Leo Tolstoi

“ Brownie also involuntarily pressed down his ears and shook his head. No sooner had the gale abated somewhat, than Nikita, taking off his gauntlets and sticking them into his girdle, and blowing upon his hands to warm them, began to unfasten the harness from the shafts of the sledge.
"What are you about there?" asked Vasily Andreich.
"I am taking out the horse, what else is there to be done? I have no more strength left in me," answered Nikita, as if by way of apology.
"And you are not going anywhere out of this?"
"Going anywhere? No! We are only torturing the horse uselessly. ”

“ His prominent vulture-like eyes were frozen hard, his mouth beneath his well-clipped moustaches was full of snow. Nikita was still alive, though all frost-bitten. When they awoke Nikita he was persuaded that now indeed he was dead, and the things they were doing to him were going on not in this but in the other world. But when he heard the cries of the muzhiks digging him out, and saw them dragging from off him the stone-cold Vasily Andreich—he was at first astonished that even in that other world the muzhiks should make such a racket. ”

“ The thought that he might, and in all probability would die that very night, had occurred to him when he had sat down behind the sledge. Although still warm from the tea he had drunk, and from moving about so much among the snow-drifts, he knew that this warmth would not last long, and that he would not be able to warm himself any more by mere locomotion, for he felt himself growing very weary; he felt himself in the condition a horse feels himself to be when he stops short, and has to be fed in order that he may go on working. ”

“ The wind was still whistling through the shafts, and the snow was still sweeping down; but with this difference, that it was no longer smiting against them, but was noiselessly enveloping the sledge and the horse, rising ever higher and higher, and the movements and breathing of the horse were no longer audible. "He too must have frozen to death," thought Nikita of Brownie. And indeed those hoof-kicks against the sledge which had awakened Nikita had been the last dying efforts of the already half-frozen Brownie to keep his legs. ”

“ Some people think that making money is a mere joke. Not a bit of it, one has to take a little trouble, and rack one's brains about it. They think it's all a matter of luck. Look at the Mironovs, they are millionaires, and why? because they took trouble! God gives His help, too, no doubt; and ah! if He would but give the health and strength!" And the bare thought that he, too, like Mironov, who began the world with nothing—that he, too, might become just such another millionaire, so inspired Vasily Andreich that he felt the necessity of talking to someone else. ”

“ Look at him, poor old fellow! he is not himself," said Nikita, pointing at the horse standing patiently there, ready for anything, but well-nigh spent and with his flanks all wet and strained. "We must pass the night here," continued he, as if making up his mind to fix his night-quarters at some regular place of call, and he set about unloosening the strings of the horse-collar.
"But surely we shall be frozen?" cried Vasily Andreich. ”

“ The horse indeed kept on turning to the right, whilst he himself for that very reason twisted him round to the left.
Again something black appeared in front of him. He rejoiced, for now, he fancied, this was really the village. But it was again the boundary ridge overgrown with the weeds of the steppes. Again the steppe-grass shivered tremulously, thereby inspiring Vasily Andreich with terror. Nor was this all. Not only was this the selfsame steppe-grass that he had seen before, but close beside him was a horse's track, partly obliterated by the wind. ”

“ He strained his hearing, and could hear the faint breathing of Nikita. "Nikita is alive, and that is the same as my being alive!" he said to himself triumphantly. And a feeling quite new to him, a feeling he had never felt all his life long before, now came over him.
And he bethought him of his money, and his shop, and of his buying and selling, and of the millions of the Mironovs, and it was hard for him to understand why that man whom they called Vasily Brekhunov [9] had occupied himself with all those things which he had occupied himself with. ”

“ There ought to be a wood and a keeper's hut hereabouts. We ought to be hearing a dog too. Why can't the cussed things bark when they are wanted to bark?" He opened his collar a little and began to listen and look about him. The only thing visible in the darkness was the blackening head of Brownie, and his back, on which the large sack was flapping; and the only thing to be heard was the whistling of the wind, the fluttering and shivering of the piece of cloth on the upright sledge-shaft, and the pattering of the snow on the back of the sledge. ”

