Even these few gulps of tobacco smoke cheered Vassili Andreyich.
“Well, that’s it, then. We’ll stop here for the night,” he said decisively. “Hang on a minute, I’ll make a flag as well,” he added, picking up the kerchief which he’d unwound from his collar and dropped into the sledge. Taking his gloves off, he stood on the front of the sledge and, stretching up to reach the back band, tightly knotted the kerchief to it right by the shaft.
The kerchief instantly fluttered desperately, flinging itself against the shafts, convulsing, stretching, and flapping.
“Just look at that!” said Vassili Andreyich, admiring his handiwork and settling back into the sledge. “We’d be warmer together, but there isn’t room for two,” he added.
“I’ll find myself somewhere,” said Nikita, “but we must cover the horse, he’s all of a sweat, poor thing. Forgive me,” he added, and going up to the sledge, pulled the sacking out from under Vassili Andreyich.
Having got the sacking, he folded it in two. Undoing the loin strap and taking off the bellyband, he covered Mukhorty with it.
“It’ll all keep you warmer, silly,” he said, buckling on the bellyband and loin strap over the sacking. “Can you spare me that ticking? And give me a little bit of straw?” he said, finishing with the horse and going up to the sledge again.
Pulling out both things from under Vassili Andreyich, Nikita went to the back of the sledge, dug himself out a small hollow in the snow there, lined it with straw, pulled his cap low, wrapped his kaftan tight, covered himself with the ticking, and sat down in the straw he had strewn, leaning against the back of the sledge which sheltered him from the wind and snow.16
Vassili Andreyich shook his head at what Nikita was doing—in his habitual disapproval of peasant ignorance and stupidity—and began settling himself for the night.
He spread out the remaining straw more evenly in the sledge, arranging a thicker layer under his side, and, thrusting his hands deep in his sleeves, snuggled his head into the front corner of the sledge against the splashboard, which sheltered him from the wind.
He didn’t want to sleep. He lay and thought—thought about the one and only thing, the single object, the sole reason, the joy and pride of his life. He thought about how much money he had made, and how much he could still make; he thought about how much other people he knew had made and how much money they had, and how these people made their money in the past and how they made it now, and how he, just like them, could still make a great deal more money. Buying the Goriachkin forest was immensely important to him. On this alone he hoped to make an immediate profit of some ten thousand rubles, perhaps. And he began totting up the value of the woodland he had inspected in the autumn, in which he had counted every single tree over a stretch of five acres.
“The oak will go for sledge runners. The logs—for building, obviously. And beside that there’ll be thirty sazhen of firewood to each des-yatina.17 That means that at the very least there’ll be two hundred and twenty-five rubles’ worth left on every desyatina. Fifty-six desyatinas means fifty-six hundreds, and another fifty-six hundreds, and fifty-six tens, and another fifty-six tens, and then fifty-six fives. . . .” He saw that it came to more than twelve thousand rubles, but couldn’t calculate it exactly without an abacus. “Still, I won’t give ten thousand for it, only eight thousand, to allow a deduction for the clearings. I’ll butter up the surveyor—a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, should do it, and he’ll reckon up five desyatinas of clearings. And I’ll get it for eight thousand. I’ll give him three thousand cash down. That’ll soften him up,” he thought, squeezing his arm against the wallet in his pocket. “God knows how we lost our way after the turnoff! The forest should be here, and the watchman’s hut. We should hear dogs barking. But of course they don’t bark when you want them.” He moved his collar away from his ear and started listening. There was nothing to be heard but the perpetual howling of the wind, the kerchief fluttering and smacking against the shafts, and the snow stinging the sledge’s woodwork. He covered himself up again.
