More Tales from Tolstoi/The Snowstorm/VII.
VII.
"Ready if you please," bawled Alec to me from the sledge in front.
The snowstorm was so violent that only with the utmost exertion, bending right forward and grasping with both hands the folds of my mantle, was I able to traverse the few yards which separated me from the sledge, through the shifting snow, which the wind carried away from under my very feet. My former driver was already on his knees in the midst of the empty sledge, but seeing me, he took off his large hat, whereupon the wind furiously lifted his long locks on high, and he began asking me for vodka. He evidently didn't expect to get it, for he was not a bit offended at my refusal. He even thanked me, put on his hat, and said to me: "Well, God be with you, sir, and seizing the reins and smacking his lips, he departed from us immediately afterwards, Ignashka meanwhile waving his arms with all his might and shouting at his horses. Again the crunching of hoofs and the jangling of the little sledge bells superseded the whining of the wind, which was particularly audible whenever we stopped short.
For a quarter of an hour after the transfer I did not sleep, and amused myself by studying the figures of the new driver and the horses. Ignashka had all the ways of a young man; he was perpetually springing up, waving his arms, with his whip dangling over the horses, shouting at them, shifting from one foot to the other, bending forward from time to time, and readjusting the reins of the thill horse, which had a tendency perpetually to shift to the right. He was not big, but well put together apparently. Above his short pelisse he wore an ungirdled armyak, the collar of which was almost entirely thrown back, leaving the neck quite bare; his boots were not of felt but of leather, and his hat, which he was incessantly doffing and setting right, was a smallish one. In all his movements was observable not merely energy, but, as it seemed to me, the longing to stimulate this energy. But the further we went and the more frequently he pulled himself together, and bounded on to the box-seat and fidgeted about with his feet and conversed with me and Alec, the more it seemed to me that at the bottom of his soul he was sore afraid. And the reason was this: his horses were good, but at every step the road became more and more difficult, and it was obvious that the horses were running unwillingly; already it was necessary to whip them up a bit, and the thill horse, a good, big, shaggy beast, had stumbled once or twice, although, immediately afterwards, terror-stricken, it tore on ahead again, bowing its shaggy head almost lower than the very sledge bell. The right-hand-side horse, which I watched involuntarily, together with the long leather cluster of the reins, jolting and plunging on the field-side, was visibly breaking away from the traces and required a touch of the whip, but, as is the way with good horses, even when excited, as if sorry for his weakness, he angrily lowered and raised his head, again readjusting the bridle. It was really terrible to see how the snowstorm and the cold were increasing; how the horses were getting weaker. The road was become worse and worse, and we absolutely did not know where we were or whither we were going. We were no longer sure of reaching, I will not say a posting station, but even a place of refuge—and it was ridiculous and terrible to hear how the sledge-bell kept on tinkling so unconcernedly and merrily, and how Ignashka boisterously and bravely shouted at the horses as if we were rolling away to church on a hard-frozen, sunny, rustic road at midday on the "Feast of the Epiphany," and especially terrible it was to think that we were driving continually and driving rapidly nobody knew whither, right away from the place where we were. Ignashka began to sing some song or other, in a villainous falsetto indeed, but so sonorously and with such long pauses, during which he fell a-whistling, that it was strange to feel timid while you listened to him.
"Hie, hie! What a throat you've got, Ignat!" sounded the voice of the Counsellor; "do stop for a bit."
"What?"
"Sto-o-o-op!"
Ignat stopped. Again all was silent, and the wind howled and whined, and the whirling snow began to fall more thickly into the sledge. The Counsellor came to us.
"Well, what is it?"
"What, indeed! Whither are we going?"
"Who knows!"
"Our feet are frozen, eh! why are you clapping your hands?"
"We are quite benumbed."
"And as for you," this to Ignat, "just turn out and stir your stumps and see if there, isn't a Calmuck encampment about here: it will warm up your feet a bit!"
"All right! hold the horses. Now for it."
And Ignat ran off in the direction indicated.
"One always ought to look out and pick one's way, you'll find it's all right; and, besides, there's such a thing as foolish driving," said the Counsellor to me. "Just see how the horses are steaming."
All this time Ignat was gone, and this lasted so long that I was beginning to be afraid that he would lose himself altogether. The Counsellor, in the calmest, most self-confident tone of voice, explained to me how people ought to act in a snowstorm; he said that the best thing of all was to outspan the horse and let her go right on, God only knows where, or sometimes it was possible to see and go by the stars, and he added that if he had gone on before as a pioneer, we should long ago have reached the station.
"Well, how is it?" he asked Ignat, who could now be seen returning, walking with the utmost difficulty, being up to his knees in snow.
"Yes, it's there right enough. I can make out a Calmuck encampment," answered Ignat, puffing and blowing, "but which it is I don't know. We ought, my brother, to be going straight towards the Prolgovsky Manor House. We ought to go more to the left."
"But why this delay? It must be those encampments of ours which are behind the post-station!" exclaimed the Counsellor.
"But I say it is not!"
"What I've seen I know: it'll be what I say and not the Tomushenko lot. We must keep going more to the right all along. We shall be out on the great bridge presently; it is only eight versts off."
"But I say it is not. I tell you I've just seen it," answered Ignat angrily.
"Ah, my brother, and you a driver too!"
"Driver be hanged! Go yourself!"
"Why should I go when I know already?"
It was plain that Ignat was very angry. Without answering, he leaped upon the box-seat and drove on further.
"You see how your feet grow numb if you don't warm them a bit," he said to Alec, continuing to hug his arms more and more frequently and wipe and shake off the snow which kept pouring into the leg of his boot.
I had a frightful desire to go to sleep.