​MASTER AND MAN

It happened in the seventies, on the day after wintry Nicholas' Day. There had been a feast in the parish, and town councillor Vasily Andreich Brekhunov (he was also a merchant of the second guild) could not absent himself therefrom — he was a church elder — and had moreover to receive and entertain at home his kinsfolk and acquaintances. And now the last of the guests had gone, and Vasily Andreich began setting about departing immediately to a neighbouring squire, to buy of him a wood for which he had long been in treaty. Vasily Andreich made haste to depart, lest the merchants of the town should anticipate him by over-bidding him, and thus snatch away from him this profitable property. The young squire asked ten thousand for this wood, simply because Vasily Andreich had offered seven thousand for it. Seven thousand indeed was only a third of the actual value of the wood. Vasily Andreich might have been inclined to beat him down still further, because the ​wood happened to be in his district, and there had long been an understanding between him and the local merchants, that one merchant should not bid against another of the same district; but Vasily Andreich was aware that the Government forest contractors were after the Goryachkinsky wood, so he resolved to set out immediately and settle the business with the squire. So, as soon as the feast was over, he got out of his strong box 700 roubles, added to them the 2,300 bank-notes he had by him, making together 3,000 roubles, and, after carefully counting them all over, placed them in his pocketbook, and prepared to go.

Day-labourer Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich's labourers who was not drunk to-day, hastened to put the horse to. Nikita was not drunk to-day, because he had been a drunkard, and since the flesh-eating days had begun, previous to which he had drunk everything down to his clothes and his leather boots, he had solemnly renounced drink; and indeed he had drunk nothing during the second month; and now too he had not drunken despite the temptations of the wine flowing everywhere during the first two days of the feast.

Nikita was a muzhik of about fifty years of age, from the neighbouring village; no householder, as people said — living for the greater part of his life not at home, but amongst the people. Everywhere was he prized for his painstaking and his skill and strength as a workman, but principally for his good, friendly character. But he never stayed long in one place, because twice in the year, and now and then ​still oftener, he fell a-drinking, and then, besides drinking away all he had, he became noisy and quarrelsome likewise. Vasily Andreich had also driven him away once or twice, but taken him on again afterwards—he valued him for his honesty, for his love of animals, and principally for his cheapness. Vasily Andreich paid Nikita not at the rate of eighty roubles, as such a workman was well worth, but at the rate of forty roubles, which he gave him without any strict account, in driblets, and for the most part not in cash, but in wares out of his store, and at a dear rate.

The wife of Nikita, Martha, at one time a beauty, was a smart old woman, kept house at home, with a little lad and two girls to look after, and she did not call on Nikita to live at home, first because for twenty years she had been living with a cooper, a muzhik out of another village who dwelt with them in the house; and in the second place because, although she worried her husband as she willed when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he was drunk. Once when he had drunk himself mad drunk at home, Nikita, no doubt to revenge himself for all his sober submissiveness, had broken open her clothes' chest, dragged out all her most precious dresses, and catching up a chopper, chopped all her gowns and other garments into little pieces on the chopping-block. All the wages earned by Nikita went to his wife, and to this he made no objection. So now, too, two days before the feast, Martha had gone to Vasily Andreich and received from him white meal, tea, sugar, and a small flask of wine—the whole worth about three ​roubles; she also got five roubles in money, and thanked him therefore as for an especial favour, when, as a matter of fact, at the lowest estimate, twenty roubles were due from Vasily Andreich.

"Should we make any conditions with thee?" Vasily Andreich would say to Nikita. "Take that which thou needest — that which is thy due. I am not of those who say to their people, 'Wait a while, I owe you so much, and ye have forfeited so much or so much.' Honour is our watchword. Thou dost me service, and I will not desert thee. Thou dost want this or that? Good, be it so!" And in saying all this Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was Nikita's benefactor, so persuasively could he talk; and everyone, beginning with Nikita, shared his conviction, and said yes to him.

"Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich, it beseems a servant to look upon his master as a veritable father. I quite understand." Knowing very well all the time that Vasily Andreich was swindling him, yet feeling at the same time that it was of no use trying to clear up accounts with him, and that live he must somehow until he got another place, and so must take what was given him.

And now, receiving the order from his master to put the horse to, Nikita, now as always, willingly and cheerfully, with a light and free step of his waddling feet — he had somewhat of the gait of a goose — went to the outhouse, took down from the nail there the heavy leather tasselled saddle, and the somewhat worn and shabby bridle, and went to the safely fastened stable, in which stood, all by itself, that particular ​horse which Vasily Andreich had told him to harness.

"What, thou dost not know what to do with thyself, with all this standing still, thou old fool, eh?" said Nikita in reply to the faint whinny of welcome with which he was greeted by the middle-sized, neat, dark-brown stallion standing solitary in the stable. "Well, well, thou shalt soon be off now, thou old simpleton, if thou dost but wait an instant." He spoke to the horse precisely as we speak to creatures which understand human speech, and he put the bridle on the handsome head of the stallion, comfortably adjusted its ears and mane, and seizing it by the halter, led it out to water. Cautiously making its way out of the high stable, Brownie began to sport and neigh, pretending, as he trotted along, that he wanted to hit with his hind leg Nikita, who was running with him to the well.

"None of thy tricks, thou rascal!" admonished Nikita, well aware of the carefulness with which Brownie always flung out with his hind leg, managing just to graze his short fur jacket but not to hit him, and taking great delight in this trick.

Having drunk his fill of cold water, the horse stood still, drew in his breath, smacked his strong wet lips, from the hairs of which transparent drops of water dripped back into the trough, and snorted.

"Now ask not for any more, for thou wilt not get it, thou hast had enough," said Nikita, quite seriously, and circumstantially justifying his conduct to Brownie; and again he set off running, this time back to the stable again, tugging after him by the ​bridle the joyous young horse as it plunged and reared all along the courtyard.

There were no labourers about, there was only a strange man-cook there who had come to the feast.

"Dear soul!" said Nikita to this man, "go and ask to which sledge the horse is to be put, the big common one lined with best bark, or the little one?"

The man-cook went into the house, and soon returned with the tidings that it was the little one the master would have made ready. Meanwhile Nikita put on the horse-collar, fastened on the saddle, which was well studded with brass nails, and holding in one hand a light-coloured shaft-bow and leading the horse by the other, went on to the two sledges standing beneath the shed.

