by Leo Tolstoy
The samovar, into which Mitka the postilion is blowing, red as a lobster, is already boiling in the entryway. Outside it’s damp and misty, as if steam were rising from pungent dung. With a bright, merry light, sunshine illuminates the eastern part of the sky, along with the thatched roofs, lustrous with dew, of the spacious open sheds that surround the yard. Tethered in the sheds beside rough-hewn feeding troughs are our horses, their regular chewing quite audible. A shaggy black dog, curled up until dawn on a dry dunghill, lazily stretches and then sets off at a trot across the yard, wagging his tail. The innkeeper’s bustling wife opens the creaking gate, drives her bemused cows out onto the street, along which the rest of the herd is already clattering, mooing and bellowing, and exchanges a word with her sleepy neighbour. Filipp, his shirtsleeves rolled back, cranks up a bucket from the deep well, and then with a splash pours the glistening water into an oak trough, next to which just awakened ducks are bathing in a puddle. I gaze with pleasure at Filipp’s impressive face with its broad beard, and at the thick veins and muscles that stand out on his powerful forearms whenever he exerts himself.
Movement is heard where Mimi and the girls have been sleeping behind the partition over which we had talked the night before. Masha, holding various articles that she tries to hide from our curious eyes with her dress, runs by more and more often, until at last the door opens and we’re called in for tea.
Vasily, in a paroxysm of excess zeal, keeps running into the room to carry out one thing or another, wink at us, and plead in every way with Marya Ivanovna to make an early start of it. The horses have been harnessed and from time to time express their impatience by shaking their bells. The travelling bags, trunks and large and small boxes have all been packed, and we take our places again. But instead of seats, we find a pile of things in the britzka and simply cannot understand how they were stowed away the day before and how we’ll sit today. A walnut tea caddy with a triangular lid that’s been transferred to us in the britzka and put under me provokes my fiercest indignation. But Vasily says that it will all press down, and I have no choice but to believe him.
The sun has just risen above the dense white cloud covering the east, and the entire area shines with a serenely joyous light. Everything around me is so beautiful, and there’s such calm and ease in my soul … The road ahead twists like a broad, unruly ribbon through fields of dry stubble and green glistening with dew. Here and there beside the road a gloomy crack willow or a young birch with small sticky leaves casts a long, motionless shadow over the road’s dry ruts and shoots of verdant grass. The monotonous sound of our wheels and bells fails to drown out the singing of the larks that swirl beside the road. The odour of dust, moth-eaten cloth and something sour peculiar to the britzka is overwhelmed by the fragrance of morning, and I feel a joyful restlessness in my soul, and an urge to do something – a sure sign of pleasure.
I didn’t have time to say my prayers at the inn, and since I’ve noticed more than once that some misfortune befalls me whenever I forget that ritual, whatever the reason, I try to correct my mistake: I remove my cap, face a corner of the britzka, say my prayers and cross myself under my jacket so no one will see. But a myriad of different things distracts my attention, and I absently repeat the same words of the prayer over and over.
Then on the path winding alongside the road, slow-moving female figures appear – pilgrims. Their heads are tied with dirty kerchiefs, they have birch-bark knapsacks on their backs, and their feet are bound with dirty, ragged footcloths and shod with clumsy bast shoes. Rhythmically swinging their staffs with barely a look at us, they move along one after another at a slow, deliberate pace, and I wonder where they’re going and why, and if their journey will last long, and whether the elongated shadows they cast on the road will soon join the shadow of the crack willow they’ll have to pass. Then a barouche and four using post horses hurtles towards us. Two seconds, and the friendly, curious faces looking at us five feet away have already flashed by, and it seems strange in a way that those faces have nothing in common with me and that I may never see them again.
