CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PG 3366.K65 1895 
 
 Master and man : 
 
 3 1924 027 464 209 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027464209 
 
MASTER AND MAN 
 
 % ^torp 
 
 BY 
 
 LYOF N. TOLSTOI 
 
 Rendered prom the Russian into English by 
 S. RAPOPORT AND JOHN C. KENWORTHY 
 
 New York : 46 East 14x1-1 Street 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 Boston : 100 Purchase Street 
 
3566 
 KdS 
 IB9S' 
 
 Authorized American Edition. 
 
TRANSLATORS' NOTE. 
 
 It has been our pleasant duty to translate from a writer 
 who needs no note of introduction, either for himself or 
 his work. But in offering to the English reader this 
 story by the great Russian author, we think it useful to 
 point out that, while laying stress upon the moral signifi- 
 cance of it, critics have not remarked another value which 
 " Master and Man " possesses. The mere incident of a man 
 sacrificing his life by freezing to death in the efilort to 
 keep life and warmth in another, is not new, having been 
 told by a French writer long ago. But what is new to 
 the reader at large, and especially to the English reader, 
 is the marvellous realistic description of village-lifo in 
 Russia, as here presented by Tolstoi. No one interested 
 in the life of the Russian people can afford to pass by 
 this book, for there is no other work, however volumin- 
 ous, which gives such clear and full light upon the subject. 
 Though the story is dated back twenty years, it is never- 
 theless a picture of to-day. 
 
 Here is life in the house of the well-to-do family of 
 peasants, the Tarasses ; the broken life of the laborer, 
 Nikita ; an example of the Russian middle-class in embryo, 
 Vasili Andreich Brekhunov, the " rising man " ; even a 
 glimpse is given of the " paternal government," ready to 
 interfere in family matters ; indeed, the book is an ency- 
 clopaedia of life in the villages of Russia, wholly faithful 
 throughout its wealth of detail. 
 
<■ TEANSLATOBS' NOTE. 
 
 This we thought worthy of particular mention. The 
 wonderful art of Tolstoi, and far beyond that, his simple 
 and lofty morality, are, it seems to us, as powerfully 
 presented here as in any of his work. These, the reader 
 cannot overlook. 
 
 S. RAPOPORT. 
 
 JOHN C. KENWORTHY. 
 
 London, April, 1895. 
 
MASTER AND MAN, 
 
 It happened in the seventies, in winter, on the day 
 after St. Nicholas' day. There was a holiday in the parish, 
 and the village innkeeper and second-guild merchant, 
 Vasili Andreich Brekhunov, could not go away, as he had 
 to attend church (he was a churchwarden), and go 
 receive and entertain friends and acquaintances at home. 
 But at last, all the guests vi^ere gone, and Vasili Andreich 
 began preparations for a drive over to a neighboring land- 
 owner, to buy from him the forest for which they had 
 been bargaining this long while. He was very anxious to 
 go, so as to forestall the town merchants, who might 
 snatch away this profitable purchase. The youthful land- 
 owner only asked ten thousand roubles for the forest, 
 -while Vasili Andreich offered seven thousand. In reality, 
 seven thousand was but a third of the real worth of the 
 property. Vasili Andreich might, perhaps, be able to 
 drive the better bargain, because the forest stood in his 
 district, and by an old-standing agreement between him 
 and the other village-merchants, no one of them competed 
 in another's territory. But Vasili Andreich had learned 
 that the timber-merchants from the capital-town of the 
 province intended to bid for the Goryachkin forest, and he 
 decided to go at once and conclude the bargain. Accord- 
 
 5 
 
6 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 ingly, as soon as the feast was over, he took seven hun- 
 dred roubles of his own from the strong-box, added to 
 ^hem twenty-three hundred belonging to the church, and 
 after carefully counting the whole, he put the money in 
 his pocket-book and made haste to be gone. Mkita, the 
 laborer, the only one of Vasili Andreich's men who was 
 not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. He was 
 not drunk on this occasion, because he was a drunkard ; 
 since the last day before the fast, when he spent his coat 
 and boots in drink, he had forsworn his debauchery and 
 kept sober for -Ua£>si3;@^ month. He was not drinking 
 even now, in spite of the temptation arising from the 
 universal absorption of alcohol during the first two days 
 of the holiday. 
 
 iNikita was a fifty-year-old "moujik" from the neigh- 
 boring village ; an " unreliable " man, as folk called him, 
 " one who lived most of his life with other people " and not 
 at his own home. He was esteemed everywhere for his 
 industry, quickness and strength ; and still more, for his 
 kindliness and pleasantness. But he could never live 
 long in one place, because about twice a year, or even 
 oftener, he gave way to drink ; and at such times, besides 
 spending all he had, he became turbulent and quarrelsome. 
 Vasili Andreich had dismissed him several times, and 
 afterwards engaged him again ; valuing his honesty and 
 kindness to animals, but chiefly his cheapness. The mer- 
 chant did not pay Nikita eighty roubles, the worth of such 
 a man, but forty ; and even that he paid without regular 
 account, in small instalments, and mostly not in cash, 
 but in high-priced goods from his own shop. 
 
 Nikita's wife, Martha, a vigorous and once-beautiful 
 woman, carried on the home, with a boy and two girls. 
 She never pressed Nikita to live at home ; firstly, because 
 she had lived for about twenty years with a cooper, a 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 7 
 
 moujik from another village, who lodged with them ; and 
 secondly, because, although she treated her husband as 
 she pleased when he was sober, she feared him like fire 
 when he was drinking. Once, when drunk at home, Nikita, 
 perhaps to counterbalance his sober humility, broke open 
 his wife's box, took her best clothes, and seizing an axe, 
 cut to shreds all her gala-dress and garments. The whole 
 wages which Nikita earned went to his wife, without 
 objection from him. It was in pursuance of this arrange- 
 ment that Martha, two days before the holiday, came to 
 Vasili Andreich, and got from him wheat- flour, tea, sugar, 
 with a pint of vodka, — about three roubles worth in all, — 
 and five roubles in cash ; for which she gave thanks as 
 for a great and special favor, when in fact, and at the lowest 
 figure, the merchant owed twenty roubles. 
 
 " "What agreement did I make with you ? " said Vasili 
 Andreich to Nikita. " If you want anything, take it ; you 
 will work it out. I am not like other folks, with their 
 putting off, and accounts, and fines. We are dealing 
 straightforwardly. You work for me, and I stand by you. 
 What you need, I give it to you." 
 
 Talking in this way, the merchant was honestly con- 
 vinced of his beneficence to Nikita ; and he spoke with 
 such assertion that every one, beginning with Nikita, con- 
 firmed him in this conviction. 
 
 " I understand, Vasili Andreich, I do my best, I try to 
 do as I would for my own father. I understand all right," 
 answered Nikita; understanding very well that he is 
 cheated, but at the same time feeling that it is useless to 
 try to get the accounts cleared up. While there is no- 
 where else to go, he must stay where he is, and take what 
 he can get. 
 
 When Nikita was told by his master to put the horse 
 in, willingly and cheerfully as always, and with a firm 
 
8 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 and easy stride, he stepped to the cart-shed, took down 
 from the nail the heavy, tasselled, leather bridle, and jin- 
 gling the rings of the bit, went to the stable where stood 
 the horse which Vasili Andreich had bidden to be har- 
 nessed. 
 
 "Well, silly, are you tired, tired?" said Nikita, in 
 answer to the soft whinny which, greeted him from the 
 stallion, a fairly good dark-bay of medium height, with 
 sloping quarters, who stood solitary in his stall. " Quiet, 
 quiet, there 's plenty of time ! Let me give you a drink 
 first," he went on to the horse, as though speaking to a 
 creature with reason. With the skirt of his eoat he swept 
 down the horse's broad, double-ridged back, roughed and 
 dusty as it was ; then he put the bridle on the handsome, 
 young head, arranged his ears and mane, and led him 
 away to drink. Picking his way out of the dung-strewn 
 stable, the dark -bay began to plunge, making play with 
 his hind foot, as though to kick Nikita, who was hurry- 
 ing him to the well. 
 
 " Now then, now then, you rogue," said Nikita ; know- 
 ing Moukhorta was careful that the hind foot went no 
 further than his fur-coat, doing no hurt ; and knowing 
 how the horse liked this play. 
 
 After the cold water, the horse stood awhile, breathing, 
 and moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent 
 drops fell into the trough ; then he sniffed. 
 
 " If you want no more, you needn't take it. Well, let 
 it be at that ; but don't ask again for more," said Nikita, 
 quite seriously emphasizing to Moukhorta the conse- 
 quences of his behavior. Then he briskly led back to 
 the shed, pulling the rein on the young horse, who lashed 
 out all the way along the yard. 
 
 No other men were about, except a stranger to the place, 
 the husband of the cook, who had come for a holiday. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 9 
 
 " Go and ask, there 's a good fellow, which sledge is 
 wanted, the wide one or the little one," said Nikita to 
 him. 
 
 The cook's husband went away, and soon returned with 
 the answer, that the small one was ordered. By this 
 time, Nikita had harnessed the horse, fixed the brass- 
 studded saddle, and carrying in one hand the light-painted 
 yoke, with the other hand he led the horse toward the 
 two sledges which stood under the shed. 
 
 " All right, let us have the small one," said he, backing 
 the intelligent horse (which all the time pretended to bite 
 at him) into the shafts ; and with the help of the cook's 
 husband, he began to harness. 
 
 When all was nearly ready, and only the reins needed 
 fixing, Nikita sent the cook's husband to the shed for 
 straw, and to the storehouse for the rug. 
 
 " That 's nice. Don't, don't, don't bristle up ! " said 
 Nikita, squeezing into the sledge the freshly-thrashed 
 oat-straw which the cook's husband had brought. " Now 
 give me the sacking, while we spread it out, and put the 
 rug over it. That's all right, just the thing, comfortable 
 to sit on," said he, doing that which he was talking 
 about, and making the rug tight over the straw all 
 round. ~ / 
 
 "Thanks, my dear fellow," said Nikita to the cook's 
 husband. " When two work, it's done quicker." Then, 
 disentangling the leather reins, the ends of which were 
 brought together and tied on a ring, he took the driver's 
 seat on the sledge, and shook up the good horse; who 
 stirred himself, eager to make across the frozen refuse 
 that littered the yard, towards the gate. 
 
 " Uncle Mikit, eh. Uncle ! " came a shout behind him, 
 from a seven-year-old boy in black fur-cloak, new, white 
 felt boots and warm cap, who slammed the door as he 
 
10 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 hurried from the entrance-hall toward the yard. " Put 
 me in ! " he asked, in a shrill voice, buttoning his cloak 
 as he ran. 
 
 "All right, come, my dove," said Nikita; and stopping 
 the sledge, he put in the master's son, full of joy, and 
 drove out into the road. 
 
 It was three o'clock, and cold (about ten degrees of 
 frost), gloomy and windy. In the yard, it seemed quiet, 
 but in the street, a strong breeze blew. The snow showered 
 down from the roof of the barn close by, and at the corner 
 by the baths, flew whirling round. Mkita had scarcely 
 driven out and turned round by the front door, when 
 Vasili Andreich, too, with a cigarette in his mouth, wear- 
 ing a sheepskin overcoat tightly fastened by a girdle 
 placed low, came out from the entrance-hall. He strode 
 down the trampled snow of the steps, which creaked under 
 his boots, and stopped to turn in the corners of his over- 
 coat collar on both sides of his ruddy face (clean-shaven, 
 except for a moustache), so as to keep the fur clear from 
 the moisture of his breath. 
 
 " See there ! "What a manager ! Here he is ! " said he, 
 smiling and showing his white teeth, on catching sight of 
 his little son on the sledge. Vasili Andreich was excited 
 by the wine he had taken with his guests, and was there- 
 fore more than usually pleased with everything which 
 belonged to him, or which was of his doing. His wife, a 
 pale and meagre woman, about to become a mother, stood 
 behind him in the entrance-hall, with a woollen plaid so 
 wrapped about her head and shoulders, that only her eyes 
 could be seen. 
 
 " Would it not be better to take Nikita with you?" she 
 asked, timidly, stepping out from the door. Vasili An- 
 dreich answered nothing, but spat. " You have money 
 with you," the wife continued, in the same plaintive voice. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 11 
 
 " What if the weather gets worse. Be careful, for God's 
 sake." 
 
 " Do you think I don't know the road, that I need a 
 guide?" retorted Vasili Andreich, with that affected 
 compression of the lips which he used when speaking 
 among dealers in the market, as though he valued his 
 own speech. 
 
 " Really, do take him, I ask you, for God's sake ! " re- 
 peated his wife, folding her plaid closer. 
 
 " Just listen ! She sticks to it like a leaf in the bath ! 
 Why, where must I take him to ?" 
 
 " Well, Vasili Andreich, I 'ra ready," said Nikita, cheer- 
 fully. " If I 'm away, there are only the horses to be 
 fed," he added, turning to his mistress. 
 
