Master and Man
able to get out in the morning!’ he thought, listening to a gust of wind
that blew against the front of the sledge, bending it and lashing the
snow against it. He raised himself and looked round. All he could see
through the whirling darkness was Mukhorty’s dark head, his back covered
by the fluttering drugget, and his thick knotted tail; while all round,
in front and behind, was the same fluctuating whity darkness, sometimes
seeming to get a little lighter and sometimes growing denser still.
‘A pity I listened to Nikita,’ he thought. ‘We ought to have driven on.
We should have come out somewhere, if only back to Grishkino and stayed
the night at Taras’s. As it is we must sit here all night. But what was
I thinking about? Yes, that God gives to those who take trouble, but not
to loafers, lie-abeds, or fools. I must have a smoke!’
He sat down again, got out his cigarette-case, and stretched himself
flat on his stomach, screening the matches with the skirt of his coat.
But the wind found its way in and put out match after match. At last
he got one to burn and lit a cigarette. He was very glad that he had
managed to do what he wanted, and though the wind smoked more of the
cigarette than he did, he still got two or three puffs and felt more
cheerful. He again leant back, wrapped himself up, started reflecting
and remembering, and suddenly and quite unexpectedly lost consciousness
and fell asleep.
Suddenly something seemed to give him a push and awoke him. Whether
it was Mukhorty who had pulled some straw from under him, or whether
something within him had startled him, at all events it woke him, and
his heart began to beat faster and faster so that the sledge seemed to
tremble under him. He opened his eyes. Everything around him was just
as before. ‘It looks lighter,’ he thought. ‘I expect it won’t be long
before dawn.’ But he at once remembered that it was lighter because the
moon had risen. He sat up and looked first at the horse. Mukhorty still
stood with his back to the wind, shivering all over. One side of the
drugget, which was completely covered with snow, had been blown back,
the breeching had slipped down and the snow-covered head with its waving
forelock and mane were now more visible. Vasili Andreevich leant over
the back of the sledge and looked behind. Nikita still sat in the same
position in which he had settled himself. The sacking with which he was
covered, and his legs, were thickly covered with snow.
‘If only that peasant doesn’t freeze to death! His clothes are so
wretched. I may be held responsible for him. What shiftless people they
are--such a want of education,’ thought Vasili Andreevich, and he felt
like taking the drugget off the horse and putting it over Nikita, but
it would be very cold to get out and move about and, moreover, the horse
might freeze to death. ‘Why did I bring him with me? It was all her
stupidity!’ he thought, recalling his unloved wife, and he rolled over
into his old place at the front part of the sledge. ‘My uncle once spent
a whole night like this,’ he reflected, ‘and was all right.’ But another
case came at once to his mind. ‘But when they dug Sebastian out he was
dead--stiff like a frozen carcass. If I’d only stopped the night in
Grishkino all this would not have happened!’
And wrapping his coat carefully round him so that none of the warmth of
the fur should be wasted but should warm him all over, neck, knees, and
feet, he shut his eyes and tried to sleep again. But try as he would he
could not get drowsy, on the contrary he felt wide awake and animated.
Again he began counting his gains and the debts due to him, again he
began bragging to himself and feeling pleased with himself and his
position, but all this was continually disturbed by a stealthily
approaching fear and by the unpleasant regret that he had not remained
in Grishkino.
‘How different it would be to be lying warm on a bench!’
He turned over several times in his attempts to get into a more
comfortable position more sheltered from the wind, he wrapped up his
legs closer, shut his eyes, and lay still. But either his legs in their
strong felt boots began to ache from being bent in one position, or the
wind blew in somewhere, and after lying still for a short time he again
began to recall the disturbing fact that he might now have been lying
quietly in the warm hut at Grishkino. He again sat up, turned about,
muffled himself up, and settled down once more.
Once he fancied that he heard a distant cock-crow. He felt glad, turned
down his coat-collar and listened with strained attention, but in spite
of all his efforts nothing could be heard but the wind whistling between
the shafts, the flapping of the kerchief, and the snow pelting against
the frame of the sledge.
Nikita sat just as he had done all the time, not moving and not even
answering Vasili Andreevich who had addressed him a couple of times.
‘He doesn’t care a bit--he’s probably asleep!’ thought Vasili Andreevich
with vexation, looking behind the sledge at Nikita who was covered with
a thick layer of snow.
Vasili Andreevich got up and lay down again some twenty times. It
seemed to him that the night would never end. ‘It must be getting near
morning,’ he thought, getting up and looking around. ‘Let’s have a look
at my watch. It will be cold to unbutton, but if I only know that it’s
getting near morning I shall at any rate feel more cheerful. We could
begin harnessing.’
