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Title: Master and Man

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Aylmer Maude
Louise Maude

Release date: February 5, 2006 [eBook #986]
Most recently updated: February 24, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/986

Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTER AND
MAN ***

MASTER AND MAN

By Leo Tolstoy

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

Contents

I VI
II VII
III VII
I
IV IX
V X

I
It happened in the ‘seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas’s
Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich
Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to
church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.
But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive
over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he had been
bargaining over for a long time. He was now in a hurry to start, lest buyers
from the town might forestall him in making a profitable purchase.
The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the grove
simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven thousand. Seven
thousand was, however, only a third of its real value. Vasili Andreevich
might perhaps have got it down to his own price, for the woods were in his
district and he had a long-standing agreement with the other village dealers
that no one should run up the price in another’s district, but he had now
learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid for the Goryachkin
grove, and he resolved to go at once and get the matter settled. So as soon
as the feast was over, he took seven hundred rubles from his strong box,
added to them two thousand three hundred rubles of church money he had
in his keeping, so as to make up the sum to three thousand; carefully
counted the notes, and having put them into his pocket-book made haste to
start.
Nikita, the only one of Vasili Andreevich’s labourers who was not drunk
that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita, though an habitual drunkard, was
not drunk that day because since the last day before the fast, when he had
drunk his coat and leather boots, he had sworn off drink and had kept his
vow for two months, and was still keeping it despite the temptation of the
vodka that had been drunk everywhere during the first two days of the feast.
Nikita was a peasant of about fifty from a neighbouring village, ‘not a
manager’ as the peasants said of him, meaning that he was not the thrifty
head of a household but lived most of his time away from home as a
labourer. He was valued everywhere for his industry, dexterity, and strength

at work, and still more for his kindly and pleasant temper. But he never
settled down anywhere for long because about twice a year, or even oftener,
he had a drinking bout, and then besides spending all his clothes on drink he
became turbulent and quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned
him away several times, but had afterwards taken him back again—valuing
his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his cheapness. Vasili
Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty rubles a year such a man was
worth, but only about forty, which he gave him haphazard, in small sums,
and even that mostly not in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high
prices.
Nikita’s wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous woman,
managed the homestead with the help of her son and two daughters, and did
not urge Nikita to live at home: first because she had been living for some
twenty years already with a cooper, a peasant from another village who
lodged in their house; and secondly because though she managed her
husband as she pleased when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he
was drunk. Once when he had got drunk at home, Nikita, probably to make
up for his submissiveness when sober, broke open her box, took out her best
clothes, snatched up an axe, and chopped all her undergarments and dresses
to bits. All the wages Nikita earned went to his wife, and he raised no
objection to that. So now, two days before the holiday, Martha had been
twice to see Vasili Andreevich and had got from him wheat flour, tea, sugar,
and a quart of vodka, the lot costing three rubles, and also five rubles in
cash, for which she thanked him as for a special favour, though he owed
Nikita at least twenty rubles.
‘What agreement did we ever draw up with you?’ said Vasili Andreevich
to Nikita. ‘If you need anything, take it; you will work it off. I’m not like
others to keep you waiting, and making up accounts and reckoning fines.
We deal straight-forwardly. You serve me and I don’t neglect you.’
And when saying this Vasili Andreevich was honestly convinced that he
was Nikita’s benefactor, and he knew how to put it so plausibly that all
those who depended on him for their money, beginning with Nikita,
confirmed him in the conviction that he was their benefactor and did not
overreach them.
‘Yes, I understand, Vasili Andreevich. You know that I serve you and take
as much pains as I would for my own father. I understand very well!’ Nikita

would reply. He was quite aware that Vasili Andreevich was cheating him,
but at the same time he felt that it was useless to try to clear up his accounts
with him or explain his side of the matter, and that as long as he had
nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.
Now, having heard his master’s order to harness, he went as usual
cheerfully and willingly to the shed, stepping briskly and easily on his
rather turned-in feet; took down from a nail the heavy tasselled leather
bridle, and jingling the rings of the bit went to the closed stable where the
horse he was to harness was standing by himself.
‘What, feeling lonely, feeling lonely, little silly?’ said Nikita in answer to
the low whinny with which he was greeted by the good-tempered, medium-
sized bay stallion, with a rather slanting crupper, who stood alone in the
shed. ‘Now then, now then, there’s time enough. Let me water you first,’ he
went on, speaking to the horse just as to someone who understood the
words he was using, and having whisked the dusty, grooved back of the
well-fed young stallion with the skirt of his coat, he put a bridle on his
handsome head, straightened his ears and forelock, and having taken off his
halter led him out to water.
Picking his way out of the dung-strewn stable, Mukhorty frisked, and
making play with his hind leg pretended that he meant to kick Nikita, who
was running at a trot beside him to the pump.
‘Now then, now then, you rascal!’ Nikita called out, well knowing how
carefully Mukhorty threw out his hind leg just to touch his greasy sheepskin
coat but not to strike him—a trick Nikita much appreciated.
After a drink of the cold water the horse sighed, moving his strong wet
lips, from the hairs of which transparent drops fell into the trough; then
standing still as if in thought, he suddenly gave a loud snort.
‘If you don’t want any more, you needn’t. But don’t go asking for any
later,’ said Nikita quite seriously and fully explaining his conduct to
Mukhorty. Then he ran back to the shed pulling the playful young horse,
who wanted to gambol all over the yard, by the rein.
There was no one else in the yard except a stranger, the cook’s husband,
who had come for the holiday.
‘Go and ask which sledge is to be harnessed—the wide one or the small
one—there’s a good fellow!’

The cook’s husband went into the house, which stood on an iron
foundation and was iron-roofed, and soon returned saying that the little one
was to be harnessed. By that time Nikita had put the collar and brass-
studded belly-band on Mukhorty and, carrying a light, painted shaft-bow in
one hand, was leading the horse with the other up to two sledges that stood
in the shed.
‘All right, let it be the little one!’ he said, backing the intelligent horse,
which all the time kept pretending to bite him, into the shafts, and with the
aid of the cook’s husband he proceeded to harness. When everything was
nearly ready and only the reins had to be adjusted, Nikita sent the other man
to the shed for some straw and to the barn for a drugget.
‘There, that’s all right! Now, now, don’t bristle up!’ said Nikita, pressing
down into the sledge the freshly threshed oat straw the cook’s husband had
brought. ‘And now let’s spread the sacking like this, and the drugget over it.
There, like that it will be comfortable sitting,’ he went on, suiting the action
to the words and tucking the drugget all round over the straw to make a
seat.
‘Thank you, dear man. Things always go quicker with two working at it!’
he added. And gathering up the leather reins fastened together by a brass
ring, Nikita took the driver’s seat and started the impatient horse over the
frozen manure which lay in the yard, towards the gate.
‘Uncle Nikita! I say, Uncle, Uncle!’ a high-pitched voice shouted, and a
seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots, and a
warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the house into the yard. ‘Take me with you!’
he cried, fastening up his coat as he ran.
‘All right, come along, darling!’ said Nikita, and stopping the sledge he
picked up the master’s pale thin little son, radiant with joy, and drove out
into the road.
It was past two o’clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold, with more
than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost. Half the sky was hidden by a
lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was quiet, but in the street the wind was
felt more keenly. The snow swept down from a neighbouring shed and
whirled about in the corner near the bath-house.
Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse’s head to
the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the high porch in front of
the house with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing a cloth-covered sheep-

skin coat tightly girdled low at his waist, and stepped onto the hard-trodden
snow which squeaked under the leather soles of his felt boots, and stopped.
Taking a last whiff of his cigarette he threw it down, stepped on it, and
letting the smoke escape through his moustache and looking askance at the
horse that was coming up, began to tuck in his sheepskin collar on both
sides of his ruddy face, clean-shaven except for the moustache, so that his
breath should not moisten the collar.
‘See now! The young scamp is there already!’ he exclaimed when he saw
his little son in the sledge. Vasili Andreevich was excited by the vodka he
had drunk with his visitors, and so he was even more pleased than usual
with everything that was his and all that he did. The sight of his son, whom
he always thought of as his heir, now gave him great satisfaction. He looked
at him, screwing up his eyes and showing his long teeth.
His wife—pregnant, thin and pale, with her head and shoulders wrapped
in a shawl so that nothing of her face could be seen but her eyes—stood
behind him in the vestibule to see him off.
‘Now really, you ought to take Nikita with you,’ she said timidly,
stepping out from the doorway.
Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed him and
he frowned angrily and spat.
‘You have money on you,’ she continued in the same plaintive voice.
‘What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for goodness’ sake!’
‘Why? Don’t I know the road that I must needs take a guide?’ exclaimed
Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing his
lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and sellers.
‘Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God’s name!’ his wife
repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.
‘There, she sticks to it like a leech!... Where am I to take him?’
‘I’m quite ready to go with you, Vasili Andreevich,’ said Nikita
cheerfully. ‘But they must feed the horses while I am away,’ he added,
turning to his master’s wife.
‘I’ll look after them, Nikita dear. I’ll tell Simon,’ replied the mistress.
‘Well, Vasili Andreevich, am I to come with you?’ said Nikita, awaiting a
decision.