"So it is to be the little one, is it — the little one?" he kept on repeating to himself as he led between the shafts the shrewd young horse, which was pretending it wanted to bite him all the time, and began attaching him thereto with the assistance of the man-cook.

When all this was nearly ready and it only remained to lead him out, Nikita sent the man-cook to the barn for hay and to the store-house for a sack.

"That'll do nicely! But no tricks now, no tricks!" said Nikita, stuffing into the sledge the fresh, well-threshed oat-hay brought to him by the man-cook from the barn.

"And now that big piece of cloth," continued Nikita, "and let us place it so, and the sack atop of it. That's right — that's right — and now it will be ​nice to sit upon," said he, smoothing down the sacking over the straw on all sides round about the seat.

"There we are, and many thanks, dear soul," said Nikita to the man-cook, "the two of us together will soon be ready with the job;" and adjusting the reins so as to let them hang loosely, Nikita took his seat on the box and urged his good horse coaxingly over the frozen dung to the gate.

"Daddy Mikit!^[1] daddy, daddy!" cried a voice behind him. It was a little seven-year-old lad, who, after a great clicking of the latch, scurried out of the barn into the courtyard, dressed in a black half-jacket, new, white bast shoes, and a warm cap. "Give me a ride, give me a ride!" piped his shrill little suppliant voice, and he buttoned his little half-jacket as he scampered along.

"Come along, then; come along! my little dove," said Nikita, stopping for a moment to set up before him the little petitioner, his master's son, who was beaming with joy, and they rode out into the street.

It was three o'clock. There were ten degrees of frost, and it was overcast and windy; in the courtyard it had seemed so still. In the street a strong wind was blowing; from the roof of the neighbouring barn the snow was flying and whirling into a drift in the corner next the bath-house. At the very moment when Nikita drove out and brought the horse up at the foot of the flight of steps, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, and wearing a sheep-skin mantle girded tightly and low down by a stout girdle, ​came out of the vestibule on to the steps, the snow upon which crackled beneath the tread of his felt shoes, and stood still, smoothing away from both sides of his ruddy face — clean shaved, too, with the exception of a moustache — the corners of the collar of his sheep-skin mantle, lined inwardly with fur, lest the fur should be made wet and moist by his breathing.

"So you are perched up there already, you little rascal, eh?" said he, perceiving his little son in the sledge, and he showed his white teeth as he grinned. Vasily Andreich had been stimulated by drinking wine with his guests, and was therefore more than usually satisfied with everything which belonged to him and with everything which he did.

With her head and her shoulders enveloped in woollen wraps, so that only her eyes were visible, the thin and pale-faced wife of Vasily Andreich accompanied him, standing behind him in the vestibule.

"Nay, indeed, you should take Nikita with you," said she, boldly emerging from the door. Vasily Andreich said nothing; he only spat on the ground. "You have got money with you," she continued in a lamentable sort of voice. "Yes, and the weather shows no signs of lifting. You ought indeed, God knows."

"What! do you mean to say that I don't know the way then, that you are always bothering me to take a guide?" replied Vasily Andreich, with that peculiar unnatural stiffening of the lips with which he generally addressed buyers or sellers with whom he was haggling — obviously he loved the sound of his own voice. ​"Yes, indeed, you ought to take him. I pray you, in God's name, take him!" continued his wife, tightening her wraps.

"That's right, as noisy as a bath-broom! But where then shall I put him?"

"Look you, I am quite ready, Vasily Andreich," cried Nikita cheerily. "There will only be the horses' fodder to look after in my absence," added he, turning to his mistress.

"I'll see to it, Nikitushka. I'll give orders to Simon," said his mistress.

"Then am I to go, Vasily Andreich?" asked Nikita, expectant.

"Ah! I see you have a wholesome respect for the missus! But if go you must, you must put on clothes a little more decent and warmer," said Vasily Andreidh, smiling once more, and glancing out of his half-closed eyes at the ragged, soiled, and shabby fringes of Nikita's jacket peeping out everywhere from underneath his furs.

"Hie, my dear soul! come hither, and hold the horse!" cried Nikita to the man-cook standing in the courtyard.

"No, let me do it! I'll do it!" screamed the little lad, drawing his frost-numbed, pretty little hands out of his pockets, and seizing hold of the cold leather reins.

"Only look sharp about your swell get-up," cried Vasily Andreich, showing his teeth again as he cracked his joke at Nikita.

"In a trice, little father," cried' Nikita, and quickly shoving his socks inside his greasy, worn-down felt ​shoes, he ran into the courtyard towards the workmen's hut.

"Ho, there, Arinushka! give me my khalat^[2] from the stove corner. I am going with master!" cried Nikita, running into the hut and taking his girdle down from the nail.

The workwoman, who had just risen from her after-dinner sleep, and was just then placing the samovar before her husband, gave Nikita a merry look, and catching the contagion of his bustling haste, scuttled off as rapidly as he himself could have done, and fetched down from the stove where it was drying his threadbare cloth kaftan, shook it, and smoothed out the creases.

"No wonder you and master carry it off so comfortably together," said Nikita, out of the mere desire of a loquacious and good-natured man to say something pleasant and obliging to whomsoever he may come face to face with. And spanning around him the narrow, well-worn little belt, he drew in his stomach (it was meagre enough already), and girded himself right over his jacket with all his might.

"So, there you are!" said he, after this was done, addressing himself this time not to the cook but to his belt, as he tucked the ends of it in behind his sash. "Mind you stick there, that's all!" and rising up from his stooping position, and lowering his shoulders to give his hands greater freedom, he put on his khalat, using some force to make it fit closely to his back, so that it might not interfere with his ​hands, drew it down beneath his armpits, and picked up his gloves from the floor. "Well, now, I am all right!"

"It is your feet you ought to look to most," said the cook, "and those boots of yours are bad."

Nikita stood stock-still as if he would call to mind something.

"I ought to — yes! Well, I must go as I am. It will not be far."

And he ran into the courtyard.

"Won't you find it cold, Nikitushka?" said his mistress, when he had reached the sledge.

"Cold! why I'm warm all over!" replied Nikita, disposing the straw in the fore part of the sledge so as to cover his feet, and sticking under the straw the whip, which is quite unnecessary for a good horse.

