'Yes; what are you called?'
'Why my name 'ull be--Filofey.'
'Well, then, friend Filofey; I hear you have horses. Bring a team of
three here--we'll put them in my coach--it's a light one--and you drive
me in to Tula. There's a moon now at night; it's light, and it's cool
for driving. What sort of a road have you here?'
'The road? There's naught amiss with the road. To the main road it will
be sixteen miles--not more.... There's one little place... a bit
awkward; but naught amiss else.'
'What sort of little place is it that's awkward?'
'Well, we'll have to cross the river by the ford.'
'But are you thinking of going to Tula yourself?' inquired Yermolaï.
'Yes.'
'Oh!' commented my faithful servant with a shake of his head. 'Oh-oh!'
he repeated; then he spat on the floor and walked out of the room.
The expedition to Tula obviously no longer presented any features of
interest to him; it had become for him a dull and unattractive business.
'Do you know the road well?' I said, addressing Filofey.
'Surely, we know the road! Only, so to say, please your honour, can't...
so on the sudden, so to say...'
It appeared that Yermolaï, on engaging Filofey, had stated that he could
be sure that, fool as he was, he'd be paid... and nothing more!
Filofey, fool as he was--in Yermolaï's words--was not satisfied with
this statement alone. He demanded, of me fifty roubles--an exorbitant
price; I offered him ten--a low price. We fell to haggling; Filofey at
first was stubborn; then he began to come down, but slowly. Yermolaï
entering for an instant began assuring me, 'that fool--('He's fond of
the word, seemingly!' Filofey remarked in a low voice)--'that fool can't
reckon money at all,' and reminded me how twenty years ago a posting
tavern established by my mother at the crossing of two high-roads came
to complete grief from the fact that the old house-serf who was put
there to manage it positively did not understand reckoning money, but
valued sums simply by the number of coins--in fact, gave silver coins in
change for copper, though he would swear furiously all the time.
'Ugh, you Filofey! you're a regular Filofey!' Yermolaï jeered at
last--and he went out, slamming the door angrily.
Filofey made him no reply, as though admitting that to be called Filofey
was--as a fact--not very clever of him, and that a man might fairly be
reproached for such a name, though really it was the village priest was
to blame in the matter for not having done better by him at his
christening.
At last we agreed, however, on the sum of twenty roubles. He went off
for the horses, and an hour later brought five for me to choose from.
The horses turned out to be fairly good, though their manes and tails
were tangled, and their bellies round and taut as drums. With Filofey
came two of his brothers, not in the least like him. Little, black-eyed,
sharp-nosed fellows, they certainly produced the impression of 'smart
chaps'; they talked a great deal, very fast--'clacked away,' as Yermolaï
expressed it--but obeyed the elder brother.
They dragged the coach out of the shed and were busy about it and the
horses for an hour and a half; first they let out the traces, which were
of cord, then pulled them too tight again! Both brothers were very much
set on harnessing the 'roan' in the shafts, because 'him can do best
going down-hill'; but Filofey decided for 'the shaggy one.' So the
shaggy one was put in the shafts accordingly.
They heaped the coach up with hay, put the collar off the lame
shaft-horse under the seat, in case we might want to fit it on to the
horse to be bought at Tula.... Filofey, who had managed to run home and
come back in a long, white, loose, ancestral overcoat, a high sugar-loaf
cap, and tarred boots, clambered triumphantly up on to the box. I took
my seat, looking at my watch: it was a quarter past ten. Yermolaï did
not even say good-bye to me--he was engaged in beating his
Valetka--Filofey tugged at the reins, and shouted in a thin, thin voice:
'Hey! you little ones!'
His brothers skipped away on both sides, lashed the trace-horses under
the belly, and the coach started, turned out of the gates into the
street, the shaggy one tried to turn off towards his own home, but
Filofey brought him to reason with a few strokes of the whip, and
behold! we were already out of the village, and rolling along a fairly
even road, between close-growing bushes of thick hazels.
It was a still, glorious night, the very nicest for driving. A breeze
rustled now and then in the bushes, set the twigs swinging and died away
again; in the sky could be seen motionless, silvery clouds; the moon
stood high and threw a bright light on all around. I stretched myself on
the hay, and was just beginning to doze... but I remembered the
'awkward place,' and started up.
'I say, Filofey, is it far to the ford?'
'To the ford? It'll be near upon seven miles.'
'Seven miles!' I mused. 'We shan't get there for another hour. I can
have a nap meanwhile. Filofey, do you know the road well?' I asked
again.
'Surely; how could I fail to know it? It's not the first time I've
driven.'
He said something more, but I had ceased to listen.... I was asleep.
I was awakened not, as often happens, by my own intention of waking in
exactly an hour, but by a sort of strange, though faint, lapping,
gurgling sound at my very ear. I raised my head....