And then cantering along the side of the road come two shaggy, lathered horses in collars with the traces lashed to their breech-bands, and immediately behind them on a third horse a young coachman singing a drawn-out song with his felt hat cocked to one side and his long legs in their tall boots dangling over the flanks of his horse, above whose withers hangs a shaftbow on which a barely audible bell jingles from time to time. His face and posture express so much lazy, carefree contentment that to be a coachman riding home while singing sad songs seems to me the pinnacle of happiness. Far beyond a ravine, the green roof of a village church stands out against the light-blue sky, and behind it the village itself with its green orchard and red manor-house roof. Who lives in that house? Are there children, a father, a mother and a teacher? Why shouldn’t we drive over there and make their acquaintance? Then a long train of enormous carts approaches, each drawn by a troika of sturdy, well-nourished horses that we have to skirt to get past. ‘What are you carrying?’ Vasily asks the first carter, who, with huge feet hanging over the footboard and a little whip in his hand, follows us with a blank stare and replies only when it’s no longer possible to hear him. ‘What goods are you carrying?’ Vasily says to the next cart, in the enclosed front of which another carter lies under new bast matting. A head with light-brown hair, a ruddy face and a ginger beard peeks out from under the bast for a moment, glances with indifferent contempt at our britzka, then disappears again; and the thought occurs to me that those carters have no idea who we are or where we’ve come from or where we’re going.
Absorbed for an hour and a half in diverse observations, I’ve paid no attention to the crooked numbers on the mileposts. But now the sun is starting to bake my head and back, the road has got dustier, the triangular lid of the tea caddy has begun to bother me a lot, and I shift my position several times: I’m hot, uncomfortable and bored. My attention turns to the mileposts and the numbers inscribed on them, and I make various arithmetical calculations regarding the time of our arrival at the next inn. ‘Eight miles is one third of twenty-four, and it’s twenty-seven to Liptsy, which means that we’ve covered one third and how much?’ and so on.
‘Vasily,’ I say, when I notice that he’s begun to nod off on the box, ‘be a good fellow and let me up there.’ He agrees. We trade places, and he immediately starts to snore and to sprawl in such a way that there’s hardly any room in the britzka for anyone else, whereas from the high place I occupy a most pleasant view opens up: our four horses, Neruchinskaya, Sexton, Left Shaft and Apothecary, the qualities of each given careful scrutiny by me down to the smallest detail and nuance.
‘Why is Sexton the right trace horse today and not the left, Filipp?’ I ask a bit timidly.
‘Sexton?’
‘And Neruchinskaya isn’t pulling at all,’ I say.
‘Sexton can’t be harnessed on the left,’ Filipp says, ignoring my last remark. ‘He’s not the kind of horse to be harnessed on the left. On the left you need the kind of horse that, in a word, is a horse, and he isn’t a horse of that kind.’
And with those words, Filipp leans to the right, jerking the reins as hard as he can, and starts to whip poor Sexton on the back and the legs in a special way from below, even though Sexton is trying with all his strength and turning the whole britzka. Filipp abandons that manoeuvre only when he feels a need to rest and for some reason to push his hat to the side, even though it had sat very firmly and well on his head before. I take advantage of that lucky moment to ask Filipp to let me ‘drive for a while’. He gives me first one rein and then another, until all six and the whip are in my hands and I’m supremely happy. I try to imitate Filipp in every way and ask him how I’m doing, even though it usually ends with his remaining dissatisfied: he says that this one is pulling too much or that one isn’t pulling at all, and then he sticks his elbow in front of me and takes back the reins. The heat gro
ws more intense, the fleecy clouds begin to expand like soap bubbles, higher and higher, until they start to merge and take on dark-grey shadows. A hand holding a bottle and a small packet reaches out of one of the coach’s windows. Up on the box again, Vasily jumps from the moving britzka with astonishing agility and brings back some cheese tarts and kvass.
On steep slopes we get out of the carriages and sometimes race each other down to the bridge, while Vasily and Yakov, after putting a slight drag on the wheels, support the coach on either side with their hands, as if they could keep it from tipping over. Then with Mimi’s permission, Volodya gets in the coach, or I do, while Lyubochka or Katenka comes over to the britzka. Those changes of place are a source of delight for the girls, since they rightly find that it’s a lot more fun in the britzka. Sometimes when passing through a grove during the heat, we let the coach go on ahead and tear off green branches to make a bower in the britzka. The moving bower then chases after the coach at full speed, and Lyubochka screams in her most piercing voice, something she never fails to do on any occasion that gives her great pleasure.
