Chapter 8

Meanwhile Vasili Andreevich, with his feet and the ends of the reins,
urged the horse on in the direction in which for some reason he expected
the forest and forester's hut to be. The snow covered his eyes and the
wind seemed intent on stopping him, but bending forward and constantly
lapping his coat over and pushing it between himself and the cold
harness pad which prevented him from sitting properly, he kept urging
the horse on. Mukhorty ambled on obediently though with difficulty, in
the direction in which he was driven.

Vasili Andreevich rode for about five minutes straight ahead, as he
thought, seeing nothing but the horse's head and the white waste, and
hearing only the whistle of the wind about the horse's ears and his coat
collar.

Suddenly a dark patch showed up in front of him. His heart beat with
joy, and he rode towards the object, already seeing in imagination the
walls of village houses. But the dark patch was not stationary, it
kept moving; and it was not a village but some tall stalks of wormwood
sticking up through the snow on the boundary between two fields, and
desperately tossing about under the pressure of the wind which beat
it all to one side and whistled through it. The sight of that wormwood
tormented by the pitiless wind made Vasili Andreevich shudder, he knew
not why, and he hurriedly began urging the horse on, not noticing that
when riding up to the wormwood he had quite changed his direction and
was now heading the opposite way, though still imagining that he was
riding towards where the hut should be. But the horse kept making
towards the right, and Vasili Andreevich kept guiding it to the left.

Again something dark appeared in front of him. Again he rejoiced,
convinced that now it was certainly a village. But once more it was the
same boundary line overgrown with wormwood, once more the same wormwood
desperately tossed by the wind and carrying unreasoning terror to his
heart. But its being the same wormwood was not all, for beside it
there was a horse's track partly snowed over. Vasili Andreevich stopped,
stooped down and looked carefully. It was a horse-track only partially
covered with snow, and could be none but his own horse's hoofprints. He
had evidently gone round in a small circle. 'I shall perish like that!'
he thought, and not to give way to his terror he urged on the horse
still more, peering into the snowy darkness in which he saw only
flitting and fitful points of light. Once he thought he heard the
barking of dogs or the howling of wolves, but the sounds were so faint
and indistinct that he did not know whether he heard them or merely
imagined them, and he stopped and began to listen intently.

Suddenly some terrible, deafening cry resounded near