Vasily Andreich was already sitting in his place, almost filling up the entire back part of the sledge with his well-clothed back wrapped in its double suit of furs, and seizing the reins at the same moment, he flicked the horse with them. Nikita, as they set off, bent forward a little to the left to get into an easier position, and stretched out one leg.

The good horse set the sledge in motion (the curved sides of it creaking a little as they set off), and off they went at a smart trot along the level frozen road leading to the village.

"What do you mean by hanging on behind there? ​Give me the whip, Nikita," cried Vasily Andreich, evidently proud of his son, who was clinging on behind to the supports of the sledge. "I'll give it you! Run off to mamma, you son of a dog, you!"

The lad leaped off. The horse increased its pace, and presently broke into a gallop.

The hamlet in which stood the house of Vasily Andreich consisted of six houses. No sooner had they passed the last house (it was a smithy) than they perceived that the wind was much more violent than they had imagined. Already the road was scarcely visible. The track of the sledge vanished almost immediately, and the road was only distinguishable because it stood higher than all the rest of space. The whole plain before them was a-smoke with mist; it was impossible to make out where the earth ended and where the sky began.

The forest of Telyatin, always such a striking feature of the landscape, was now but a black shadow seen dimly through the snow dust. The wind blew from the left, persistently forcing sideways the mane on Brownie's hard-bitten neck and his tied-up tail, and pressing down the long collar of Nikita's khalat. Nikita was facing the wind, which blew full against him.

"His present pace is nothing, there's too much snow about," said Vasily Andreich, right proud of his good horse. "Once I sat behind him on the road to Pashutno, and he did the whole distance in half an hour."

"What?"

​"All the way to Pashutno, I say — he did the whole distance in half an hour."

"That's something to talk about! A good horse he is, and no mistake!" said Nikita.

They were silent for a time, but Vasily Andreich had a talking fit upon him.

"Well, how does your old woman get on with her friend the cooper?" said Vasily Andreich, so convinced that it ought to be very pleasant for Nikita to converse with such a sensible and distinguished man as himself, and so pleased with his own joke that it never entered his head whether his conversation might not be disagreeable to Nikita. Nikita, however, did not catch his master's words distinctly, as the wind carried the sound away from him.

Vasily Andreich repeated his jest about the cooper in his deep, full voice.

"God be with them, Vasily Andreich! I don't meddle in the matter. So long as she is kind to the little one, God be with her."

"Oh! that's it, is it?" said Vasily Andreich. "Well, are you going to buy that horse in the spring?" he asked, broaching another subject.

"I should like to have the chance," answered Nikita, turning aside the collar of his kaftan, and bending over towards his master.

The conversation had now grown interesting to Nikita, and he did not want to lose a word of it.

"He's very small, not much good even at ploughing, he's so very small," said he.

"Take him as he stands. I won't put too big a price upon it," shouted Vasily Andreich, feeling him​self growing excited as he plunged again into his favourite occupation, that swallowed up everything else — the driving of a bargain.

"And then, you know, for fifteen roubles I could pick and choose at the horse fair," said Nikita, well knowing that seven roubles was a very good price to pay for the horse that Vasily Andreich wanted to palm off upon him; and that if Vasily Andreich let him have the horse he would charge him twenty-five roubles for it, which would mean not seeing the colour of his money in wages for half a year.

"The horse is a good one. I would do you a good turn as well as myself. On my conscience I would A Brekhunov would injure no man. I seek not mine own, as do others. On my honour, a first-rate horse!" he cried, in the same tone of voice he always affected when haggling with buyers and sellers.

"No doubt," said Nikita; and fully persuaded that it was no longer of any use to listen, he put up with his hand the collar of his coat, which immediately covered up his face and ears.

For half an hour they went on in silence. The wind blew right into Nikita's side and arm just where his fur was ragged and torn. He hugged himself, and breathed hard into his collar, that covered his mouth, and his hard breathing seemed to burn him.

"Well what do you think? Shall we go in the direction of Karamnishevo, or straight on?" asked Vasily Andreich.

The Karamnishevo road was much the more frequented, with well-maintained posts on both sides — but it was the longer way. Straight on would be ​nearer, but the road was badly kept, and there were no sign-posts, or very sorry ones.

Nikita thought for a moment.

"By the Karamnishevo road," said he at last; "it is longer, but easier going."

"But if you go straight, you have only to pass the hollow — you can't miss it, and then you're all right again," said Vasily Andreich, who wanted to go straight on.

"As you please," said Nikita, and again he put up his collar.

Vasily Andreich did as he wished, and driving for half a mile past a small wood of tall oaks well swept by the wind, but still having a few dry leaves upon them here and there, he turned off to the left. On turning the comer the wind blew almost straight in their faces. Light snowflakes were falling from above. Vasily Andreich straightened himself up, puffed out his cheeks, and blew hard down into his moustaches. Nikita fell a-nodding. They drove along in silence for about ten minutes. All at once Vasily Andreich said something.

"What is it?" asked Nikita, opening his eyes.

Vasily Andreich answered nothing, but looked scared, peering backwards and forwards over the horse's head. The horse, beaded with sweat on the flanks and neck, was going at a foot-pace.

"What's amiss, I say?" repeated Nikita.

"Amiss! amiss!" mocked Vasily Andreich angrily. "I don't see the posts, we must have missed our way."

"Stop, then; I'll look along the road," cried Nikita, and lightly leaping from his perch, and snatching ​up the whip from under the straw, he struck to the left of the place where he had been sitting.

The snow that year was not deep, so that there was a way through it everywhere, yet here and there it reached up to a man's knee, and found its way into Nikita's boots. Nikita tramped along, and felt his way with his whip and his feet, but there was no sign of the road anywhere.

"Well, how is it?" said Vasily Andreich, when Nikita picked his way back to the sledge.

"There is no road this way. We must go along in the other direction."

"Look! What is that black thing in front? You go over yonder and see!" said Vasily Andreich.

Nikita went thither also, he went right up to the black thing in front — it was the ground that was black there, sprinkled over with bare-lying winter seed, which had coloured the snow black. After turning to the right also, Nikita returned to the sledge, brushed off the snow from his clothes, shook it out of his boots, and sat down in the sledge again.

"We must go to the right," said he decisively. "The wind was blowing upon my left side, and now it is right on my nose. Go to the right," said he in a decided tone.

Vasily Andreich listened to him, and turned to the right.