“ Nikita, from the time when he had sat him down wrapped up in the sacking at the back of the sledge, had sat immovable. Like all people who live naturally, and know something of want, he had grown to be long-suffering, and could wait calmly for hours, and even days, without experiencing either disquietude or irritation. ”

“ And, indeed, after forcing their way through the snow-drift they got upon the road again. On a rope in the furthermost courtyard some stiff-frozen clothes were fluttering desperately in the wind in every direction: two shirts, one red and one white; hose, socks, and a petticoat. The white shirt was turning about with particular desperation, and waving its sleeves.
"Look, there lives a lazy old woman, or else she is dead, for she has not taken down her washing against the feast," said Nikita, looking at the fluttering shirts. ”

“ At the moment when Nikita entered the room she was pouring out of a thick glass bottle a little glass of vodka for Vasily Andreich.
"Nay, but you must, Vasily Andreich. One must keep well, you know, this weather," the old man of the house was saying.
The sight and smell of the vodka, especially now, when he was half frozen and half dead with hunger, profoundly affected Nikita. He frowned, and, shaking his cap and kaftan free of snow, he planted himself in front of the holy images, and just as if he perceived nothing else, crossed himself thrice and made obeisance ”

“ With her head and her shoulders enveloped in woollen wraps, so that only her eyes were visible, the thin and pale-faced wife of Vasily Andreich accompanied him, standing behind him in the vestibule.
"Nay, indeed, you should take Nikita with you," said she, boldly emerging from the door. Vasily Andreich said nothing; he only spat on the ground. "You have got money with you," she continued in a lamentable sort of voice. "Yes, and the weather shows no signs of lifting. You ought indeed, God knows." ”

“ Vasily Andreich obeyed, and let the horse go on again as Nikita had commanded. They went on thus for a pretty long time. Sometimes they drove along over bare fields of vegetables, whose ridges and bounds peering above the snow were strewn with the dust of the earth. Sometimes they got among stubble fields, or among fields sown with winter corn, or fields sown with summer corn, in which appeared at intervals from underneath the snow, shaking in the wind, patches of straw or wormwood; sometimes they drove into deep white plains of snow, everywhere uniform, above which notching was visible. ”

“ Meanwhile Nikita put on the horse-collar, fastened on the saddle, which was well studded with brass nails, and holding in one hand a light-coloured shaft-bow and leading the horse by the other, went on to the two sledges standing beneath the shed.
"So it is to be the little one, is it — the little one?" he kept on repeating to himself as he led between the shafts the shrewd young horse, which was pretending it wanted to bite him all the time, and began attaching him thereto with the assistance of the man-cook. ”

“ Nikita slipped softly out of the sledge, and holding fast his khalat, which now clung tightly to him from the impact of the wind, and now was wrenched away from him and fluttered behind him, began picking his way through the snow, going first in one direction and then in another. Three times he was quite hidden from view. At last he returned, and took the reins out of the hands of Vasily Andreich.
"We must go to the right," said he, sternly and decidedly, turning the horse round. ”

“ The place is full of holes, and if we fall into one we should never get out again. I stuck so fast yonder that only with difficulty did I struggle out again."
"Well, don't stand there doing nothing. We must go somewhere, I suppose," cried Vasily Andreich.
Nikita made no answer. He sat him down on the sledge with his back to the wind, pulled off his boots and shook the snow out of them, and, gathering a handful of straw, proceeded carefully to stuff it into a hole inside his left boot. ”

“ In the place of honour at table sat Vasily Andreich, in a black half-pelisse, smoothing out his frozen moustaches, and blinking at all the people in the room with his prominent, hawk-like eyes. Besides Vasily Andreich, there were sitting at table a white-bearded, bald-headed old man, the master of the house, in a white shirt of home make; alongside of him, in a shirt of fine texture, with sturdy back and shoulders, his son who had come from Moscow for the feast ”