And then comes the village where we’ll have dinner and a rest. We’ve already smelled it – the smoke, birch tar and bread-rings – and heard the sound of voices, hoof beats and wheels. Our harness bells make a different sound than they do in the open fields, and appearing on either side of the road are thatched peasant huts with carved wooden porches and little windows with red and green shutters from which, here and there, the face of a curious peasant woman peers out. Then we see peasant boys and girls in nothing but their smocks. Their eyes open wide and their arms spread apart, they either remain standing where they are, or else – their bare little feet taking short, rapid steps in the dust – they run after the carriages and, ignoring Filipp’s threatening movements, try to climb up onto the travelling bags strapped on behind. And then red-haired innkeepers hurry out to the carriages from both sides and with enticing words and gestures try one after another to tempt us in as we pass. ‘Whoa!’ A gate swings open with a screak, the swingletrees scrape against it, and we enter a yard. Four hours of rest and freedom!
TWO
A Thunderstorm
The sun was declining towards the west, and its slanting, unbearably hot rays burned my cheeks and neck, and so scorched the edges of the britzka that you couldn’t touch them. Thick dust rose along the road and filled the air, since there wasn’t even a mild breeze to carry it off. Ahead of us, always at the same distance, gently swayed the tall, dusty body of the coach with our trunks on top, and, visible beyond them, the coachman’s whip, whenever he flourished it, and his felt hat and Yakov’s cap. I didn’t know what to do with myself: neither Volodya’s dust-blackened face as he dozed beside me, nor the movement of Filipp’s back, nor the long shadow of the britzka running after us at an oblique angle offered any diversion. All my attention was on the mileposts, which I would notice while they were still far away, and on the clouds that had earlier been scattered about the sky near the horizon but were now, after acquiring ominous black shadows, gathering in a single large, dark storm cloud. From time to time the crackle of distant thunder could be heard. That circumstance more than any other increased my impatience to get to the next inn quickly. Thunderstorms produced in me an indescribably oppressive feeling of anguish and fear.
It was less than seven miles to the nearest village, but a large dark-purple storm cloud, which had without the slightest breeze come from goodness knows where, was rapidly moving towards us. Not yet hidden by the cloud, the sun brightly illuminates its gloomy shape and the grey strips that reach from it all the way to the horizon. From time to time lightning flashes in the distance and a weak rumbling is heard, which gradually grows stronger, comes closer, and then changes into discontinuous thunderclaps that embrace the whole sky. Vasily gets up from the box and raises the britzka’s hood. The coachmen put on their heavy coats and at every clap of thunder remove their hats and cross themselves. The horses prick up their ears and flare their nostrils, as if sniffing the fresh air of the approaching storm cloud, and the britzka rolls faster along the dusty road. I’m terrified and feel the blood moving more quickly through my veins. Then the cloud’s leading edge begins to cover the sun, which has looked out for the last time, illuminating half of the frighteningly dark horizon before disappearing. The whole region abruptly changes and takes on a sullen character. A grove of aspens begins to tremble, its leaves rustling and turning a dingy white that stands out vividly against the purple cloud. The crowns of the tall birches begin to heave, and tufts of dry grass blow across the road. Swifts and white-breasted swallows, as if intending to stop us, hover around the britzka and fly right in front of the horses’ chests. Jackdaws with ruffled wings somehow fly sideways in the wind. The edges of the leather apron under which we’re buttoned begin to lift, letting in gusts of damp air, and then start to flap against the britzka’s body. Lightning flashes blindingly, as if inside the britzka itself, for an instant illuminating its grey cloth and braiding and the figure of Volodya pressed into a corner. A second later there’s a majestic rumbling right over our heads that seems to rise higher and higher and wider and wider in an enormous spiral, gradually increasing in intensity until it breaks in a deafening crack that makes you tremble and catch your breath. The wrath of God! How much poetry there is in that simple folk idea!
The wheels turn faster and faster. I can tell from the backs of Vasily and Filipp, who is impatiently shaking the reins, that they too are frightened. The britzka rolls swiftly downhill and rattles across the planks of a bridge. I’m afraid to move and expect our destruction at any moment.
‘Whoa!’ A swingletree has come loose, and despite the constant, deafening thunderclaps, we’re forced to stop on the bridge.
Leaning my head against the side of the britzka and gasping in terror, I grimly follow the movements of Filipp’s thick swarthy fingers as he slowly reattaches the loop and adjusts the traces, pushing the trace horse with his hand and the whip handle.