Wonderful to relate! I was lying in the coach as before, but all round
the coach, half a foot, not more, from its edge, a sheet of water lay
shining in the moonlight, broken up into tiny, distinct, quivering
eddies. I looked in front. On the box, with back bowed and head bent,
Filofey was sitting like a statue, and a little further on, above the
rippling water, I saw the curved arch of the yoke, and the horses' heads
and backs. And everything as motionless, as noiseless, as though in some
enchanted realm, in a dream--a dream of fairyland.... 'What does it
mean?' I looked back from under the hood of the coach.... 'Why, we are
in the middle of the river!'... the bank was thirty paces from us.
'Filofey!' I cried.
'What?' he answered.
'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?'
'In the river.'
'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly.
Is this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer,
do!'
'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide;
'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.'
'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?'
'Well, we must let the shaggy one look about him; which way he turns his
head, that way we've got to go.'
I raised myself on the hay. The shaft-horse's head stood quite
motionless. Above the head one could only see in the bright moonlight
one ear slightly twitching backwards and forwards.
'Why, he's asleep too, your shaggy one!'
'No,' responded Filofey,' 'he's sniffing the water now.'
And everything was still again; there was only the faint gurgle of the
water as before. I sank into a state of torpor.
Moonlight, and night, and the river, and we in it....
'What is that croaking noise?' I asked Filofey.
'That? Ducks in the reeds... or else snakes.'
All of a sudden the head of the shaft-horse shook, his ears pricked up;
he gave a snort, began to move. 'Ho-ho, ho-ho-o!' Filofey began suddenly
bawling at the top of his voice; he sat up and brandished the whip. The
coach was at once tugged away from where it had stuck, it plunged
forward, cleaving the waters of the river, and moved along, swaying and
lurching from side to side.... At first it seemed to me we were sinking,
getting deeper; however, after two or three tugs and jolts, the expanse
of water seemed suddenly lower.... It got lower and lower, the coach
seemed to grow up out of it, and now the wheels and the horses' tails
could be seen, and now stirring with a mighty splashing of big drops,
scattering showers of diamonds--no, not diamonds--sapphires in the dull
brilliance of the moon, the horses with a spirited pull all together
drew us on to the sandy bank and trotted along the road to the
hill-side, their shining white legs flashing in rivalry.
'What will Filofey say now?' was the thought that glanced through my
mind; 'you see I was right!' or something of that sort. But he said
nothing. So I too did not think it necessary to reproach him for
carelessness, and lying down in the hay, I tried again to go to sleep.
But I could not go to sleep, not because I was not tired from hunting,
and not because the exciting experience I had just been through had
dispelled my sleepiness: it was that we were driving through such very
beautiful country. There were liberal, wide-stretching, grassy riverside
meadows, with a multitude of small pools, little lakes, rivulets, creeks
overgrown at the ends with branches and osiers--a regular Russian scene,
such as Russians love, like the scenes amid which the heroes of our old
legends rode out to shoot white swans and grey ducks. The road we were
driven along wound in a yellowish ribbon, the horses ran lightly--and I
could not close my eyes. I was admiring! And it all floated by, softened
into harmony under the kindly light of the moon. Filofey--he too was
touched by it.
'Those meadows are called St. Yegor's,' he said, turning to me. 'And
beyond them come the Grand Duke's; there are no other meadows like them
in all Russia.... Ah, it's lovely!' The shaft-horse snorted and shook
itself.... 'God bless you,' commented Filofey gravely in an undertone.
'How lovely!' he repeated with a sigh; then he gave a long sort of
grunt. 'There, mowing time's just upon us, and think what hay they'll
rake up there!--regular mountains!--And there are lots of fish in the
creeks. Such bream!' he added in a sing-song voice. 'In one word, life's
sweet--one doesn't want to die.'
He suddenly raised his hand.
'Hullo! look-ee! over the lake... is it a crane standing there? Can it
be fishing at night? Bless me! it's a branch, not a crane. Well, that
was a mistake! But the moon is always so deceptive.'
So we drove on and on.... But now the end of the meadows had been
reached, little copses and ploughed fields came into view; a little
village flashed with two or three lights on one side--it was only four
miles now to the main road. I fell asleep.
Again I did not wake up of my own accord. This time I was roused by the
voice of Filofey.
'Master!... hey, master!'
I sat up. The coach was standing still on level ground in the very
middle of the high-road. Filofey, who had turned round on the box, so as
to face me, with wide-open eyes (I was positively surprised at them; I
couldn't have imagined he had such large eyes), was whispering with
mysterious significance:
'A rattle!... a rattle of wheels!'
'What do you say?'
'I say, there's a rattling! Bend down and listen. Do you hear it?'
I put my head out of the coach, held my breath, and did catch, somewhere
in the distance, far behind us, a faint broken sound, as of wheels
rolling.
'Do you hear it?' repeated Filofey.
'Well, yes,' I answered. 'Some vehicle is coming.'
'Oh, you don't hear... shoo! The tambourines... and whistling too....Do
you hear? Take off your cap... you will hear better.'