Still there was no sign of a road. Thus on they went for some time. The wind did not abate, and the light snowflakes continued to fall.

"We have plainly quite lost our way, Vasily Andreich," said Nitika suddenly, with an air of some​thing very like satisfaction. "What's that?" he added, pointing to a black potato-plant peeping forth from under the snow.

Vasily Andreich had already pulled up the horse, whose strong sides were wet with sweat.

"What do you make of it?" he asked.

"I make this of it: that we are in the fields of Zakharovek — that is where we have gone astray."

"Lies!" cried Vasily Andreich, speaking in a very different tone to what he used at home, by his voice you would have taken him for a simple peasant.

"I lie not. I am speaking the truth, Vasily Andreich," said Nikita. "And it was plain from the sound made by the sledge itself that we were going over a potato field; and look at the bits of the plants that we have carried along with us. We are in the Zakharovek fields — not a doubt of it."

"A pretty round you've taken us out of our way!" said Vasily Andreich. "What are we to do now?"

"We must go straight on, that's all, wherever we may come out," said Nikita. "If we don't come out at Zakharovek, we shall come to some gentleman's farm or other."

Vasily Andreich obeyed, and let the horse go on again as Nikita had commanded. They went on thus for a pretty long time. Sometimes they drove along over bare fields of vegetables, whose ridges and bounds peering above the snow were strewn with the dust of the earth. Sometimes they got among stubble fields, or among fields sown with winter corn, or fields sown with summer corn, in which appeared at intervals from underneath the snow, shaking in the ​wind, patches of straw or wormwood; sometimes they drove into deep white plains of snow, everywhere uniform, above which notching was visible. Snow fell from above and rose up from below. Sometimes it seemed to them as if they were going uphill, and sometimes as if they were going down dale; sometimes it seemed to them as if they were standing stock-still in one place and the snowy plain was running past them. Both had grown silent. The horse was evidently weary to death — mottled and dripping with sweat, and going at a foot-pace. Suddenly it collapsed and sat down in some chasm or ditch. Vasily Andreidh would have stopped, but Nikita began shrieking at him.

"Why do you stop? Go on! We must get out of this. Come, come, my son!" he said in a cheery voice to the horse, leaping out of the sledge and into the chasm. The horse made a brave effort, and struggled out upon a frozen gravel-heap. It had evidently fallen into a ditch.

"Where are we, I wonder?" said Vasily Andreich.

"We must find out," answered Nikita. "Push on, anyhow, we shall come out somewhere."

"Surely that is the Goryachkinsky wood?" said Vasily Andreich, pointing to something black peeping out of the snow in front of them.

"Come and let us see what sort of a wood it is," said Nikita. Nikita had perceived that from the direction of this black something, dry, longish vine-leaves were being carried along by the wind, and therefore he knew it was not a wood, but human habitations to which they were coming, but he did ​not trust himself to speak. And in fact they had not proceeded more than twenty yards from the ditch when in front of them — there was no mistaking it — a village loomed forth blackly, and a new and melancholy sound was to be heard. Nikita had guessed rightly, this was no wood, but a row of low vines, with here and there a few leaves still shivering upon them. Making his way towards these vines, moaning sadly in the wind, the horse suddenly raised itself on its fore-feet till it was higher than the sledge, then struggled on to its hind legs also, and so extricated its knees from the snow. It had gained the road.

"So, here we are," said Nikita; "and we don't know where."

The horse proceeded without stumbling along the snow-bound road, and they had gone along it not more than forty yards when a row of fences loomed black before them, from which the snow never ceased to fall and spread about. On passing the fence the road turned in the direction of the wind, and they plunged into a snow-drift. But right in front of them a lane between the houses was visible, so that it was plain the drift had been blown together upon the road, and they would have to force their way through it. And, indeed, after forcing their way through the snow-drift they got upon the road again. On a rope in the furthermost courtyard some stiff-frozen clothes were fluttering desperately in the wind in every direction: two shirts, one red and one white; hose, socks, and a petticoat. The white shirt was turning about with particular desperation, and waving its sleeves.

​"Look, there lives a lazy old woman, or else she is dead, for she has not taken down her washing against the feast," said Nikita, looking at the fluttering shirts.

At the beginning of the street it was also windy, and the road was snowy, but in the middle of the village it was quiet, warm, and cheerful. At one house a dog was barking, in another courtyard an old woman with a handkerchief round her head was running home from somewhere or other, and when she reached the door of the hut she remained standing on the threshold to look at the travellers passing by. From the middle of the village resounded the songs of some girls. In the village itself the wind, the snow, and the frost seemed less than elsewhere.

"I suppose this is Grishkino," said Vasily Andreich.

"Yes, it is," replied Nikita.

And indeed Grishkino it was. It now appeared that they had taken a wrong turn to the left, and had gone eight versts, not precisely in the direction they had wanted to go, nevertheless they had been moving towards their destination; for Goryachkina was only five versts distance from Grishkino.

In the middle of the village they came upon a tall man driving in the middle of the street.

"Who goes there?" bellowed this man, stopping short, and immediately afterwards, perceiving Vasily Andreich, he caught hold of the shafts, and leaping ​over them with the help of his hands, came up to the sledge, and sat down on the box-seat.

It was an old acquaintance of Vasily Andreich, the muzhik Isai, well known all about those parts as a horse-thief.

"Why, Vasily Andreich! where on earth are you off to?" said Isai, sending a whiff of vodka in the direction of Nikita.

"We are going to Goryachkina."

"You have come out of your way then. You must go by way of Malakhovo then."

"Needs must then. I suppose we are a little out of it," said Vasily Andreich, stopping the horse.

"That's a good little nag of yours," said Isai, looking at the horse, and drawing his hand beneath the tail, slightly loosening the knot into which the tail was tied, after the manner of dealers in horse-flesh.

"Why not pass the night here?"

"Nay, brother, we must be going on."

"You had better stay — you ought."

"Tell us, dear soul," put in Nikita, "how to go so that we may not go astray again."

"How can you lose your way here? Return to the road straight, when you get there you'll find it all straightforward. Don't turn to the left. You'll come out by a big mound, and then turn to the left."

"We turn from the big mound, then — but in which direction, the summer side or the winter side?" asked Nikita.

"The winter side. Immediately when you come out there, you will see bushes, right opposite the ​bushes is a big post — an oaken, ragged-looking post, that is where it is."