 "I '11 look after that, Nikitushka ; I '11 tell Simon," 
 answered the mistress. 
 
 " Shall I come, Vasili Andreich ? " asked Nikita, waiting. 
 
 "It seems we must consider the old women. But if 
 you come, go and put on something warmer," said Vasili 
 Andreich, smiling once more, and winking at Nikita's 
 fur-coat ; which was very old, torn under the arms and 
 down the back, and soiled and crease-worn round the 
 skirts. 
 
 " Hey, friend, come and hold the horse awhile ! " 
 shouted Nikita to the cook's husband, in the yard. 
 
 " I '11 hold him myself," said the little boy, taking his 
 cold, red hands out of his pockets, and seizing the cold 
 leather reins. 
 
 "Only don't be too long putting your best coat on! 
 Be quick!" shouted Vasili Andreich, jestingly, to 
 Mkita. 
 
 " In a breath, good master Vasili Andreich ! " said 
 Nikita, and he ran down the yard to the laborers' 
 quarters. 
 
12 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 " Now, Arinushka, give me my overcoat off the oven, I 
 have to go with the master ! " said ISTikita, hastening into 
 the room, and taking his girdle down from the nail. 
 
 The cook, who had just finished her after-dinner nap, 
 and was ahout to get ready the samovar for her husband, 
 turned to Nikita merrily, and catching his haste, moved 
 about quickly, took the worn-out woollen overcoat off the 
 oven, where it was drying, and shook and rubbed it. 
 
 "How comfortable you must be, with your husband 
 here," said Mkita to the cook ; always, as part of his 
 good-natured politeness, ready to say something to any 
 one whom he came across. Then putting round himself 
 the narrow and worn girdle, he drew in his breath and 
 tightened it about his spare body. - 
 
 " There," he said, afterwards, addressing himself, not 
 to the cook, but to the girdle, while tucking the ends ' 
 under his belt. " This way, you won't jump out." Then 
 working his shoulders up and down to get his arms loose, 
 he put on the overcoat, again stretching his back to free 
 his arms ; and that done, he took his mittens from the 
 shelf. " Now, we 're all right." 
 
 "You ought to change your boots," said the cook, 
 " those boots are very bad." 
 
 Nikita stopped, as if remembering something. 
 
 " Yes, I ought . . . But it will be all right ; it 's not 
 far." And he ran out into the yard. 
 
 " Won't you be cold, Nikitushka?" said his mistress, 
 as he came up to the sledge. 
 
 " Why should I be cold ? It is quite Avarm," answered 
 Nikita, arranging the straw in the forepart of the sledge, 
 so as to bring it over the feet, and stowing under it the 
 whip which a good horse would not need. 
 
 Yasili Andreich was already in the sledge, almost fill- 
 ing up the whole of the curved back with the bulk of , his 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 13 
 
 body wrapped in two great fur-coats ; and taking up the 
 reins, he started at once. Nikita jumped in, seating 
 himself in front, to the left, and hanging one leg over the 
 side. 
 
 II. 
 
 The good stallion sped the sledge along at a brisk 
 pace, over the trodden and frozen road; the runners 
 creaking faintly as they went. 
 
 " Look at him there, hanging on ! Give me the whip, 
 Nikita," shouted Vasili Andreich, evidently enjoying the 
 sight of his boy holding to the sledge-runners, behind. 
 I '11 give it you ! Run to your mother, you young dog ! " 
 
 The boy jumped off. The dark-bay began to amble, 
 and then, getting his breath, broke into a trot. 
 
 Kresty, the village where the home of Vasili Andreich 
 stood, consisted of six houses. Scarcely had they passed 
 the blacksmith's house, when they suddenly felt the 
 wind to be stronger than they had thought. The road 
 was no longer visible. The tracks of the sledge as they 
 were left behind, were instantly covered with snow, and 
 the road was only to be distinguished by its rise above the 
 land on either side. The snow swept over the plain like 
 thick smoke, and the horizon disappeared. The Telyatin 
 forest, always particularly visible, loomed dimly through 
 the driving snow-dust. The wind came from the left 
 hand, persistently blowing aside the mane on Moukhorta's 
 lofty neck, turning away even his knotted tail, and press- 
 ing the deep collar of Nikita's overcoat, (he sat on the 
 windward side), against his face and nose. 
 
 " There is no chance of his showing speed, with this 
 snow," said Vasili Andreich, proud of his horse. " I 
 
14 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 once went to Pashutino with him, and we got there in 
 half-an-hour." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Pashutino, I said, and he did it in half-an-hour." 
 
 " A good horse that, no question," said Nikita. 
 
 They became silent. But Vasili Andreich wanted to 
 talk. 
 
 " Now I think of it, did you tell your good woman not 
 to give any drink to the cooper?" asked the merchant, 
 who was wholly of opinion that Nikita must feel flat- 
 tered, talking with such an important and sensible man 
 as himself. He was so pleased with this, his own jest, 
 that it never entered his head that the subject might be 
 unpleasant to Nikita. 
 
 Again the man failed to catch his master's words, the 
 voice being carried away by the wind. 
 
 Vasili Andreich, in his clear and loud voice, repeated 
 the jest about the cooper. 
 
 " God help them, master, I don't think about the mat- 
 ter. I only watch that she does no harm to the boy ; if 
 she does — then God help her ! " 
 
 " That is right," said Vasili Andreich. " Well, are you 
 going to buy a horse in the spring ? " thus he began a 
 new topic of conversation. 
 
 " I must buy one," answered Mkita, turning aside the 
 collar of his coat, and leaning towards his master. The 
 conversation had become interesting to him, and he did 
 not wish to lose a word. 
 
 " My lad is grown up, and it is time he ploughed for 
 himself, and gave up hiring out," said he. 
 
 " Well, then, take that horse with the thin loins ; the 
 price will not be high," shouted Vasili Andreich, eagerly 
 entering into his favorite business of horse-dealing, to 
 which he gave all his powers. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 15 
 
 " You had better give me fifteen roubles, and I '11 buy 
 in the market," said Nikita ; who knew that at the high- 
 est price, the horse with the thin loins, which his master 
 wanted to sell to him, was not worth more than seven 
 roubles, but would cost him, at his master's hands, 
 twenty -five ; and that meant half-a-year's wages gone. 
 
 " The horse is a good one. I treat you as I would my- 
 self. Honestly. Brekhunov injures no man. Let me 
 stand the loss, and me only. Honestly," he shouted in 
 the voice which he used in cheating his customers, " a 
 genuine horse." 
 
 " As you think," said Nikita, sighing, sure that it was 
 useless to listen further ; and he again drew the collar 
 over his ear and face. 
 
 They drove in silence for about half-an-hour. The 
 wind cut sharply into Nikita's side and arm, where his 
 coat was torn. He huddled himself up and breathed in 
 his coat-collar, which covered his mouth ; and breathing 
 this way seemed to make him warmer. 
 
 " What do you think, shall we go through Karamy- 
 shevo, or keep the straight road ?" said Vasili Andreich. 
 
 The road through Karamyshevo was more frequented, 
 and staked on both sides ; but it was longer. The 
 straight road was nearer, but it was little used, and the 
 stakes, now snow-covered, marked it out but badly. 
 
 Nikita thought a while. 
 
 " Through Karamyshevo is further, but it is better 
 going," he said. 
 
 " But straight on, we have only to be careful in passing 
 the little valley, and then the way is fairly good," said 
 Vasili Andreich, who favored the direct road. 
 
 " As you say," replied Nikita. 
 
 So the merchant went his own way. After driving 
 about half a verst, passing a waymark, a long branch of 
 
16 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 oak, which shook in the wind, and on which a dry leaf 
 hung here and there, he turned to the left. 
 
 Upon turning, the wind blew almost directly against 
 them, and the snow showered from on high., Vasili An- 
 dreich stirred up the horse, and inflated his cheeks, blow- 
 ing his breath upon his moustaches. Nikita dozed. 
 
 They drove thus silently for about ten minutes. Then 
 the merchant began to say something. 
 
 " What ? " asked Nikita, opening his eyes. 
 
 Vasili Andreich did not answer, but bent himself 
 about, looking behind them, and then ahead of the horse. 
 The sweat had curled the animal's coat on the groin and 
 neck, and he was going at a walk. 
 
 " I say, what 's the matter ? " repeated Nikita. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " mocked Vasili Andreich, 
 irritated. "I see no waymarksj We must be off the 
 road." 
 
 " Well, pull up then, and I will find the road," said 
 Nikita, and lightly jumping down, he drew out the whip 
 from the straw, and struck out to the left, from his own 
 side of the sledge. 
 
 The snow was not deep that season, but in places it 
 was up to one's knee, and Nikita got it into his boots. 
 He walked about, feeling with his feet and the whip, but 
 could nowhere find the road. 
 
 " Well ? " said the merchant, when Nikita returned to 
 the sledge. 
 
 "There is no road on this side. I must try the other." 
 
 " What is that dark thing in front ? Go and see," said 
 Vasili Andreich. 
 
 Nikita walked ahead ; got near the dark patch ; and 
 found it was black earth which the wind had strewn over 
 the snow, from some fields of winter-wheat. After 
 searching to the right also, he returned to the sledge. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 17 
 
 shook the snow off himself, cleared his boots, and took 
 his seat. 
 
 " We must go to the right," he said, decidedly. " The 
 wind was on our left before, now it is straight ahead. To 
 the right," he repeated, with the same decision. 
 
 Vasili Andreich turned accordingly. But yet no road 
 was found. He drove on for some time. The wind kept 
 up, and the snow still fell. 
 
 " We seem to be astray altogether, Vasili Andreich," 
 said Nikita, suddenly, and as pleasantly as possible. 
 " What is that ? " he said, pointing to some black potato- 
 leaves, which thrust themselves through the snow. 
 
 Vasili Andreich stopped the horse, which by this time 
 was in heavy perspiration, and stood with its deep sides 
 heaving. " What can it mean ? " asked he. 
 
 " It means that we are on the Zakharian lands. Why, 
 we are ever so far astray ! " 
 
 " Bosh ! " remarked Vasili Andreich, who now spoke 
 quite otherwise than when at home ; in an unconstrained 
 and vulgar tone. 
 
 " I am telling you no lie ; it is true," said Nikita. 
 " You can feel that the sledge is moving over a potato- 
 field, and there are the heaps of old leaves. It is the 
 Zakharian factory-land." 
 
 " What a long way we are out ! " said the other. 
 '• What are we to do ? " 
 
 " Go straight ahead, that 's all. We shall reach some 
 place," said Nikita. " If we do not get to Zakharovka, 
 we shall come out at the owner's farm." 
 
 Vasili Andreich assented, and let the horse go as Nikita 
 had said. They drove in this way for a long while. At 
 times they passed winter-wheat fields, where the wind 
 had turned up and blown loose soil over the snow-covered 
 dykes and the snow-drifts. Sometimes they passed a 
 
18 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 stubble-fleld, sometimes a corn-flBld, where they could 
 see the upstanding worm-wood and straw beaten by the 
 wind ; sometimes they saw on all sides deep, white snow, 
 with nothing above it. The snow whirled down from on 
 high, and up from below. N"ow they seemed to be going 
 downhill, and now uphill ; then they seemed as though 
 standing still, while the snow-field ran past them. Both 
 were silent. The horse was evidently tiring; his coat 
 grew crisp and white with frost, and he no better than 
 walked. Suddenly he stumbled in some ditch or water- 
 course, and went down. Vasili Andreich wanted to halt, 
 but Mkita opposed him. 
 
 " Why should we stop? We have gone astray, and we 
 must find our road. Hey, old fellow, hey," he shouted in 
 an encouraging voice to the horse ; and he jumped from 
 the sledge, sinking into the ditch. The horse dashed 
 forward, and quickly landed upon a frozen heap. Ob- 
 viously it Avas a made-ditch. 
 
 " Where are we then ? " said Vasili Andriech. 
 
 " We shall see," answered Nikita. " Go ahead, we 
 shall get to somewhere." 
 
 "Is not that the Goryachkin forest?" asked the mer- 
 chant, pointing out a dark mass which showed across the 
 snow in front of them. 
 
 " When we get nearer, we shall see what forest it is," 
 said Nikita. 
 
 He noticed that from the side of the dark mass, long, 
 dry willow-leaves were fluttering towards them ; and he 
 knew thereby that it was no forest, but houses ; yet he 
 chose not to say so. And in fact, they had scarcely gone 
 twenty-five yards, when they distinctly made out the 
 trees, and heard a new and melancholy sound. Nikita 
 was right ; they had come upon, not a forest, but a row 
 of tall willow-trees, whereon a few scattered leaves still 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 19 
 
 shivered. The willows were evidently ranged along the 
 ditch, and around a barn. Coming up to the trees, 
 through which the wind moaned and sighed, the horse 
 suddenly planted his forefeet above the height of the 
 sledge, then drew up his hind legs after him, and they 
 were out of the snow and on the road. 
 
