reins Mukhorty only went at an amble.
The snow was knee-deep in places. At every step, the sledge moved forward with a jerk.
Nikita got out the whip and hit him once. The good little horse, unused to the whip, leapt forward at a trot, but fell back into an amble and then a slow walk immediately. They went on for five minutes. It was so dark, and the smoking snow billowed so thick from above and below, that sometimes even the horse’s tall yoke couldn’t be seen. And sometimes, it seemed, the sledge stood still, while the field ran backward. Suddenly the horse stopped sharply, evidently sensing something wrong ahead. Dropping the reins, Nikita leapt lightly down once more and went in front of Mukhorty to see what had made him stop. Before he could take a single step forward his feet slipped from under him and he rolled down a steep incline.
“Whoa there!” he muttered as he fell, trying to resist, but he couldn’t stop himself and came to a halt only when his legs shot into a deep snowdrift at the bottom of the gully.
A thick drift hanging over the edge of the hollow was disturbed by his fall and came down on him, filling his collar with snow.
“What a mean thing to do!” Nikita said reproachfully to the gully and the drift, shaking out the snow from his collar.
“Nikita! Hey, Nikit!” Vassili Andreyich shouted from above.
But Nikita didn’t answer.
He was too busy. He shook himself down, then he hunted for the whip, which he’d lost rolling down the slope. Once he found the whip, he tried to climb straight back up where he came down, but there was no way up. He kept slipping backward, so he had to go along the bottom of the hollow to find another route. Six meters further on he managed, with difficulty, to climb up the drop on all fours, and went back along the top edge of the gully to where the horse should be. He couldn’t make out either horse or sledge, but because he was walking into the wind, he heard the shouts of Vassili Andreyich, and the neighing of Mukhorty, before he saw either of them.
“I’m coming, I’m coming; what’s all the fuss about?” he muttered.
It was only when he got right up to them that he saw the horse and sledge, and Vassili Andreyich standing by them, looking huge.
“Where the hell did you get to? We’ve got to go back. At least we can go back to Grishkino,” Nikita’s master began angrily.
“I’d happily go back, Vassili Andreyich, but which way should we go? There’s such a drop here, once in you’d never get out. I whacked in so deep I could hardly get myself out again.”
“But we can’t stay here, can we? We have to drive somewhere,” said Vassili Andreyich.
Nikita said nothing. He sat down in the sledge with his back to the wind, took off his felt boots, shook out the snow that had got into them, and, taking some straw, painstakingly stuffed it into the hole in his left boot from the inside.
Vassili Andreyich kept silent, as though leaving everything to Nikita. Having got his boots back on, Nikita swung his feet back into the sledge, put on his gloves again, took the reins, and turned the horse alongside the gully. But they hadn’t gone more than a hundred steps before Mukhorty stopped again. The gully was in front of them once more.
Nikita got out again and went off yet again to plunge about in the snow. He walked around for some time. Finally he reappeared on the opposite side from where he had set out.
“Andreyich, are you alive?” he shouted.
“Over here!” Vassili Andreyich called back. “Now what?”
“I can’t make anything out. It’s dark. There are gullies of some kind. We’ll have to drive back into the wind.”
They drove on a bit. Nikita walked off again and plunged about in the snow again. He sat down again, plunged about again, and at last rested by the sledge, quite out of breath.
“Now what?” asked Vassili Andreyich.
“What d’you mean, what? I’m worn out, that’s what. The horse has had enough, too.”
“Then what are we to do?”
“Just wait a minute.”
Nikita went off again but came back quickly.
“Keep behind me,” he said, going in front of the horse.
Vassili Andreyich wasn’t giving orders anymore, but obediently did what Nikita told him.
“This way, follow me!” Nikita shouted, going off quickly to the right, seizing Mukhorty’s reins and leading him down into some snowdrift.
At first the horse resisted, then darted forward, hoping to jump the drift, but failed and landed in it up to his neck.
“Get out!” Nikita yelled at Vassili Andreyich, who was still sitting in the sledge, and, grasping one of the shafts he started moving the sledge up to the horse. “I know it’s difficult, lovey,” he said to Mukhorty, “but what can we do? Make a little effort. Come on, just a little one,” he urged.
The horse jerked forward once, twice, but still couldn’t get out of the drift. He sat back again, as if considering something.
“Come on, brother; that’s not the way,” said Nikita, reproaching Mukhorty. “Try again.”