Vasily Andreich turned his horse back, and drove past the village.

"You ought to pass the night here, I tell you!" bawled Isai after him. But Vasily Andreich made him no answer, but urged on the horse. Five miles of level road, two of which were protected by woods, did not seem to be much of a business to traverse, especially as the wind had died down somewhat, and the snow had ceased to fall.

Proceeding back again down the street along a roughish piece of road, darkened here and there by freshly fallen horse-dung, and passing the courtyard where the clothes were hung out (the white shirt had by this time wrenched itself loose, and was hanging by one frost-stiff arm only), they once more drove along by the fearfully moaning plantations of vines, and came out again into the open. Here the snowstorm, so far from subsiding, seemed to blow with greater fury than ever. The whole road was covered with snow, and it was only the tops of the posts that told them they had not lost their way. But it was difficult to distinguish the posts themselves very far ahead, as the wind was blowing full against them.

Vasily Andreich wrinkled his brow, bent his head, and kept a sharp look out for the posts; but it was best, he thought, to let the horse go his own way, and trust to him. And indeed the horse did not go astray, but went alternately, now to the right and now to the left, along the winding road, which it recognised beneath its feet. Consequently, despite the fact that ​the snowfall from above increased in violence, and the wind also blew more violently, the posts on the right side and the left continued to be visible.

And so they went on for the next ten minutes, when suddenly, right in front of the horse, appeared a black something, moving along in a perfect network of fine snow driven along by the wind. They were fellow-travellers travelling in the same direction. Brownie regularly ran them down, and grazed the box-seat of the sledge in front with his hoofs.

"Go round — go round in front!" cried the people in the other sledge.

Vasily Andreich set about going in front. There were three muzhiks and an old woman in the other sledge. Evidently they were guests returning home from a feast. One of the muzhiks was whipping up the horse from behind with a bundle of twigs. Two of the muzhiks in the front part of the sledge were waving their hands and screeching something. The woman, wrapped closely up and covered with snow, was sitting silently, like a big puffed-up bundle of clothes, in the back part of the sledge.

"Who do you belong to?" cried Vasily Andreich.

"A-a-a-sky!" was all that was audible.

"Who do you belong to, I say?"

"A-a-a-sky!" roared one of the muzhiks with all his might, and yet it was impossible to make out whom they meant.

The sledges grazed each other as they passed. They seemed interlocked one moment, and the next they were free of each other again, and then the peasants' sledge began to draw away.

​The shaggy little thickset horse, all covered with snow, panted heavily beneath the low shaft-bow, evidently exhausting its last reserve of strength as it dragged its short legs haltingly through the deep snow, frequently they almost doubled up beneath it. To judge from its snout it was evidently a young animal. It had a stiff drawn-out lower lip like a fish's with distended nostrils, and ears pressed close to its head in terror. For a few seconds it held itself close beside Nikita's shoulder, and then it began slowly to draw away.

"It is easy to see what sort they are," said Nikita, "they'll end by killing their poor little nag outright, savages that they are!"

For some moments the snorting of the overworked horse and the drunken cries of the muzhiks continued to be heard, presently the snorting ceased, and not long after that the drunken shouting died away also. And once more nothing was to be heard all around but the whistling of the wind about their ears, and now and again the faint creaking of the sides of the sledge as it went over the rough parts of the road.

This chance meeting had amused and stimulated Vasily Andreioh, and no longer taking note of the posts he boldly whipped the horse up and trusted to it to keep to the road.

Nikita had nothing to do, so he began to be drowsy. Suddenly the horse stood stock-still, and Nikita was almost pitched out, as it was he fell forward and hurt his nose.

"Something is amiss again; it is rather rough going, eh?" said Vasily Andreich.

​"What's up?"

"Not a post to be seen! We must have strayed away from the road again."

"Strayed away from the road, eh? — then we must find it again," said Nikita curtly. So out he jumped again, and began picking his way over the snow, treading very lightly, and with his feet turned inwards. He walked about for some time, disappearing from view, reappearing, and then again disappearing. At last he turned back.

"There is no road here; it may be somewhere ahead," said he, sitting down on the sledge.

It was beginning to grow sensibly dusky all around, the snowstorm had not increased in violence, but it showed no signs of abating.

"I wish we could hear those muzhiks," said Vasily Andreich.

"It's no good trying to overtake them, and besides, most likely they too have lost their way," said Nikita.

"In which direction shall we go then?" asked Vasily Andreich.

"We must leave that to the horse," said Nikita. "He will find his way. Give me the reins."

Vasily Andreich gave up the reins all the more readily as his hands were beginning to feel very cold, though covered by warm gloves.

Nikita took the reins and just held them loosely, trying not to move them: he was proud of the good sense of his pet nag. And indeed the shrewd horse, cocking first one ear in one direction and then the other ear in the other, gradually began to turn about.

​"Don't say a word," added Nikita, "see what he does! Bless you, he knows! That's it, that's it!"

The wind was now blowing behind their backs; it began to be warmer.

"Oh! he's a knowing one," continued Nikita, delighted to crack up his horse, "a Kirghiz nag may be as strong, but it is a fool to him. Look how his ears are working. He needs no telegraph post, not he! He can scent the road a mile off."

And not half an hour had passed before something black really loomed out in front of them — a wood, perhaps, or a village; and on the right side of the way the posts again appeared. Evidently they had once more got upon the road.

"Why, if it is not Grishkino again!" suddenly exclaimed Nikita.

And indeed, to the left of them, there was now that same row of buildings from which the snow drifted, and further on was that same rope with the frozen clothes, the shirts and breeches, all of which were still dancing frantically in the wind.

Again they drove into the main street; again they felt it quiet, warm, and pleasant there; again the dung-strewn road was visible; again were to be heard voices, songs, and the barking of dogs. Already it was sufficiently dark for lights to be burning in some of the windows.

In the middle of the street of the village Vasily Andreich turned the horse in the direction of a large house with two brick wings, and made it stop in front of the door.

"Go and call Taras!" he shouted to Nikita.

​Nikita went to the snowed-up, illuminated window, in the light of which the little fluttering snowflakes gleamed and sparkled, and tapped with the end of his whip.

"Who is there?" a voice exclaimed in answer to Nikita's summons.

"In the name of the Holy Cross, Brekhunov's people, dear man!" replied Nikita. "Come out for a moment!"