‘It seems I must humour my old woman. But if you’re coming you’d
better put on a warmer cloak,’ said Vasili Andreevich, smiling again as he
winked at Nikita’s short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the arms and
at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe round the skirt,
and had endured many things in its lifetime.
‘Hey, dear man, come and hold the horse!’ shouted Nikita to the cook’s
husband, who was still in the yard.
‘No, I will myself, I will myself!’ shrieked the little boy, pulling his
hands, red with cold, out of his pockets, and seizing the cold leather reins.
‘Only don’t be too long dressing yourself up. Look alive!’ shouted Vasili
Andreevich, grinning at Nikita.
‘Only a moment, Father, Vasili Andreevich!’ replied Nikita, and running
quickly with his inturned toes in his felt boots with their soles patched with
felt, he hurried across the yard and into the workmen’s hut.
‘Arinushka! Get my coat down from the stove. I’m going with the
master,’ he said, as he ran into the hut and took down his girdle from the
nail on which it hung.
The workmen’s cook, who had had a sleep after dinner and was now
getting the samovar ready for her husband, turned cheerfully to Nikita, and
infected by his hurry began to move as quickly as he did, got down his
miserable worn-out cloth coat from the stove where it was drying, and
began hurriedly shaking it out and smoothing it down.
‘There now, you’ll have a chance of a holiday with your good man,’ said
Nikita, who from kindhearted politeness always said something to anyone
he was alone with.
Then, drawing his worn narrow girdle round him, he drew in his breath,
pulling in his lean stomach still more, and girdled himself as tightly as he
could over his sheepskin.
‘There now,’ he said addressing himself no longer to the cook but the
girdle, as he tucked the ends in at the waist, ‘now you won’t come undone!’
And working his shoulders up and down to free his arms, he put the coat
over his sheepskin, arched his back more strongly to ease his arms, poked
himself under the armpits, and took down his leather-covered mittens from
the shelf. ‘Now we’re all right!’
‘You ought to wrap your feet up, Nikita. Your boots are very bad.’

Nikita stopped as if he had suddenly realized this.
‘Yes, I ought to.... But they’ll do like this. It isn’t far!’ and he ran out into
the yard.
‘Won’t you be cold, Nikita?’ said the mistress as he came up to the
sledge.
‘Cold? No, I’m quite warm,’ answered Nikita as he pushed some straw
up to the forepart of the sledge so that it should cover his feet, and stowed
away the whip, which the good horse would not need, at the bottom of the
sledge.
Vasili Andreevich, who was wearing two fur-lined coats one over the
other, was already in the sledge, his broad back filling nearly its whole
rounded width, and taking the reins he immediately touched the horse.
Nikita jumped in just as the sledge started, and seated himself in front on
the left side, with one leg hanging over the edge.

II
The good stallion took the sledge along at a brisk pace over the smooth-
frozen road through the village, the runners squeaking slightly as they went.
‘Look at him hanging on there! Hand me the whip, Nikita!’ shouted
Vasili Andreevich, evidently enjoying the sight of his ‘heir,’ who standing
on the runners was hanging on at the back of the sledge. ‘I’ll give it you! Be
off to mamma, you dog!’
The boy jumped down. The horse increased his amble and, suddenly
changing foot, broke into a fast trot.
The Crosses, the village where Vasili Andreevich lived, consisted of six
houses. As soon as they had passed the blacksmith’s hut, the last in the
village, they realized that the wind was much stronger than they had
thought. The road could hardly be seen. The tracks left by the sledge-
runners were immediately covered by snow and the road was only
distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the ground.
There was a swirl of snow over the fields and the line where sky and earth
met could not be seen. The Telyatin forest, usually clearly visible, now only
loomed up occasionally and dimly through the driving snowy dust. The
wind came from the left, insistently blowing over to one side the mane on
Mukhorty’s sleek neck and carrying aside even his fluffy tail, which was
tied in a simple knot. Nikita’s wide coat-collar, as he sat on the windy side,
pressed close to his cheek and nose.
‘This road doesn’t give him a chance—it’s too snowy,’ said Vasili
Andreevich, who prided himself on his good horse. ‘I once drove to
Pashutino with him in half an hour.’
‘What?’ asked Nikita, who could not hear on account of his collar.
‘I say I once went to Pashutino in half an hour,’ shouted Vasili
Andreevich.
‘It goes without saying that he’s a good horse,’ replied Nikita.
They were silent for a while. But Vasili Andreevich 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 Nikita 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 Nikita.
The wind again prevented Nikita’s hearing his master’s words.
Vasili Andreevich repeated the jest about the cooper in his loud, clear
voice.
‘That’s their business, Vasili Andreevich. 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 Vasili Andreevich. ‘Well, and will you be buying a horse
in spring?’ he went on, changing the subject.
‘Yes, I can’t avoid it,’ answered Nikita, 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 Vasili Andreevich, 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 Nikita, who knew that the horse Vasili Andreevich 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. Brekhunov 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 Nikita 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 Nikita’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 Karamyshevo or by the
straight road?’ asked Vasili Andreevich.
The road through Karamyshevo 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.
Nikita thought awhile.
‘Though Karamyshevo 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 Vasili Andreevich, who wished to
go the nearest way.
‘Just as you please,’ said Nikita, and again let go of his collar.
Vasili Andreevich 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. Vasili Andreevich, who was driving, inflated his cheeks, blowing the
breath out through his moustache. Nikita dozed.
So they went on in silence for about ten minutes. Suddenly Vasili
Andreevich began saying something.
‘Eh, what?’ asked Nikita, opening his eyes.
Vasili Andreevich did not answer, but bent over, looking behind them and
then ahead of the horse. The sweat had curled Mukhorty’s coat between his
legs and on his neck. He went at a walk.
‘What is it?’ Nikita asked again.
‘What is it? What is it?’ Vasili Andreevich 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 Nikita, 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 Nikita’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 Vasili Andreevich when Nikita came back to the
sledge.
‘There is no road this side. I must go to the other side and try there,’ said
Nikita.
‘There’s something there in front. Go and have a look.’
Nikita 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.
Vasili Andreevich 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, Vasili Andreevich, that we have gone quite astray,’ Nikita
suddenly remarked, as if it were a pleasant thing. ‘What is that?’ he added,
pointing to some potato vines that showed up from under the snow.
Vasili Andreevich stopped the perspiring horse, whose deep sides were
heaving heavily.
‘What is it?’
‘Why, we are on the Zakharov lands. See where we’ve got to!’
‘Nonsense!’ retorted Vasili Andreevich.
‘It’s not nonsense, Vasili Andreevich. It’s the truth,’ replied Nikita. ‘You
can feel that the sledge is going over a potato-field, and there are the heaps
of vines which have been carted here. It’s the Zakharov factory land.’
‘Dear me, how we have gone astray!’ said Vasili Andreevich. ‘What are
we to do now?’

‘We must go straight on, that’s all. We shall come out somewhere—if not
at Zakharova, then at the proprietor’s farm,’ said Nikita.
Vasili Andreevich agreed, and drove as Nikita 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. Vasili Andreevich wanted to stop,
but Nikita 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 Vasili Andreevich.
‘We’ll soon find out!’ Nikita replied. ‘Go on, we’ll get somewhere.’
‘Why, this must be the Goryachkin forest!’ said Vasili Andreevich,
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 Nikita.
He saw that beside the black thing they had noticed, dry, oblong 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. Nikita 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 Nikita.
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 Nikita, 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 Grishkino,’ said Vasili Andreevich.
‘So it is,’ responded Nikita.
It really was Grishkino, 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 Grishkino to Goryachkin 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
Vasili Anereevich 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 Isay, a peasant of Vasili Andreevich’s acquaintance, and well
known as the principal horse-thief in the district.
‘Ah, Vasili Andreevich! Where are you off to?’ said Isay, enveloping
Nikita in the odour of the vodka he had drunk.
‘We were going to Goryachkin.’
‘And look where you’ve got to! You should have gone through
Molchanovka.’
‘Should have, but didn’t manage it,’ said Vasili Andreevich, holding in
the horse.

‘That’s a good horse,’ said Isay, with a shrewd glance at Mukhorty, 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, Nikita
Stepanych!’
‘Who else?’ replied Nikita. ‘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 Nikita.
‘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.’
Vasili Andreevich turned the horse back and drove through the outskirts
of the village.
‘Why not stay the night?’ Isay shouted after them.
But Vasili Andreevich 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.

Vasili Andreevich 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. Mukhorty overtook them,
and struck his hoofs against the back of the sledge in front of them.
‘Pass on... hey there... get in front!’ cried voices from the sledge.
Vasili Andreevich 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 Vasili Andreevich.
‘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 Nikita’s shoulder and then began to fall behind.
‘Just see what liquor does!’ said Nikita. ‘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 encounter cheered and enlivened Vasili Andreevich, and he drove on
more boldly without examining the way-marks, urging on the horse and
trusting to him.
Nikita had nothing to do, and as usual in such circumstances he drowsed,
making up for much sleepless time. Suddenly the horse stopped and Nikita
nearly fell forward onto his nose.
‘You know we’re off the track again!’ said Vasili Andreevich.
‘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 Nikita 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 Vasili Andreevich.
‘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 Vasili Andreevich.
‘Why, we must let the horse take its own way,’ said Nikita. ‘He will take
us right. Let me have the reins.’
Vasili Andreevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his
hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.
Nikita 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,’ Nikita 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,’ Nikita 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.’
Before another half-hour had passed they saw something dark ahead of
them—a wood or a village—and stakes again appeared to the right. They
had evidently come out onto the road.
‘Why, that’s Grishkino again!’ Nikita suddenly exclaimed.
And indeed, there on their left was that same barn with the snow flying
from it, and farther on the same line with the frozen washing, shirts and
trousers, which still fluttered desperately in the wind.
Again they drove into the street and again it grew quiet, warm, and
cheerful, and again they could see the manure-stained street and hear voices
and songs and the barking of a dog. It was already so dark that there were
lights in some of the windows.
Half-way through the village Vasili Andreevich turned the horse towards
a large double-fronted brick house and stopped at the porch.
Nikita went to the lighted snow-covered window, in the rays of which
flying snow-flakes glittered, and knocked at it with his whip.
‘Who is there?’ a voice replied to his knock.
‘From Kresty, the Brekhunovs, dear fellow,’ answered Nikita. ‘Just come
out for a minute.’

