It was already about midnight, I judge, when the little old man and
Vasíli, who had gone in search of the runaway horses, rejoined us. They
had caught the horses, and had now overtaken us; but how in the world
they had accomplished this in the thick, blinding snowstorm, in the
midst of the bare steppe, was more than I could comprehend. The little
old man, with his elbows and legs flying, came trotting up on the
shaft-horse (the two other horses he had caught by the collars; it was
impossible to lead them in the snowstorm). When they had caught up with
me, he began to scold at my driver.
"You see, you cross-eyed devil! you"--
"O Uncle Mitritch,"[10] cried the talkative fellow in the second
sledge, "you alive? Come along where we are!"
The old man did not answer him, but continued to scold. When he had
satisfied himself, he rejoined the second sledge.
"Get em all?" was asked him.
"Why, of course we did."
And his small figure leaped up and down on the horse's back as he
went off at full trot; then he sprang down into the snow, and without
stopping caught up with the sledge, and sat in it with his legs
hanging over the side. The tall Vasíli, just as before, took his place
in perfect silence in the front sledge with Ignashka; and then the two
began to look for the road together.
"What a spitfire! Great heavens!" muttered my driver.
For a long time after this we drove on without stopping, over the white
waste, in the cold, pellucid, and wavering light of the snowstorm. When
I opened my eyes, there before me rose the same clumsy, snow-covered
cap; the same low _dugá_ or bell-bow, under which, between the leathern
reins tightly stretched, there moved always at the same distance the
head of the shaft-horse with the black mane blown to one side by the
wind. And I could see, above his back, the brown off-horse on the
right, with his short braided tail, and the whiffletree sometimes
knocking against the dasher of the sleigh. If I looked below, then I
saw the scurrying snow stirred up by the runners, and constantly tossed
and borne by the wind to one side. In front of me, always at the same
distance, glided the other troïkas. To left and right, all was white
and bewildering. Vainly the eye sought for any new object: neither
verst-post, nor hayrick, nor fence was to be seen; nothing at all.
Everywhere, all was white, white and fluctuating. Now the horizon seems
to be indistinguishably distant, then it comes down within two steps
on every side; now suddenly a high white wall grows up on the right,
and accompanies the course of the sledges, then it suddenly vanishes,
and grows up in front, only to glide on in advance, farther and farther
away, and disappear again.
As I look up, it seems light. At the first moment, I imagine that
through the mist I see the stars; but the stars, as I gaze, flee into
deeper and deeper depths, and I see only the snow falling into face
and eyes, and the collar of my fur coat;[11] the sky has everywhere
one tone of light, one tone of white,--colorless, monotonous, and
constantly shifting. The wind seems to vary: at one moment it blows
into my face, and flings the snow into my eyes; the next it goes to one
side, and peevishly tosses the collar of my shuba over my head, and
insultingly slaps me in the face with it; then it finds some crevice
behind, and plays a tune upon it. I hear the soft, unceasing crunching
of the hoofs and the runners on the snow, and the muffled tinkling of
the bells, as we speed over the deep snow. Only occasionally when we
drive against the wind, and glide over the bare frozen crust, I can
clearly distinguish Ignat's energetic whistling, and the full chords
of the chime, with the resounding jarring fifth; and these sounds
break suddenly and comfortingly upon the melancholy character of the
desert; and then again rings monotonously, with unendurable fidelity of
execution, the whole of that motive which involuntarily coincides with
my thoughts.
One of my feet began to feel cold, and when I turned round so as to
protect it better, the snow which covered my collar and my cap sifted
down my neck, and made me shiver; but still I was, for the most,
comfortable in my warm shuba, and drowsiness overcame me.
[Footnote 10: Condensed form for Dmitriyévitch, "son of Dmitri." The
peasants often call each other by the patronymic.]
[Footnote 11: _shuba._]