 " Here we are," said Nikita, " but we don't know 
 where." 
 
 The horse went right away along the snow-covered 
 road, and they had not gone many yards when they saw 
 a fence round a barn, from which the snow was flying in 
 the wind. Passing the barn the road turned in the di- 
 rection of the wind, and brought them upon a snowdrift, 
 But ahead of them was a passage between two houses ; the 
 drift was merely blown across the road, and must be 
 crossed. Indeed, after passing the drift, they found a 
 village street. In front of the end house of the village, 
 the wind was shaking desperately the frozen linen which 
 hung there ; shirts, one red, one white, some leg-cloths, 
 and a skirt. The white shirt especially shook frantically, 
 tugging at the sleeves. 
 
 " Look there, either a lazy woman, or a dead one, left 
 her linen out over the holiday," said Nikita, seeing the 
 fluttering shirts. 
 
 HI. 
 
 At the beginning of the street, the wind was still felt, 
 and the road was snow-covered. But well within the 
 village, there was shelter, more warmth, and life. At 
 one house a dog barked ; at another, a woman, with her 
 husband's coat over her head, came running from within, 
 and stopped at the door to see who was driving past. 
 
20 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 In the middle of the village could be heard the sound of 
 girls singing. Here, the wind, the snow, the frost, 
 seemed subdued. 
 
 " Why, this is Grishkino," said Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " It is," said Nikita. 
 
 Grishkino it was. It turned out they had strayed 
 eight versts to the left, out of their proper direction ; still, 
 they had got somewhat nearer to their destination. From 
 Grishkino to Goi'yachkino was about five versts more. 
 
 In the middle of the village they almost ran into a tall 
 man, walking in the centre of the road. 
 
 "Who is driving?" said this man, and he held the 
 horse. Then, recognizing Vasili Andreich, he took hold 
 of the shaft, and leaped up to the sledge, where he sat 
 himself on the driver's seat. 
 
 It was the moujik Isai, well-known to the merchant, 
 and known through the district as a flrst-rate horsethief . 
 
 "Ah, Vasili Andreich, where is God sending you?" 
 said Isai, from whom Nikita caught the smell of vodka. 
 
 " We are going to Goryachkino." 
 
 " You 've come a long way round ! You had better 
 have gone through Malakhovo." 
 
 " Yes, but we got astray," said Vasili Andreich, pulling 
 up. 
 
 "A good horse," said Isai, examining him, and dex- 
 terously tightening the loosened knot in his tail. " Are 
 you going to stay the night here ? " 
 
 " No, friend, we must go on." 
 
 "Your business must be pressing. And who is that? 
 Ah, Nikita Stepanich ! " 
 
 "Who else?" answered Nikita. "Look here, good 
 friend, can you tell us how not to miss the road again ? " 
 
 "How can you possibly miss it? Just turn back 
 straight along the street, and then, outside the houses. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 21 
 
 keep straight ahead. Don't go to the left until you 
 reach the high road, then turn to the left." 
 
 " And which turning do we take out of the high road ? 
 The summer or the winter road?" asked Nikita. 
 
 " The winter road. As soon as you get clear of the vil- 
 lage there are some bushes, and opposite them is a way- 
 mark, an oaken one, all brandies. There is the road." 
 
 Vasili Andreich turned the horse back, and drove 
 through the village. 
 
 "You had better stay the night," Isai shouted after 
 them. But the mercliant did not answer ; five versts of 
 smooth road, two versts of it through the forest, was easy 
 enough to drive over ; especially as the wind seemed 
 quieter, and the snow seemed to have ceased. 
 
 After passing along the street, darkened and trodden 
 with fresh horse-tracks, and after passing the house where 
 tlie linen was hung out (a sleeve of the white shirt was 
 by this time torn off, and the garment hung by one frozen 
 sleeve), they came to the weirdly moaning and sighing 
 willows, and then were again in the open country. Not 
 only was the snowstorm still raging, but it seemed to 
 have gained strength. The whole road was under snow, 
 and only the stakes, the waymai-ks,' proved that they 
 were keeping right. But even these signs of the road 
 were diflQcult to make out, for the wind blew right in 
 their faces. 
 
 Vasili Andreich screwed up his eyes, and bent his head, 
 examining the marks ; but for the most part, he left the 
 horse alone, trusting to his sagacity. And, in fact, the 
 creature went truly, turning now to the left, now to the 
 right, along the windings of the road which he sensed 
 under his feet. So that in spite of the thickening snow 
 and strengthening wind, the waymarks' were still to be 
 seen, now on the left, now on the right. 
 
22 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 " They had driven thus for ten minutes, when suddenly, 
 straight in front of their horse, a black object sprang up, 
 moving through the snow. Moukhorta had come up with 
 a sledge containing other travellers, and he struck his 
 fore-feet against it. 
 
 " Drive round ! Go ahead ! " cried these others. 
 
 Vasili Andreich shaped to go round them. In the 
 sledge were four peasants, three men and a woman ; evi- 
 dently returning from a feast. One of the men whipped 
 the quarters of their poor horse with a switch, while two 
 of them, waving their arms from the fore part of the 
 sledge, shouted out something. The woman, raufHed up 
 and covered with snow, sat quiet and rigid at the 
 back. 
 
 " Who are you ? " asked Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " A-a-a ! " was all that could be heard. 
 
 "I say, who are you ?" 
 
 " A-a-a ! " shouted one of the peasants, with all his 
 strength ; but nevertheless, it was impossible to make out 
 the name. 
 
 " Go on ! don't surrender ! " 
 
 " You have been enjoying yourselves." 
 
 " Get on ! get on ! Up, Semka ! Step out ! Up, up ! " 
 
 The sledges struck together, almost locked their sides, 
 then fell apart, and the peasants' sledge began to drop 
 behind. The shaggy, snow-covered, big-bellied pony, 
 obviously distressed, was making his last efforts with his 
 short legs to struggle along through the deep snow, 
 which he trod down with labor. For a moment, with 
 distended nostrils, and ears set back in distress, he kept 
 his muzzle, which was that of a young horse, near Nikita's 
 shoulder ; then he began to fall still further behind. 
 
 " See what drink does," said Nikita. " They have tired 
 that horse to death. What heathens ! " 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 23 
 
 For a few minutes, the pantings of the tired-out horse 
 could be heard, with the drunken shouts of the peasants. 
 Then the pantings become inaudible; and the shouts, 
 also. Again all was silent, except for the whistling wind 
 and the occasional scrape of the sledge runners upon a 
 bare spot of road. 
 
 This encounter livened up and encouraged Yasili An- 
 dreich, who drove more boldly, not examining the way- 
 marks, and again trusting to his horse. 
 
 Nikita had nothing to occupy him, and dozed. Sud- 
 denly the horse stopped, and Nikita was jerked forward, 
 knocking his nose against the front. 
 
 "It seems we are going wrong again," said Vasili 
 Andreich. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 " The waymarks' are not to be seen. "We must be out 
 of the road." 
 
 " Well, if so, let us look for the road," said Nikita, la- 
 conically ; and he got out again to explore the snow. He 
 walked for a long time, now out of sight, now reappear- 
 ing, then disappearing; at last, he returned. 
 
 " There is no road here ; it may be further on," said he, 
 sitting down in the sledge. 
 
 It began to grow dark. The storm neither increased 
 nor diminished. 
 
 " I should like to meet those peasants again," said 
 Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Yes, but they won't pass near us ; we must be a good 
 distance off the road. Maybe they are astray, too," said 
 Nikita. 
 
 " Where shall we make for, then ? " 
 
 "Leave the horse to himself. He will find his way. 
 Give me the reins." 
 
 The merchant handed over the reins ; the more willingly 
 
24 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 that his hands, ui spite of his warm gloves, felt the 
 frost. 
 
 Nikita took the reins, and held them lightly, trying to 
 give no pressure ; he was glad to prove the good sense of 
 his favorite. The intelligent horse, turning one ear and- 
 then the other, first in this, then in that, direction, pres- 
 ently began to wheel round. 
 
 " He only stops short of speaking," said Nikita. " Look 
 how he manages it ! Go on, go on, that 's good." 
 
 The wind was now at their backs ; they were warmer. 
 
 " Is he not wise ? " continued Nikita, delighted with his 
 horse. " A Kirghiz beast is strong, but stupid. But this 
 one, — look what he is after with his ears. There is 
 no need of a telegraph-wire; he can feel through a 
 mile." 
 
 Hardly half an hour had gone, when a forest, or a vil- 
 lage, or something, loomed up in front ; and to their 
 right, the waymarks again showed. Evidently they were 
 upon the road again. 
 
 " We are back at Grishkino, are we not ? " exclaimed 
 Nikita, suddenly. 
 
 Indeed, on the left hand rose the same barn, with the 
 snow flying from it ; and further on was the same line 
 with the frozen shirts and drawers, so fiercely shaken by 
 the wind. 
 
 Again they drove through the street, again felt the 
 quiet and shelter, again saw the road with the horse- 
 tracks ; heard voices, songs, the barking of a dog. It was 
 now so dark that a few windows were lighted. 
 
 Half-way down the street, Vasili Andreich turned round 
 the horse toward a large house, and stopped at the yard- 
 gate. 
 
 " Call out Tarass," he ordered Nikita. 
 
 Nikita went up to the snow-dimmed window, in the 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 25 
 
 light from which glittered the flitting flakes, and knocked 
 with the handle of the whip. 
 
 " Who is there ? " a voice answered to his knock. 
 
 "The Brekhunovs, from Kresty, my good man," an- 
 swered Nikita. " Come out for a minute." 
 
 Some one moved from the window, and in about two 
 minutes the door in the entrance-hall was heard to open, 
 the latch of the front-door clicked, and holding the door 
 against the wind, there peeped out an old, white-bearded 
 man, who wore a high cap, and a fur-coat over a white 
 holiday shirt. Behhid him was a young fellow in a red 
 shirt and leather boots. 
 
 " Glad to see you," said the old man. 
 
 " We have lost our road, friend," said Vasili Andreich. 
 " We set out for Goryachkino, and found ourselves here. 
 Then we went on, but lost the road again." 
 
 " I see ; what a wandering ! " answered the old man. 
 " Petrushka, come, open the gates," he said, to the young 
 man in the red shirt. 
 
 " Of course I will," said the young fellow, cheerfully, as 
 he ran off through the entrance-hall. 
 
 " We are not stopping for the night, friend," said 
 Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Where can you go, in darkness ? You had better stop." 
 
 " Should be very glad to, but I must go on." 
 
 " Well, then, at least warm yourself a little ; the sam- 
 ovar is just ready," said the old man. 
 
 " Warm ourselves ? We can do that," said Vasili An- 
 dreich. " It cannot get darker, and when the moon is up, 
 it will be still lighter. Come, Nikita, let us go in and 
 warm up a bit." 
 
 " I don't object ; yes, let us warm ourselves," said 
 Nikita, who was very cold, and whose one desire was to 
 warm his benumbed limbs over the oven. 
 
26 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 Vasili Andreich went with the old man into the house, 
 Nikita drove through the gate which Petrushka opened, 
 and by the latter's advice, stood the horse under a shed, 
 the floor of whicli was strewn witla stable-litter. The high 
 bow over the horse caught the roof-beam, and the hens 
 and a cock perched up there, began to cackle and scratch 
 on the wood. Some startled sheep, pattering their feet 
 on the frozen floor, huddled themselves out of the way. 
 A dog, evidently a young one, yelped desperately in 
 fright, and barked fiercely at the stranger. 
 
 Nikita held conversation with them all. He begged 
 pardon from the fowls, and calmed them with assurances 
 that he would give them no more trouble ; he reproved 
 the sheep for being needlessly frightened ; and while 
 fastening up the horse, he kept on exhorting the little dog. 
 
 " That will do," said he, shaking the snow from him- 
 self. " Hear, how he is barking ! " added he, for the dog's 
 benefit. " That 's quite enough for you, quite enough, 
 stupid! That will do! Why do you bother yourself? 
 There are no thieves or strangers about." 
 
 " It is like the tale of the Three Domestic Counsellors," 
 said the young man, thrusting the sledge under the shed 
 with his strong arm. 
 
 " What counsellors ? " 
 
 " The tale is in P'uls'n. A thief sneaks up to a house ; 
 the dog barks, — that means ' Don't idle, take care ; ' the 
 cock crows, — that means ' Get up ; ' the cat washes itself, 
 —that means ' A welcome guest is coming, be ready for 
 him,' " said the young man, with a broad smile. 
 
 Petrushka could read and write, and knew, almost by 
 lieart, the only book he possessed, which was Paulsen's 
 primer ; and he liked, especially when, as now, he had a 
 little too much to drink, to quote from the book some 
 saying which seemed appropriate to the occasion. 
 