Someone moved from the window, and a minute or two later there was
the sound of the passage door as it came unstuck, then the latch of the
outside door clicked and a tall white-bearded peasant, with a sheepskin coat
thrown over his white holiday shirt, pushed his way out holding the door
firmly against the wind, followed by a lad in a red shirt and high leather
boots.
‘Is that you, Andreevich?’ asked the old man.
‘Yes, friend, we’ve gone astray,’ said Vasili Andreevich. ‘We wanted to
get to Goryachkin but found ourselves here. We went a second time but lost
our way again.’
‘Just see how you have gone astray!’ said the old man. ‘Petrushka, go and
open the gate!’ he added, turning to the lad in the red shirt.
‘All right,’ said the lad in a cheerful voice, and ran back into the passage.
‘But we’re not staying the night,’ said Vasili Andreevich.
‘Where will you go in the night? You’d better stay!’
‘I’d be glad to, but I must go on. It’s business, and it can’t be helped.’
‘Well, warm yourself at least. The samovar is just ready.’
‘Warm myself? Yes, I’ll do that,’ said Vasili Andreevich. ‘It won’t get
darker. The moon will rise and it will be lighter. Let’s go in and warm
ourselves, Nikita.’
‘Well, why not? Let us warm ourselves,’ replied Nikita, who was stiff
with cold and anxious to warm his frozen limbs.
Vasili Andreevich went into the room with the old man, and Nikita drove
through the gate opened for him by Petrushka, by whose advice he backed
the horse under the penthouse. The ground was covered with manure and
the tall bow over the horse’s head caught against the beam. The hens and
the cock had already settled to roost there, and clucked peevishly, clinging
to the beam with their claws. The disturbed sheep shied and rushed aside
trampling the frozen manure with their hooves. The dog yelped desperately
with fright and anger and then burst out barking like a puppy at the stranger.
Nikita talked to them all, excused himself to the fowls and assured them
that he would not disturb them again, rebuked the sheep for being
frightened without knowing why, and kept soothing the dog, while he tied
up the horse.

‘Now that will be all right,’ he said, knocking the snow off his clothes.
‘Just hear how he barks!’ he added, turning to the dog. ‘Be quiet, stupid! Be
quiet. You are only troubling yourself for nothing. We’re not thieves, we’re
friends....’
‘And these are, it’s said, the three domestic counsellors,’ remarked the
lad, and with his strong arms he pushed under the pent-roof the sledge that
had remained outside.
‘Why counsellors?’ asked Nikita.
‘That’s what is printed in Paulson. A thief creeps to a house—the dog
barks, that means “Be on your guard!” The cock crows, that means, “Get
up!” The cat licks herself—that means, “A welcome guest is coming. Get
ready to receive him!”’ said the lad with a smile.
Petrushka could read and write and knew Paulson’s primer, his only
book, almost by heart, and he was fond of quoting sayings from it that he
thought suited the occasion, especially when he had had something to drink,
as to-day.
‘That’s so,’ said Nikita.
‘You must be chilled through and through,’ said Petrushka.
‘Yes, I am rather,’ said Nikita, and they went across the yard and the
passage into the house.

IV
The household to which Vasili Andreevich had come was one of the
richest in the village. The family had five allotments, besides renting other
land. They had six horses, three cows, two calves, and some twenty sheep.
There were twenty-two members belonging to the homestead: four married
sons, six grandchildren (one of whom, Petrushka, was married), two great-
grandchildren, three orphans, and four daughters-in-law with their babies. It
was one of the few homesteads that remained still undivided, but even here
the dull internal work of disintegration which would inevitably lead to
separation had already begun, starting as usual among the women. Two
sons were living in Moscow as water-carriers, and one was in the army. At
home now were the old man and his wife, their second son who managed
the homestead, the eldest who had come from Moscow for the holiday, and
all the women and children. Besides these members of the family there was
a visitor, a neighbour who was godfather to one of the children.
Over the table in the room hung a lamp with a shade, which brightly lit
up the tea-things, a bottle of vodka, and some refreshments, besides
illuminating the brick walls, which in the far corner were hung with icons
on both sides of which were pictures. At the head of the table sat Vasili
Andreevich in a black sheepskin coat, sucking his frozen moustache and
observing the room and the people around him with his prominent hawk-
like eyes. With him sat the old, bald, white-bearded master of the house in a
white homespun shirt, and next him the son home from Moscow for the
holiday—a man with a sturdy back and powerful shoulders and clad in a
thin print shirt—then the second son, also broad-shouldered, who acted as
head of the house, and then a lean red-haired peasant—the neighbour.
Having had a drink of vodka and something to eat, they were about to
take tea, and the samovar standing on the floor beside the brick oven was
already humming. The children could be seen in the top bunks and on the
top of the oven. A woman sat on a lower bunk with a cradle beside her. The
old housewife, her face covered with wrinkles which wrinkled even her
lips, was waiting on Vasili Andreevich.

As Nikita entered the house she was offering her guest a small tumbler of
thick glass which she had just filled with vodka.
‘Don’t refuse, Vasili Andreevich, you mustn’t! Wish us a merry feast.
Drink it, dear!’ she said.
The sight and smell of vodka, especially now when he was chilled
through and tired out, much disturbed Nikita’s mind. He frowned, and
having shaken the snow off his cap and coat, stopped in front of the icons as
if not seeing anyone, crossed himself three times, and bowed to the icons.
Then, turning to the old master of the house and bowing first to him, then to
all those at table, then to the women who stood by the oven, and muttering:
‘A merry holiday!’ he began taking off his outer things without looking at
the table.
‘Why, you’re all covered with hoar-frost, old fellow!’ said the eldest
brother, looking at Nikita’s snow-covered face, eyes, and beard.
Nikita took off his coat, shook it again, hung it up beside the oven, and
came up to the table. He too was offered vodka. He went through a moment
of painful hesitation and nearly took up the glass and emptied the clear
fragrant liquid down his throat, but he glanced at Vasili Andreevich,
remembered his oath and the boots that he had sold for drink, recalled the
cooper, remembered his son for whom he had promised to buy a horse by
spring, sighed, and declined it.
‘I don’t drink, thank you kindly,’ he said frowning, and sat down on a
bench near the second window.
‘How’s that?’ asked the eldest brother.
‘I just don’t drink,’ replied Nikita without lifting his eyes but looking
askance at his scanty beard and moustache and getting the icicles out of
them.
‘It’s not good for him,’ said Vasili Andreevich, munching a cracknel after
emptying his glass.
‘Well, then, have some tea,’ said the kindly old hostess. ‘You must be
chilled through, good soul. Why are you women dawdling so with the
samovar?’
‘It is ready,’ said one of the young women, and after flicking with her
apron the top of the samovar which was now boiling over, she carried it
with an effort to the table, raised it, and set it down with a thud.

Meanwhile Vasili Andreevich was telling how he had lost his way, how
they had come back twice to this same village, and how they had gone
astray and had met some drunken peasants. Their hosts were surprised,
explained where and why they had missed their way, said who the tipsy
people they had met were, and told them how they ought to go.
‘A little child could find the way to Molchanovka from here. All you
have to do is to take the right turning from the high road. There’s a bush
you can see just there. But you didn’t even get that far!’ said the neighbour.
‘You’d better stay the night. The women will make up beds for you,’ said
the old woman persuasively.
‘You could go on in the morning and it would be pleasanter,’ said the old
man, confirming what his wife had said.
‘I can’t, friend. Business!’ said Vasili Andreevich. ‘Lose an hour and you
can’t catch it up in a year,’ he added, remembering the grove and the dealers
who might snatch that deal from him. ‘We shall get there, shan’t we?’ he
said, turning to Nikita.
Nikita did not answer for some time, apparently still intent on thawing
out his beard and moustache.
‘If only we don’t go astray again,’ he replied gloomily. He was gloomy
because he passionately longed for some vodka, and the only thing that
could assuage that longing was tea and he had not yet been offered any.
‘But we have only to reach the turning and then we shan’t go wrong. The
road will be through the forest the whole way,’ said Vasili Andreevich.
‘It’s just as you please, Vasili Andreevich. If we’re to go, let us go,’ said
Nikita, taking the glass of tea he was offered.
‘We’ll drink our tea and be off.’
Nikita said nothing but only shook his head, and carefully pouring some
tea into his saucer began warming his hands, the fingers of which were
always swollen with hard work, over the steam. Then, biting off a tiny bit of
sugar, he bowed to his hosts, said, ‘Your health!’ and drew in the steaming
liquid.
‘If somebody would see us as far as the turning,’ said Vasili Andreevich.
‘Well, we can do that,’ said the eldest son. ‘Petrushka will harness and go
that far with you.’

‘Well, then, put in the horse, lad, and I shall be thankful to you for it.’
‘Oh, what for, dear man?’ said the kindly old woman. ‘We are heartily
glad to do it.’
‘Petrushka, go and put in the mare,’ said the eldest brother.
‘All right,’ replied Petrushka with a smile, and promptly snatching his
cap down from a nail he ran away to harness.
While the horse was being harnessed the talk returned to the point at
which it had stopped when Vasili Andreevich drove up to the window. The
old man had been complaining to his neighbour, the village elder, about his
third son who had not sent him anything for the holiday though he had sent
a French shawl to his wife.
‘The young people are getting out of hand,’ said the old man.
‘And how they do!’ said the neighbour. ‘There’s no managing them!
They know too much. There’s Demochkin now, who broke his father’s arm.
It’s all from being too clever, it seems.’
Nikita listened, watched their faces, and evidently would have liked to
share in the conversation, but he was too busy drinking his tea and only
nodded his head approvingly. He emptied one tumbler after another and
grew warmer and warmer and more and more comfortable. The talk
continued on the same subject for a long time—the harmfulness of a
household dividing up—and it was clearly not an abstract discussion but
concerned the question of a separation in that house; a separation demanded
by the second son who sat there morosely silent.
It was evidently a sore subject and absorbed them all, but out of propriety
they did not discuss their private affairs before strangers. At last, however,
the old man could not restrain himself, and with tears in his eyes declared
that he would not consent to a break-up of the family during his lifetime,
that his house was prospering, thank God, but that if they separated they
would all have to go begging.
‘Just like the Matveevs,’ said the neighbour. ‘They used to have a proper
house, but now they’ve split up none of them has anything.’
‘And that is what you want to happen to us,’ said the old man, turning to
his son.
The son made no reply and there was an awkward pause. The silence was
broken by Petrushka, who having harnessed the horse had returned to the

hut a few minutes before this and had been listening all the time with a
smile.
‘There’s a fable about that in Paulson,’ he said. ‘A father gave his sons a
broom to break. At first they could not break it, but when they took it twig
by twig they broke it easily. And it’s the same here,’ and he gave a broad
smile. ‘I’m ready!’ he added.
‘If you’re ready, let’s go,’ said Vasili Andreevich. ‘And as to separating,
don’t you allow it, Grandfather. You got everything together and you’re the
master. Go to the Justice of the Peace. He’ll say how things should be
done.’
‘He carries on so, carries on so,’ the old man continued in a whining tone.
‘There’s no doing anything with him. It’s as if the devil possessed him.’
Nikita having meanwhile finished his fifth tumbler of tea laid it on its
side instead of turning it upside down, hoping to be offered a sixth glass.
But there was no more water in the samovar, so the hostess did not fill it up
for him. Besides, Vasili Andreevich was putting his things on, so there was
nothing for it but for Nikita to get up too, put back into the sugar-basin the
lump of sugar he had nibbled all round, wipe his perspiring face with the
skirt of his sheepskin, and go to put on his overcoat.
Having put it on he sighed deeply, thanked his hosts, said good-bye, and
went out of the warm bright room into the cold dark passage, through which
the wind was howling and where snow was blowing through the cracks of
the shaking door, and from there into the yard.
Petrushka stood in his sheepskin in the middle of the yard by his horse,
repeating some lines from Paulson’s primer. He said with a smile:

