The only sounds to be heard are Theodore Filípych’s voice giving orders, the plashing of the wet rope on the water, and sighs of terror. The wet rope attached to the right side of the net, more and more covered by grass, comes farther and farther out of the water.
‘Now then, pull together, harder, all together!’ shouts Theodore Filípych.
The floats appear dripping with water.
‘There is something coming, mates. It pulls heavy!’ someone calls out.
Now the net – in which two or three little carp are struggling – is dragged to the bank, wetting and pressing down the grass. And in the extended wings of the net, through a thin swaying layer of turbid water, something white comes in sight. Amid dead silence an impressive, though not loud, gasp of horror passes through the crowd.
‘Pull harder, onto the land!’ comes Theodore Filípych’s resolute voice, and the drowned body is dragged out to the willow over the stubble of burdock and thistle.
And now I see my good old aunt in her silk dress, with her face ready to burst into tears. I see her lilac sunshade with its fringe, which seems somehow incongruous in this scene of death, so terrible in its simplicity. I recall the disappointment her face expressed because arnica could be of no use, and I also recall the painful feeling of annoyance I experienced when, with the naïve egotism of love, she said: ‘Come away my dear. Oh, how dreadful it is! And you always go bathing and swimming by yourself.’
I remember how bright and hot the sun was as it baked the powdery earth underfoot; how it sparkled and mirrored in the lake; how the plump carp plashed near the banks and shoals of little fish rippled the water in the middle; how a hawk hovering high in the air circled over the ducklings, which quacking and splashing had come swimming out through the reeds into the middle of the lake; how curling white thunder-clouds gathered on the horizon; how the mud drawn out onto the bank by the net gradually receded; and how as I crossed the dike I again heard the blows of the beetles re-echoing over the lake.
But that beetle sounds as if two beetles were beating together in thirds, and that sound torments and worries me, the more so because I know that this beetle is a bell, and that Theodore Filípych will not make it stop. Then that beetle, like an instrument of torture, presses my foot which is freezing, and I fall asleep.
I am awakened, as it seems to me, by our galloping very fast and by two voices calling out quite close to me:
‘I say, Ignát! Eh, Ignát!’ my driver is saying. ‘You take my passenger. You have to go on anyhow, but what’s the use of my goading my horses uselessly? You take him!’
Ignát’s voice quite close to me replies:
‘Where’s the pleasure of making myself responsible for the passenger?… Will you stand me a bottle?’
‘Oh, come, a bottle … say half a bottle.’
‘Half a bottle, indeed!’ shouts another voice. ‘Wear out the horses for half a bottle!’
I open my eyes. Before them still flickers the same intolerable swaying snow, the same drivers and horses, but now we are abreast of another sledge. My driver has overtaken Ignát, and we drive side by side for some time. Though the voice from the other sledge advises him not to accept less than a bottle, Ignát suddenly reins in his tróyka.
‘Well, shift over. So be it! It’s your luck. You’ll stand half a bottle when we return to-morrow. Is there much luggage?’
My driver jumps out into the snow with unusual alacrity for him, bows to me, and begs me to change over into Ignát’s sledge. I am quite willing to, but evidently the God-fearing peasant is so pleased that he has to pour out his gratitude and delight to someone. He bows and thanks me, Alëshka, and Ignát.
‘There now, the Lord be praised! What was it like … O Lord! We have been driving half the night and don’t know where we are going. He’ll get you there, dear sir, but my horses are quite worn out.’
And he shifts my things with increased zeal.
While my things were being transferred I went with the wind, which almost lifted me off my feet, to the second sledge. That sledge, especially outside the coat which had been arranged over the two men’s heads to shelter them from the wind, was more than six inches deep in snow, but behind the coat it was quiet and comfortable. The old man still lay with his legs sticking out, and the story-teller was still going on with his tale:
‘Well, when the general comes to Mary in prison, in the King’s name, you know, Mary at once says to him: “General, I don’t need you and can’t love you, and so, you see, you are not my lover, but my lover is the prince himself …”
‘And just then …’ he went on, but seeing me he stopped for a moment and began filling his pipe.