MASTEU AND MAN. 27 
 
 " Quite true," said Mkita. 
 " I suppose you are cold, uncle," said Petrushka. 
 "Yes, something that way," said Nikita. They both 
 ci'ossed the yard and entered the house. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The house at which Vasili Andreich had drawn up was 
 one of the richest in the village. The family had five 
 fields, and besides these, hired others outside. Their be- 
 longings included six horses, three cows, two heifers, and 
 a score of sheep. In the house lived twenty-two souls ; 
 four married sons, six grandchildren (of whom one, 
 Petrushka, was married), two great-grandchildren, three 
 orphans, and four daughters-in-law with their children. 
 It was one of the few fanulies which maintain their unity ; 
 yet even here was beginning that indefinable interior dis- 
 cord, — as usual, among the women, — which must soon 
 bring about separation. Two sons were water-carriers in 
 ]\Io8Cow ; one was in the army. At present, those at 
 home were the old man, his wife, one son who was head 
 of the house, another son who came from Moscow on a 
 holiday, and all the women and children. Besides the 
 family there was a guest, a neighbor, who was the elder 
 of the village. 
 
 In the house, there hung over the table a shaded lamp, 
 which threw a bright light down upon the tea-service, a 
 bottle of vodka and some eatables ; and upon the brick 
 wall of the corner where hung the holy images with 
 pictures on each side of them. At the head of the table 
 sat Vasili Andreich, in his black fur-coat, sucking his 
 frozen moustaches, and scrutinizing the people and the 
 room with his eyes of a hawk. Beside him at the table 
 
28 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 sat the white-beai'ded, bald, old father of the house, ih 
 white home-spun shirt; by him, wearing a thin cotto 
 shirt, sat a son with sturdy back and shoulders, the on 
 who was holiday-making from Moscow ; then the othe 
 son, the strapping eldest brother who acted as head c 
 the house ; then the village-elder, a lean and red-hairc' 
 moujik. 
 
 The moujiks, having drunk and eaten, prepared to tak 
 tea; the samovar already boiled, standing on the floo 
 near the oven. The children were in evidence about th 
 oven and the sleeping-shelves. On the bench along th 
 wall sat a woman with a cradle beside her. The ag© 
 mother of the house, whose face was wrinkled all ovei 
 even to the lips, waited on Vasili Andreieh. As Nikit 
 entered the room, she filled up a coarse glass with vodka 
 and handed it to Vasili Andreieh. 
 
 " No harm done, Vasili Andreieh, but you must drin] 
 our good health," said the old man. 
 
 The sight and smell of vodka, especially in his cold ani 
 tired condition, greatly disturbed Nikita's mind. H 
 became gloomy, and after shaking the snow from his coa 
 and hat, stood before the holy images ; without noticinj 
 the others, he made the sign of the cross thrice, an( 
 bowed to the images ; then, turning to the old man, h 
 bowed to him first, afterwards to all who sat at table 
 and again to the women beside the oven, saying, " Gooi 
 fortune to your feast." Without looking at the table, h 
 began to take off his overcoat. 
 
 " Why, you are all over frost, uncle," said the eldes 
 brother, looking at the rime on Nikita's face, eyes am 
 beard. 
 
 Mkita got his coat off, shook it, hung it near the over 
 and came to the table. They offered him vodka alsc 
 There was a moment's bitter struggle; he wavered o: 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 29 
 
 the point of taking the glass and pouring the fragrant, 
 transparent liquid into his mouth. But he looked at Vasih 
 Andreich, remembered his vow, remembered the lost 
 boots, the cooper, his son for whom he had promised to 
 buy a horse when the spring came; he sighed, and 
 refused. 
 
 " I don't drink, thank you humbly," he said gloomily, 
 and sat down on the bench, near the second window. 
 
 « Why not ? " asked the eldest brother. 
 
 " I don't drink, that 's all," said Nikita, not daring to 
 raise his eyes, and looking at the thawing icicles in bis 
 beard and moustache. 
 
 " It is not good for him," said Vasili Andreich, munch- 
 ing a biscuit after emptying his glass. 
 
 " Then have some tea," said the kindly old woman. " I 
 daresay you are quite benumbed, good soul. What a 
 while you women are with the samovar." 
 
 "It is ready," answered the youngest, and wiping 
 round the samovar with an apron, she bore it heavily to 
 the table, and set it down with a thud. 
 
 Meanwhile, Vasili Andreich told how they bad gone 
 astray, and worked back twice to the same village ; what 
 mistakes they had made, and how they had met the 
 drunken peasants. Their hosts expressed surprise, 
 showed why and where they had missed the road, told 
 them the names of the revellers they had met, and made 
 plain how they ought to go. 
 
 "From here to Molchanovka, a child might go; the 
 only thing is to make sure where to turn out of the high- 
 road, just beside the bushes. But yet you did not get 
 there," said the village-elder. 
 
 "You ought to stop here. The women will make up a 
 bed," said the old woman, persuasively. 
 
 " You would make a better start in the morning ; much 
 
30 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 pleasanter, that," said the old man, affirming what hi 
 wife had said. 
 
 " Impossible, f liend ! Business ! " said Vasili Andreicl 
 " If you let an hour go, you may not be able to make i 
 up in a year," added he, remembering the forest and th 
 dealers who were likely to compete with him. " By al 
 means, let us stretch out," he said, turning to Nikita. 
 
 " We may lose ourselves again," said Nikita, moodilj 
 He was gloomy, because of the intense longing he felt fo 
 the vodka ; and the tea, the only thing which could queue' 
 that longing, had not yet been offered to him. 
 
 " We have only to reach the turning, and there is n 
 more danger of losing the road, as it goes straight throng 
 the forest," said Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Just as you say, Vasili Andreich ; if you want to go, le 
 us go," said Nikita, taking the glass of tea offered to birr 
 
 " Well, let us drink up our tea, and then march ! " 
 
 Nikita said nothing, but shook his head ; and caref nil; 
 pouring the tea into the saucer, began to warm his hand 
 over the steam. Then, taking a small bite of sugar in hi 
 mouth, he turned to their hosts, said " Your health," am 
 drank down the warming liquid. 
 
 " Could any one come with us to the turning ? " askei 
 Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Why not ? Certainly," said the eldest son. " Pt 
 trushka will put in the horse, and go with you as far a 
 the turning." 
 
 " Then put in your horse, and I shall be in your debt. 
 
 " My dear man," said the kindly old woman, " we ar 
 right glad to do it." 
 
 " Petrushka, go and put in the mare,".^aid the eldest sor 
 
 " All right," said Petrushka, with his broad smile ; an^ 
 taking his cap from the nail, he hurried away to harnes 
 the horse. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 31 
 
 While the harnessing was in progress, the talk turned 
 back to the point where it stood when Vasili Andreich 
 arrived. The old man had complained to the village-elder 
 about the conduct of his third son, who had sent him no 
 present this holiday-time, though he had sent a French 
 shawl to his wife. 
 
 " These young-folk are getting worse and worse," said 
 the old man. 
 
 '' Very much worse ! " said the village-elder. " They 
 are unmanageable. They know too much. There 's De- 
 mochkin, now, who broke his father's arm. It all comes 
 from too much learning." 
 
 Nikita listened, watched the faces ; seeming as though 
 he, too, would like to have a share in the conversation, 
 were he not so busy with his tea ; as it was, he only 
 nodded his head approvingly. He emptied glass after 
 glass, growing warmer and more and more comfortable. 
 The talk kept on in the one strain, all about the harm 
 that comes from family division; clearly, no theoretical 
 discussion, but concerned with a rupture in this very 
 house, arising through the second son, who sat there in 
 his place, morosely silent. The question was a painful 
 one, and absorbed the whole family; but in politeness 
 they refrained from discussing their private affairs before 
 strangers. At last, however, the old man could endure 
 no longer. In a tearful voice, he began to say that there 
 should be no break-up of the family while he lived ; that 
 the house had much to thank God for, but if they fell 
 apart, — they must become beggars. 
 
 "Just like the Matvayeffs," said the village-elder. 
 "There was plenty, among them all, but when they broke 
 up the family, there was nothing for any of them." 
 
 " That 's just what you want to do," said the old man 
 to his son. 
 
32 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 The son answered nothing, and there was a pamfu 
 pause. Petrushka broke the silence, having by this tira 
 harnessed the horse and returned to the room, where h 
 had been standing for a few minutes, smiling all the time 
 
 " There is a tale in P'uls'n, just like this," said he. " i 
 father gave his sons a besom to break. They could no 
 break it while it was bound together, but they broke i 
 easily by taking every switch by itself. That 's the wa; 
 here," he said, with his broad smile, " All 's ready ! " h 
 added. 
 
 " Well, if we 're ready, let us start," said Vasili An 
 dreich. "As to this quarrel, don't you give in, grand 
 father. You got everything together, and you are th 
 master. Apply to the magistrate ; he will show you ho\ 
 to keep your authority." 
 
 " And he gives himself such airs, such airs," the oL 
 man continued to complain, appealingly. " There is n 
 ordering him ! It is as though Satan lived in him." 
 
 Meanwhile, Nikita, having drunk his fifth glass of tcF 
 did not stand it upside down, in sign that he hadflnishec 
 but laid it by his side, hoping they might fill it a sixtl 
 time. But as the samovar had run dry, the hostess dii 
 not fill up for him again; and then Vasili Andreic' 
 began to put on his things. There was no help ; Nikitf 
 too, rose, put back his nibbled little cake of sugar int 
 the sugar-basin, wiped the moisture from his face wit 
 the skirt of his coat, and moved to put on his overcoat. 
 
 After getting into the garment, he sighed heavily 
 then, having thanked their hosts and said good-bye, h 
 went out from the warm, bright room, and through th 
 dark, cold entrance-hall, where the wind creaked th 
 doors and drove the snow in at the chinks, into the dar 
 yard. Petrushka, in his fur-coat, stood in the centre c 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 33 
 
 the yard with the horse, and smiling as ever, recited a 
 verse from " P'uls'n " : 
 
 The storm covers the heaven with darkness, 
 Whirling the driven snow, 
 Now, howling like a wild beast, 
 Now, crying like a child.i 
 
 Nikita nodded appreciatively, and arranged the reins. 
 
 The old man, coming out with Vasili Andreich, brought 
 a lantern, wishing to show the way ; but the wind put it 
 out at once. Even in the enclosed yard, one could see 
 that the storm had risen greatly. 
 
 " What weather ! " thought Vasili Andreich. " I 'm 
 afraid we shall not get there. But it must be ! Busi- 
 ness ! And then, I have put our friend to the trouble of 
 harnessing his horse, God helping, we '11 get therV 
 
 Their aged host also thought it better not to go ; but 
 he had offered his arguments already, and they had not 
 been listened to. " Maybe it is old age makes me over- 
 cautious ; they will get there all right," thought he. 
 " And we can all go to bed at proper time. It will be 
 less bother." 
 
 Petrushka likewise saw danger in going, and felt 
 uneasy ; but he would not let any one see it, and put on 
 a bold front, as though he had not a fear ; the lines about 
 "whirling the driven snow," encouraged him, because 
 they were a quite true description of what was going on 
 out in the street. As to Nikita, he had no wish to go at 
 all ; but he was long used to follow other people's wishes, 
 and to give up his own. Therefore nobody withheld the 
 travellers. 
 
 1 This is rendered in rude fashion by Petrushka, just as an English 
 country laborer might quote a verse from Shelley. The Russian 
 poem given in Paulsen is by Pushkin. 
 3 
 
34 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 Vasili Andeeich went over to the sledges, found then 
 with some groping through the darkness, got in, an( 
 took the reins. 
 
 " Go ahead ! " he shouted. Petrushka, kneeling in hii 
 sledge, started the horse. The dark-bay, who had befon 
 been whinnying, aware of the mare's nearness, nov 
 dashed after her, and they drove out into the street 
 They rode once more through the village, down the sam( 
 road, past the space where the frozen linen had hung, bu 
 hung no longer; past the same barn, now snowed-uj 
 almost as high as the roof, from which the snow flew in 
 cessantly; past the moaning, whistling and bendin| 
 willows. And again they came to where the sea of snov 
 raged from above and below. The wind had such powe: 
 that, taking the travellers sideways when they wer( 
 crossing its direction, it heeled the sledge over so tha 
 the horse was pushed aside. Petrushka drove his goo( 
 mare in front, at an easy trot, giving her an occasiona 
 lively shout of encouragement. The dark-bay pressec 
 after her. 
 
 After driving thus for about ten minutes, Petrushki 
 turned round and called out something. But neithe 
 Vasili Andreich nor Nikita could hear for the wind 
 but they guessed that they had reached the turning. Ii 
 fact, Petrushka had turned to the right ; the wind cami 
 in their front, and to the right, through the snow 
 loomed something black. It was the bush beside tb 
 turning. 
 
 " Well, good-bye to you ! " 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 35 
 
 " Thanks, Petrushka ! " 
 
 " ' The storm covers the heaven with darkness ! ' " 
 shouted Petrushka, and disappeared. 
 
 " Quite a poet," said Vasili Andreich, and shook the 
 reins. 
 
 " Yes, a fine young man, a genuine fellow," said Nikita. 
 