‘Storms with mist the sky conceal,
Snowy circles wheeling wild.
Now like savage beast ‘twill howl,
And now ‘tis wailing like a child.’

Nikita nodded approvingly as he arranged the reins.
The old man, seeing Vasili Andreevich off, brought a lantern into the
passage to show him a light, but it was blown out at once. And even in the
yard it was evident that the snowstorm had become more violent.
‘Well, this is weather!’ thought Vasili Andreevich. ‘Perhaps we may not
get there after all. But there is nothing to be done. Business! Besides, we

have got ready, our host’s horse has been harnessed, and we’ll get there
with God’s help!’
Their aged host also thought they ought not to go, but he had already
tried to persuade them to stay and had not been listened to.
‘It’s no use asking them again. Maybe my age makes me timid. They’ll
get there all right, and at least we shall get to bed in good time and without
any fuss,’ he thought.
Petrushka did not think of danger. He knew the road and the whole
district so well, and the lines about ‘snowy circles wheeling wild’ described
what was happening outside so aptly that it cheered him up. Nikita did not
wish to go at all, but he had been accustomed not to have his own way and
to serve others for so long that there was no one to hinder the departing
travellers.

V
Vasili Andreevich went over to his sledge, found it with difficulty in the
darkness, climbed in and took the reins.
‘Go on in front!’ he cried.
Petrushka kneeling in his low sledge started his horse. Mukhorty, who
had been neighing for some time past, now scenting a mare ahead of him
started after her, and they drove out into the street. They drove again
through the outskirts of the village and along the same road, past the yard
where the frozen linen had hung (which, however, was no longer to be
seen), past the same barn, which was now snowed up almost to the roof and
from which the snow was still endlessly pouring past the same dismally
moaning, whistling, and swaying willows, and again entered into the sea of
blustering snow raging from above and below. The wind was so strong that
when it blew from the side and the travellers steered against it, it tilted the
sledges and turned the horses to one side. Petrushka drove his good mare in
front at a brisk trot and kept shouting lustily. Mukhorty pressed after her.
After travelling so for about ten minutes, Petrushka turned round and
shouted something. Neither Vasili Andreevich nor Nikita could hear
anything because of the wind, but they guessed that they had arrived at the
turning. In fact Petrushka had turned to the right, and now the wind that had
blown from the side blew straight in their faces, and through the snow they
saw something dark on their right. It was the bush at the turning.
‘Well now, God speed you!’
‘Thank you, Petrushka!’
‘Storms with mist the sky conceal!’ shouted Petrushka as he disappeared.
‘There’s a poet for you!’ muttered Vasili Andreevich, pulling at the reins.
‘Yes, a fine lad—a true peasant,’ said Nikita.
They drove on.
Nikita, wrapping his coat closely about him and pressing his head down
so close to his shoulders that his short beard covered his throat, sat silently,
trying not to lose the warmth he had obtained while drinking tea in the

house. Before him he saw the straight lines of the shafts which constantly
deceived him into thinking they were on a well-travelled road, and the
horse’s swaying crupper with his knotted tail blown to one side, and farther
ahead the high shaft-bow and the swaying head and neck of the horse with
its waving mane. Now and then he caught sight of a way-sign, so that he
knew they were still on a road and that there was nothing for him to be
concerned about.
Vasili Andreevich drove on, leaving it to the horse to keep to the road.
But Mukhorty, though he had had a breathing-space in the village, ran
reluctantly, and seemed now and then to get off the road, so that Vasili
Andreevich had repeatedly to correct him.
‘Here’s a stake to the right, and another, and here’s a third,’ Vasili
Andreevich counted, ‘and here in front is the forest,’ thought he, as he
looked at something dark in front of him. But what had seemed to him a
forest was only a bush. They passed the bush and drove on for another
hundred yards but there was no fourth way-mark nor any forest.
‘We must reach the forest soon,’ thought Vasili Andreevich, and animated
by the vodka and the tea he did not stop but shook the reins, and the good
obedient horse responded, now ambling, now slowly trotting in the
direction in which he was sent, though he knew that he was not going the
right way. Ten minutes went by, but there was still no forest.
‘There now, we must be astray again,’ said Vasili Andreevich, pulling up.
Nikita silently got out of the sledge and holding his coat, which the wind
now wrapped closely about him and now almost tore off, started to feel
about in the snow, going first to one side and then to the other. Three or four
times he was completely lost to sight. At last he returned and took the reins
from Vasili Andreevich’s hand.
‘We must go to the right,’ he said sternly and peremptorily, as he turned
the horse.
‘Well, if it’s to the right, go to the right,’ said Vasili Andreevich, yielding
up the reins to Nikita and thrusting his freezing hands into his sleeves.
Nikita did not reply.
‘Now then, friend, stir yourself!’ he shouted to the horse, but in spite of
the shake of the reins Mukhorty moved only at a walk.

The snow in places was up to his knees, and the sledge moved by fits and
starts with his every movement.
Nikita took the whip that hung over the front of the sledge and struck him
once. The good horse, unused to the whip, sprang forward and moved at a
trot, but immediately fell back into an amble and then to a walk. So they
went on for five minutes. It was dark and the snow whirled from above and
rose from below, so that sometimes the shaft-bow could not be seen. At
times the sledge seemed to stand still and the field to run backwards.
Suddenly the horse stopped abruptly, evidently aware of something close in
front of him. Nikita again sprang lightly out, throwing down the reins, and
went ahead to see what had brought him to a standstill, but hardly had he
made a step in front of the horse before his feet slipped and he went rolling
down an incline.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ he said to himself as he fell, and he tried to stop his
fall but could not, and only stopped when his feet plunged into a thick layer
of snow that had drifted to the bottom of the hollow.
The fringe of a drift of snow that hung on the edge of the hollow,
disturbed by Nikita’s fall, showered down on him and got inside his collar.
‘What a thing to do!’ said Nikita reproachfully, addressing the drift and
the hollow and shaking the snow from under his collar.
‘Nikita! Hey, Nikita!’ shouted Vasili Andreevich from above.
But Nikita did not reply. He was too occupied in shaking out the snow
and searching for the whip he had dropped when rolling down the incline.
Having found the whip he tried to climb straight up the bank where he had
rolled down, but it was impossible to do so: he kept rolling down again, and
so he had to go along at the foot of the hollow to find a way up. About
seven yards farther on he managed with difficulty to crawl up the incline on
all fours, then he followed the edge of the hollow back to the place where
the horse should have been. He could not see either horse or sledge, but as
he walked against the wind he heard Vasili Andreevich’s shouts and
Mukhorty’s neighing, calling him.
‘I’m coming! I’m coming! What are you cackling for?’ he muttered.
Only when he had come up to the sledge could he make out the horse,
and Vasili Andreevich standing beside it and looking gigantic.

‘Where the devil did you vanish to? We must go back, if only to
Grishkino,’ he began reproaching Nikita.
‘I’d be glad to get back, Vasili Andreevich, but which way are we to go?
There is such a ravine here that if we once get in it we shan’t get out again.
I got stuck so fast there myself that I could hardly get out.’
‘What shall we do, then? We can’t stay here! We must go somewhere!’
said Vasili Andreevich.
Nikita said nothing. He seated himself in the sledge with his back to the
wind, took off his boots, shook out the snow that had got into them, and
taking some straw from the bottom of the sledge, carefully plugged with it a
hole in his left boot.
Vasili Andreevich remained silent, as though now leaving everything to
Nikita. Having put his boots on again, Nikita drew his feet into the sledge,
put on his mittens and took up the reins, and directed the horse along the
side of the ravine. But they had not gone a hundred yards before the horse
again stopped short. The ravine was in front of him again.
Nikita again climbed out and again trudged about in the snow. He did this
for a considerable time and at last appeared from the opposite side to that
from which he had started.
‘Vasili Andreevich, are you alive?’ he called out.
‘Here!’ replied Vasili Andreevich. ‘Well, what now?’
‘I can’t make anything out. It’s too dark. There’s nothing but ravines. We
must drive against the wind again.’
They set off once more. Again Nikita went stumbling through the snow,
again he fell in, again climbed out and trudged about, and at last quite out of
breath he sat down beside the sledge.
‘Well, how now?’ asked Vasili Andreevich.
‘Why, I am quite worn out and the horse won’t go.’
‘Then what’s to be done?’
‘Why, wait a minute.’
Nikita went away again but soon returned.
‘Follow me!’ he said, going in front of the horse.
Vasili Andreevich no longer gave orders but implicitly did what Nikita
told him.