Someone moved away from the window, and the next moment could be heard the creaking of a distant door, then the lifting of a latch in the outhouse, and then, holding the door against the pressure of the wind, an old muzhik with a white beard poked out his head. He wore a high cap, and a short pelisse buttoned over his white Sunday shirt, and behind him was a youth in a red shirt and leather boots.

"At your service!" said the old man.

"The fact is, we have gone astray, my brother," said Vasily Andreich. "We were on our way to Goryachkina, and lighted hither at your place instead. We drove on again, and lo! we have strayed back again to the selfsame spot."

"Well, you have made a mess of it, I see," said the old man. "Pete! go and open the gate," he added, turning to the youth in the red shirt.

"All right," said the youth merrily, and he ran out to the sledge.

"Nay, brother, we will not stay the night," said Vasily Andreich.

"Whither would you go then, with night coming on? Nay, but you must stay!"

​"I should be glad to stay the night; but go on we must."

"Well, have a warm up, anyhow; come straight to the samovar," said the old man.

"Well, I don't mind having a warm up," said Vasily Andreich, "it cannot be much darker, nay, the moon is rising, so it will be quite light presently. What do you say, eh, Nik? Shall we go in and have a warm?"

"Yes, I think we may as well have a warm," said Nikita, who was more than half benumbed already, and would have given anything to warm his freezing limbs by the stove.

Vasily Andreich went with the old man into the room, while Nikita entered through the gate opened by Pete, and, directed by him, led the horse under the roof of the shed. This shed was used for housing manure and all sorts of creatures, and its lofty arch was supported on a cross beam. The cocks and hens, which had already gone to roost on this high perch, began to cackle somewhat impatiently and scrape the perch with their claws. Some startled sheep shuffled about on the frozen dung, and crowded to one side. A dog, obviously quite a young animal, whined piteously for fear, and then began barking at the stranger.

Nikita had a word for them all. He apologized to the fowls, reassured them, and begged them not to put themselves about any more; reproached the sheep for getting frightened at nothing at all; and all the time he was attending to the horse, never ceased haranguing the little dog.

"There you are; now you'll do nicely," said Nikita, ​knocking the snow from off him. Then, turning to the dog, he added, "You silly thing! what are you putting yourself about for? What's the matter, eh? Be quiet, you stupid! There are no thieves here."

"They say, you know, there are three persons who have a great deal to say in a house," observed the youngster, Pete.

"Who may they be?" asked Nikita.

"You'll find it all printed in Paulson's book: the thief creeps into the house — the dog barks — that means, 'Don't yawn in bed any longer!' The cock crows — that means, 'Get up.' The cat washes herself — that means, Tis a good guest, prepare to entertain him!'" The boy smiled as he repeated his lesson.

For little Pete was a lettered youngster, and knew almost by heart everything in Paulson, the one book he possessed and loved to quote, especially when he was a bit in liquor, as now; he loved to quote anything which seemed to him likely to improve the occasion.

"That's just it," said Nikita.

"You must be nearly frozen, uncle, eh?" added Pete.

"Pretty well on that way, I think," said Nikita. And they passed through the courtyard and the sheds into the dwelling-house.

The house at which Vasily Andreich had stopped was one of the richest in the village. The family ​cultivated five ordinary lots, and had other outlying land in reserve besides. There were six horses in the yard, three cows, two yoke-oxen, and twenty head of sheep. The family consisted of twenty-two souls, including four married sons, six grandchildren — of whom only Pete was married — two great-grandchildren, three orphans, and four daughters-in-law with their children. It was one of those few houses where, as yet, there were no divisions; but for some time past there had been some domestic unpleasantness, as is ever the case, beginning amongst the women, and due to petty squabbling which was bound, sooner or later, to end in downright division. Two of the sons lived at Moscow, among the water-carriers; and one was a soldier. There were now at home the old man, the old woman, the son who looked after the farm, a son who had arrived from Moscow for the feast, and all the women and children. Moreover, besides the people of the house, a guest was present — the neighbouring starosta.

Over the table in the living-room hung the lamp from a high support, brightly illuminating the tea-service beneath it, the water-bottle, the repast already spread forth, and the brick walling of the "beautiful corner," hung with ikons, with pictures on each side of them. In the place of honour at table sat Vasily Andreich, in a black half-pelisse, smoothing out his frozen moustaches, and blinking at all the people in the room with his prominent, hawk-like eyes. Besides Vasily Andreich, there were sitting at table a white-bearded, bald-headed old man, the master of the house, in a white shirt of home make; alongside ​of him, in a shirt of fine texture, with sturdy back and shoulders, his son who had come from Moscow for the feast; and yet another son, his broad-shouldered elder brother, who looked after the household; and there was also the starosta, a somewhat meagre, red-haired muzhik.

The muzhiks, after eating and drinking, had just assembled together to drink tea; the samovar standing on the floor near the stove was beginning to sing. There were children peeping forth here and there on the stove and on the polati^[3] In one comer a woman was sitting over a cradle. The old woman of the house — she had a face covered in every direction with tiny wrinkles, her very lips were wrinkled — was devoting herself personally to Vasily Andreich. At the moment when Nikita entered the room she was pouring out of a thick glass bottle a little glass of vodka for Vasily Andreich.

"Nay, but you must, Vasily Andreich. One must keep well, you know, this weather," the old man of the house was saying.

The sight and smell of the vodka, especially now, when he was half frozen and half dead with hunger, profoundly affected Nikita. He frowned, and, shaking his cap and kaftan free of snow, he planted himself in front of the holy images, and just as if he perceived nothing else, crossed himself thrice and made obeisance; then he turned to the old man of the house, and bowed first to him, then to all who were at the table, and then to the women who were ​standing around the stove, and after uttering the greeting, "Be it well with you!" proceeded to strip off his outer garments.

"Why, thou art all frosted, uncle!" said the elder brother, regarding Nikita's face, eyes, and beard in their frame of snow. Nikita took off his kaftan, shook it once more, hung it up against the stove, and drew near to the table. To him also vodka was presented. For an instant a torturing struggle went on within him, he was very nearly accepting the little glass and tossing down his throat the pungently fragrant, sparkling fluid; but he glanced at Vasily Andreich, called to mind his promise, called to mind the boots he had drunk away, called to mind the cooper, called to mind his little one for whom he had promised to buy a horse in the spring — and he sighed, and refused it.

