Master and Man
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