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

in the conversation, but he was too busy drinking his tea and only nodded his head approvingly. He emptied one tumbler after another and grew warmer and warmer and more and more comfortable. The talk continued on the same subject for a long time⁠—the harmfulness of a household dividing up⁠—and it was clearly not an abstract discussion but concerned the question of a separation in that house; a separation demanded by the second son who sat there morosely silent.

It was evidently a sore subject and absorbed them all, but out of propriety they did not discuss their private affairs before strangers. At last, however, the old man could not restrain himself, and with tears in his eyes declared that he would not consent to a breakup of the family during his lifetime, that his house was prospering, thank God, but that if they separated they would all have to go begging.

“Just like the Matvéevs,” said the neighbour. “They used to have a proper house, but now they’ve split up none of them has anything.”

“And that is what you want to happen to us,” said the old man, turning to his son.

The son made no reply and there was an awkward pause. The silence was broken by Petrúshka, who having harnessed the horse had returned to the hut a few minutes before this and had been listening all the time with a smile.

“There’s a fable about that in Paulson,” he said. “A father gave his sons a broom to break. At first they could not break it, but when they took it twig by twig they broke it easily. And it’s the same here,” and he gave a broad smile. “I’m ready!” he added.

“If you’re ready, let’s go,” said Vasíli Andréevich. “And as to separating, don’t you allow it, Grandfather. You got everything together and you’re the master. Go to the Justice of the Peace. He’ll say how things should be done.”

“He carries on so, carries on so,” the old man continued in a whining tone. “There’s no doing anything with him. It’s as if the devil possessed him.”

Nikíta having meanwhile finished his fifth tumbler of tea laid it on its side instead of turning it upside down, hoping to be offered a sixth glass. But there was no more water in the samovar, so the hostess did not fill it up for him. Besides, Vasíli Andréevich was putting his things on, so there was nothing for it but for Nikíta to get up too, put back into the sugar-basin the lump of sugar he had nibbled all round, wipe his perspiring face with the skirt of his sheepskin, and go to put on his overcoat.

Having put it on he sighed deeply, thanked his hosts, said goodbye, and went out of the warm bright room into the cold dark passage, through which the wind was howling and where snow was blowing through the cracks of the shaking door, and from there into the yard.

Petrúshka stood in his sheepskin in the middle of the yard by his horse, repeating some lines from Paulson’s primer. He said with a smile:

“Storms with mist the sky conceal,
Snowy circles wheeling wild.
Now like savage beast ’twill howl,
And now ’tis wailing like a child.”

Nikíta nodded approvingly as he arranged the reins.

The old man, seeing Vasíli Andréevich off, brought a lantern into the passage to show him a light, but it was blown out at once. And even in the yard it was evident that the snowstorm had become more violent.

“Well, this is weather!” thought Vasíli Andréevich. “Perhaps we may not get there after all. But there is nothing to be done. Business! Besides, we have got ready, our host’s horse has been harnessed, and we’ll get there with God’s help!”

Their aged host also thought they ought not to go, but he had already tried to persuade them to stay and had not been listened to.

“It’s no use asking them again. Maybe my age makes me timid. They’ll get there all right, and at least we shall get to bed in good time and without any fuss,” he thought.

Petrúshka did not think of danger. He knew the road and the whole district so well, and the lines about “snowy circles wheeling wild” described what was happening outside so aptly that it cheered him up. Nikíta did not wish to go at all, but he had been accustomed not to have his own way and to serve others for so long that there was no one to hinder the departing travellers.

V

Vasíli Andréevich went over to his sledge, found it with difficulty in the darkness, climbed in and took the reins.

“Go on in front!” he cried.

Petrúshka kneeling in his low sledge started his horse. Mukhórty, who had been neighing for some time past, now scenting a mare ahead of him started after her, and they drove out into the street. They drove again through the outskirts of the village and along the same road, past the yard where the frozen linen had hung (which, however, was no longer to be seen), past the same barn, which was now snowed up almost to the roof and from which the snow was still endlessly pouring past the same dismally moaning, whistling, and swaying willows, and again entered into the sea of blustering snow raging from above and below. The wind was so strong that when it blew from the side and the travellers steered against it, it tilted the sledges and turned the horses to one side. Petrúshka drove his good mare in front at a brisk trot and kept shouting lustily. Mukhórty pressed after her.

After travelling so for about ten minutes, Petrúshka turned round and shouted something. Neither Vasíli Andréevich nor Nikíta could hear anything because of the wind, but they guessed that they had arrived at the turning. In fact Petrúshka had turned to the right, and now the wind that had blown from the side blew straight in their faces, and through the snow they