“If we’d only known, we’d have stayed the night. Well, it doesn’t matter, we’ll get there tomorrow. It’s only one more day. The others won’t set out in weather like this.” And he remembered that on the ninth the butcher was meant to pay for the wethers. “He meant to come himself; he won’t find me at home, and the wife won’t know how to get the money out of him. She hasn’t a clue, really uneducated. No idea how things should be done,” he thought, remembering how awkward she had been with the district police officer who visited them for the festival the day before. “What d’you expect? She’s a woman! What’s she seen in her life? What sort of a household did we have when our parents were alive? It wasn’t bad: a rich peasant’s holding—an oat mill and a coaching inn, that was the whole property. And what have I achieved in fifteen years? A shop, two taverns, a mill, a grain store, two farms on lease, a house with an iron-roofed barn,” he counted off with pride. “Not like in our parents’ time! And whose name counts in the district? Brekhunov.
“And why’s that? Because I keep my mind on the job, I put an effort into it, not like the others, layabouts and wastrels. I don’t sleep at nights. Blizzard or no blizzard, I’m on the road. And so things get done. They think they can make money larking about. No, take pains and rack your brains! That’s what gets you out in the fields at night, sleepless the whole night long. Your pillow spinning from the thoughts in your head,” he reflected proudly. “They think you get to be somebody just by luck. Look at the Mironovs—they’re millionaires now. And for why? Hard work. Man strives and God provides. God only grant me good health!”
And the thought that he could be a millionaire like Mironov, who had pulled himself up from nothing, excited Vassili Andreyich so much he felt the need to talk to somebody. But there was no one to talk to. If only he could have got to Goriachkin, he’d have talked to the landowner and shown him a thing or two.
“Good Lord, what a wind! It’ll snow us in so deep we won’t be able to get out in the morning!” he thought, listening to a gust of wind driving against the front of the sledge, bending the wood and thrashing it with snow. He lifted himself up and looked around. In the white wavering darkness he could only see Mukhorty’s dark head and back, covered with the flapping sackcloth, and his thick, knotted tail. Around them, on every side, before and behind, there was the same monotonous whitely wavering darkness, sometimes appearing to lighten slightly, only to grow thicker still.
“I shouldn’t have listened to Nikita,” he thought. “We should have driven on; we would have come out somewhere or other. At least we could have gone back to Grishkino, and stayed the night with Taras. Now we’ve got to sit here all night. But what was it I was thinking? Yes, God helps those that help themselves—not the loafers, layabouts, and fools. I must have a smoke!” He sat up, took out his cigarette case, and lay down on his stomach, to shelter the match flame with the skirt of his greatcoat, but the wind found a way in and blew out one match after another. In the end he managed to light one and began smoking. The fact that he’d got his own way pleased him very much. Although the wind smoked more of the cigarette than he did, he still got a good two or three puffs, and felt more cheerful. He threw himself into the back of the sledge again, wrapped himself up, started reminiscing and daydreaming—and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, lost consciousness and fell asleep.
But suddenly it was as though something jolted him and woke him up. Whether it was Mukhorty snatching some straw from under him, or something inside him, he was wide awake, his heart beating so quickly and with such force, the sledge seemed to be shaking under him. He opened his eyes. Everything was unchanged around him, but it did seem lighter. “It’s dawn,” he thought. “It can’t be long till morning.” But he remembered at once that it was only getting lighter because the moon had risen. He propped himself up and looked first at the horse. Mukhorty was still standing with his back to the wind, shivering all over. One side of the snow-covered sacki
ng had blown back, the loin strap had slipped sideways, and the snowy head with its waving fringe and mane could be seen more clearly. Vassili Andreyich bent over to the back of the sledge and peered over the side. Nikita was still sitting in his original position. His legs, and the ticking covering him, were thickly overlaid with snow. “I hope that peasant doesn’t freeze; his clothes aren’t too good. I’ll be answerable for him, too. What a shiftless lot they are! Pure peasant ignorance, of course,” thought Vassili Andreyich. He would have taken the sacking off the horse to cover Nikita, but it was too cold to get up and move about, and he was afraid the horse might freeze. “And what made me take him? It was all her stupidity!” Vassili Andreyich thought, remembering his unloved wife, and rolled back into his former place in the front of the sledge. “My uncle once sat out a whole night in the snow like this,” he remembered, “and nothing happened. Yes, but when Sebastian was dug out,” he went on, promptly remembering another case, “he was dead, stiff all over, a frozen carcass.