 They drove on. Nikita sank and pressed his head 
 between his shoulders, so that his short beard covered up 
 his throat. He sat silent, trying to keep the warmth 
 which the tea had given him. Before him, he saw the 
 straight lines of the shafts, which to his eyes looked like 
 the ruts of the road ; he saw the shifting quarters of the 
 horse, with the knotted tail swayed in the wind ; beyond, 
 he saw the high bow between the shafts, and the horse's 
 rocking head and neck, with the floating mane. From 
 time to time he noticed waymarks, and knew that, thus 
 far, they had kept right, and he need not concern him- 
 self. 
 
 Vasili Andreich drove on, trusting to the horse to keep 
 to the road. But Moukhorta, although he had picked 
 himself up a little in the village, went unwillingly, and 
 seemed to shirk from the road, so that Vasili Andreich 
 had to press him at times. 
 
 " Here is a waymark on the right, here 's another, and 
 there 's a third," reckoned Vasili Andreich, " and here, in 
 front, is the forest," he thought, examining a dark patch 
 ahead. But that which he took for a forest was only a 
 bush. They passed the bush, drove about fifty yards 
 further, and there was neither the fourth waymark nor 
 the forest. 
 
 " We must reach the forest soon," thought Vasili An- 
 dreich ; and buoyed up by the vodka and the tea, he shook 
 the reins. The good, obedient animal responded, and 
 now at an amble, now at an easy trot, made in the direc- 
 
36 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 tion he was sent, although he knew it was not the wa; 
 in which he should have been going. Ten minutes wen 
 by, but no forest. 
 
 " I 'm afraid we are astray again ! " said Vasili An 
 dreich, pulling up. 
 
 Nikita silently got out from the sledge, and holdini 
 with his hand the flaps of his coat, which pressed agains 
 him or flew from him as he stood and turned in th 
 wind, began to tread the snow ; first to one side, then t 
 the other. About three times he went out of sight altc 
 gether. At last he returned, and took the reins from th 
 hands of Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " We must go to the right," he said, sternly and pei 
 emptorily ; and he turned the horse. 
 
 " Well, if it must be to the right, let us go to the right, 
 gaid Vasili Andreich, passing over the reins and thrust 
 ing his hands into his sleeves. " I should be glad to b 
 back at Grishkino, any way," he said. 
 
 Nikita did not answer. 
 
 "Now then, old fellow, stir yourself," he called to th 
 horse ; but the latter, in spite of the shake of the reins 
 went on only slowly. In places the snow was knee-deej 
 and the sledge jerked at every movement of the horse. 
 
 Nikita took the 'whip, which hung in front of the sledg( 
 and struck once. The good creature, unused to the lasl 
 sprang forward at a trot, but soon fell again to a sloi 
 amble. Thus they went for five minutes. All was s 
 dark, and so blurred with snow from above and belov 
 that sometimes they could not make out the bow betwee 
 the shafts. At times it seemed as though the sledge W8 
 standing, and the ground running back. Suddenly tt 
 horse stopped, feeling something wrong in front of hin 
 Nikita once more lightly jumped out, throwing dow 
 the reins, and went in front to find out what was tt 
 
MASTER AND MAN: 37 
 
 matter. But hardly had he taken a pace clear ahead, 
 when his feet slipped, and he fell down some steep place. 
 
 " Tpron,^ tpron, tpron ! " he said to himself, trying to 
 stop his fall, and falling. There was nothing to seize 
 hold of, and he only brought up when his feet plunged 
 into a thick bed of snow which lay in the ravine. The 
 fringe of snow which hung on the edge of the ravine, dis- 
 turbed by Nikita's fall, showered upon him, and got into 
 his coat-collar. 
 
 " That 's bad treatment ! " said Mkita, reproaching the 
 snow and the ravine, as he cleared out his coat-collar. 
 
 "Mikit, ha, Mikit," shouted Vasili Andreich, from 
 above. But Nikita did not answer. He was too much 
 occupied in shaking away the snow, then in looking for 
 the whip, which he lost in rolling down the bank. Hav- 
 ing found the whip, he started to climb up the bank, but 
 failed, rolling back every time ; so that he was compelled 
 to go along the foot of the bank to And a way up. About 
 ten yards from the place where he fell, he managed to 
 struggle up again, and turn back along the bank towards 
 where the horse should have been. He could not see 
 horse nor sledge ; but by going over in the direction to 
 which the wind was blowing, he heard the voice of Vasili 
 Andreich and the whinny of Moukhorta calling him, 
 before he saw them. 
 
 " I 'm coming. Don't make a noise for nothing," he 
 said. 
 
 Only when quite near the sledge could he make out the 
 horse and Vasili Andreich, who stood close by, and looked 
 gigantic. 
 
 "Where the devil have you got lost? We've got to 
 drive back. We must get back to Grishkino anyway," 
 the master began to rebuke him angrily. 
 
 1 A cry answering to the English "Whoa !" 
 
38 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 " I should be glad to get there, Vasili Andreich, bui 
 how are we to do it ? Here is a ravine where if we onc( 
 get in, we shall never come out. I pitched in there ii 
 such a way that I could hardly get out." 
 
 " Well, assuredly we can't stay here; somewhere w( 
 must go," said Vasili Andreich. 
 
 Nikita made no answer. He sat down on the sledge 
 with his back to the wind, took off his boots and emptiec 
 them of snow, then, with a little straw which he tool 
 from the sledge, he stopped from the inside a gap in th( 
 left boot. 
 
 Vasili Andreich was silent, as though leaving every 
 thing to Nikita alone. Having put on his boots, Nikitf 
 drew his feet into the sledge, took the reins and turned 
 the horse along the ravine. But they had not driven £ 
 hundred paces when the horse stopped again. Anothei 
 ditch confronted him. 
 
 Nikita got out again and began to explore the snow 
 He was afoot a long while. At last he reappeared on the 
 side opposite to that from which he started. 
 
 "Vasili Andreich, are you alive?" he called. 
 
 « Here ! What is the matter ? " 
 
 " I can't make anything out, it is too dark ; excepi 
 some ditches. We must drive to windward again." • 
 
 They set off once more ; Nikita explored again, stum 
 bling in the snow, or resting on the sledge ; at last, fall 
 ing down, he was out of breath, and stopped beside tin 
 sledge. 
 
 " How now ? " asked Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Well, I 'm quite tired out. And the horse is done up.' 
 
 " What are we to do ? " 
 
 " Wait a minute." Nikita moved off again, and soor 
 returned. 
 
 " Follow me," he said, going in front of the horse. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 39 
 
 Vasili Andreich gave orders no more, but, implicitly 
 did what Nikita told him. 
 
 " Here, this way," shouted Mkita, stepping quickly to 
 the right. Seizing Moukhorta's head, he turned him 
 towards a snow-drift. At first the horse resisted ; then 
 dashed forward, hoping to leap the drift, but failed, and 
 sank in snow up to the hams. 
 
 " Get out ! " called Nikita to Vasili Andreich, who still 
 sat in the sledge ; and taking hold of a shaft, he began to 
 push the sledge after the horse. 
 
 " It 's a hard job, friend," he said to Moukhorta, " but it 
 can't be helped. Stir yourself ! Once more ! Ah-oo-oo ! 
 Just a little ! " he called out. The horse leaped forward, 
 once, twice, but failed to clear himself, and sank again. 
 He pricked his ears and sniffed at the snow, putting his 
 head down to it as if thinking out something. 
 
 " Well, friend, this is no good," urged Nikita to Mouk- 
 horta. " A-ah, just a little more ! " Nikita pulled on the 
 shaft again ; Vasili Andreich did the same on the opposite 
 side. The horse lifted his head, and made a sudden 
 dash. 
 
 " A-ah, A-ah, don't be afraid, you won't sink," shouted 
 Nikita. One plunge, a second, a third, and at last the 
 horse was out from the snow-drift, and stood still, breath- 
 ing heavily and shaking himself clear. Nikita wanted 
 to lead him on further; but Vasili Andreich, in his two 
 fur-coats, had so lost his breath that he could walk no 
 more, and dropped into the sledge. 
 
 " Let me get my breath a little," he said, unbinding the 
 handkerchief which tied the collar of his coat. 
 
 " We are all right here, you might as well lie down," 
 said Nikita. " I '11 lead him along " ; and with Vasili An- 
 dreich in the sledge, he led the horse by the head, about 
 ten paces further, then up a slight rise, and stopped. 
 
40 masteh and man. 
 
 The place where Nikita drew up was not in a hollow, 
 where the snow might gather, but was sheltered from 
 the wind by rising ground. At moments, the wind, out- 
 side this protection, seemed to become quieter ; but these 
 intervals did not last long, and after them, the storm, as 
 if to compensate itself, rushed on with tenfold vigor, and 
 tore and whirled the more. Such a gust of wind swept 
 past as Vasili Andreich, with recovered breath, got out 
 of the sledge and went up to Nikita, to talk over the : 
 situation. They both instinctively bowed themselves, 
 and waited until the stress should be over. Moukhorta 
 laid back his ears, and shook himself discontentedly. 
 When the blast had abated a little, Nikita took off his 
 mittens, stuck them in his girdle, and having breathed a 
 little on his hands, began to undo the strap from the bow 
 over the shafts. 
 
 " Why are you doing that ? " asked Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " 1 'm taking out the horse. What else can we do ? 
 I 'm done up," said Nikita, as though apologizing. 
 
 " But we could drive out to somewhere." 
 
 " No, we could not. We should only do harm to the 
 horse. The poor beast is worn out," said Nikita, point- 
 ing to the creature, who stood there, waiting the next 
 move, with heavily heaving sides. " We must put up 
 for the night," he repeated, as though they were at their 
 inn. He began to undo the collar-straps, and detached 
 the collar. 
 
 " But we shall be frozen ? " queried Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " Well, if we are, we cannot help it," said Nikita. 
 
MASTMH AND MAN. 41 
 
 VI. 
 
 In his two fur-coats, Vasili Andreich was quite warm ; 
 especially after the exertion in the snow-drift. But a 
 cold shiver ran down his back when he learned that they 
 must stay where they were the night long. To calm 
 himself, he sat down in the sledge, and got out his cigar- 
 ettes and matches. 
 
 Meanwhile, Nikita continued to take out tlie horse. 
 He undid the belly-band, took away the reins and collar- 
 strap, and laid the bow aside from the shafts ; continuing 
 to encourage Moukhorta by speaking to him. 
 
 " Now, come out, come out," he said, leading the horse 
 clear of the shafts. " We must tie you here. I '11 put a 
 bit of straw for you, and take off your bridle," he went 
 on, doing as he said. " After a bite, you '11 feel ever so 
 much better." 
 
 But Moukhorta was not calmed by Nikita's words; 
 uneasily, he shifted his feet, pressed against the sledge, 
 turned his back to the wind, and rubbed his head on 
 Nikita's sleeve. 
 
 As if not wholly to reject the treat of straw which 
 Nikita put under his nose, Moukhorta just once seized a 
 wisp out of the sledge, but quickly deciding that there 
 was more important business than to eat straw, he threw 
 it down again, and the wind instantly tore it away and 
 hid it in the snow. 
 
 "Now we must make a signal," said Nikita, turning 
 the front of the sledge against the wind; and having 
 tied the shafts together with a strap, he set them on end 
 in the front of the sledge. " If the snow covers us, the 
 
42 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 good folk will see the shafts, and dig us up," saidMkita, 
 " That 's what old hands advise." 
 
 Vasili Andreich had meanwhile opened his fur-coat, 
 and making a shelter with its folds, he rubbed match 
 after match on the box. But his hands trembled, and 
 the kindled matches were blown out by the wind, one 
 after another, some when just struck, others when he 
 thrust them to the cigarette. At last one match burned 
 fully, and lighted up for a moment the fur of his coat, 
 his hand with the gold ring on the bent fore-flnger, and 
 the snow-sprinkled straw which stuck out from under 
 the sacking. The cigarette took light. Twice he eagerly 
 whiffed the smoke, drew it in, blew it through his mous- 
 taches, and would have gone on, but the wind tore away 
 the burning tobacco. Even these few whiffs of tobacco- 
 smoke cheered up Vasili Andreich. 
 ' " Well, we will stop here," he said authoritatively. 
 
 Looking at the raised shafts, he thought to make a 
 still better signal, and to give Nikita a lesson. 
 
 " Wait a minute, and I '11 make a flag," he said, picking 
 up the handkerchief which he had taken from round his 
 collar and put down in the sledge. Drawing off his 
 gloves, and reaching up, he tied the handkerchief tightly 
 to the strap that held the shafts together. The handker- 
 chief at once began to beat about wildly ; now clinging 
 round a shaft, now streaming out, and cracking like a 
 whip. 
 
 " That 's fine," said Vasili Andreich, pleased with his 
 work, and getting into the sledge. "We should be 
 warmer together, but there 's not room for two," he saidi 
 
 " I can find room," said Nikita, " but the horse must b« 
 covered ; he 's sweating, the good fellow. Excuse me,'' 
 he added, going to the sledge, and drawing the sacking 
 from under Vasili Andreich. This he folded, and aftei 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 43 
 
 king off the saddle and breeching, covered the dark-bay 
 Lth it. 
 
