"Sleigh to the Vyborg District!" Iona hears. "Sleigh!"
Iona starts, and through his snow-plastered eyelashes sees an officer in a military overcoat with a hood.
"To the Vyborg District!" repeats the officer. "Are you asleep, eh? To the Vyborg District!"
As a sign of assent Iona gives a tug at the reins, which sends layers of snow flying from the horse's back and from his own shoulders. The officer gets into the sleigh. The driver clucks to the horse, cranes his neck like a swan, rises in his seat and, more from habit than neces- sity, flourishes his whip. The nag, too, stretches her neck, crooks her sticklike legs and irresolutely sets off.
"Where are you barging in, damn you?" Iona is promptly assailed by shouts from the massive dark wav- ering to and fro before him. "Where the devil are you going? Keep to the right!"
"Don't you know how to drive? Keep to the right," says the officer with vexation.
A coachman driving a private carriage swears at him; a pedestrian who was crossing the street and brushed against the nag's nose with his shoulder, looks at him an- grily and shakes the snow off his sleeve. Iona fidgets on the box as if sitting on needles and pins, thrusts out his elbows and rolls his eyes like a madman, as though he did not know where he was or why he was there.
"What rascals they all are," the officer jokes. "They are doing their best to knock into you or be trampled by the horse. It's a conspiracy."
Iona looks at his fare and moves his lips. He wants to say something, but the only sound that comes out is a wheeze.
"What is it?" asks the officer.
Iona twists his mouth into a smile, strains his throat and croaks hoarsely: "My son, sir • . . er, my son died this week."
"H'm, what did he die of?"
Iona turns his whole body around to his fare and says, 'Who can tell? It must have been a fever. He lay in the hospital only three days and then he died. . . . It is God's will."
"Get over, you devil!" comes out of the dark. "Have you gone blind, you old dog? Keep your eyes peeled!"
"Go on, go on," says the officer. "We shan't get there until tomorrow at this rate. Give her the whip!"
The driver cranes his neck again, rises in his seat, and with heavy grace swings his whip. Then he looks around at the officer several times, but the latter keeps his eyes closed and is apparently indisposed to listen. Letting his fare off in the Vyborg District, Iona stops by a teahouse and again sits motionless and hunched on the box. Again the wet snow paints him and his nag white. One hour passes, another . . .
Three young men, two tall and lanky, one short and hunchbacked, come along swearing at each other and loudly pound the pavement with their galoshes.
"Cabby, to the Police Bridge!" the hunchback shouts in a cracked voice. "The three of us • . . twenty ko- pecks!"
Iona tugs at the reins and clucks to his horse. Twenty kopecks is not fair, but his mind is not on that. Whether it is a ruble or five kopecks, it is all one to him now, so long as he has a fare. . . . The three young men, jos- tling each other and using foul language, $0 up to the sleigh and aU three try to sit do^ at once. They start arguing about which two are to sit and who shall be the one to stand. After a long ill-tempered and abusive alter- cation, they decide that the hunchback must stand up because he is the shortest.
"Well, get going," says the hunchback in his cracked voice, taking up his station and breathing down Iona's neck. "On your way! What a cap you've got, brother! You won't find a worse one in all Petersburg—"
"Hee, hee • . . hee, hee . . ." Iona giggles, "as you »
say—
"Well, then, 'as you say,' drive on. Are you going to crawl like this all the way, eh? D'you want to get it in the neck?"
"My head is splitting," says one of the tall ones. "At the Dukmasovs' yesterday, Vaska and I killed four bot- tles of cognac between us."
"I don't get it, why lie?" says the other tall one an- grily. "He is lying like a trouper."
"Strike me dead, it's the truth!"
"It is about as true as that a louse sneezes."
"Hee, hee," giggles Iona. "The gentlemen are feeling good!"
"Faugh, the devil take you!" cries the hunchback in- dignantly. "Will you get a move on, you old pest, or won't you? Is that the way to drive? Give her a crack of the whip! Giddap, devil! Giddap! Let her feel it!"
Iona feels the hunchback's wriggling body and quiv- ering voice behind his back. He hears abuse addressed to him, sees people, and the feeling of loneliness begins little by little to lift from his heart. The hunchback swears till he chokes on an elaborate three-decker oath and is overcome by cough. The tall youths begin discuss- ing a certain Nadezhda Petrovna. Iona looks round at them. When at last there is a lull in the conversation for which he has been waiting, he turns around and says: "This week . . . er . . . my son died."
"We shall all die," says the hunchback, with a sigh wiping his lips after his coughing fit. "Come, drive on, drive on. Gentlemen, I simply cannot stand this pace! When will he get us there?"
"Well, you give him a little encouragement. Biff him in the neck!"
"Do you hear, you old pest? I'll give it to you in the neck. If one stands on ceremony with fellows like you, one may as well walk. Do you hear, you old serpent? Or don't you give a damn what we say?"
And Iona hears rather than feels the thud of a blow on his neck.
"Hee, hee," he laughs. "The gentlemen are feeling good. God give you health!"
"Cabby, are you married?" asks one of the taU ones.
"Me? Hee, heel The gentlemen are feeling good. The only wife for me now is the damp earth . . . Hee, haw, haw! The grave, that is! . . . Here my son is dead and me alive . . . It is a queer thing, death comes in at the wrong door . . . It don't come for me, it comes for my son. . . ."
And Iona turns round to tell them how his son died, but at that point the hunchback gives a sigh of relief and announces that, thank God, they have arrived at last. Having received his twenty kopecks, for a long while Iona stares after the revelers, who disappear into a dark entrance. Again he is alone and once more silence envelops him. The grief which has been allayed for a brief space comes back again and wrenches his heart more cruelly than ever. There is a look of anxiety and torment in Iona's eyes as they wander restlessly over the crowds moving to and fro on both sides of the street. Isn't there someone among those thousands who will lis- ten to him? But the crowds hurry past, heedless of him and his grief. His grief is immense, boundless. If his heart were to burst and his grief to pour out, it seems that it would flood the whole world, and yet no one sees it. It has found a place for itself in such an insignificant shell that no one can see it in broad daylight.
Iona notices a doorkeeper with a bag and makes up his mind to speak to him.
"What time will it be, friend?" he asks.
"Past nine. What have you stopped here for? On your way!"
Iona drives a few steps away, hunches up and sur» renders himself to his grief. He feels it is useless to turn to people. But before five minutes are over, he draws himself up, shakes his head as though stabbed by a sharp pain and tugs at the reins . . . He can bear it no longer.
"Back to the yard!" he thinks. "To the yard!"
And his nag, as though she knew his thoughts, starts out at a trot. An hour and a half later, Iona is sitting be- side a large dirty stove. On the stove, on the floor, on benches are men snoring. The air is stuffy and foul. Iona looks at the sleeping figures, scratches himself and re- grets that he has come home so early.
"I haven't earned enough to pay for the oats," he reflects. "That's what's wrong with me. A man that knows his job . . . who has enough to eat and has enough for his horse don't need to fret."
In one of the comers a young driver gets up, hawks sleepily and reaches for the water bucket.