My anguish and fear had grown with the intensity of the storm, and when the majestic moment of silence came that usually precedes a downpour, those feelings had reached such a degree that had they lasted another quarter-hour, I’m sure I would have died of fright. At that moment from under the bridge there suddenly appeared a human being in a filthy, tattered shirt, with a swollen, demented face, wobbling, hatless head, twisted, emaciated legs and, instead of a hand a shiny red stump, which he thrust into the britzka.
‘Fa-a-tha! For a cripple, in Christ’s name!’ the beggar cried in a feeble voice, crossing himself and making a deep bow with each word.
I cannot express the feeling of cold horror that gripped my soul in that instant. My scalp crawled as I stared at the beggar in vacant terror …
Vasily, who’s responsible for distributing alms on the road, is giving Filipp instructions about securing the swingletree, and only when everything’s ready, and Filipp has gathered up the reins again and is climbing back up on the box, does Vasily start to take something out of his pocket. But just as we are beginning to move again a blinding flash of lightning instantly fills the gully with a lurid glow, bringing the horses to a halt, and then, without the least interval, it’s followed by a crack of thunder so deafening that it seems the whole sky is collapsing on us. The wind increases even more, and the horses’ manes and tails, Vasily’s greatcoat and the edges of the apron all start to blow desperately in one direction and flutter with the violent gusts. A large drop of rain falls heavily on the britzka’s leather hood, then another, then a third and a fourth, and suddenly it is as if someone were beating a drum right over our heads, and then from all around comes the sound of steadily falling rain. From the movement of his elbows it’s clear that Vasily is untying his coin purse, and the beggar, continuing to cross himself and bow, runs beside the wheels, which could crush him in an instant. ‘Give in Christ’s name!’ At last a copper coin flies past, and the pitiful creature, his
soaked shirt sticking to his wasted limbs as he staggers in the wind, stops in confusion in the middle of the road, and then disappears from sight.
Driven by the strong wind, the slanting rain falls in buckets, and streams of water run down the back of Vasily’s frieze coat into the murky pool that has formed on the apron. Beaten into pellets by the rain, the dust turns first into liquid mud churned by our wheels, and then, as the pelting subsides, into turbid rivulets that flow along our loamy tracks. The lightning becomes broader and paler, and the thunderclaps are less startling against the steady sound of the rain.
And then the raindrops become finer and the storm cloud starts to break up into smaller billows and grow lighter where the sun should be, with bright-blue slivers just showing through along its greyish-white edges. A moment later a tentative sunbeam is already shining in the puddles on the road, on the fine rain falling straight down as if through a sieve and on the road’s washed, brilliant green grass. Another black storm cloud is spread just as menacingly across the other end of the sky, but it no longer frightens me. I experience an inexpressibly joyful feeling of hope in life that quickly replaces the oppressive feeling of fear. My soul smiles the same way that refreshed, cheered-up nature does. Vasily turns down the collar of his coat and takes off his cap and shakes it. Volodya throws back the apron. I stick my head out of the britzka and greedily breathe in the now fresh, fragrant air. The shiny, washed body of the coach with its trunks and travelling bags sways ahead of us, and the horses’ wet backs, the breech-bands, the reins and the wheel rims all gleam in the sunlight, as if coated with lacquer. On one side of the road an immense field of winter grain, cross-cut here and there by shallow ravines and shining with damp earth, extends like a shadowy carpet all the way to the horizon. On the other side, an aspen grove with an undergrowth of hazelnut and bird cherry stands without moving, as if transfixed with happiness, while glistening raindrops slowly fall from its washed branches onto last year’s dead leaves. Crested larks twist and turn and dip on every side with merry songs, the busy movement of little birds is heard in the wet bushes, and from the centre of the grove comes the clear call of a cuckoo. So ravishing is the wonderful fragrance of the woods after the spring thunderstorm – the smell of birches, violets, rotten leaves, morels and bird cherry – that I’m unable to sit still in the britzka and leap from its footboard, run over to the bushes and, despite being showered with raindrops, tear off wet sprays of blossoming bird cherry and lash my face with them, delighting in their marvellous fragrance. Paying no attention to my soaked stockings or to the great clumps of mud sticking to my boots, I run splashing through the mud to the coach’s window.