‘Here, follow me!’ Nikita shouted, stepping quickly to the right, and
seizing the rein he led Mukhorty down towards a snow-drift.
At first the horse held back, then he jerked forward, hoping to leap the
drift, but he had not the strength and sank into it up to his collar.
‘Get out!’ Nikita called to Vasili Andreevich who still sat in the sledge,
and taking hold of one shaft he moved the sledge closer to the horse. ‘It’s
hard, brother!’ he said to Mukhorty, ‘but it can’t be helped. Make an effort!
Now, now, just a little one!’ he shouted.
The horse gave a tug, then another, but failed to clear himself and settled
down again as if considering something.
‘Now, brother, this won’t do!’ Nikita admonished him. ‘Now once more!’
Again Nikita tugged at the shaft on his side, and Vasili Andreevich did
the same on the other.
Mukhorty lifted his head and then gave a sudden jerk.
‘That’s it! That’s it!’ cried Nikita. ‘Don’t be afraid—you won’t sink!’
One plunge, another, and a third, and at last Mukhorty was out of the
snow-drift, and stood still, breathing heavily and shaking the snow off
himself. Nikita wished to lead him farther, but Vasili Andreevich, in his two
fur coats, was so out of breath that he could not walk farther and dropped
into the sledge.
‘Let me get my breath!’ he said, unfastening the kerchief with which he
had tied the collar of his fur coat at the village.
‘It’s all right here. You lie there,’ said Nikita. ‘I will lead him along.’ And
with Vasili Andreevich in the sledge he led the horse by the bridle about ten
paces down and then up a slight rise, and stopped.
The place where Nikita had stopped was not completely in the hollow
where the snow sweeping down from the hillocks might have buried them
altogether, but still it was partly sheltered from the wind by the side of the
ravine. There were moments when the wind seemed to abate a little, but that
did not last long and as if to make up for that respite the storm swept down
with tenfold vigour and tore and whirled the more fiercely. Such a gust
struck them at the moment when Vasili Andreevich, having recovered his
breath, got out of the sledge and went up to Nikita to consult him as to what
they should do. They both bent down involuntarily and waited till the
violence of the squall should have passed. Mukhorty too laid back his ears

and shook his head discontentedly. As soon as the violence of the blast had
abated a little, Nikita took off his mittens, stuck them into his belt, breathed
onto his hands, and began to undo the straps of the shaft-bow.
‘What’s that you are doing there?’ asked Vasili Andreevich.
‘Unharnessing. What else is there to do? I have no strength left,’ said
Nikita as though excusing himself.
‘Can’t we drive somewhere?’
‘No, we can’t. We shall only kill the horse. Why, the poor beast is not
himself now,’ said Nikita, pointing to the horse, which was standing
submissively waiting for what might come, with his steep wet sides heaving
heavily. ‘We shall have to stay the night here,’ he said, as if preparing to
spend the night at an inn, and he proceeded to unfasten the collar-straps.
The buckles came undone.
‘But shan’t we be frozen?’ remarked Vasili Andreevich.
‘Well, if we are we can’t help it,’ said Nikita.

VI
Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats,
especially after struggling in the snow-drift, a cold shiver ran down his back
on realizing that he must really spend the night where they were. To calm
himself he sat down in the sledge and got out his cigarettes and matches.
Nikita meanwhile unharnessed Mukhorty. He unstrapped the belly-band
and the back-band, took away the reins, loosened the collar-strap, and
removed the shaft-bow, talking to him all the time to encourage him.
‘Now come out! come out!’ he said, leading him clear of the shafts. ‘Now
we’ll tie you up here and I’ll put down some straw and take off your bridle.
When you’ve had a bite you’ll feel more cheerful.’
But Mukhorty was restless and evidently not comforted by Nikita’s
remarks. He stepped now on one foot and now on another, and pressed
close against the sledge, turning his back to the wind and rubbing his head
on Nikita’s sleeve. Then, as if not to pain Nikita by refusing his offer of the
straw he put before him, he hurriedly snatched a wisp out of the sledge, but
immediately decided that it was now no time to think of straw and threw it
down, and the wind instantly scattered it, carried it away, and covered it
with snow.
‘Now we will set up a signal,’ said Nikita, and turning the front of the
sledge to the wind he tied the shafts together with a strap and set them up
on end in front of the sledge. ‘There now, when the snow covers us up,
good folk will see the shafts and dig us out,’ he said, slapping his mittens
together and putting them on. ‘That’s what the old folk taught us!’
Vasili Andreevich meanwhile had unfastened his coat, and holding its
skirts up for shelter, struck one sulphur match after another on the steel box.
But his hands trembled, and one match after another either did not kindle or
was blown out by the wind just as he was lifting it to the cigarette. At last a
match did burn up, and its flame lit up for a moment the fur of his coat, his
hand with the gold ring on the bent forefinger, and the snow-sprinkled oat-
straw that stuck out from under the drugget. The cigarette lighted, he
eagerly took a whiff or two, inhaled the smoke, let it out through his

moustache, and would have inhaled again, but the wind tore off the burning
tobacco and whirled it away as it had done the straw.
But even these few puffs had cheered him.
‘If we must spend the night here, we must!’ he said with decision. ‘Wait a
bit, I’ll arrange a flag as well,’ he added, picking up the kerchief which he
had thrown down in the sledge after taking it from round his collar, and
drawing off his gloves and standing up on the front of the sledge and
stretching himself to reach the strap, he tied the handkerchief to it with a
tight knot.
The kerchief immediately began to flutter wildly, now clinging round the
shaft, now suddenly streaming out, stretching and flapping.
‘Just see what a fine flag!’ said Vasili Andreevich, admiring his
handiwork and letting himself down into the sledge. ‘We should be warmer
together, but there’s not room enough for two,’ he added.
‘I’ll find a place,’ said Nikita. ‘But I must cover up the horse first—he
sweated so, poor thing. Let go!’ he added, drawing the drugget from under
Vasili Andreevich.
Having got the drugget he folded it in two, and after taking off the
breechband and pad, covered Mukhorty with it.
‘Anyhow it will be warmer, silly!’ he said, putting back the breechband
and the pad on the horse over the drugget. Then having finished that
business he returned to the sledge, and addressing Vasili Andreevich, said:
‘You won’t need the sackcloth, will you? And let me have some straw.’
And having taken these things from under Vasili Andreevich, Nikita went
behind the sledge, dug out a hole for himself in the snow, put straw into it,
wrapped his coat well round him, covered himself with the sackcloth, and
pulling his cap well down seated himself on the straw he had spread, and
leant against the wooden back of the sledge to shelter himself from the wind
and the snow.
Vasili Andreevich shook his head disapprovingly at what Nikita was
doing, as in general he disapproved of the peasant’s stupidity and lack of
education, and he began to settle himself down for the night.
He smoothed the remaining straw over the bottom of the sledge, putting
more of it under his side. Then he thrust his hands into his sleeves and

settled down, sheltering his head in the corner of the sledge from the wind
in front.
He did not wish to sleep. He lay and thought: thought ever of the one
thing that constituted the sole aim, meaning, pleasure, and pride of his life
—of how much money he had made and might still make, of how much
other people he knew had made and possessed, and of how those others had
made and were making it, and how he, like them, might still make much
more. The purchase of the Goryachkin grove was a matter of immense
importance to him. By that one deal he hoped to make perhaps ten thousand
rubles. He began mentally to reckon the value of the wood he had inspected
in autumn, and on five acres of which he had counted all the trees.
‘The oaks will go for sledge-runners. The undergrowth will take care of
itself, and there’ll still be some thirty sazheens of fire-wood left on each
desyatin,’ said he to himself. ‘That means there will be at least two hundred
and twenty-five rubles’ worth left on each desyatin. Fifty-six desyatiins
means fifty-six hundreds, and fifty-six hundreds, and fifty-six tens, and
another fifty-six tens, and then fifty-six fives....’ He saw that it came out to
more than twelve thousand rubles, but could not reckon it up exactly
without a counting-frame. ‘But I won’t give ten thousand, anyhow. I’ll give
about eight thousand with a deduction on account of the glades. I’ll grease
the surveyor’s palm—give him a hundred rubles, or a hundred and fifty, and
he’ll reckon that there are some five desyatins of glade to be deducted. And
he’ll let it go for eight thousand. Three thousand cash down. That’ll move
him, no fear!’ he thought, and he pressed his pocket-book with his forearm.
‘God only knows how we missed the turning. The forest ought to be
there, and a watchman’s hut, and dogs barking. But the damned things don’t
bark when they’re wanted.’ He turned his collar down from his ear and
listened, but as before only the whistling of the wind could be heard, the
flapping and fluttering of the kerchief tied to the shafts, and the pelting of
the snow against the woodwork of the sledge. He again covered up his ear.
‘If I had known I would have stayed the night. Well, no matter, we’ll get
there to-morrow. It’s only one day lost. And the others won’t travel in such
weather.’ Then he remembered that on the 9th he had to receive payment
from the butcher for his oxen. ‘He meant to come himself, but he won’t find
me, and my wife won’t know how to receive the money. She doesn’t know
the right way of doing things,’ he thought, recalling how at their party the