Once more Nikita pulled on his shaft and Vassili Andreyich did the same on the other side. The horse shook his head, then lunged forward.
“That’s it, lovey, come on—you won’t sink!” Nikita cried.
One plunge, another, a third, and the horse finally scrambled out of the drift. He stopped, breathing heavily and shaking himself.
Nikita wanted to lead him on, but Vassili Andreyich was so puffed in his two overcoats, he couldn’t walk and tumbled into the sledge.
“Let me get my breath back,” he said, untying the kerchief he had wound around the collar of his overcoat when they were in the village.
“You’re all right, just lie there,” said Nikita. “I’ll lead him.” And with Vassili Andreyich in the sledge he led the horse by the bridle—down ten paces, and then up a little, and then stopped.
The place where Nikita stopped was not right in a hollow, where the snow sweeping down its banks and collecting at the bottom would have buried them altogether. Nevertheless it was partially sheltered from the wind by the side of the gully. There were moments when the wind seemed to drop slightly, but they didn’t last. As if to make up for the lulls, the storm swooped down ten times stronger, whirling and tearing at them even more cruelly. Such a gust struck them just when Vassili Andreyich, having regained his breath, got out of the sledge and came up to Nikita to discuss what they should do next. Both instinctively bent over and waited to speak until the frenzy of the blast had died down. Mukhorty, too, laid back his ears discontentedly and shook his head. As soon as the squall had spent itself slightly, Nikita took off his gloves, tucked them into his belt, and began unfastening the straps of the shaft bow.
“What on earth are you doing?” asked Vassili Andreyich.
“Unhitching. What else can we do? I’ve no strength left,” said Nikita, as though excusing himself.
“Can’t we get out somewhere?”
“We can’t get out anywhere, we’ll just torment the horse. The poor thing’s whacked as it is,” said Nikita, pointing at the horse obediently standing there, ready and waiti
ng, its wet, curved sides heaving. “We’ll have to spend the night here,” he repeated, just as though he was planning to spend the night at a coaching inn, and he started unbuckling the hame strap.15
The hames sprang apart.
“But won’t we freeze?” said Vassili Andreyich.
“So? If we’re to freeze, we can’t refuse,” said Nikita.
6
Vassili Andreyich was quite warm in his two fur coats, especially after his efforts in the snowdrift, but he felt a sudden chill run down his back when he realized they really would have to spend the night here. To calm himself, he sat down in the sledge and started getting out his cigarettes and matches.
Meanwhile, Nikita unharnessed the horse. He undid the girth and the back band, unhitched the reins, took off the tug, pulled out the high shaft bow, and kept up an encouraging conversation with the horse throughout.
“Come on, come on, step out of that,” he said, leading Mukhorty out of the shafts. “Look, we’ll tether you here. I’ll put a bit of straw down and get your bridle off,” he went on, doing as he said. “When you’ve had a bite you’ll feel more cheerful.”
But you could see that Mukhorty wasn’t reassured by Nikita’s words. He was anxious; he kept stepping from one hoof to the other, pressing up against the sledge, trying to turn his back to the wind, and rubbing his head against Nikita’s sleeve.
As though not wanting to refuse the kind offer of straw Nikita pushed under his muzzle, Mukhorty nosed up a tuft from the sledge, but immediately decided this was no time for straw and dropped it. The wind instantly carried it away, scattered it, and covered it with snow.
“Now we’ll make a signal,” said Nikita, turning the sledge into the wind and, binding the shafts together with the back band, he raised them upright and pulled them up to the front of the sledge. “Now when we get snowed under, good folk will see the shafts and dig us out,” said Nikita, slapping his gloves together and putting them back on. “That’s what the old ones taught me.”
Meanwhile, Vassili Andreyich had undone his fur coat and, holding its wide skirt against the wind, was striking one sulfur match after another on the steel box. But his hands were trembling. Match after match flared and went out, either before it had caught properly or just as he was bringing it up to the cigarette. At last one match burned well, momentarily lighting up the fur of his overcoat, his cupped hand with the gold signet ring on his forefinger, the oat straw poking out from under the sacking covered in snow—and the cigarette caught light. He inhaled greedily a couple of times, swallowed, and blew the smoke out through his mustache, but when he wanted to inhale again, the wind tore off the glowing tip of tobacco and scurried it away after the straw.