“If I’d stayed the night at Grishkino, none of this would have happened.” And, painstakingly wrapping himself tighter so that the heat of the fur didn’t get lost at any point but warmed him everywhere—at his neck, his knees, and the soles of his feet—he shut his eyes and tried to go to sleep again. But now, however hard he tried, he couldn’t drop off again. On the contrary, he felt completely wakeful and alert. Once more he began reckoning his profits, the debts owing to him. Once again, he began bragging to himself and gloating over his status, but now everything kept getting interrupted by a creeping terror and the nagging question, why hadn’t he stayed the night in Grishkino? “That would have been something, lying warm on a bunk.” He turned over several times, tucked himself in, tried to find a more comfortable position that was better sheltered from the wind, but everything seemed wrong to him. He kept lifting himself up, changing his place, bundling up his legs, shutting his eyes, and falling still again. But either his legs in their tight-fitting felt boots started aching, or a draft worked its way in somewhere, and having lain still a little while, the irksome thought would come back to him—how he could now be lying peacefully in the warm house at Grishkino—and he would sit up again, turn around, wrap himself up, and try to settle down again.
Once it seemed to Vassili Andreyich that he could hear cocks crowing in the distance. He felt glad, turned back his greatcoat, and started listening intently, but however hard he strained to hear, there wasn’t a sound, except the wind whining in the shafts and slapping the kerchief, and the snow pelting against the sides of the sledge.
Nikita was still sitting just as he had first sat down that night, not shifting at all, and not even answering Vassili Andreyich, who appealed to him several times. “What does he care? He must be asleep,” Vassili Andreyich thought resentfully, peering over the back of the sledge at Nikita under his thick covering of snow.
Vassili Andreyich sat up and lay down again twenty times or more. He felt as though this night would never end. “It must be near dawn by now,” he thought once, sitting up and looking around. “I’ll just have a look at my watch. It’ll be chilly unbuttoning. But if it’s coming up for morning, things’ll cheer up a bit. We can start harnessing.” In the depths of his soul Vassili Andreyich knew perfectly well it couldn’t be morning yet, but he was getting more and more afraid. He wanted to know the time, and to deceive himself about the time. He carefully undid the hooks of his sheepskin and plunged his hand into his breast, rummaging about for a long time before he could find his waistcoat. With considerable effort he dragged out his silver watch with its enamel flowers and peered at it. You could see nothing without a light. Once again he turned face downward on his hands and knees as he had done when he was smoking, got out his matches, and set about lighting them. This time he was more efficient, feeling with his fingertips for the match with the fattest phosphorus head, and lit it at the first attempt. He brought the watch face under the light, glanced at it, and couldn’t believe his eyes. . . . It was ten past midnight. The whole night still lay ahead of him.
“Oh what a long night this is!” thought Vassili Andreyich. A chill ran down his back. Hooking up his sheepskin and wrapping up again, he huddled into the corner of the sledge, preparing to wait patiently. Suddenly, through the uniform tumult of the wind he heard a new and living sound. It grew steadily louder and, at its clearest, just as steadily died away. There was no doubt that it was a wolf. And this wolf was so close that you could clearly hear on the wind the tone of his cry changing as he shifted his jaws. Vassili Andreyich turned back his collar and listened attentively. Mukhorty was listening equally tensely, turning his ears, and when the wolf stopped keening he shifted his legs and gave a warning snort. After that Vassili Andreyich certainly couldn’t get to sleep again, nor even calm himself. The more he tried to think of his enterprises and profits, his reputation, his wealth and his worth, the more fear possessed him, and all his thoughts were suffused by one thought—why hadn’t he stayed the night at Grishkino?
