I open my eyes. The wind has thrown the flap of Alëshka’s cloak over my face, my knee is uncovered, we are going over the bare frozen road, and the bells with their quivering third can be distinctly heard.
I look to see the haystacks, but now that my eyes are open I see no stacks, but a house with a balcony and the crenellated wall of a fortress. I am not interested enough to scrutinize this house and fortress: I am chiefly anxious to see the white corridor along which I ran, to hear the sound of the church bells, and to kiss the little old man’s hand. I close my eyes again and fall asleep.
IX
I SLEPT soundly, but heard the ringing of the bells all the time. They appeared to me in my dream now in the guise of a dog that barked and attacked me, now of an organ in which I was one of the pipes, and now of some French verses I was composing. Sometimes those bells seemed to be an instrument of torture which kept squeezing my right heel. I felt that so strongly that I woke up and opened my eyes, rubbing my foot. It was getting frost-bitten. The night was still light, misty, and white. The same motion was still shaking me and the sledge; the same Ignát sat sideways, knocking his feet together; the same off-horse with outstretched neck ran at a trot over the deep snow without lifting its feet much, while the tassel on the breeching bobbed and flapped against its belly. The head of the shaft-horse with its flying mane stooped and rose rhythmically as it alternately drew the reins tight and loosened them. But all this was covered with snow even more than before. The snow whirled about in front, at the side it covered the horses’ legs knee-deep, and the runners of the sledge, while it fell from above on our collars and caps. The wind blew now from the right, now from the left, playing with Ignát’s collar, the skirt of his cloak, the mane of the side-horse, and howling between the shafts and above the bow over the shaft-horse’s head.
It was growing terribly cold, and hardly had I put my head out of my coat-collar before the frosty, crisp, whirling snow covered my eyelashes, got into my nose and mouth, and penetrated behind my neck. When I looked round, everything was white, light and snowy, there was nothing to be seen but the dull light and the snow. I became seriously frightened. Alëshka was asleep at my feet at the bottom of the sledge, his whole back covered by a thick layer of snow. Ignát did not lose courage: he kept pulling at the reins, shouting, and clapping his feet together. The bell went on ringing just as wonderfully. The horses snorted a little, but ran more slowly and stumbled more and more often. Ignát again leaped up, waved his mitten, and again began singing in his strained falsetto. Before finishing the song he stopped the tróyka, threw down the reins on the front of the sledge, and got out. The wind howled furiously; the snow poured on the skirts of our cloaks as out of a scoop. I turned round: the third tróyka was not to be seen (it had lagged behind somewhere). Near the second sledge, in the snowy mist, I saw the little old man jumping from foot to foot. Ignát went some three steps from the sledge, and sitting down in the snow undid his girdle and pulled off his boots.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘I must change, or my feet will be quite frozen,’ he replied, and went on with what he was doing.
It was too cold to keep my neck out of my collar to watch what he was doing. I sat up straight, looking at the off-horse, which with one leg wearily stretched out, painfully whisked its tail that was tied in a knot and covered with snow. The thump Ignát gave the sledge as he jumped onto his seat roused me.
‘Where are we now?’ I asked. ‘Shall we get anywhere – say by daybreak?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get you there,’ he replied. ‘Now that I have changed, my feet are much warmer.’
And he drove on, the bell began to ring, the sledge swayed again, and the wind whistled under the runners. We again started to swim over the limitless sea of snow.
X
I FELL soundly asleep. When Alëshka woke me up by pushing me with his foot, and I opened my eyes, it was already morning. It seemed even colder than in the night. No more snow was falling from above, but a stiff dry wind continued to sweep the powdery snow across the plain, and especially under the hoofs of the horses and the runners of the sledge. In the east, to our right, the sky was heavy and of a dark bluish colour, but bright orange oblique streaks were growing more and more defined in it. Overhead, through flying white clouds as yet scarcely tinged, gleamed the pale blue of the sky; on the left, bright, light clouds were drifting. Everywhere, as far as eye could see, deep snow lay over the plain in sharply defined layers. Here and there could be seen greyish mounds, over which fine, crisp, powdery snow swept steadily. No track either of sledge, man, or beast could be seen. The outlines and colour of the driver’s back and of the horses were clearly and sharply visible even on the white background. The rim of Ignát’s dark-blue cap, his collar, his hair, and even his boots were white. The sledge was completely covered with snow. The right side and forelock of the grey shaft-horse were thick with snow, the legs of the off-horse on my side were covered with it up to the knee, and its curly sweating flank was covered and frozen to a rough surface. The tassel still bobbed up and down in tune to any rhythm you liked to imagine, and the off-horse itself kept running in the same way, only the sunken, heaving belly and drooping ears showing how exhausted she was. The one novel object that attracted my attention was a verst-post from which the snow was falling to the ground, and near which to the right the snow was swept into a mound by the wind, which still kept raging and throwing the crisp snow from side to side. I was very much surprised that we had travelled all night, twelve hours, with the same horses, without knowing where, and had arrived after all. Our bell seemed to tinkle yet more cheerfully. Ignát kept wrapping his cloak around him and shouting; the horses behind us snorted, and the bells of the little old man’s and the advice-giver’s tróyka tinkled, but the driver who had been asleep had certainly strayed from us in the steppe. After going another half-mile we came across the fresh, only partly obliterated, traces of a three-horsed sledge, and here and there pink spots of blood, probably from a horse that had overreached itself.
‘That’s Philip. Fancy his being ahead of us!’ said Ignát.
But here by the roadside a lonely little house with a signboard was seen in the midst of the snow, which covered it almost to the top of the windows and to the roof. Near the inn stood a tróyka of grey horses, their coats curly with sweat, their legs outstretched and their heads drooping wearily. At the door there was a shovel and the snow had been cleared away, but the howling wind continued to sweep and whirl snow off the roof.
At the sound of our bells, a tall, ruddy-faced, red-haired peasant came out with a glass of vodka in his hand, and shouted something. Ignát turned to me and asked permission to stop. Then for the first time I fairly saw his face.