‘Well, sir, have you come to listen to the tale?’ asked the other whom I called the advice-giver.
‘Yes, you’re well off here, quite jolly,’ I said.
‘Why not? It whiles away the time, anyhow it keeps one from thinking.’
‘And do you know where we are now?’
This question did not seem to please the drivers.
‘Who can make out where we are? Maybe we’ve driven into the Kulmýk country,’ answered the advice-giver.
‘Then what are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘What can we do? We’ll go on, and maybe we’ll get somewhere,’ he said in a dissatisfied tone.
‘But suppose we don’t get anywhere, and the horses stick in the snow – what then?’
‘What then? Why, nothing.’
‘But we might freeze.’
‘Of course we might, because one can’t even see any haystacks: we have got right among the Kulmýks. The chief thing is to watch the snow.’
‘And you seem afraid of getting frozen, sir,’ remarked the old man in a shaky voice.
Though he seemed to be chaffing me, it was evident that he was chilled to his very bones.
‘Yes, it is getting very cold,’ I said.
‘Eh, sir, you should do as I do, take a run now and then, that will warm you up.’
‘Yes, the chief thing is to have a run behind the sledge,’ said the advice-giver.
VII
‘WE’RE ready, your honour!’ shouted Alëshka from the front sledge.
The storm was so violent that, though I bent almost double and clutched the skirts of my cloak with both hands, I was hardly able to walk the few steps that separated me from the sledge, over the drifting snow which the wind swept from under my feet. My former driver was already kneeling in the middle of his empty sledge, but when he saw me going he took off his big cap (whereupon the wind lifted his hair furiously) and asked for a tip. Evidently he did not expect me to give him one, for my refusal did not grieve him in the least. He thanked me anyway, put his cap on again, and said: ‘God keep you, sir …’ and jerking his reins and clicking his tongue, turned away from us. Then Ignát swayed his whole back and shouted to the horses, and the sound of the snow crunching under their hoofs, the cries, and the bells, replaced the howling of the wind which had been peculiarly noticeable while we stood still.
For a quarter of an hour after my transfer I kept awake and amused myself watching my new driver and his horses. Ignát sat like a mettlesome fellow, continually rising in his seat, flourishing over the horses the arm from which his whip was hung, shouting, beating one foot against the other, and bending forward to adjust the breeching of the shaft-horse, which kept slipping to the right. He was not tall, but seemed to be well built. Over his sheepskin he wore a large, loose cloak without a girdle, the collar of which was turned down so that his neck was bare. He wore not felt but leather boots, and a small cap which he kept taking off and putting straight. His ears were only protected by his hair. In all his movements one was aware not only of energy, but even more, as it seemed to me, of a desire to arouse that energy in himself. And the farther we went the more often he straightened himself out, rose in his seat, beat his feet together, and addressed himself to Alëshka and me. It seemed to me that he was afraid of losing courage. And there was good reason for it: though the horses were good the road grew heavier and heavier at every step, and it was plain that they were running less willingly: it was already necessary to touch them up with the whip, and the shaft-horse, a good, big, shaggy animal, stumbled more than once, though immediately, as if frightened, it jerked forward again and tossed its shaggy head almost as high as the bell hanging from the bow above it. The right off-horse, which I could not help watching, with a long leather tassel to its breeching which shook and jerked on its off side, noticeably let its traces slacken and required the whip, but from habit as a good and even mettlesome horse seemed vexed at its own weakness, and angrily lowered and tossed its head at the reins. It was terrible to realize that the snow storm and the frost were increasing, the horses growing weaker, the road becoming worse, and that we did not at all know where we were, or where we were going – or whether we should reach a station or even a shelter of any sort; it seemed strange and ridiculous to hear the bells ringing so easily and cheerfully, and Ignát shouting as lustily and pleasantly as if we were out for a drive along a village street on a frosty noon during a Twelfth Night holiday – and it was stranger still that we were always driving and driving fast somewhere from where we were. Ignát began to sing some song in a horrid falsetto, but so loud and with such intervals, during which he whistled, that it seemed ridiculous to be afraid while one heard him.