“Who cares about the forest? I’ve business enough as it is, thank God. Oh, I wish the night would end!” he said to himself. “They say drunks freeze to death,” he thought, “and I’ve had a drink or two.” And scrutinizing his sensations, he felt that he was beginning to tremble, not knowing what he was trembling from, cold or fear. He kept trying to wrap himself up and lie as before, but couldn’t anymore. He couldn’t stay still; he wanted to get up and busy himself with something, to choke back the fear rising in him, against which he felt quite powerless. He took out his matches and cigarettes again, but there were only three matches left, all of them bad. All three were duds and failed to catch.
“Devil take it! God rot you!” he swore, cursing he knew not what, and threw the crushed cigarette away. He wanted to chuck away the box, too, but stopped himself and thrust it into his pocket. He became so restless, he couldn’t stay still any longer. He got out of the sledge and, standing with his back to the wind, started tightening his belt low on his hips again.
“What’s the point of lying there, waiting for death to come? To get on horseback and ride off, now—” it suddenly occurred to him. “The horse won’t stop if I’m on its back. As for him,” he thought, of Nikita, “he’s going to die anyway. What sort of a life has he got? Even his life hardly matters to him—but as for me, thank God, I’ve got something to live for. . . .”
And, unhitching the horse, he threw the reins over Mukhorty’s neck and tried to leap on, but his two overcoats and his boots were so heavy he slipped off. Then he got up on the sledge and tried to mount from that. But the sledge rocked under his weight, and he slid off again. Finally, at the third attempt, he brought the horse closer to the sledge and, carefully standing on one side, managed to get himself belly down across the horse’s back. Having lain like that for a little, he shoved himself forward once, twice, and finally swung his leg over the horse’s back and seated himself, digging his soles down lengthwise along the breeching strap. The jolt of the rocking sledge woke Nikita, who raised himself up and appeared to Vassili Andreyich to be saying something.
“Listen to you idiots! What, am I going to die like that, just for nothing?” Vassili Andreyich shouted, and, tucking the loose skirts of his fur coat under his knees, he turned the horse and drove him away from the sledge, in the direction where he thought the forest and the watchman’s hut ought to be.
7
Ever since Nikita had sat down behind the back of the sledge, covered in the ticking, he had stayed absolutely still. Like all people who live with nature and know want, he was patient and could wait calmly for hours and even days, feeling neither anxiety nor irritation. He heard his master calling him, but didn’t answer because he didn’t want to move or to answer. Although he was still warm from the tea he had drunk and from moving about a lot, clambering through the snowdrifts, he knew his warmth wouldn’t last long. He had no strength left to get warmer by moving about. He felt as tired as a horse feels when it stops dead and however hard i
t’s hit, can’t go any farther, and the master sees the horse must be fed before it can work again. One foot in the torn boot had already gone numb and he couldn’t feel his big toe anymore. Apart from that, his whole body was getting colder and colder. The thought came to him that he might, and very probably would, die that night, but this thought didn’t seem particularly unpleasant to him, nor particularly frightening. It didn’t seem particularly unpleasant because his whole life hadn’t been a perpetual holiday but, on the contrary, an uninterrupted round of hard labor, which was beginning to tire him. Nor was it particularly frightening because, apart from the masters like Vassili Andreyich that he served here, in this life, he always felt himself dependent on the main master, the one who sent him into life. And he knew that even in death he would stay in this master’s power, and wouldn’t be treated badly. “Am I sorry to abandon the old things, the ones I know, where I feel at home? Well, nothing to be done, I’ll have to get used to the new.”
“Sins?” he thought, and remembered his drunkenness, the money he had squandered on drink, his ill-treatment of his wife, the swearing, the church days missed, the neglected fasts, and all the things the priest rebuked him for at confession. “They’re certainly sins. But did I bring them down on myself? God must have made me that way. So, they’re sins. And so what?”