 "Any way, it will be a bit warmer, silly," he said, 
 itting the saddle and heavy breeching over the sacking. 
 " Can you spare the rug ? and give me a little straw ? " 
 id Nikita, after finishing with the horse. 
 Taking these from under Vasili Andreich, he went be- 
 nd the sledge, dug there a hole in the snow, put in the 
 raw, and pulling his hat over his eyes and covering 
 mself with the rug, sat down on the straw, with his 
 ck against the bark-matting of the back of the sledge, 
 lich kept off the wind and snow. 
 
 Vasili Andreich, seeing what Nikita was doing, shook 
 3 head disapprovingly, in the way he usually did over 
 e signs of peasant-folk's ignorance and density ; and he 
 gan to make arrangements for the night. 
 I-Ie smoothed the remaining straw, heaped it more 
 ickly under his side, thrust his hands into his sleeves, 
 d adjusted his head in the corner of the sledge in front, 
 lere he was sheltered from the wind. He did not wish 
 sleep. He lay down, and thought; about one thing 
 ly, which was the aim, reason, pleasure and pride of hisJ 
 e; about the money he had made, and might make, the^ 
 lount his neighbors had, and the means whereby they 
 ined it and were gaining it ; and how he, like them, 
 uld gain a great deal more. 
 
 " The oak can be sold for sledge- runners. And certainly, 
 e trees for building. And there are a hundred feet of 
 ewood to the acre," — so he estimated the forest, which 
 had seen in the autumn, and which he was going to 
 ly. " But for all that, I won't pay ten thousand ; say 
 rht thousand; and besides, in allowing for the bare 
 aces, I '11 oil the surveyor, — a hundred roubles will do it 
 a hundred and fifty, if necessary, and get him to take . 
 
44 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 about thirteen acres out of the forest. He is sure to sell 
 for eight; three thousand down. Yes, sure; he will 
 weaken at that," he thought, pressing his fore-arm on the 
 pocket-book beneath. " And how we 've got astray, God 
 knows ! The forest and the keeper's hut should be just 
 by. I should like to hear the dogs, but they never bark 
 when they 're wanted, the cursed brutes." He opened his 
 collar a little, to look and listen ; there was only the darl^ 
 head of the horse, and his back, on which the sackcloth 
 fluttered ; there was only the same whistle of the windj 
 the flapping and cracking of the handkerchief on th( 
 shafts, and the lashing of the snow on the bark-mattinj 
 of the sledge. He covered himself again. " If one ha( 
 only known this beforehand, we had better have stayec 
 where we Were. But no matter, to-morrow will be tim( 
 enough. It is only a day later. In this weather, tli( 
 other fellows won't dare to go." Then he rememberec 
 that on the 9th he had to receive the price of some cattlf 
 from the butcher. He wanted to do the business himself 
 for his wife had no experience, and was not competent ir 
 such matters. " She never knows what to do," he con 
 tinned to reflect, remembering how she had failed in hei 
 behavior towards the commissary of police, when h.( 
 visited them yesterday, at the feast. " Just a woman, o: 
 course. What has she ever seen ? In my father's anc 
 mother's time, what sort of a house had we ? Nothing 
 out of the way ; a well-to-do countryman's ; a barn, anc 
 an inn, and that was the whole property. And now whai 
 a change I 've made, these fifteen years ! A general store 
 two taverns, a flour-mill, a stock of grain, two farms oi 
 rent, a house and warehouse all iron-roofed," he remem 
 bered proudly. " Not like in the old people's time ! Wh( 
 is known over the whole place ? Brekhunov." 
 " And why is all this ? Because I stick to business, : 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 45 
 
 "look after things ; not like others, who idle, or waste theii 
 'time in foolishness. I give up sleep at night. Storm or 
 '-no storm, I go. And of course, the thing is done. They 
 I'lthink money is made easily, by just playing. Not 
 'at all ; it 's work and trouble. They think luck makes 
 'limen. Look at the MironoTS, who have their millions, 
 
 now. Why ? They worked. Then God gives. If God 
 (ionly grants us health ! " And the idea that he, also, 
 iiimight become a millionaire like Mironov, who began with 
 iiinothing, so excited Vasili Andreich that he suddenly felt 
 ii'a, need to talk to some one. But there was nobody. If 
 she could only have reached Goryachkino, he might have 
 Kitalked with the landowner, and got round him. 
 slif " What a gale ! It will snow us up so that we can't 
 rget out in the morning," he thought, listening to the 
 lusound of the wind, which blew against the front of the 
 isledge, and lashed the snow against the bark-matting. 
 a "And I did as Nikita said, all for nothing," he 
 ■thought. " We ought to have driven on, and got to 
 SESomewhere. We might have gone back to Grishkino, 
 ktand stayed at Tarass's. Now we must sit here all night. 
 liWell, what was I thinking about? Yes, that God gives 
 Idto the industrious, and not to the lazy, loafers, and fools. 
 ijlt 's time for a smoke, too." He sat up, got his cigarette- 
 ['jcase, and stretched himself flat on his stomach, to pro- 
 (ilttect the light from the wind with the flaps of his coat ; 
 jiibut the wind got in and put out match after match. At 
 [illast, he managed to get a cigarette lit. It began to burn, 
 stand the achievement of his object greatly delighted him. 
 BjAlthough the wind had more of his cigarette than he 
 ijiihimself, nevertheless he got about three puffs, and felt 
 iTibetter. He again threw himself back in the sledge, 
 
 wrapped himself up, and returned to his recollections 
 ijand dreams; he fell asleep. But suddenly something 
 
46 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 pushed and awoke him. Was it the dark-bay pulling 
 the straw from under him, or some fancy of his own '< 
 At all events he awoke, and his heart began to beat so 
 quickly and strongly that the sledge seemed to be shak- 
 ing under him. He opened his eyes. Everything! 
 around was the same as before ; but it seemed a shade 
 brighter. " The morning," he thought, " it can't be fai 
 from morning." But he suddenly remembered that the 
 light was only due to the rising of the moon. He lifted 
 himself, and looked first at the horse. Moukhorta stood 
 with his back to the wind, and shivered all over. The 
 sacking, snow-covered and turned up at one corner ; the 
 breeching, which had slipped aside ; the snowy head and 
 fluttering mane ; all was now more clearly visible. 
 Vasili Andreich bent over the back of the sledge and 
 looked behind. Nikita sat in his old position. The rug 
 and his feet were covered with snow. " I 'm afraid he 
 will be frozen, his clothes are so bad. I might be held 
 responsible. He is tired out, and has not much resist- 
 ing-power," reflected Vasili Andreich ; and he though!] 
 of taking the sacking from the horse, to put over Nikita^ 
 but it was cold to disturb himself, and besides, he did not 
 want the horse frozen. " What was the use of bringing 
 him ? It is all her stupidity ! " thought Vasili Andreich^ 
 remembering the unloved wife ; and he turned again to 
 his former place in the front of the sledge. " My uncle 
 once sat in snow all night, like this," he reflected, " and 
 no harm came of it. And Sebastian also was dug out," 
 he went on, remembering another case, "but he was 
 dead, stiff like a frozen carcass." 
 
 " It would have been all right if we had stopped at 
 Grishkino." Carefully covering himself, not to waste the 
 warmth of the fur, and so as to protect his neck, knees 
 and the soles of his feet, he shut his eyes, trying to sleep, 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 47 
 
 But however much he tried, no sleep came ; on the con- 
 wary, he felt alert and excited. He began again to count 
 (lis gains and the debts due to him ; again he began to 
 ■ooast to himself, and to feel proud of himself and his posi- 
 fcion ; but he was all the while disturbed by a lurking 
 iear, and by the unpleasant reflection that he had not 
 (Stopped at Grishkino. He changed his attitude several 
 iKimes ; he lay down, and tried to find a better position, 
 Unore sheltered from wind and snow, but failed ; he rose 
 jigain and changed his position, crossed his feet, shut his 
 lyes and lay silent ; but either his crossed feet, in their 
 i;4gh felt boots, began to ache, or the wind blew in some- 
 ilivhere. Thus lying for a short time, he again began the 
 alisagreeable reflection, how comfortably he would have 
 (jain in the warm house at Grishkino. Again he rose, 
 (ihanged his position, wrapped himself up, and again lay 
 jjlown. 
 
 jj Once Vasili Andreich fancied he heard a distant cock- 
 [jTow. He brightened up, and began to listen with all his 
 j,Qight ; but however he strained his ear, he heard noth- 
 ing but the sound of the wind whistling against the shafts, 
 |.nd the snow lashing the bark-matting of the sledge. 
 j,^ikita had been motionless all the time, not even answer- 
 (i,ng Vasili Andreich, who spoke to him twice. 
 J, " He doesn't worry ; he seems to be asleep," Vasili An- 
 jj^reich thought, angrily, looking behind the sledge at the 
 i-now-covered Nikita. 
 
 I, Twenty times Vasili Andreich thus rose and lay down. 
 jt seemed to him this night would never end. " It must 
 e near morning now," he thought once, z'ising and look- 
 j|ig round him. "Let me see my watch. It is cold to 
 (jjn button oneself ; but if I only knew it was near morning, 
 L^ would be better. Then we might begin to harness the 
 fc.orse." At the bottom of Ins mind, Vasili Andreich 
 
48 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 knew that the dawn could be nowhere near ; but he be- 
 gan to feel more and more afraid, and he chose both to 
 deceive himself and to find himself out. He began cau- 
 tiously to undo the hooks of the inside fur-coat, then 
 putting his hand in at the bosom, he felt about until he 
 got at the vest. With great trouble, he drew out his 
 silver, flower-enamelled watch, and began to examine it. 
 Without a light, he could make out nothing. Again he 
 lay down fiat, as when he lit the cigarette; got the 
 matches, and began to strike. This time he was partic- 
 ularly careful, and selecting a match with most phos- 
 phorus on, at one attempt lit it. Lighting up the face; 
 of the watch, he could not believe his eyes. It was not 
 later than ten minutes past twelve. The whole nighty 
 was yet before him. 
 
 " O what a weary night ! " thought Vasili Andreich, a 
 cold shiver running down his back; and buttoning up| 
 again, he hugged himself close in the corner of the sledge. 
 Suddenly, through the monotonous wail of the wind, 
 he distinctly heard a new, and a living sound. It grew; 
 gradually louder, and became quite clear ; then began toi 
 die away. There could be no doubt; it was a wolf.s 
 And this wolf's howl was so near, that down the wind 
 one could hear how he changed his cry by the movementi 
 of his jaws. Vasili Andreich turned back his collar, and 
 listened attentively. JMoukhorta listened likewise, prick- 
 ing his ears, and when the wolf had ceased howling, he, 
 shifted his feet, and sniffed warningly. After this Vasilil 
 Andreich not only was unable to sleep, but even to keep 
 calm. The more he tried to think of his accounts, of his| 
 business, reputation, importance, and property, more andj 
 more fear grew upon him; and above all his thoughts,! 
 one thought stood out predominantly and penetratingly : 
 the thought of his rashness in not stopping at Grishkino.' 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 49 
 
 "The forest, — what do I care about the forest? There 
 is plenty of business without that, thank God ! Ah, why 
 did I not stay the night ? " said he to himself. " They 
 say people who drink are soon frozen," he thought, " and 
 I have had some drink." Then testing his own sensa- 
 tions, he felt that he began to shiver, not knowing 
 Avhether from cold or fear. He tried to wrap himself up 
 and to lie down, as before ; but he could not. He was 
 unable to rest, wanted to rise, to do something to sup- 
 press his gathering fears, against which he felt helpless. 
 Again he got his cigarettes and matches ; but only three 
 of the latter remained, and these were bad ones. All 
 three rubbed away without lighting. 
 
 "To the devil, curse it, to—! " he broke out, himself 
 not knowing why, and he threw away the cigarette, 
 broken. He was about to throw away the match-box, 
 but stayed his hand, and thrust it in his pocket instead. 
 He was so agitated that he could no longer remain in 
 one place. He got out of the sledge, and standing with 
 his back to the wind, set his girdle again, tightly, and 
 low-down. 
 
 " What is the use of lying down; it is only waiting for 
 death ; much better mount the horse and get away ! " 
 the thought suddenly flashed into his mind. " The horse 
 will not stand still with some one on his back. He," — 
 thinking of Nikita, — " must die any way. What sort of 
 a life has he ? He does not care much even about his 
 life, but as for me, — thank God, I have something to live 
 for!" 
 