“ You have been building the place up all your life — and you are master here. Hand it over to the Mir people. They'll put it all to rights."
"They're such a set of sharpers," whined the old man, "that there's no doing anything at all with them. Plague take 'em!"
Nikita, meanwhile, having drunk five cups of tea, stood on one side without turning round, hoping that a sixth would be offered him. But there was no more water in the samovar; the hostess did not pour him out any more; and, what is more, Vasily Andreich stood up to put on his things. ”

“ Vasily Andreich went to the sledge, with difficulty making out in the darkness where it was, got into it, and seized the reins.
"Go on!" cried he.
Pete, kneeling in his own sledge, let his horse go. Brownie, scenting the mare in front of him, rushed after her, and they emerged into the road. Once more they passed through the village by the same road, past the courtyard where the frozen white clothes were fluttering in the wind (now, however, they were no longer visible) , past the outhouses which were snowed up almost to the roof, from which masses of snow plunged down incessantly ”

“ So he got out of the sledge, and standing with his back to the wind, began to gird himself up again tightly and low down.
"To go on lying down here means certain death. Up in the saddle and quick march!" was the idea that suddenly came into his head." Get once on the nag's back and he won't stop for anything. As for him " (it was Nikita he meant now) , "it doesn't much matter whether he dies or not. What sort of a life does he live—why, he wouldn't regret losing it one bit, I'm sure. But as for me, I really have got something to live for, thank God! ”

“ He spoke to the horse precisely as we speak to creatures which understand human speech, and he put the bridle on the handsome head of the stallion, comfortably adjusted its ears and mane, and seizing it by the halter, led it out to water. Cautiously making its way out of the high stable, Brownie began to sport and neigh, pretending, as he trotted along, that he wanted to hit with his hind leg Nikita, who was running with him to the well. ”

“ The good horse, unaccustomed to the whip, started forward at a trot, but very soon slackened down again to a walking pace. And so five minutes elapsed. It was so dark and misty above and below that sometimes the ends of the sledge were invisible. Sometimes the sledge seemed to be standing stock-still and the whole plain to be running backwards. ”

“ Vasily Andreich paid Nikita not at the rate of eighty roubles, as such a workman was well worth, but at the rate of forty roubles, which he gave him without any strict account, in driblets, and for the most part not in cash, but in wares out of his store, and at a dear rate.
The wife of Nikita, Martha, at one time a beauty, was a smart old woman, kept house at home, with a little lad and two girls to look after, and she did not call on Nikita to live at home, first because for twenty years she had been living with a cooper, a muzhik out of another village who dwelt with them in the house ”

“ It was plain to those standing in the courtyard that the snowstorm had increased in violence.
"It's quite a little storm," thought Vasily Andreich; "I half wish I wasn't going. But what's to be done? Business is business. ”

“ Nikita was a muzhik of about fifty years of age, from the neighbouring village; no householder, as people said — living for the greater part of his life not at home, but amongst the people. Everywhere was he prized for his painstaking and his skill and strength as a workman, but principally for his good, friendly character. ”

“ The thought of death was not particularly terrible, because he felt himself dependent not only upon those masters, like Vasily Andreich, whom he had served here below, but also upon that Chief Master who had sent him into this life, and he knew that even when he died he would still be in the power of that Master, and that that Master would do him no harm.
"'Tis a pity to chuck away as useless what one has lived into and got accustomed to ”

“ Or if God bade him wake up in that other world, where everything would be so new and joyful, just as things are all so new and joyful here below in our first childhood, with our mother's caresses, and the games with other children, and the pleasant woods and meadows, and skating and sliding in the winter, so that there's nothing ever like it afterwards—if God bade him wake up in that other life where all is new—then likewise. ”