Here in the village there seemed to be less wind and snow, and the frost was less keen.
‘Why, this is Gríshkino,’ said Vasíli Andréevich.
‘So it is,’ responded Nikíta.
It really was Gríshkino, which meant that they had gone too far to the left and had travelled some six miles, not quite in the direction they aimed at, but towards their destination for all that.
From Gríshkino to Goryáchkin was about another four miles.
In the middle of the village they almost ran into a tall man walking down the middle of the street.
‘Who are you?’ shouted the man, stopping the horse, and recognizing Vasíli Andréevich he immediately took hold of the shaft, went along it hand over hand till he reached the sledge, and placed himself on the driver’s seat.
He was Isáy, a peasant of Vasíli Andréevich’s acquaintance, and well known as the principal horse-thief in the district.
‘Ah, Vasíli Andréevich! Where are you off to?’ said Isáy, enveloping Nikíta in the odour of the vodka he had drunk.
‘We were going to Goryáchkin.’
‘And look where you’ve got to! You should have gone through Molchánovka.’
‘Should have, but didn’t manage it,’ said Vasíli Andréevich, holding in the horse.
‘That’s a good horse,’ said Isáy, with a shrewd glance at Mukhórty, and with a practised hand he tightened the loosened knot high in the horse’s bushy tail.
‘Are you going to stay the night?’
‘No, friend. I must get on.’
‘Your business must be pressing. And who is this? Ah, Nikíta Stepánych!’
‘Who else?’ replied Nikíta. ‘But I say, good friend, how are we to avoid going astray again?’
‘Where can you go astray here? Turn back straight down the street and then when you come out keep straight on. Don’t take to the left. You will come out onto the high road, and then turn to the right.’
‘And where do we turn off the high road? As in summer, or the winter way?’ asked Nikíta.
‘The winter way. As soon as you turn off you’ll see some bushes, and opposite them there is a way-mark – a large oak one with branches – and that’s the way.’
Vasíli Andréevich turned the horse back and drove through the outskirts of the village.
‘Why not stay the night?’ Isáy shouted after them.
But Vasíli Andréevich did not answer and touched up the horse. Four miles of good road, two of which lay through the forest, seemed easy to manage, especially as the wind was apparently quieter and the snow had stopped.
Having driven along the trodden village street, darkened here and there by fresh manure, past the yard where the clothes hung out and where the white shirt had broken loose and was now attached only by one frozen sleeve, they again came within sound of the weird moan of the willows, and again emerged on the open fields. The storm, far from ceasing, seemed to have grown yet stronger. The road was completely covered with drifting snow, and only the stakes showed that they had not lost their way. But even the stakes ahead of them were not easy to see, since the wind blew in their faces.
Vasíli Andréevich screwed up his eyes, bent down his head, and looked out for the way-marks, but trusted mainly to the horse’s sagacity, letting it take its own way. And the horse really did not lose the road but followed its windings, turning now to the right and now to the left and sensing it under his feet, so that though the snow fell thicker and the wind strengthened they still continued to see way-marks now to the left and now to the right of them.
So they travelled on for about ten minutes, when suddenly, through the slanting screen of wind-driven snow, something black showed up which moved in front of the horse.
This was another sledge with fellow-travellers. Mukhórty overtook them, and struck his hoofs against the back of the sledge in front of him.
‘Pass on … hey there … get in front!’ cried voices from the sledge.
Vasíli Andréevich swerved aside to pass the other sledge. In it sat three men and a woman, evidently visitors returning from a feast. One peasant was whacking the snow-covered croup of their little horse with a long switch, and the other two sitting in front waved their arms and shouted something. The woman, completely wrapped up and covered with snow, sat drowsing and bumping at the back.
‘Who are you?’ shouted Vasíli Andréevich.
‘From A-a-a …’ was all that could be heard.
‘I say, where are you from?’
‘From A-a-a-a!’ one of the peasants shouted with all his might, but still it was impossible to make out who they were.
‘Get along! Keep up!’ shouted another, ceaselessly beating his horse with the switch.
‘So you’re from a feast, it seems?’
‘Go on, go on! Faster, Simon! Get in front! Faster!’
The wings of the sledges bumped against one another, almost got jammed but managed to separate, and the peasants’ sledge began to fall behind.
Their shaggy, big-bellied horse, all covered with snow, breathed heavily under the low shaft-bow and, evidently using the last of its strength, vainly endeavoured to escape from the switch, hobbling with its short legs through the deep snow which it threw up under itself.