 Untying the horse from the sledge, he threw the reins 
 over his neck, and tried to mount, but failed. Then 
 he clambered on the sledge, and tried to mount from 
 that; but the sledge tilted under his weight, and he 
 failed again. At last, on a third attempt, he backed the 
 4 
 
50 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 horse to the sledge, and cautiously balancing on the edge, 
 got his body across the horse. Lying thus for a moment, 
 he pushed himself once, twice, and finally threw one leg 
 over and seated himself, supporting his feet on the 
 breeching in place of stirrups. The shaking of the 
 sledge roused Nikita, and he got up ; Vasili Andreich 
 thought he was speaking. 
 
 "Listen to you, fool? What, must I die in this way, 
 for nothing ? " exclaimed Vasili Andreich. Tucking 
 under his knees the loose skirts of his fur-coat, he turned 
 the horse round, and rode away from the sledge in the 
 direction where he expected to find the forest and the 
 keeper's hut. 
 
 VII. 
 
 NiKiTA had not stirred since, covered by the rug, he 
 took his seat behind the sledge. Like all people who live^ 
 with nature, and endure much, he was patient, and could 
 wait for hours, even days, without growing restless or 
 irritated. When his master called to him, he heard, but 
 made no answer, because he did not wish to stir. The 
 thought that he might, and very likely must, die that 
 night, came to him at the moment he was taking his seat 
 behind the sledge. Although he still felt the warmth 
 from the tea he had taken, and from the exercise of strug- 
 gling through the snow-drift, he knew the warmth would 
 not last long, and that he could not warm himself again 
 by moving about, for he was exhausted, and felt as a horse 
 may, when it stops, and must have food before it can work 
 again. Besides, his foot, the one in the torn boot, was 
 numbed, and already he could not feel the great toe. And 
 the cold began to creep all over his body. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 51 
 
 The thought that he would die that night came upon 
 him, seeming not very unpleasant, nor very awful. Not 
 unpleasant, becaiise his life had been no unbroken feast, 
 but rather an incessant round of toil of which he began 
 to weary. And not awful, because, beyond the masters 
 whom he served here, like Vasili Andreich, he felt him- 
 self dependent upon the Great Master ; upon Him Who 
 had sent him into this life. And he knew that even after 
 death he must remain in the power of that Master ; Who 
 would not treat him badly. " Is it a pity to leave what 
 you are practised in, and used to ? Well, what 's to be 
 done ? You must get used to fresh things as well." 
 
 " Sins ? " he thought, and recollected his drunkenness, 
 the money wasted in drink, his ill-treatment of his wife,^ 
 neglect of church and of the fasts, and all things for which 
 the priest reprimanded him at the confessional. " Of 
 course, these are sins. But then, did I bring them on me, 
 myself? Whatever I am, I suppose God made me so. 
 Well, and about these sins? How can one help it?" ; 
 
 So he thought, concerning what might happen to him 
 that night, and having reached his conclusion, he gave 
 himself up to the thoughts and recollections which ran 
 through his mind of themselves. He remembered the visit 
 of his wife, Martha ; the drunkenness among the peasants, 
 and his own abstinence from drink ; the beginning of their 
 journey ; Tarass's house, and the talk about the break-up 
 of the family ; his own lad ; Moukhorta, with the sacking 
 over him for warmth ; and his master, rolling round in 
 the sledge, and making it creak. " He is uneasy," thought 
 Nikita, "most likely because a life like his makes one want 
 not to die ; different from people of my kind." And all 
 these recollections and thoughts interwove and jumbled 
 themselves in his brain, until he fell asleep. 
 
 When Vasili Andreich mounted the horse, he twisted 
 
52 MASTUB AND MAN. 
 
 aside the sledge, and the back of it slid away from behind 
 Nilcita, who was struck by one of the runner-ends. Nikita 
 awoke, thus compelled to move. Straightening his legs 
 with dilficulty, and throwing off the snow which covered 
 them, he got up. Instantly an agony of cold penetrated 
 his whole frame. On making out what was happening, 
 he wanted Vasili Andreich to leave him the sacking that 
 lay over the horse, which was no longer needed there ; so 
 that he might put it round himself. But Vasili Andreich 
 did not wait, and disappeared in the midst of snow. Thus 
 left alone, Mkita considered what he had better do. He 
 felt unable to move off in search of some house ; and it 
 was already impossible for him to sit down in the place 
 he had occupied, for it was already covered with snow; 
 and he knew he could not get warm in the sledge, having 
 Qothing to cover him. He felt as cold as though he stood 
 in his shirt ; there seemed no warmth at all from his coat 
 and overcoat. For a moment, he pondered ; then sighed ; 
 and keeping the rug over his head, he threw himself into 
 the sledge, in the place where his master had lain. He 
 buddled himself up into the smallest space ; but still got 
 no warmth. Thus he lay for about five minutes, shiver- 
 ing through his whole body ; then the shivering ceased, 
 and he begkn to lose consciousness, little by little. 
 Whether he was dying, or falling asleep, he knew not ; but 
 he was as ready for the one as for the other. If God 
 should bid him get up again, still alive in the world ; to 
 go on with his laborer's life, to care for other men's horses, 
 to carry other men's corn to the mill, to again start drink- 
 ing and renouncing drink, to continue the money-supply 
 to his wife and that same cooper ; to watch his lad grow- 
 ing up,— well, so be His holy will. Should God bid him 
 arise in another world, where all would be as fresh and 
 bright as this world was in his young childhood, with the 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 53 
 
 caresses of his mother, the games among the children, the 
 fields, forests, skating in winter, — arise to a life quite out 
 of the common,— then, so be His holy will. And Mkita 
 wholly lost consciousness. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 During this while, Vasili Andreich guiding with his 
 feet and the gathered reins, rode the horse in the direc- 
 tion where he, for some cause, expected to find the forest 
 and the forester's hut. The snow blinded him, and the 
 wind, it seemed, was bent on staying him ; but with head 
 bent forward, and continually pulling up his fur-coat be- 
 tween him and the cold, nail-studded pad, on which he 
 could not settle himself, he urged on the horse. The 
 dark-bay, though with difficulty, obediently ambled on in 
 the direction to which he was turned. 
 
 For some minutes he rode on ; as it seemed to him, in 
 a straight line ; seeing nothing but the horse's head and 
 the white waste, and hearing only the whistling of the 
 wind about the horse's ears and his own coat-collar. 
 
 Suddenly a dark patch showed in front of him. His 
 heart began to beat with joy, and he rode on towards the 
 object, already seeing in it the house- walls of a village. 
 But the dark patch was not stationary, it moved. It was 
 not a village, but a ridge, covered with tall mugwort, 
 which rose up through the snow, and bent to one side 
 under the force of the wind. The sight of the high grass, 
 tormented by the pitiless wind, somehow made Vasili 
 Andreich tremble, and he started to ride away hastily ; 
 not perceiving that in approaching the place, he had quite 
 turned out of his first direction, and that now he was 
 heading the opposite way. He was still confident that 
 
54 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 he rode towards where the forester's hut should be. But 
 the horse seemed always to make towards the right, and 
 Vasili Andreich had to guide it towards the left. 
 
 Again a dark patch appeared before him ; again he re- 
 joiced, believing that now surely he saw a village. But 
 once more it was the ridge, covered with high grass, shak- 
 ing ominously, and as before, frightening Vasili Andreich. 
 But it was not the same ridge of grass, for near it was a 
 horse-track, now disappearing in the snow. Vasili An- 
 dreich stopped, bent down, and looked carefully ; a horse- 
 track, not yet snow-covered ; it could only be the hoof- 
 prints of his own horse. He was evidently moving in 
 a small circle. "Audi am perishing in this way, "he 
 thought. To repress his terror, he urged on the horse, 
 still more, peering into the mist of snow, in which he saw 
 nothing but flitting and fitful points of light. Once he 
 thought he heard either the barking of dogs or the howl- 
 ing of wolves, but the sounds were so faint and indis- 
 tinct, that he could not be sure whether he had heard 
 them, or imagined them ; and he stopped to strain his 
 ears and listen. 
 
 Suddenly a terrible, deafening cry beat upon his ears, 
 and everything began to tremble and quake about him. 
 Vasili Andreich seized the horse's neck, but that also 
 shook, and the terrible cry rose still more frightfully. 
 For some moments, Vasili Andreich was beside himself, 
 and could not understand what had happened. It was 
 only this : Moukhorta, whether to encourage himself or 
 to call for help, had neighed, loudly and resonantly. 
 
 " The devil ! How that cursed horse frightened me ! " 
 said Vasili Andreich to himself. But even when he un- 
 derstood the cause of his terror, he could not shake it 
 off. 
 
 " I must bethink myself, steady myself," he went on, 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 55 
 
 even while, unable to regain his self-control, he urged 
 forward the horse without noting that he was now going 
 with the wind, instead of against it. His body, especially 
 where his fur-coat did not protect it against the pad, was 
 freezing ; shivering and aching all over. He forgot all 
 about the forester's hut, and desired one thing only ; to 
 get back to the sledge, that he might not perish alone, 
 like that mugwort in the midst of the terrible waste of 
 snow. 
 
 Without warning, the horse suddenly stumbled under 
 him, caught in a snow-drift ; began to plunge, and fell on 
 his side. Vasili Andreich jumped off, dragged down the 
 breeching with his foot, and turned the pad round by 
 holding to it as he jumped. As soon as he was clear, the 
 horse righted itself, plunged forward one leap and then an- 
 other, and neighing again, with the sacking and breeching 
 trailed after him, disappeared ; leaving Vasili Andreich' 
 alone in the snow-drift. The latter pressed on after the 
 horse, but the snow was so deep, and his fur-coat so heavy, 
 that, sinking over the knee at each step, he was out of 
 breath after not more than twenty paces, and stopped. 
 " The forest, the sheep, the farms, the shop, the taverns," 
 thought he, " how can I leave them ? What is really the 
 matter ? This is impossible ! " surged through his head. 
 And he had a strange recollection of the wind-shaken 
 mugwort which he had ridden past twice, and such a terror 
 seized him that he lost all sense of the reality of what 
 was happening. He thought, " Is not this all a dream ? " 
 — and tried to wake himself. But there was no awaken- 
 ing. The snow was real, lashing his face and covering 
 him ; and it was a real desert in which he was now alone, 
 like that mugwort, waiting for inevitable, speedy, and 
 ■ incomprehensible death. 
 
 " Queen in heaven, Nicholas the miracle-doer, sustainer 
 
56 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 of the f aithf ul ! "— He recalled yesterday's Te Deums; 
 the shrine with the black image in a golden chasuble; 
 the tapers which he sold for the shrine, and which, as 
 they were at once returned to him, he used to put back 
 in the store-chest hardly touched by the flame. And he 
 began to implore that same Nicholas — the miracle-doer, 
 to save him, vowing to the saint a Te Deum and tapers. 
 But in some way, here, he clearly and without a doubt 
 realized that the image, chasuble, tapers, priests, thanks- 
 givings and so forth, while very important and necessary 
 in their place, in the church, were of no service to him 
 now ; and that between those tapers and Te Deums, and 
 his own disastrous plight, there could be no possible 
 relation. 
 
 " I must not give up ; I must follow the horse's tracks, 
 or they, too, will be snowed over," the thought struck 
 him, and he made on. But despite his resolution to walk 
 quietly, he found himself running, falling down every 
 minute, rising and falling again. The hoof -prints were 
 already almost indistinguishable where the snow was 
 shallow. " I am lost ! " thought Vasili Andreich, " I 
 shall lose this track as well ! " But at that instant, casting 
 a glance in front, he saw something dark. It was the 
 horse, and not him alone, but the sledge, the shafts. 
 Moukhorta, with the pad twisted round and the trailed 
 breeching and sacking, was standing, not in his former 
 place, but nearer to the shafts ; and was shaking his 
 head, drawn down by the reins beneath his feet. It ap- 
 peared that Vasili Andreich had stuck in the same ravine 
 into which they had, with Nikita, previously plunged; 
 that the horse had led him back to the sledge ; and that 
 he had dismounted at not more than fifty paces from the 
 place where the sledge lay. 
 
MASTMR AND MAN. 57 
 
 IX. 
 
 When Vasili Andreich, with great difi&culty, regained 
 the sledge, he seized upon it, and stood motionless for a 
 long time ; trying to calm himself, and to take breath. 
 ISTikita was not in his old place, but something was lying 
 in the sledge, something already covered with snow ; and 
 Vasili Andreich guessed it to be Nikita. His terror had 
 now quite left him ; if he felt any fear, it was lest that 
 berror should return upon him in the way he had experi- 
 3nced it when on the horse, and especially when he was 
 ilone in the snow-drift. By any and every means, he 
 must keep away that terror ; to do that, he must forget 
 himself, think about something else ; something must be ■ 
 lone. Accordingly, the first thing he did was to turn his 
 back to the wind and throw open his fur-cloak. As soon 
 IS he felt a little refreshed, he shook out the snow from 
 biis boots and gloves, bound up his girdle again, tight and 
 iow-down ; as though making ready for work, as he did 
 when going out to buy grain from the peasants' carts. 
 The first step to take, it appeared to him, was to free the 
 horse's legs. And he did this ; then clearing the rein, 
 he tied Moukhorta to the iron cramp in front of the 
 fledge, as before, and walking round the horse's quarters, 
 [le adjusted the pad, breeching and sacking. But as he 
 iid this, he perceived a movement in the sledge; and 
 Nikita's head rose out of the snow that was about it. 
 With obvious great difficulty, the peasant rose and sat up ; 
 md in a strange fashion, as though he were driving away 
 Qies, waved his hand before his face, saying something 
 which Vasili Andreich interpreted as a call to himself. 
 
