Master and Man | Page 5

be comfortable sitting,' he went
on, suiting the action to the words and tucking the drugget all round
over the straw to make a seat.
'Thank you, dear man. Things always go quicker with two working at
it!' he added. And gathering up the leather reins fastened together by a
brass ring, Nikita took the driver's seat and started the impatient horse
over the frozen manure which lay in the yard, towards the gate.
'Uncle Nikita! I say, Uncle, Uncle!' a high-pitched voice shouted, and a
seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots, and
a warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the house into the yard. 'Take me with
you!' he cried, fastening up his coat as he ran.
'All right, come along, darling!' said Nikita, and stopping the sledge he
picked up the master's pale thin little son, radiant with joy, and drove
out into the road.
It was past two o'clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold, with
more than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost. Half the sky was hidden
by a lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was quiet, but in the street the
wind was felt more keenly. The snow swept down from a neighbouring
shed and whirled about in the corner near the bath-house.
Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse's head to
the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the high porch in
front of the house with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing a
cloth-covered sheep-skin coat tightly girdled low at his waist, and
stepped onto the hard-trodden snow which squeaked under the leather
soles of his felt boots, and stopped. Taking a last whiff of his cigarette
he threw it down, stepped on it, and letting the smoke escape through
his moustache and looking askance at the horse that was coming up,
began to tuck in his sheepskin collar on both sides of his ruddy face,
clean-shaven except for the moustache, so that his breath should not
moisten the collar.
'See now! The young scamp is there already!' he exclaimed when he
saw his little son in the sledge. Vasili Andreevich was excited by the
vodka he had drunk with his visitors, and so he was even more pleased
than usual with everything that was his and all that he did. The sight of

his son, whom he always thought of as his heir, now gave him great
satisfaction. He looked at him, screwing up his eyes and showing his
long teeth.
His wife--pregnant, thin and pale, with her head and shoulders wrapped
in a shawl so that nothing of her face could be seen but her eyes--stood
behind him in the vestibule to see him off.
'Now really, you ought to take Nikita with you,' she said timidly,
stepping out from the doorway.
Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed him
and he frowned angrily and spat.
'You have money on you,' she continued in the same plaintive voice.
'What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for goodness' sake!'
'Why? Don't I know the road that I must needs take a guide?' exclaimed
Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing
his lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and
sellers.
'Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God's name!' his wife
repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.
'There, she sticks to it like a leech! . . . Where am I to take him?'
'I'm quite ready to go with you, Vasili Andreevich,' said Nikita
cheerfully. 'But they must feed the horses while I am away,' he added,
turning to his master's wife.
'I'll look after them, Nikita dear. I'll tell Simon,' replied the mistress.
'Well, Vasili Andreevich, am I to come with you?' said Nikita, awaiting
a decision.
'It seems I must humour my old woman. But if you're coming you'd
better put on a warmer cloak,' said Vasili Andreevich, smiling again as
he winked at Nikita's short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the
arms and at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe
round the skirt, and had endured many things in its lifetime.
'Hey, dear man, come and hold the horse!' shouted Nikita to the cook's
husband, who was still in the yard.
'No, I will myself, I will myself!' shrieked the little boy, pulling his
hands, red with cold, out of his pockets, and seizing the cold leather
reins.
'Only don't be too long dressing yourself up. Look alive!' shouted
Vasili Andreevich, grinning at Nikita.

'Only a moment, Father, Vasili Andreevich!' replied Nikita, and
running quickly with his inturned toes in his felt boots with their soles
patched with felt, he hurried across the yard