day before she had not known how to treat the police-officer who was their
guest. ‘Of course she’s only a woman! Where could she have seen
anything? In my father’s time what was our house like? Just a rich peasant’s
house: just an oatmill and an inn—that was the whole property. But what
have I done in these fifteen years? A shop, two taverns, a flour-mill, a grain-
store, two farms leased out, and a house with an iron-roofed barn,’ he
thought proudly. ‘Not as it was in Father’s time! Who is talked of in the
whole district now? Brekhunov! And why? Because I stick to business. I
take trouble, not like others who lie abed or waste their time on foolishness
while I don’t sleep of nights. Blizzard or no blizzard I start out. So business
gets done. They think money-making is a joke. No, take pains and rack your
brains! You get overtaken out of doors at night, like this, or keep awake
night after night till the thoughts whirling in your head make the pillow
turn,’ he meditated with pride. ‘They think people get on through luck.
After all, the Mironovs are now millionaires. And why? Take pains and God
gives. If only He grants me health!’
The thought that he might himself be a millionaire like Mironov, who
began with nothing, so excited Vasili Andreevich that he felt the need of
talking to somebody. But there was no one to talk to.... If only he could
have reached Goryachkin he would have talked to the landlord and shown
him a thing or two.
‘Just see how it blows! It will snow us up so deep that we shan’t be able
to get out in the morning!’ he thought, listening to a gust of wind that blew
against the front of the sledge, bending it and lashing the snow against it.
He raised himself and looked round. All he could see through the whirling
darkness was Mukhorty’s dark head, his back covered by the fluttering
drugget, and his thick knotted tail; while all round, in front and behind, was
the same fluctuating whity darkness, sometimes seeming to get a little
lighter and sometimes growing denser still.
‘A pity I listened to Nikita,’ he thought. ‘We ought to have driven on. We
should have come out somewhere, if only back to Grishkino and stayed the
night at Taras’s. As it is we must sit here all night. But what was I thinking
about? Yes, that God gives to those who take trouble, but not to loafers, lie-
abeds, or fools. I must have a smoke!’
He sat down again, got out his cigarette-case, and stretched himself flat
on his stomach, screening the matches with the skirt of his coat. But the

wind found its way in and put out match after match. At last he got one to
burn and lit a cigarette. He was very glad that he had managed to do what
he wanted, and though the wind smoked more of the cigarette than he did,
he still got two or three puffs and felt more cheerful. He again leant back,
wrapped himself up, started reflecting and remembering, and suddenly and
quite unexpectedly lost consciousness and fell asleep.
Suddenly something seemed to give him a push and awoke him. Whether
it was Mukhorty who had pulled some straw from under him, or whether
something within him had startled him, at all events it woke him, and his
heart began to beat faster and faster so that the sledge seemed to tremble
under him. He opened his eyes. Everything around him was just as before.
‘It looks lighter,’ he thought. ‘I expect it won’t be long before dawn.’ But he
at once remembered that it was lighter because the moon had risen. He sat
up and looked first at the horse. Mukhorty still stood with his back to the
wind, shivering all over. One side of the drugget, which was completely
covered with snow, had been blown back, the breeching had slipped down
and the snow-covered head with its waving forelock and mane were now
more visible. Vasili Andreevich leant over the back of the sledge and looked
behind. Nikita still sat in the same position in which he had settled himself.
The sacking with which he was covered, and his legs, were thickly covered
with snow.
‘If only that peasant doesn’t freeze to death! His clothes are so wretched.
I may be held responsible for him. What shiftless people they are—such a
want of education,’ thought Vasili Andreevich, and he felt like taking the
drugget off the horse and putting it over Nikita, but it would be very cold to
get out and move about and, moreover, the horse might freeze to death.
‘Why did I bring him with me? It was all her stupidity!’ he thought,
recalling his unloved wife, and he rolled over into his old place at the front
part of the sledge. ‘My uncle once spent a whole night like this,’ he
reflected, ‘and was all right.’ But another case came at once to his mind.
‘But when they dug Sebastian out he was dead—stiff like a frozen carcass.
If I’d only stopped the night in Grishkino all this would not have
happened!’
And wrapping his coat carefully round him so that none of the warmth of
the fur should be wasted but should warm him all over, neck, knees, and
feet, he shut his eyes and tried to sleep again. But try as he would he could

not get drowsy, on the contrary he felt wide awake and animated. Again he
began counting his gains and the debts due to him, again he began bragging
to himself and feeling pleased with himself and his position, but all this was
continually disturbed by a stealthily approaching fear and by the unpleasant
regret that he had not remained in Grishkino.
‘How different it would be to be lying warm on a bench!’
He turned over several times in his attempts to get into a more
comfortable position more sheltered from the wind, he wrapped up his legs
closer, shut his eyes, and lay still. But either his legs in their strong felt
boots began to ache from being bent in one position, or the wind blew in
somewhere, and after lying still for a short time he again began to recall the
disturbing fact that he might now have been lying quietly in the warm hut at
Grishkino. He again sat up, turned about, muffled himself up, and settled
down once more.
Once he fancied that he heard a distant cock-crow. He felt glad, turned
down his coat-collar and listened with strained attention, but in spite of all
his efforts nothing could be heard but the wind whistling between the
shafts, the flapping of the kerchief, and the snow pelting against the frame
of the sledge.
Nikita sat just as he had done all the time, not moving and not even
answering Vasili Andreevich who had addressed him a couple of times. ‘He
doesn’t care a bit—he’s probably asleep!’ thought Vasili Andreevich with
vexation, looking behind the sledge at Nikita who was covered with a thick
layer of snow.
Vasili Andreevich got up and lay down again some twenty times. It
seemed to him that the night would never end. ‘It must be getting near
morning,’ he thought, getting up and looking around. ‘Let’s have a look at
my watch. It will be cold to unbutton, but if I only know that it’s getting
near morning I shall at any rate feel more cheerful. We could begin
harnessing.’
In the depth of his heart Vasili Andreevich knew that it could not yet be
near morning, but he was growing more and more afraid, and wished both
to get to know and yet to deceive himself. He carefully undid the fastening
of his sheepskin, pushed in his hand, and felt about for a long time before
he got to his waistcoat. With great difficulty he managed to draw out his
silver watch with its enamelled flower design, and tried to make out the

time. He could not see anything without a light. Again he went down on his
knees and elbows as he had done when he lighted a cigarette, got out his
matches, and proceeded to strike one. This time he went to work more
carefully, and feeling with his fingers for a match with the largest head and
the greatest amount of phosphorus, lit it at the first try. Bringing the face of
the watch under the light he could hardly believe his eyes.... It was only ten
minutes past twelve. Almost the whole night was still before him.
‘Oh, how long the night is!’ he thought, feeling a cold shudder run down
his back, and having fastened his fur coats again and wrapped himself up,
he snuggled into a corner of the sledge intending to wait patiently.
Suddenly, above the monotonous roar of the wind, he clearly distinguished
another new and living sound. It steadily strengthened, and having become
quite clear diminished just as gradually. Beyond all doubt it was a wolf, and
he was so near that the movement of his jaws as he changed his cry was
brought down the wind. Vasili Andreevich turned back the collar of his coat
and listened attentively. Mukhorty too strained to listen, moving his ears,
and when the wolf had ceased its howling he shifted from foot to foot and
gave a warning snort. After this Vasili Andreevich could not fall asleep
again or even calm himself. The more he tried to think of his accounts, his
business, his reputation, his worth and his wealth, the more and more was
he mastered by fear, and regrets that he had not stayed the night at
Grishkino dominated and mingled in all his thoughts.
‘Devil take the forest! Things were all right without it, thank God. Ah, if
we had only put up for the night!’ he said to himself. ‘They say it’s
drunkards that freeze,’ he thought, ‘and I have had some drink.’ And
observing his sensations he noticed that he was beginning to shiver, without
knowing whether it was from cold or from fear. He tried to wrap himself up
and lie down as before, but could no longer do so. He could not stay in one
position. He wanted to get up, to do something to master the gathering fear
that was rising in him and against which he felt himself powerless. He again
got out his cigarettes and matches, but only three matches were left and
they were bad ones. The phosphorus rubbed off them all without lighting.
‘The devil take you! Damned thing! Curse you!’ he muttered, not
knowing whom or what he was cursing, and he flung away the crushed
cigarette. He was about to throw away the matchbox too, but checked the
movement of his hand and put the box in his pocket instead. He was seized

with such unrest that he could no longer remain in one spot. He climbed out
of the sledge and standing with his back to the wind began to shift his belt
again, fastening it lower down in the waist and tightening it.
‘What’s the use of lying and waiting for death? Better mount the horse
and get away!’ The thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘The horse will move
when he has someone on his back. As for him,’ he thought of Nikita—‘it’s
all the same to him whether he lives or dies. What is his life worth? He
won’t grudge his life, but I have something to live for, thank God.’
He untied the horse, threw the reins over his neck and tried to mount, but
his coats and boots were so heavy that he failed. Then he clambered up in
the sledge and tried to mount from there, but the sledge tilted under his
weight, and he failed again. At last he drew Mukhorty nearer to the sledge,
cautiously balanced on one side of it, and managed to lie on his stomach
across the horse’s back. After lying like that for a while he shifted forward
once and again, threw a leg over, and finally seated himself, supporting his
feet on the loose breeching-straps. The shaking of the sledge awoke Nikita.
He raised himself, and it seemed to Vasili Andreevich that he said
something.
‘Listen to such fools as you! Am I to die like this for nothing?’ exclaimed
Vasili Andreevich. And tucking the loose skirts of his fur coat in under his
knees, he turned the horse and rode away from the sledge in the direction in
which he thought the forest and the forester’s hut must be.

