Chapter 5 - Page 2

stake to the right, and another, and here's a third,' Vasili
Andreevich counted, 'and here in front is the forest,' thought he, as he
looked at something dark in front of him. But what had seemed to him a
forest was only a bush. They passed the bush and drove on for another
hundred yards but there was no fourth way-mark nor any forest.

'We must reach the forest soon,' thought Vasili Andreevich, and animated
by the vodka and the tea he did not stop but shook the reins, and the
good obedient horse responded, now ambling, now slowly trotting in the
direction in which he was sent, though he knew that he was not going the
right way. Ten minutes went by, but there was still no forest.

'There now, we must be astray again,' said Vasili Andreevich, pulling
up.

Nikita silently got out of the sledge and holding his coat, which the
wind now wrapped closely about him and now almost tore off, started to
feel about in the snow, going first to one side and then to the other.
Three or four times he was completely lost to sight. At last he returned
and took the reins from Vasili Andreevich's hand.

'We must go to the right,' he said sternly and peremptorily, as he
turned the horse.

'Well, if it's to the right, go to the right,' said Vasili Andreevich,
yielding up the reins to Nikita and thrusting his freezing hands into
his sleeves.

Nikita did not reply.

'Now then, friend, stir yourself!' he shouted to the horse, but in spite
of the shake of the reins Mukhorty moved only at a walk.

The snow in places was up to his knees, and the sledge moved by fits and
starts with his every movement.

Nikita took the whip that hung over the front of the sledge and struck
him once. The good horse, unused to the whip, sprang forward and moved
at a trot, but immediately fell back into an amble and then to a walk.
So they went on for five minutes. It was dark and the snow whirled from
above and rose from below, so that sometimes the shaft-bow could not
be seen. At times the sledge seemed to stand still and the field to
run backwards. Suddenly the horse stopped abruptly, evidently aware
of something close in front of him. Nikita again sprang lightly out,
throwing down the reins, and went ahead to see what had brought him to
a standstill, but hardly had he made a step in front of the horse before
his feet slipped and he went rolling down an incline.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' he said to himself as he fell, and he tried to stop
his fall but could not, and only stopped when his feet plunged into a
thick layer of snow that had drifted to the bottom of the hollow.

The fringe of a drift of snow that hung on the edge of the hollow,
disturbed by Nikita's fall, showered down on him and got inside his