The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man (15 page)

“You should stay the night. The women will make up a bed,” the old lady urged.

“You could go in the morning; it would be much better,” the old man agreed.

“I really can’t, friend. Business calls,” Vassili Andreyich said. “Lose an hour, and waste a year,” he added, remembering the woodland and the dealers who might outbid him. “We will get there, won’t we?” he said, turning to Nikita.

Nikita didn’t reply for a long time, seemingly absorbed in thawing out his beard and mustache.

“If we don’t lose the road again,” he said somberly.

Nikita was gloomy because he desperately wanted some vodka, and the only other thing that could satisfy his craving was tea, which no one had yet given him.

“But it’s only a matter of getting as far as the turnoff. We can’t get lost after that—the forest takes us all the way there,” said Vassili Andreyich.

“It’s your business, Vassili Andreyich. If we’re to go, then we’ll go,” said Nikita, taking the tea that was offered him.

“We’ll drink up our tea, then, and be off.”

Nikita said nothing, just nodded. Carefully pouring his tea into the saucer, he began warming his fingers, perpetually swollen from hard work, in the steam. Then, biting off a tiny bit of sugar, he bowed to his hosts, saying, “Your health,” and sucked up the warm drink.

“If someone could only take us as far as the turn,” said Vassili Andreyich.

“That’s no problem,” said the older son. “Petrushka will harness up and take you as far as that.”

“Then do, brother, and I’ll thank you.”

“What nonsense, love!” said the kindly old woman. “Bless you, we’re glad to help.”

“Petrushka, go and harness the mare,” said the older son.

“Right away,” said Petrushka with a smile. Promptly snatching his cap from its nail, he ran out.

While the horse was being seen to, the conversation turned back to the subject Vassili Andreyich had interrupted by his arrival at the window. The old man was complaining to his neighbor, the village elder, about his third son, who had sent his father nothing for the festival, while the son’s wife got a fine French shawl.

“There’s no holding young people nowadays,” said the old man.

“They’ve got completely out of hand,” agreed the neighbor. “They’re so sharp they’ll cut themselves. Take that Demochkin now—he broke his father’s arm for him. Too much learning, that’s what it is.”

Nikita listened, glancing at their faces, clearly wanting to take part in the conversation. But he was too busy with his tea and could only nod approvingly. He was drinking glass after glass, getting warmer and warmer and more and more comfortable. The talk went on for a long time about one thing only—the evils of dividing up a household. It was clearly not theoretical but a real question of division in this very house—a division demanded by the second son, sitting right there in gloomy silence. The topic was evidently a painful one, preoccupying all the family, but out of politeness they didn’t discuss their private affairs in front of outsiders. In the end, though, the old man could bear it no longer and with tears in his voice started saying that he wouldn’t allow anyone to divide anything while he was alive, that thank God they had a good home, and if it was broken up they’d all have to go out into the wide world as beggars.

“Just like the Matveyevs,” said the neighbor. “They had a fine home, but they split it and now no one has anything.”

“And that’s what you want,” said the old man to his son.

The son made no reply, and an uncomfortable silence fell. It was interrupted by Petrushka, who had already harnessed the mare and come back indoors, still smiling, a few minutes earlier.

“Pullson has a fable about that,” he said. “A father gave his sons a broom of birch twigs to break. In one go they couldn’t do it, but twig by twig it was easy. It’s just the same here,” he said with a broad grin. “I’m ready!” he added.

“If you’re ready, we’ll be off,” said Vassili Andreyich. “But as far as division’s concerned, grandfather, don’t give in. You earned it; you’re the master. Take it up with the village elder. He’ll sort it out.”

“But he pesters me so! He just won’t let go,” the old man kept saying tearfully. “There’s no peace to be had—it’s as though the devil’s got into him.”

Meanwhile Nikita finished his fifth glass of tea and still didn’t upend it, laying it on its side in the hope they’d pour him a sixth. But there was no water left in the samovar, the women gave him nothing more, and Vassili Andreyich started getting dressed. There was nothing to be done. Nikita got up as well, put the lump of sugar he had nibbled from every side back into the bowl, wiped his face, damp with sweat, with the hem of his jacket, and went to put on his kaftan.