VII
From the time he had covered himself with the sackcloth and seated
himself behind the sledge, Nikita had not stirred. Like all those who live in
touch with nature and have known want, he was patient and could wait for
hours, even days, without growing restless or irritable. He heard his master
call him, but did not answer because he did not want to move or talk.
Though he still felt some warmth from the tea he had drunk and from his
energetic struggle when clambering about in the snowdrift, he knew that
this warmth would not last long and that he had no strength left to warm
himself again by moving about, for he felt as tired as a horse when it stops
and refuses to go further in spite of the whip, and its master sees that it must
be fed before it can work again. The foot in the boot with a hole in it had
already grown numb, and he could no longer feel his big toe. Besides that,
his whole body began to feel colder and colder.
The thought that he might, and very probably would, die that night
occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful. It did
not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been not a
continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of toil of which
he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem particularly dreadful,
because besides the masters he had served here, like Vasili Andreevich, he
always felt himself dependent on the Chief Master, who had sent him into
this life, and he knew that when dying he would still be in that Master’s
power and would not be ill-used by Him. ‘It seems a pity to give up what
one is used to and accustomed to. But there’s nothing to be done, I shall get
used to the new things.’
‘Sins?’ he thought, and remembered his drunkenness, the money that had
gone on drink, how he had offended his wife, his cursing, his neglect of
church and of the fasts, and all the things the priest blamed him for at
confession. ‘Of course they are sins. But then, did I take them on of myself?
That’s evidently how God made me. Well, and the sins? Where am I to
escape to?’
So at first he thought of what might happen to him that night, and then
did not return to such thoughts but gave himself up to whatever

recollections came into his head of themselves. Now he thought of Martha’s
arrival, of the drunkenness among the workers and his own renunciation of
drink, then of their present journey and of Taras’s house and the talk about
the breaking-up of the family, then of his own lad, and of Mukhorty now
sheltered under the drugget, and then of his master who made the sledge
creak as he tossed about in it. ‘I expect you’re sorry yourself that you
started out, dear man,’ he thought. ‘It would seem hard to leave a life such
as his! It’s not like the likes of us.’
Then all these recollections began to grow confused and got mixed in his
head, and he fell asleep.
But when Vasili Andreevich, getting on the horse, jerked the sledge,
against the back of which Nikita was leaning, and it shifted away and hit
him in the back with one of its runners, he awoke and had to change his
position whether he liked it or not. Straightening his legs with difficulty and
shaking the snow off them he got up, and an agonizing cold immediately
penetrated his whole body. On making out what was happening he called to
Vasili Andreevich to leave him the drugget which the horse no longer
needed, so that he might wrap himself in it.
But Vasili Andreevich did not stop, but disappeared amid the powdery
snow.
Left alone Nikita considered for a moment what he should do. He felt
that he had not the strength to go off in search of a house. It was no longer
possible to sit down in his old place—it was by now all filled with snow. He
felt that he could not get warmer in the sledge either, for there was nothing
to cover himself with, and his coat and sheepskin no longer warmed him at
all. He felt as cold as though he had nothing on but a shirt. He became
frightened. ‘Lord, heavenly Father!’ he muttered, and was comforted by the
consciousness that he was not alone but that there was One who heard him
and would not abandon him. He gave a deep sigh, and keeping the
sackcloth over his head he got inside the sledge and lay down in the place
where his master had been.
But he could not get warm in the sledge either. At first he shivered all
over, then the shivering ceased and little by little he began to lose
consciousness. He did not know whether he was dying or falling asleep, but
felt equally prepared for the one as for the other.

VIII
Meanwhile Vasili Andreevich, with his feet and the ends of the reins,
urged the horse on in the direction in which for some reason he expected the
forest and forester’s hut to be. The snow covered his eyes and the wind
seemed intent on stopping him, but bending forward and constantly lapping
his coat over and pushing it between himself and the cold harness pad
which prevented him from sitting properly, he kept urging the horse on.
Mukhorty ambled on obediently though with difficulty, in the direction in
which he was driven.
Vasili Andreevich rode for about five minutes straight ahead, as he
thought, seeing nothing but the horse’s head and the white waste, and
hearing only the whistle of the wind about the horse’s ears and his coat
collar.
Suddenly a dark patch showed up in front of him. His heart beat with joy,
and he rode towards the object, already seeing in imagination the walls of
village houses. But the dark patch was not stationary, it kept moving; and it
was not a village but some tall stalks of wormwood sticking up through the
snow on the boundary between two fields, and desperately tossing about
under the pressure of the wind which beat it all to one side and whistled
through it. The sight of that wormwood tormented by the pitiless wind
made Vasili Andreevich shudder, he knew not why, and he hurriedly began
urging the horse on, not noticing that when riding up to the wormwood he
had quite changed his direction and was now heading the opposite way,
though still imagining that he was riding towards where the hut should be.
But the horse kept making towards the right, and Vasili Andreevich kept
guiding it to the left.
Again something dark appeared in front of him. Again he rejoiced,
convinced that now it was certainly a village. But once more it was the
same boundary line overgrown with wormwood, once more the same
wormwood desperately tossed by the wind and carrying unreasoning terror
to his heart. But its being the same wormwood was not all, for beside it
there was a horse’s track partly snowed over. Vasili Andreevich stopped,
stooped down and looked carefully. It was a horse-track only partially

covered with snow, and could be none but his own horse’s hoofprints. He
had evidently gone round in a small circle. ‘I shall perish like that!’ he
thought, and not to give way to his terror he urged on the horse still more,
peering into the snowy darkness in which he saw only flitting and fitful
points of light. Once he thought he heard the barking of dogs or the howling
of wolves, but the sounds were so faint and indistinct that he did not know
whether he heard them or merely imagined them, and he stopped and began
to listen intently.
Suddenly some terrible, deafening cry resounded near his ears, and
everything shivered and shook under him. He seized Mukhorty’s neck, but
that too was shaking all over and the terrible cry grew still more frightful.
For some seconds Vasili Andreevich could not collect himself or understand
what was happening. It was only that Mukhorty, whether to encourage
himself or to call for help, had neighed loudly and resonantly. ‘Ugh, you
wretch! How you frightened me, damn you!’ thought Vasili Andreevich. But
even when he understood the cause of his terror he could not shake it off.
‘I must calm myself and think things over,’ he said to himself, but yet he
could not stop, and continued to urge the horse on, without noticing that he
was now going with the wind instead of against it. His body, especially
between his legs where it touched the pad of the harness and was not
covered by his overcoats, was getting painfully cold, especially when the
horse walked slowly. His legs and arms trembled and his breathing came
fast. He saw himself perishing amid this dreadful snowy waste, and could
see no means of escape.
Suddenly the horse under him tumbled into something and, sinking into a
snow-drift, began to plunge and fell on his side. Vasili Andreevich jumped
off, and in so doing dragged to one side the breechband on which his foot
was resting, and twisted round the pad to which he held as he dismounted.
As soon as he had jumped off, the horse struggled to his feet, plunged
forward, gave one leap and another, neighed again, and dragging the
drugget and the breechband after him, disappeared, leaving Vasili
Andreevich alone on the snow-drift.
The latter pressed on after the horse, but the snow lay so deep and his
coats were so heavy that, sinking above his knees at each step, he stopped
breathless after taking not more than twenty steps. ‘The copse, the oxen, the
lease-hold, the shop, the tavern, the house with the iron-roofed barn, and

my heir,’ thought he. ‘How can I leave all that? What does this mean? It
cannot be!’ These thoughts flashed through his mind. Then he thought of
the wormwood tossed by the wind, which he had twice ridden past, and he
was seized with such terror that he did not believe in the reality of what was
happening to him. ‘Can this be a dream?’ he thought, and tried to wake up
but could not. It was real snow that lashed his face and covered him and
chilled his right hand from which he had lost the glove, and this was a real
desert in which he was now left alone like that wormwood, awaiting an
inevitable, speedy, and meaningless death.
‘Queen of Heaven! Holy Father Nicholas, teacher of temperance!’ he
thought, recalling the service of the day before and the holy icon with its
black face and gilt frame, and the tapers which he sold to be set before that
icon and which were almost immediately brought back to him scarcely
burnt at all, and which he put away in the store-chest. He began to pray to
that same Nicholas the Wonder-Worker to save him, promising him a
thanksgiving service and some candles. But he clearly and indubitably
realized that the icon, its frame, the candles, the priest, and the thanksgiving
service, though very important and necessary in church, could do nothing
for him here, and that there was and could be no connexion between those
candles and services and his present disastrous plight. ‘I must not despair,’
he thought. ‘I must follow the horse’s track before it is snowed under. He
will lead me out, or I may even catch him. Only I must not hurry, or I shall
stick fast and be more lost than ever.’
But in spite of his resolution to go quietly, he rushed forward and even
ran, continually falling, getting up and falling again. The horse’s track was
already hardly visible in places where the snow did not lie deep. ‘I am lost!’
thought Vasili Andreevich. ‘I shall lose the track and not catch the horse.’
But at that moment he saw something black. It was Mukhorty, and not only
Mukhorty, but the sledge with the shafts and the kerchief. Mukhorty, with
the sacking and the breechband twisted round to one side, was standing not
in his former place but nearer to the shafts, shaking his head which the reins
he was stepping on drew downwards. It turned out that Vasili Andreevich
had sunk in the same ravine Nikita had previously fallen into, and that
Mukhorty had been bringing him back to the sledge and he had got off his
back no more than fifty paces from where the sledge was.

IX
Having stumbled back to the sledge Vasili Andreevich caught hold of it
and for a long time stood motionless, trying to calm himself and recover his
breath. Nikita was not in his former place, but something, already covered
with snow, was lying in the sledge and Vasili Andreevich concluded that
this was Nikita. His terror had now quite left him, and if he felt any fear it
was lest the dreadful terror should return that he had experienced when on
the horse and especially when he was left alone in the snow-drift. At any
cost he had to avoid that terror, and to keep it away he must do something—
occupy himself with something. And the first thing he did was to turn his
back to the wind and open his fur coat. Then, as soon as he recovered his
breath a little, he shook the snow out of his boots and out of his left-hand
glove (the right-hand glove was hopelessly lost and by this time probably
lying somewhere under a dozen inches of snow); then as was his custom
when going out of his shop to buy grain from the peasants, he pulled his
girdle low down and tightened it and prepared for action. The first thing that
occurred to him was to free Mukhorty’s leg from the rein. Having done that,
and tethered him to the iron cramp at the front of the sledge where he had
been before, he was going round the horse’s quarters to put the breechband
and pad straight and cover him with the cloth, but at that moment he noticed
that something was moving in the sledge and Nikita’s head rose up out of
the snow that covered it. Nikita, who was half frozen, rose with great
difficulty and sat up, moving his hand before his nose in a strange manner
just as if he were driving away flies. He waved his hand and said
something, and seemed to Vasili Andreevich to be calling him. Vasili
Andreevich left the cloth unadjusted and went up to the sledge.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m dy... ing, that’s what,’ said Nikita brokenly and with difficulty. ‘Give
what is owing to me to my lad, or to my wife, no matter.’
‘Why, are you really frozen?’ asked Vasili Andreevich.
‘I feel it’s my death. Forgive me for Christ’s sake...’ said Nikita in a
tearful voice, continuing to wave his hand before his face as if driving away