In the depth of his heart Vasili Andreevich knew that it could not yet
be near morning, but he was growing more and more afraid, and wished
both to get to know and yet to deceive himself. He carefully undid the
fastening of his sheepskin, pushed in his hand, and felt about for
a long time before he got to his waistcoat. With great difficulty he
managed to draw out his silver watch with its enamelled flower design,
and tried to make out the time. He could not see anything without a
light. Again he went down on his knees and elbows as he had done when he
lighted a cigarette, got out his matches, and proceeded to strike one.
This time he went to work more carefully, and feeling with his fingers
for a match with the largest head and the greatest amount of phosphorus,
lit it at the first try. Bringing the face of the watch under the light
he could hardly believe his eyes.... It was only ten minutes past
twelve. Almost the whole night was still before him.
‘Oh, how long the night is!’ he thought, feeling a cold shudder run down
his back, and having fastened his fur coats again and wrapped himself
up, he snuggled into a corner of the sledge intending to wait
patiently. Suddenly, above the monotonous roar of the wind, he clearly
distinguished another new and living sound. It steadily strengthened,
and having become quite clear diminished just as gradually. Beyond all
doubt it was a wolf, and he was so near that the movement of his jaws as
he changed his cry was brought down the wind. Vasili Andreevich turned
back the collar of his coat and listened attentively. Mukhorty too
strained to listen, moving his ears, and when the wolf had ceased its
howling he shifted from foot to foot and gave a warning snort. After
this Vasili Andreevich could not fall asleep again or even calm
himself. The more he tried to think of his accounts, his business, his
reputation, his worth and his wealth, the more and more was he mastered
by fear, and regrets that he had not stayed the night at Grishkino
dominated and mingled in all his thoughts.
‘Devil take the forest! Things were all right without it, thank God. Ah,
if we had only put up for the night!’ he said to himself. ‘They say it’s
drunkards that freeze,’ he thought, ‘and I have had some drink.’ And
observing his sensations he noticed that he was beginning to shiver,
without knowing whether it was from cold or from fear. He tried to wrap
himself up and lie down as before, but could no longer do so. He could
not stay in one position. He wanted to get up, to do something to master
the gathering fear that was rising in him and against which he felt
himself powerless. He again got out his cigarettes and matches, but only
three matches were left and they were bad ones. The phosphorus rubbed
off them all without lighting.
‘The devil take you! Damned thing! Curse you!’ he muttered, not knowing
whom or what he was cursing, and he flung away the crushed cigarette.
He was about to throw away the matchbox too, but checked the movement of
his hand and put the box in his pocket instead. He was seized with such
unrest that he could no longer remain in one spot. He climbed out of the
sledge and standing with his back to the wind began to shift his belt
again, fastening it lower down in the waist and tightening it.
‘What’s the use of lying and waiting for death? Better mount the horse
and get away!’ The thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘The horse will
move when he has someone on his back. As for him,’ he thought of
Nikita--‘it’s all the same to him whether he lives or dies. What is his
life worth? He won’t grudge his life, but I have something to live for,
thank God.’
He untied the horse, threw the reins over his neck and tried to mount,
but his coats and boots were so heavy that he failed. Then he clambered
up in the sledge and tried to mount from there, but the sledge tilted
under his weight, and he failed again. At last he drew Mukhorty nearer
to the sledge, cautiously balanced on one side of it, and managed to
lie on his stomach across the horse’s back. After lying like that for a
while he shifted forward once and again, threw a leg over, and finally
seated himself, supporting his feet on the loose breeching-straps. The
shaking of the sledge awoke Nikita. He raised himself, and it seemed to
Vasili Andreevich that he said something.
‘Listen to such fools as you! Am I to die like this for nothing?’
exclaimed Vasili Andreevich. And tucking the loose skirts of his fur
coat in under his knees, he turned the horse and rode away from
the sledge in the direction in which he thought the forest and the
forester’s hut must be.
VII
From the time he had covered himself with the sackcloth and seated
himself behind the sledge, Nikita had not stirred. Like all those who
live in touch with nature and have known want, he was patient and could
wait for hours, even days, without growing restless or irritable. He
heard his master call him, but did not answer because he did not want to
move or talk. Though he still felt some warmth from the tea he had drunk
and from his energetic struggle when clambering about in the snowdrift,
he knew that this warmth would not last long and that he had no strength
left to warm himself again by moving about, for he felt as tired as a
horse when it stops and refuses to go further in spite of the whip, and
its master sees that it must be fed before it can work again. The foot
in the boot with a hole in it had already grown numb, and he could no
longer feel his big toe. Besides that, his whole body began to feel
colder and colder.
The thought that he might, and very probably would, die that night
occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful.
It did not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been
not a continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of
toil of which he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem
particularly dreadful, because besides the masters he had served here,
like Vasili Andreevich, he always felt himself dependent on the Chief
Master, who had sent him into this life, and he knew that when dying he
would still be in that Master’s power and would not be ill-used by Him.
‘It seems a pity to give up what one is used to and accustomed to. But
there’s nothing to be done, I shall get used to the new things.’