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‘Just see what liquor does!’ said Nikita. ‘They’ve tired that little horse to death. What pagans!’

For a few minutes they heard the panting of the tired little horse and the drunken shouting of the peasants. Then the panting and the shouts died away, and around them nothing could be heard but the whistling of the wind in their ears and now and then the squeak of their sledge-runners over a windswept part of the road.

This encounter cheered and enlivened Vasili Andreevich, and he drove on more boldly without examining the way-marks, urging on the horse and trusting to him.

Nikita had nothing to do, and as usual in such circumstances he drowsed, making up for much sleepless time. Suddenly the horse stopped and Nikita nearly fell forward onto his nose.

‘You know we’re off the track again!’ said Vasili Andreevich.

‘How’s that?’

‘Why, there are no way-marks to be seen. We must have got off the road again.’

‘Well, if we’ve lost the road we must find it,’ said Nikita curtly, and getting out and stepping lightly on his pigeon-toed feet he started once more going about on the snow.

He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now reappearing, and finally he came back.

‘There is no road here. There may be farther on,’ he said, getting into the sledge.

It was already growing dark. The snow-storm had not increased but had also not subsided.

‘If we could only hear those peasants!’ said Vasili Andreevich.

‘Well they haven’t caught us up. We must have gone far astray. Or maybe they have lost their way too.’

‘Where are we to go then?’ asked Vasili Andreevich.

‘Why, we must let the horse take its own way,’ said Nikita. ‘He will take us right. Let me have the reins.’

Vasili Andreevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.

Nikita took the reins, but only held them, trying not to shake them and rejoicing at his favourite’s sagacity. And indeed the clever horse, turning first one ear and then the other now to one side and then to the other, began to wheel round.

‘The one thing he can’t do is to talk,’ Nikita kept saying. ‘See what he is doing! Go on, go on! You know best. That’s it, that’s it!’

The wind was now blowing from behind and it felt warmer.

‘Yes, he’s clever,’ Nikita continued, admiring the horse. ‘A Kirgiz horse is strong but stupid. But this one–just see what he’s doing with his ears! He doesn’t need any telegraph. He can scent a mile off.’

Before another half-hour had passed they saw something dark ahead of them–a wood or a village–and stakes again appeared to the right. They had evidently come out onto the road.

‘Why, that’s Grishkino again!’ Nikita suddenly exclaimed.

And indeed, there on their left was that same barn with the snow flying from it, and farther on the same line with the frozen washing, shirts and trousers, which still fluttered desperately in the wind.

Again they drove into the street and again it grew quiet, warm, and cheerful, and again they could see the manure-stained street and hear voices and songs and the barking of a dog. It was already so dark that there were lights in some of the windows.

Half-way through the village Vasili Andreevich turned the horse towards a large double-fronted brick house and stopped at the porch.

Nikita went to the lighted snow-covered window, in the rays of which flying snow-flakes glittered, and knocked at it with his whip.

‘Who is there?’ a voice replied to his knock.

‘From Kresty, the Brekhunovs, dear fellow,’ answered Nikita. ‘Just come out for a minute.’

Someone moved from the window, and a minute or two later there was the sound of the passage door as it came unstuck, then the latch of the outside door clicked and a tall white-bearded peasant, with a sheepskin coat thrown over his white holiday shirt, pushed his way out holding the door firmly against the wind, followed by a lad in a red shirt and high leather boots.