Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

Don’t I know the road that I must needs take a guide?” exclaimed Vasíli Andréevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing his lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and sellers.

“Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God’s name!” his wife repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.

“There, she sticks to it like a leech!⁠ ⁠… Where am I to take him?”

“I’m quite ready to go with you, Vasíli Andréevich,” said Nikíta cheerfully. “But they must feed the horses while I am away,” he added, turning to his master’s wife.

“I’ll look after them, Nikíta dear. I’ll tell Simon,” replied the mistress.

“Well, Vasíli Andréevich, am I to come with you?” said Nikíta, awaiting a decision.

“It seems I must humour my old woman. But if you’re coming you’d better put on a warmer cloak,” said Vasíli Andréevich, smiling again as he winked at Nikíta’s short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the arms and at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe round the skirt, and had endured many things in its lifetime.

“Hey, dear man, come and hold the horse!” shouted Nikíta to the cook’s husband, who was still in the yard.

“No, I will myself, I will myself!” shrieked the little boy, pulling his hands, red with cold, out of his pockets, and seizing the cold leather reins.

“Only don’t be too long dressing yourself up. Look alive!” shouted Vasíli Andréevich, grinning at Nikíta.

“Only a moment, Father, Vasíli Andréevich!” replied Nikíta, and running quickly with his in-turned toes in his felt boots with their soles patched with felt, he hurried across the yard and into the workmen’s hut.

“Arínushka! Get my coat down from the stove. I’m going with the master,” he said, as he ran into the hut and took down his girdle from the nail on which it hung.

The workmen’s cook, who had had a sleep after dinner and was now getting the samovar ready for her husband, turned cheerfully to Nikíta, and infected by his hurry began to move as quickly as he did, got down his miserable worn-out cloth coat from the stove where it was drying, and began hurriedly shaking it out and smoothing it down.

“There now, you’ll have a chance of a holiday with your good man,” said Nikíta, who from kindhearted politeness always said something to anyone he was alone with.

Then, drawing his worn narrow girdle round him, he drew in his breath, pulling in his lean stomach still more, and girdled himself as tightly as he could over his sheepskin.

“There now,” he said addressing himself no longer to the cook but the girdle, as he tucked the ends in at the waist, “now you won’t come undone!” And working his shoulders up and down to free his arms, he put the coat over his sheepskin, arched his back more strongly to ease his arms, poked himself under the armpits, and took down his leather-covered mittens from the shelf. “Now we’re all right!”

“You ought to wrap your feet up, Nikíta. Your boots are very bad.”

Nikíta stopped as if he had suddenly realized this.

“Yes, I ought to.⁠ ⁠… But they’ll do like this. It isn’t far!” and he ran out into the yard.

“Won’t you be cold, Nikíta?” said the mistress as he came up to the sledge.

“Cold? No, I’m quite warm,” answered Nikíta as he pushed some straw up to the forepart of the sledge so that it should cover his feet, and stowed away the whip, which the good horse would not need, at the bottom of the sledge.

Vasíli Andréevich, who was wearing two fur-lined coats one over the other, was already in the sledge, his broad back filling nearly its whole rounded width, and taking the reins he immediately touched the horse. Nikíta jumped in just as the sledge started, and seated himself in front on the left side, with one leg hanging over the edge.

II

The good stallion took the sledge along at a brisk pace over the smooth-frozen road through the village, the runners squeaking slightly as they went.

“Look at him hanging on there! Hand me the whip, Nikíta!” shouted Vasíli Andréevich, evidently enjoying the sight of his “heir,” who standing on the runners was hanging on at the back of the sledge. “I’ll give it you! Be off to mamma, you dog!”

The boy jumped down. The horse increased his amble and, suddenly changing foot, broke into a fast trot.

The Crosses, the village where Vasíli Andréevich lived, consisted of six houses. As soon as they had passed the blacksmith’s hut, the last in the village, they realized that the wind was much stronger than they had thought. The road could hardly be seen. The tracks left by the sledge-runners were immediately covered by snow and the road was only distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the ground. There was a swirl of snow over the fields and the line where sky and earth met could not be seen. The Telyátin forest, usually clearly visible, now only loomed up occasionally and dimly through the driving snowy dust. The wind came from the left, insistently blowing over to one side the mane on Mukhórty’s sleek neck and carrying aside even his fluffy tail, which was tied in a simple knot. Nikíta’s wide coat-collar, as he sat on the windy side, pressed close to his cheek and nose.

“This road doesn’t give him a chance⁠—it’s too snowy,” said Vasíli Andréevich, who prided himself on his good horse. “I once drove to Pashútino with him in half an hour.”

“What?” asked Nikíta, who could not hear on account of his collar.

“I say I once went to Pashútino in half an hour,” shouted Vasíli Andréevich.

“It goes without saying that he’s a good horse,” replied Nikíta.

They were silent for a while. But Vasíli Andréevich wished to talk.

“Well, did you tell your wife not to give the cooper any vodka?” he began in the same loud tone, quite convinced that Nikíta must