Once dressed, he sighed heavily, thanked his hosts, took his leave of them, and went out of the warm, bright living quarters into the dark, cold passageway, where a droning wind tore past, driving snow in through the trembling outer doors. From there, he went out into the black yard.

Petrushka was standing in his overcoat in the middle of the courtyard beside his mare, smiling and reciting a poem from Paulson. “Storms hides the heavens in darkness, spinning the snowflakes wild, ah it howls like an animal, ah it cries like a child.”
¹⁴

Nikita nodded his head approvingly, untangling the reins.

The old man came out with Vassili Andreyich, carrying a lantern into the passage to light his way. The wind put it out instantly. Even in the yard you could tell the blizzard was far fiercer than before.

“A tidy little breeze!” thought Vassili Andreyich. “I mayn’t get there after all—but I have to go. Business is business. I’m all ready—and what’s more, my host’s harnessed his horse on my account. God willing, we’ll get there all right.”

The old man was also thinking they ought not to go, but he’d already tried to dissuade them and been ignored. No point in further persuasion. “Maybe age makes me overcautious, and they’ll get there quite safely,” he thought. “And at least we’ll get to bed early, without extra bother.”

Petrushka wasn’t even thinking about danger, he knew the road and the surrounding countryside so well. Besides, the line about “spinning snowflakes wild” cheered him, it expressed so exactly what was happening out of doors.

As for Nikita, he didn’t want to go at all, but long ago he’d got used to giving up his own wishes for the whims of the people he served.

So there was no one to stop them setting out on their journey.

5

Vassili Andreyich went up to the sledge, scarcely able to make out where it was in the darkness. He got in and took the reins.

“You go first!” he shouted.

Petrushka, kneeling in his low, wide sledge, let his horse go. Muk-horty had been neighing for some time. Scenting the mare in front of him, he started after her, and they drove out into the street. Once again they went through the outskirts by the familiar road, past the yard with its frozen washing on the line—quite invisible now. Past the threshing barn, almost completely snowed under, snow still pouring off its roof. Past the same dismally moaning, whistling, and tossing willows. Out they came into the snowy sea, raging above and below them. The wind was so strong when it hit them sideways the travelers leaned against it like yachtsmen. The sledge tilted, and the horse was shouldered to one side. Petrushka drove his mare at an easy trot, cheerfully shouting back to them. Mukhorty strained after the mare.

When they had driven on like that for about ten minutes, Petrushka turned around and shouted something to them. Neither Vassili Andreyich nor Nikita could hear for the wind, but they guessed they’d come to the turn. True enough, Petrushka turned to the right, the wind shifted from the side full into their faces again, and on their right something dark could be glimpsed through the snow. It was the little bush at the turning.

“Well, God be with you!”

“Thank you, Petrushka!”

“Storms hide the heavens in darkness!” Petrushka shouted, and vanished from sight.

“There’s a poet for you,” said Vassili Andreyich, and flicked the reins.

“Yes, a fine lad, a real good sort,” said Nikita.

They drove on.

Nikita sat huddled in silence, his chin tucked in tight so his skimpy beard covered his neck, trying to conserve the warmth of his tea at the farm. In front of him the straight lines of the shafts constantly deceived him into thinking they were the verges of a beaten highway. He could see the horse’s swaying haunches, its knotted tail swinging to one side, and ahead, the high yoke, Mukhorty’s tossing head, neck, and streaming mane. Occasionally the roadside markers swam into view, reassuring him that, so far, they were keeping to the road and there was nothing for him to do.

Vassili Andreyich held the reins, leaving it to Mukhorty to choose his own way. But in spite of his rest in the village, Mukhorty ran reluctantly and seemed to be pulling to one side of the road, so that Vassili Andreyich had to correct him several times.

“That’s one stake on the right, and there’s another, and that’s a third,” Vassili Andreyich counted to himself. “And that’s the forest ahead,” he thought, looking at something dark ahead. But what he had taken for a forest was only a bush. They passed the bush, and went on for another twenty-five meters, but neither the forest nor the fourth stake appeared. “It must be the forest in a minute,” thought Vassili Andreyich, and, invigorated by the vodka and the tea, cracked the reins. The good little horse obediently kept going—now at an amble, now at a slow trot—in the direction he was told, although he knew quite well that it was the wrong direction.