"I won't drink it, thank you, crying your pardon," said he frowning, and he sat down on the bench opposite the second window.

"Why, how's that?" asked the elder brother.

"I won't drink, and I don't drink," said Nikita, not raising his eyes, and stroking his moustache and beard free of the icicles which still clung to them.

"It is not good for him," said Vasily Andreich, sipping away at his own well-filled glass.

"Then have a cup of tea," said the kindly old hostess. "Why, you're half frozen, frozen to the bone, I should think. Hie, you women there, what are you about with that samovar?"

"It is quite ready," replied one of the young women, coming forward with the cloth-covered, heavy ​samovar; with difficulty she raised and carried it, and plumped it down on the table.

Meanwhile Vasily Andreich was telling how they had lost their way, how they had twice come back to the selfsame village, how they had gone astray and come across the party of drunken revellers. Their hosts were astonished. They explained to them why and where they had missed the road, they told them who the drunken folks were whom they had met, and made it clear to them how they ought to go.

"Why a little child could find his way as far as Molchanovka, there's a bush there you could not mistake. And yet you could not get there after all!" said the starosta.

"Won't you stay the night, then? The women will soon get a bed ready," said the old hostess.

"You can go on very well in the morning, you know. The business will wait surely," insisted the old host.

"Impossible, my brother! Business is business," said Vasily Andreich. "Lose an hour, and you won't make it up in the whole year," he added, thinking of the little wood, and of the merchants who might outbid him and spoil his bargain." We can manage it, surely," he continued, turning towards Nikita.

Nikita did not answer for some time, he seemed to be entirely engrossed with smoothing out his beard and moustaches.

"We shall not go astray again," observed he at last moodily. Nikita was moody, because he had still a burning desire for the vodka; the only thing ​that could stifle this desire was tea, and no tea had yet been offered to him.

"If only we get to the turning, it will all be plain sailing, for there is a wood all the way along right up to the place," said Vasily Andreich.

"It is for you to decide whether we go or not, Vasily Andreich," said Nikita, taking the cup of tea now offered to him.

"Let us drink our tea, then, and be off."

Nikita said nothing, he only shook his head, and cautiously pouring out his tea into the saucer, began to warm his half-frozen hands over the steam; then, biting off a tiny little bit of sugar from the lump he held in his hand, he bowed to his host, and exclaimed, "Your health," and drank up the steaming fluid.

"Can anyone guide us to the turning?" asked Vasily Andreich.

"Of course, of course," said the elder son, "Pete can put to and guide you to the turning."

"Put to, then, put to, my brother, and you shall have my best thanks."

"Why, dear soul!" said the courteous old hostess, "as if we were not right glad to do it."

"Pete, go and saddle the mare!" said the elder son.

"All right," said Pete, smiling, and immediately snatching his cap off a nail he went out to saddle the mare.

While the horses were being got ready, the conversation went back to the point where it had been broken off when Vasily Andreich had first approached the window. The old host began complaining to his ​neighbour, the starosta, of his third son who had sent him no present for the feast, although he had sent his wife a very nice French kerchief.

"Our young folks are getting out of hand," said the old man.

"Getting out of hand indeed! everything is out of gear nowadays," said the starosta. "We are all so frightfully knowing! Look at that Dravotchkin fellow, for instance, who has just broken his father's arm. It all comes of having too much mind, forsooth — that's quite plain."

Nikita listened, and looked in the faces of the talkers, and it was plain that he also wanted to take part in the conversation; but his mouth was full of tea, so he only nodded his head approvingly. He drank glass after glass, and began to grow ever warmer and warmer, and more and more friendly. The conversation continued to turn for a long time round one and the same subject, viz., the mischief of the division of property. It was no abstract discussion, that was plain. They were discussing the evil of the division of the property of that very family; a division demanded by the second son, who was actually sitting there, listening in moody silence. This was evidently a sore point. It was a question which occupied all the people in the house; but out of regard for the stranger they did not emphasize their own personal interests. But at last the old man could stand it no longer, and, with tears in his voice, began to say that he would not give in to the proposed division. So long as he lived his house should remain his to the glory of God." Once begin with ​your divisions, and everything would go to the Mir^[4] again."

"Look ye, Mathew's people!" said the starosta. "As things were, this was a real proper home, but if you fall to dividing there will be nothing for anyone."

"And that is how, I suppose, you would have it," said the old man, turning to his son.

The son made no reply, and an awkward silence ensued. This silence was broken by Pete, who by this time had put the horses to, and had come into the room again a few minutes before, and stood listening with a smile upon his face the whole time.

"There's a fable something like this in Paulson," said he, "A parent gives to his sons a bath-broom to break up. While it is all bound up together they cannot break it up; but taking it twig by twig they break it easily. That's how it is," said he, with a grin all over his mouth — "All is ready!" added he.

"If it be ready we will go," said Vasily Andreich. "And as to this division matter, old Daddy, don't you give in! You have been building the place up all your life — and you are master here. Hand it over to the Mir people. They'll put it all to rights."

"They're such a set of sharpers," whined the old man, "that there's no doing anything at all with them. Plague take 'em!"

Nikita, meanwhile, having drunk five cups of tea, stood on one side without turning round, hoping that a sixth would be offered him. But there was no more water in the samovar; the hostess did not pour him ​out any more; and, what is more, Vasily Andreich stood up to put on his things. There was nothing for it but to do likewise. So Nikita also got up, put back into the sugar-basin his lump of sugar which he had nibbled round on every side, wiped with a cloth all round his face, still wet with sweat, and went to put on his khalat.

When it had been put on he sighed heavily, and having thanked his host and hostess, and taken leave of them, went out of the warm, bright sitting-room into the dark, cold outhouses, full of the whistling, rushing wind, strewn with snow which had drifted through the chinks in the door, and so from thence into the still darker courtyard.

Pete in his pelisse was standing beside his horse in the middle of the courtyard, and with a smile upon his face was repeating verses out of Paulson. He was saying:

Nikita nodded his head approvingly, and began to unloose the reins.

The old host, accompanying Vasily Andreich, had brought out a lantern into the shed, and wanted to light it, but the wind immediately blew the light out. It was plain to those standing in the courtyard that the snowstorm had increased in violence.