flies.
Vasili Andreevich stood silent and motionless for half a minute. Then
suddenly, with the same resolution with which he used to strike hands when
making a good purchase, he took a step back and turning up his sleeves
began raking the snow off Nikita and out of the sledge. Having done this he
hurriedly undid his girdle, opened out his fur coat, and having pushed
Nikita down, lay down on top of him, covering him not only with his fur
coat but with the whole of his body, which glowed with warmth. After
pushing the skirts of his coat between Nikita and the sides of the sledge, and
holding down its hem with his knees, Vasili Andreevich lay like that face
down, with his head pressed against the front of the sledge. Here he no
longer heard the horse’s movements or the whistling of the wind, but only
Nikita’s breathing. At first and for a long time Nikita lay motionless, then
he sighed deeply and moved.
‘There, and you say you are dying! Lie still and get warm, that’s our
way...’ began Vasili Andreevich.
But to his great surprise he could say no more, for tears came to his eyes
and his lower jaw began to quiver rapidly. He stopped speaking and only
gulped down the risings in his throat. ‘Seems I was badly frightened and
have gone quite weak,’ he thought. But this weakness was not only
unpleasant, but gave him a peculiar joy such as he had never felt before.
‘That’s our way!’ he said to himself, experiencing a strange and solemn
tenderness. He lay like that for a long time, wiping his eyes on the fur of his
coat and tucking under his knee the right skirt, which the wind kept turning
up.
But he longed so passionately to tell somebody of his joyful condition
that he said: ‘Nikita!’
‘It’s comfortable, warm!’ came a voice from beneath.
‘There, you see, friend, I was going to perish. And you would have been
frozen, and I should have...’
But again his jaws began to quiver and his eyes to fill with tears, and he
could say no more.
‘Well, never mind,’ he thought. ‘I know about myself what I know.’
He remained silent and lay like that for a long time.

Nikita kept him warm from below and his fur coats from above. Only his
hands, with which he kept his coat-skirts down round Nikita’s sides, and his
legs which the wind kept uncovering, began to freeze, especially his right
hand which had no glove. But he did not think of his legs or of his hands
but only of how to warm the peasant who was lying under him. He looked
out several times at Mukhorty and could see that his back was uncovered
and the drugget and breeching lying on the snow, and that he ought to get
up and cover him, but he could not bring himself to leave Nikita and disturb
even for a moment the joyous condition he was in. He no longer felt any
kind of terror.
‘No fear, we shan’t lose him this time!’ he said to himself, referring to his
getting the peasant warm with the same boastfulness with which he spoke
of his buying and selling.
Vasili Andreevich lay in that way for one hour, another, and a third, but
he was unconscious of the passage of time. At first impressions of the
snow-storm, the sledge-shafts, and the horse with the shaft-bow shaking
before his eyes, kept passing through his mind, then he remembered Nikita
lying under him, then recollections of the festival, his wife, the police-
officer, and the box of candles, began to mingle with these; then again
Nikita, this time lying under that box, then the peasants, customers and
traders, and the white walls of his house with its iron roof with Nikita lying
underneath, presented themselves to his imagination. Afterwards all these
impressions blended into one nothingness. As the colours of the rainbow
unite into one white light, so all these different impressions mingled into
one, and he fell asleep.
For a long time he slept without dreaming, but just before dawn the
visions recommenced. It seemed to him that he was standing by the box of
tapers and that Tikhon’s wife was asking for a five kopek taper for the
Church fete. He wished to take one out and give it to her, but his hands
would not lift, being held tight in his pockets. He wanted to walk round the
box but his feet would not move and his new clean goloshes had grown to
the stone floor, and he could neither lift them nor get his feet out of the
goloshes. Then the taper-box was no longer a box but a bed, and suddenly
Vasili Andreevich saw himself lying in his bed at home. He was lying in his
bed and could not get up. Yet it was necessary for him to get up because
Ivan Matveich, the police-officer, would soon call for him and he had to go

with him—either to bargain for the forest or to put Mukhorty’s breeching
straight.
He asked his wife: ‘Nikolaevna, hasn’t he come yet?’ ‘No, he hasn’t,’ she
replied. He heard someone drive up to the front steps. ‘It must be him.’ ‘No,
he’s gone past.’ ‘Nikolaevna! I say, Nikolaevna, isn’t he here yet?’ ‘No.’ He
was still lying on his bed and could not get up, but was always waiting. And
this waiting was uncanny and yet joyful. Then suddenly his joy was
completed. He whom he was expecting came; not Ivan Matveich the police-
officer, but someone else—yet it was he whom he had been waiting for. He
came and called him; and it was he who had called him and told him to lie
down on Nikita. And Vasili Andreevich was glad that that one had come for
him.
‘I’m coming!’ he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him
up not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to
get up but could not, tried to move his arm and could not, to move his leg
and also could not, to turn his head and could not. He was surprised but not
at all disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was not at all
disturbed by that either.
He remembered that Nikita was lying under him and that he had got
warm and was alive, and it seemed to him that he was Nikita and Nikita
was he, and that his life was not in himself but in Nikita. He strained his
ears and heard Nikita breathing and even slightly snoring. ‘Nikita is alive,
so I too am alive!’ he said to himself triumphantly.
And he remembered his money, his shop, his house, the buying and
selling, and Mironov’s millions, and it was hard for him to understand why
that man, called Vasili Brekhunov, had troubled himself with all those
things with which he had been troubled.
‘Well, it was because he did not know what the real thing was,’ he
thought, concerning that Vasili Brekhunov. ‘He did not know, but now I
know and know for sure. Now I know!’ And again he heard the voice of the
one who had called him before. ‘I’m coming! Coming!’ he responded
gladly, and his whole being was filled with joyful emotion. He felt himself
free and that nothing could hold him back any longer.
After that Vasili Andreevich neither saw, heard, nor felt anything more in
this world.

All around the snow still eddied. The same whirlwinds of snow circled
about, covering the dead Vasili Andreevich’s fur coat, the shivering
Mukhorty, the sledge, now scarcely to be seen, and Nikita lying at the
bottom of it, kept warm beneath his dead master.

X
Nikita awoke before daybreak. He was aroused by the cold that had
begun to creep down his back. He had dreamt that he was coming from the
mill with a load of his master’s flour and when crossing the stream had
missed the bridge and let the cart get stuck. And he saw that he had crawled
under the cart and was trying to lift it by arching his back. But strange to
say the cart did not move, it stuck to his back and he could neither lift it nor
get out from under it. It was crushing the whole of his loins. And how cold
it felt! Evidently he must crawl out. ‘Have done!’ he exclaimed to whoever
was pressing the cart down on him. ‘Take out the sacks!’ But the cart
pressed down colder and colder, and then he heard a strange knocking,
awoke completely, and remembered everything. The cold cart was his dead
and frozen master lying upon him. And the knock was produced by
Mukhorty, who had twice struck the sledge with his hoof.
‘Andreevich! Eh, Andreevich!’ Nikita called cautiously, beginning to
realize the truth, and straightening his back. But Vasili Andreevich did not
answer and his stomach and legs were stiff and cold and heavy like iron
weights.
‘He must have died! May the Kingdom of Heaven be his!’ thought
Nikita.
He turned his head, dug with his hand through the snow about him and
opened his eyes. It was daylight; the wind was whistling as before between
the shafts, and the snow was falling in the same way, except that it was no
longer driving against the frame of the sledge but silently covered both
sledge and horse deeper and deeper, and neither the horse’s movements nor
his breathing were any longer to be heard.
‘He must have frozen too,’ thought Nikita of Mukhorty, and indeed those
hoof knocks against the sledge, which had awakened Nikita, were the last
efforts the already numbed Mukhorty had made to keep on his feet before
dying.
‘O Lord God, it seems Thou art calling me too!’ said Nikita. ‘Thy Holy
Will be done. But it’s uncanny.... Still, a man can’t die twice and must die

once. If only it would come soon!’
And he again drew in his head, closed his eyes, and became unconscious,
fully convinced that now he was certainly and finally dying.
It was not till noon that day that peasants dug Vasili Andreevich and
Nikita out of the snow with their shovels, not more than seventy yards from
the road and less than half a mile from the village.
The snow had hidden the sledge, but the shafts and the kerchief tied to
them were still visible. Mukhorty, buried up to his belly in snow, with the
breeching and drugget hanging down, stood all white, his dead head pressed
against his frozen throat: icicles hung from his nostrils, his eyes were
covered with hoar-frost as though filled with tears, and he had grown so
thin in that one night that he was nothing but skin and bone.
Vasili Andreevich was stiff as a frozen carcass, and when they rolled him
off Nikita his legs remained apart and his arms stretched out as they had
been. His bulging hawk eyes were frozen, and his open mouth under his
clipped moustache was full of snow. But Nikita though chilled through was
still alive. When he had been brought to, he felt sure that he was already
dead and that what was taking place with him was no longer happening in
this world but in the next. When he heard the peasants shouting as they dug
him out and rolled the frozen body of Vasili Andreevich from off him, he
was at first surprised that in the other world peasants should be shouting in
the same old way and had the same kind of body, and then when he realized
that he was still in this world he was sorry rather than glad, especially when
he found that the toes on both his feet were frozen.
Nikita lay in hospital for two months. They cut off three of his toes, but
the others recovered so that he was still able to work and went on living for
another twenty years, first as a farm-labourer, then in his old age as a
watchman. He died at home as he had wished, only this year, under the
icons with a lighted taper in his hands. Before he died he asked his wife’s
forgiveness and forgave her for the cooper. He also took leave of his son
and grandchildren, and died sincerely glad that he was relieving his son and
daughter-in-law of the burden of having to feed him, and that he was now
really passing from this life of which he was weary into that other life
which every year and every hour grew clearer and more desirable to him.
Whether he is better or worse off there where he awoke after his death,

whether he was disappointed or found there what he expected, we shall all
soon learn.

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