“We’ve gone and lost it again!” said Vassili Andreyich, pulling the horse up.

Without a word, Nikita got off the sledge, holding tight to his kaftan, which the wind kept plastering against him, then blowing wide, tearing it from his shoulders. He set off, plunging about in the snow again, first on one side, then the other. Three times he vanished from sight completely. At last he returned and took the reins from Vassili Andreyich.

“We need to go right,” he said, sternly and decisively, turning the horse.

“Well, if you want to go right, then go right,” said Vassili Andreyich, handing over the reins and pushing his frozen hands into his sleeves.

Nikita didn’t reply.

“Come on, flower; make an effort,” he shouted to the horse, but in spite of the shaken reins Mukhorty only went at an amble.

The snow was knee-deep in places. At every step, the sledge moved forward with a jerk.

Nikita got out the whip and hit him once. The good little horse, unused to the whip, leapt forward at a trot, but fell back into an amble and then a slow walk immediately. They went on for five minutes. It was so dark, and the smoking snow billowed so thick from above and below, that sometimes even the horse’s tall yoke couldn’t be seen. And sometimes, it seemed, the sledge stood still, while the field ran backward. Suddenly the horse stopped sharply, evidently sensing something wrong ahead. Dropping the reins, Nikita leapt lightly down once more and went in front of Mukhorty to see what had made him stop. Before he could take a single step forward his feet slipped from under him and he rolled down a steep incline.

“Whoa there!” he muttered as he fell, trying to resist, but he couldn’t stop himself and came to a halt only when his legs shot into a deep snowdrift at the bottom of the gully.

A thick drift hanging over the edge of the hollow was disturbed by his fall and came down on him, filling his collar with snow.

“What a mean thing to do!” Nikita said reproachfully to the gully and the drift, shaking out the snow from his collar.

“Nikita! Hey, Nikit!” Vassili Andreyich shouted from above.

But Nikita didn’t answer.

He was too busy. He shook himself down, then he hunted for the whip, which he’d lost rolling down the slope. Once he found the whip, he tried to climb straight back up where he came down, but there was no way up. He kept slipping backward, so he had to go along the bottom of the hollow to find another route. Six meters further on he managed, with difficulty, to climb up the drop on all fours, and went back along the top edge of the gully to where the horse should be. He couldn’t make out either horse or sledge, but because he was walking into the wind, he heard the shouts of Vassili Andreyich, and the neighing of Mukhorty, before he saw either of them.

“I’m coming, I’m coming; what’s all the fuss about?” he muttered.

It was only when he got right up to them that he saw the horse and sledge, and Vassili Andreyich standing by them, looking huge.

“Where the hell did you get to? We’ve got to go back. At least we can go back to Grishkino,” Nikita’s master began angrily.

“I’d happily go back, Vassili Andreyich, but which way should we go? There’s such a drop here, once in you’d never get out. I whacked in so deep I could hardly get myself out again.”

“But we can’t stay here, can we? We have to drive somewhere,” said Vassili Andreyich.

Nikita said nothing. He sat down in the sledge with his back to the wind, took off his felt boots, shook out the snow that had got into them, and, taking some straw, painstakingly stuffed it into the hole in his left boot from the inside.

Vassili Andreyich kept silent, as though leaving everything to Nikita. Having got his boots back on, Nikita swung his feet back into the sledge, put on his gloves again, took the reins, and turned the horse alongside the gully. But they hadn’t gone more than a hundred steps before Mukhorty stopped again. The gully was in front of them once more.

Nikita got out again and went off yet again to plunge about in the snow. He walked around for some time. Finally he reappeared on the opposite side from where he had set out.

“Andreyich, are you alive?” he shouted.

“Over here!” Vassili Andreyich called back. “Now what?”

“I can’t make anything out. It’s dark. There are gullies of some kind. We’ll have to drive back into the wind.”

They drove on a bit. Nikita walked off again and plunged about in the snow again. He sat down again, plunged about again, and at last rested by the sledge, quite out of breath.