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.