 Vasili Andreich left the sack unadjusted, and went to 
 the sledge. 
 
58 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " he asked. " What 
 are you saying ? " 
 
 " I am dy-y-ing, that 's what 's the matter," said Nikita, 
 brokenly, struggling for speech. "Give what I have 
 earned to the lad. Or to the wife ; it 's all the same." 
 
 " What, are you really frozen ? " asked Vasili Andreich. 
 
 " I can feel I 've got my death. Forgiveness ... for 
 Christ's sake . . ." said Nikita, in a sobbing voice, con- 
 tinuing to wave his hand before his face, as if driving 
 away flies. 
 
 ' Vasili Andreich stood for half-a- minute quiet and still; 
 then suddenly, with the same resolution with which he 
 \ised to strike hands over a good bargain, he took a step 
 back, turned up the sleeves of his fur-coat, and using both 
 hands, began to rake the snow from oS. Nikita and the 
 sledge. ' That done, Vasili Andreich quickly took off his 
 I girdle, made ready the fur-coat, and moving Nikita with 
 a push, he lay down on him, covering him not only with 
 the fur-coat, but with the full length of his own body, 
 which glowed with warmth. 
 
 Adjusting with his hands the skirts of his coat, so as 
 to come between Nikita and the bark-matting of the 
 sledge, and tucking the tail of the coat between his knees, 
 Vasili Andreich lay flat, with his head against the bark- 
 matting in the sledge-front. He no longer could hear, 
 either the stirring of the horse or the wind's whistling ; 
 he had ears only for the breathing of Nikita. At first, 
 and for a long time, Nikita lay without a sign ; then he 
 sighed deeply, and moved, evidently with returning 
 warmth. 
 
 " Ah, there you are ! And yet you say ' die.' Lie 
 still, get warm, and we shall . . ." began Vasili Andreich. 
 But to his own surprise, he could not speak : because his 
 eyes were filled with tears, and his lower jaw began to 
 
MASTEU AND MAN. 59 
 
 (juiver strongly. He said no more ; only swallowed down 
 the risings in his throat. 
 
 " I have been frightened, that is clear, and have lost my 
 Qerve," he thought of himself. 'But this weakness came 
 not as an unpleasant sensation ; rather as a notable, and 
 hitherto unknown, delight. 
 
 "That's what we are!" he said to himself, with a 
 strange, tender and tranquil sense of victory. He lay quiet 
 for some time, wiping his eyes with the fur of his coat, 
 and returning the right skirt under his knees, as the wind 
 continually turned it up^ 
 
 He felt a passionate desire to let some one else know of 
 Ills happy condition. 
 
 " Nikita ! " he said. 
 
 " It's comfortable," came an answer from below. 
 
 "So it is, friend! I was nearly lost. And you would 
 liave been frozen, and I should . . ." 
 
 But here again his face began to quiver, and his eyes 
 Dnce more filled with tears ; he could say no more. 
 
 " Well, never mind," he thought, " I know well enough 
 myself, what I know," and he kept quiet. 
 
 Several times he looked at the horse, and saw that his 
 back was uncovered, and the sacking and breeching were 
 flanging down nearly to the snow. He ought to get up 
 md cover the horse ; but he could not bring himself to 
 eave Nikita for even a moment, and so disturb that 
 lappy situation in which he felt himself ; for he had no 
 'ear now. 
 
 Nikita warmed him from below, and the fur-coat 
 smarmed him from above ; but.his hands, with which he 
 leld the coat-skirts down on both sides of Nikita, and his 
 'eet, from which the wind continually lifted the coat, be- 
 fan to freeze. But he did not think of them. He thought 
 )nly of how to restore the man who lay beneath him. 
 
60 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 « No fear, he will not escape," he said to himself, as 
 Nikita grew warmer ; and he said this boastingly, in the 
 way he used to speak of his buying and selling. 
 
 Then he lay for a long while. At first his thoughts 
 were filled with impressions of the snow-storm, the shafts 
 of the sledge, the horse under the sledge-bow, all jos- 
 tling before his eyes ; he recollected Nikita, lying under 
 him ; then upon these impressions rose others, of the 
 feast, his wife, the commissary of police, the taper-box; 
 then again of Nikita, this time lying under the taper-box. 
 Then came apparitions of peasants at their trafficking, 
 and white walls, and iron-roofed houses, with Nikita 
 stretched out beneath ; then all was confused, one thing 
 running into another, like the colors in the rainbow, 
 which blend into one whiteness, all the different impres- 
 sions fused into one nothing ; and he fell asleep. For a 
 long time, he slept dreamlessly ; but before daybreak 
 dreams visited him again. He was once more standing 
 beside the taper-box, and Tikhon's wife asked him for a 
 five-kopeck taper, for the feast ; he wanted to take the 
 taper and give it to her, but he could not move his hands, 
 which hung down, thrust tightly into his pockets. He 
 wanted to walk round the box; but his feet would not 
 move; his goloshes, new and shiny, had grown to the 
 stone-floor, and he could neither move them, nor take out 
 his feet. (All at once the box ceased to be a taper-box, 
 and turned into a bed^, and Vasili Andreich saw himself 
 lying, face downward,) on the taper-box, which was his 
 own bed at home. Thus lying, he was unable to get up ; 
 and yet he must get up, because Ivan Matveich, the com- 
 missary of police, would soon call upon him, and with 
 Ivan Matveich he must either bargain for the forest, or 
 set the breeching right on Moukhorta. He asked his 
 wife, " Well, has he not come ? " " No," she said, " he 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 61 
 
 has not." He heard some one drive up to the front door. 
 It must be he. No, whoever it was, he has gone past. 
 "Micolaevna, Micolaevna! what, has he not come yet?" 
 No. ("^nd he lay on the bed, still unable to rise, and still 
 waiting ; a waiting that was painful, and yet pleasant. 
 All at once, his joy was fulfilled ; the expected one came; 
 not Ivan Matveich, the commissary of police, but 
 another ; and yet the one for whom he had waited. He 
 came, and called to him ; and he that called was he who 
 had bidden him lie down upon Nikita. Vasili Andreich 
 was glad because that one had visited him. " I am com- 
 ing," he cried, joyfully. And the cry awoke him. 
 
 He wakes ; but wakes in quite another state than when 
 he fell asleep. He wants to rise, and cannot ; to move 
 his arm, and cannot, — his leg, and he cannot do that. He 
 wants to turn his head, and cannot do even so much. He 
 is surprised, but not at all disturbed by this. He divines 
 that this is death ; and is not at all disturbed even by 
 that. And he remembers that Nikita is lying under him, 
 and that he has got warm, and is alive ; and it seems to 
 him that he is Nikita, and Nikita is he ; that his life is 
 not in himself, but in Nikita. He makes an effort to 
 listen, and hears the breathing, even the slight snoring, 
 of Nikita. "Nikita is alive, and therefore I also am 
 alive ! " he says to himself, triumphantly. And some- 
 thing quite new, such as he had never known in all his 
 lite, is stealing down upon him. 
 
 He remembers his money, the shop, the house, the buy- 
 ing and selling, the Mironov's millions; and he really 
 cannot understand why that man, called Vasili Brek- 
 hunov, had troubled with all those things with which he 
 had troubled himself. " Well, he did not know what it 
 was all about," he thinks, concerning this Vasili Brek- 
 hunov. " He did not know, you see ; but now, I do know. 
 
62 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 No mistake this time ; ?iow I know." And again he hears 
 the summons of that one who had before called him. 
 "I am coming, I am coming," ite-says ^pitto his whole joy- 
 thrilled being. And he feels himself free ; with nothing 
 to encumber him more. And nothing more, in this world, 
 saw, heard, or felt Vasili Andreich. 
 
 Round about, all was as before. The same whirling 
 snow, driving upon the fur-coat of the dead Vasili 
 Andreich, upon Moukhorta, whose whole body shivered, 
 and upon the sledge, now hardly to be seen, with Nikita 
 lying in the bottom of it, kept warm beneath his now 
 dead master. 
 
 X. 
 
 Towards daybreak, Mkita awoke. The cold roused 
 him, again creeping along his back. He had dreamt that 
 he was driving from the mill with a cart-load of his 
 master's flour, and that near Liapin's, in turning at the 
 bridge-end, he got the cart stuck. And he saw that he 
 went beneath the cart, and lifted it with his back, adjust- 
 ing his strength to it. But, wonderful ! — the cart did not 
 stir, it stuck to his back, so that he could neither lift nor 
 get from under. It crushed his back. And how cold it 
 was ! He must get away somehow. 
 
 " That 's enough," he cried to whoever, or whatever, it 
 was that pressed his back with the cart. "Take the 
 sacks out ! " But the cart still pressed ' him, always 
 colder and colder; and suddenly a peculiar knocking 
 awoke him completely, and he remembered all. The 
 cold cart, — that was his dead and frozen master, lying 
 upon him. The knocking was from Moukhorta, who 
 struck twice on the sledge with his hoofs. 
 
 " Andreich, eh, Andreich ! " says Nikita, inquiringly. 
 
MASTER AND MAN. 63 
 
 traightening his back, and alreadj? guessing the truth. 
 Jut Andreich does not answer, and his body and legs are 
 lard, and cold, and heavy, like iron weights. 
 
 "He must have died. May his be the Kingdom of 
 leaven!" thinks Nikita. He turns his head, digs with 
 lis hand through the snow about him, and opens his eyes, 
 t is daylight. The wind still whistles through the 
 hafts, and the snow is still falling ; but with a dift'er- 
 mce, not lashing upon the bark-matting, as before, but 
 ilently covering the sledge and horse, ever deeper and 
 Leeper; and the horse's breathing and stirring are no 
 Qore to be heard. "He must be frozen too," thinks 
 sTikita. And in fact, those hoof-strokes upon the sledge 
 veve the last struggles of Moukhorta, by that time quite 
 )enumbed, to feel his legs. 
 
 " God, Father, it seems thou callest me as well," says 
 'fikita to himself. " Let Thy holy will be done. But it 
 s . . . Still, one cannot die twice, and must die once. 
 I it would only come quicker ! . . ." And he draws in 
 lis arm again, shutting his eyes ; and he loses conscious- 
 less, with the conviction that this time he is really going 
 o die altogether. 
 
 About dinner-time on the next day, the peasants with 
 heir shovels dug out Vasili Andreich and Nikita, only 
 leventy yards from the road, and half a mile from the 
 rillage. The wind had hidden the sledge in snow, but 
 he shafts and the handkerchief were still visible. Mouk- 
 lorta, over his belly in snow, with the breeching and 
 lacking trailing from his back, stood all whitened, his 
 lead head pressed in upon the apple of his throat ; his 
 lostrils were fringed with icicles ; his eyes filled with 
 •ime, and frozen round as with tears. In that one night 
 le had become so thin, that he was nothing but skin and 
 )one. Vasili Andreich was stiffened like a frozen car- 
 
64 MASTER AND MAN. 
 
 cass, and he lay with his legs spread apart, just as he 
 was when they roiled him off Mkita. His prominent 
 hawk-eyes were shrivelled up, and his open mouth under 
 his clipped moustache was filled with snow. But Nikita, 
 though chilled through, was alive. When he was roused, 
 he imagined he was already dead, and that the happen- 
 ings about him were, by this time, not in this world, but 
 in another. When he heard the shouts of the peasants, 
 who were digging him out and rolling the frozen Vasili 
 Andreich from him he was surprised, at first, to think 
 that in the other world, also, peasants should be making 
 noise. But when he understood that he was still here, in 
 this world, he was rather sorry than glad ; especially when 
 he realized that the toes of both his feet were frozen. 
 
 Nikita lay in the hospital for two months. They cut 
 off three toes from him, and the others recovered, so that 
 he was able to work. For twenty years more, he went 
 on living, first as a farm-laborer, latterly as a watchman. 
 He died at home, just as he wished, only this year ; laid 
 under the holy images, with a lighted taper in his hands. 
 Before his death, he asked forgiveness from his old wife, 
 and forgave her for the cooper ; he took leave of his son 
 and the grand-children ; and went away, truly pleased 
 that, in dying, he released his son and daughter-in-law 
 from the added burden of his keep, and that he himself 
 was, this time really, going out of a life grown wearisome 
 to him, into that other one which with every passing 
 year had grown clearer and more desirable to him. Is 
 he better off, or worse off, there, in the place where he 
 awoke after that real death? Is he disappointed? Or 
 has he found things there to be such as he expected ? 
 That, we shall all of us soon learn. 
 
 THE END.