"It's quite a little storm," thought Vasily Andreich; "I half wish I wasn't going. But what's ​to be done? Business is business. Besides, I am all ready now. Our host's horse, moreover, is put to. Go we must, and God be with us!" The old host was also of opinion that they ought not to go; but he had already advised them not to go, and they had not listened to him. "Perhaps age has made me fearful," thought he, "and they'll get there all right. Yet if the worst comes to the worst, we could put them up for the night without trouble."

Pete also perceived that it was dangerous to go, and he felt very uncomfortable himself, but he would not have shown it on any account, so he strengthened his heart, and persuaded himself that he did not care a bit, and was quite fortified by the reflection that the verses about

exactly described what was going on just then in the courtyard. As for Nikita, he was altogether against going, but he had too long been accustomed to have no opinion of his own and obey others. Thus there was none to keep back the departing guests.

Vasily Andreich went to the sledge, with difficulty making out in the darkness where it was, got into it, and seized the reins.

"Go on!" cried he.

Pete, kneeling in his own sledge, let his horse go. ​Brownie, scenting the mare in front of him, rushed after her, and they emerged into the road. Once more they passed through the village by the same road, past the courtyard where the frozen white clothes were fluttering in the wind (now, however, they were no longer visible), past the outhouses which were snowed up almost to the roof, from which masses of snow plunged down incessantly; past those sadly rustling, whistling, and moaning vine-hedges, and once more came out into that vast snowy sea, where the tempest was raging up and down. The wind was now so strong that when the passengers sailed in the teeth of it, and it caught them sideways, it made the sledge heel over, and smote full upon the flank of the horse. Pete urged his good mare forward at a sharp trot, and shouted to her encouragingly. Brownie dashed after her.

Ten minutes or so elapsed. Pete turned round and shrieked something; neither Vasily Andreich or Nikita could hear him for the wind. They never guessed that they had arrived at the turning. In fact, Pete had turned to the right, and the wind which had been blowing sideways now once more struck them full in the face, and on the right, through the snow, something black was distinguishable. This was the bush at the turning.

"And now God be with you!"

"Thanks, Pete!"

"The lowering tempest hides the sky!" cried Pete, and with that he vanished.

"Quite a bit of a rhymester, eh?" observed Vasily Andreich, tugging at the reins.

​"Yes, a good youngster and a true man," said Nikita.

They proceeded on their way. Nikita, wrapping himself well up, and huddling his head well down between his shoulders so that his short beard might lie all round about his neck, sat there in silence, trying not to lose the warmth with which the tea had filled him. Right in front of him he saw the straight lines of the sledge-shafts perpetually deluding him into the belief that they were on a smooth, level road; the waggling hind-quarters of the horse, with the turned-up knob of the tail hanging over on one side; and, further on in front, the lofty arched crosspiece of the sledge, and the head and neck of the horse, with its long streaming mane bobbing up and down. Now and then his eyes fell upon a post here and there, so he knew that so far they were keeping to the road, and there was nought for him to do.

Vasily Andreich simply drove straight on, leaving it to the horse itself to keep to the road. But Brownie, notwithstanding the fact that he had rested at the village, trotted on unwillingly, and made as though he would have turned aside from the road, so that Vasily Andreich had once or twice to put him right.

"There's one post yonder on the right, and then a second, and then a third," calculated Vasily Andreich, "and right in front is the wood," thought he, looking at some black object in front of him. But what had appeared to him a wood was only a bush. They passed the bush, they went on further some twenty fathoms, and there was no fourth post and no wood.

​"The wood is bound to show up immediately," thought Vasily Andreich, and, excited by the vodka and the tea, he never stopped, but kept twitching the reins, and the good, humble horse obeyed him, and went now at a walking pace and now at a jog-trot in the direction they were sending him, although he knew very well that they were not at all sending him in the direction they ought to have gone. Ten minutes passed by and still there was no sign of a road.

"There now, we have lost our way again!" said Vasily Andreich, stopping the horse.

Nikita slipped softly out of the sledge, and holding fast his khalat, which now clung tightly to him from the impact of the wind, and now was wrenched away from him and fluttered behind him, began picking his way through the snow, going first in one direction and then in another. Three times he was quite hidden from view. At last he returned, and took the reins out of the hands of Vasily Andreich.

"We must go to the right," said he, sternly and decidedly, turning the horse round.

"To the right? Very well, to the right, by all means!" said Vasily Andreich, giving up the reins and thrusting his benumbed hands down his long sleeves. "If only we were back in Grishkino," said he.

Nikita answered not a word.

"Now, my little friend, put your shoulder to it!" shrieked he to the horse; but the horse, despite the shaking of the reins, only went at a foot-pace. The snow in some places was up to its knees, and the ​sledge swayed obliquely to and fro at every movement of the horse. Nikita got out the whip hanging up in front, and laid on with it. The good horse, unaccustomed to the whip, started forward at a trot, but very soon slackened down again to a walking pace. And so five minutes elapsed. It was so dark and misty above and below that sometimes the ends of the sledge were invisible. Sometimes the sledge seemed to be standing stock-still and the whole plain to be running backwards. Suddenly the horse drew up abruptly, evidently feeling that there was something wrong in front. Again Nikita leaped lightly from the sledge, threw the reins aside, and went in front of the horse to see what it was stopping at; but scarcely had he taken a step in advance of the horse when his legs gave way beneath him, and he rolled down some steep declivity.

"Whew, whew, whew!" said he to himself, falling all the time, and trying to stop; but he could not stay himself, and only came to a standstill when he found himself sprawling at the bottom of a deep hole in the road which had been covered with a thick layer of snow.

The heap of snow lying on the edge of this ravine, disturbed by the fall of Nikita, plumped down upon him and covered him with snow up to the collar.

"To serve me out like that! 'Tis too bad of you!" said Nikita reproachfully, turning towards the heap of snow and the chasm, and shaking the snow out of his collar.

"Nick! Nick!" shrieked Vasily Andreidh from aloft. But Nikita did not shriek back to him. He ​ ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/94 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/95 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/96 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/97 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/98 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/99 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/100 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/101 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/102 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/103 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/104 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/105 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/106 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/107 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/108 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/109 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/110 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/111 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/112 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/113 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/114 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/115 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/116 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/117 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/118 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/119 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/120 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/121 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/122 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/123 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/124 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/125 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/126 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/127 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/128 ​Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/129