Part 11

‘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.