The Blizzard

“You have to understand, I simply must keep going!” Platon Ilich exclaimed angrily. “There are people waiting for me! They are sick. There’s an epidemic! Don’t you understand?!”

The stationmaster clenched his fists against his badger-fur vest, and leaned forward:

“Well now, whaddya mean, we don’t understand? ’Course we do. You don’t wanna stop, ’course I understand. But I don’t got horses and ain’t gonna get none till tomorrow!”

“What do you mean you don’t have horses?!” Platon Ilich cried out in a livid voice. “What is your station for, then?”

“That’s what for, but all of ’em are out, and there ain’t a one to be found nowheres!” the stationmaster shouted, as though speaking to a deaf man. “Not ’less some miracle brings the mail horses in tonight. But who knows when they’ll get here?”

Platon Ilich removed his pince-nez and stared at the stationmaster as though seeing him for the first time:

“My good fellow, do you comprehend that people are dying?”

The stationmaster unclenched his fists and stretched his hands toward the doctor like a beggar.

“Who don’t understand dying? A’course we does. Good Russian Orthodox people dying, it’s a terrible business. But look out the window!”

Platon Ilich put his pince-nez back on and automatically turned his puffy eyes toward the frost-covered windows through which nothing could be seen. Outside, the winter day was still overcast.

The doctor glanced at the clock, which was shaped like Baba Yaga’s hut on chicken legs; it ticked loudly and showed a quarter past two.

“It’s already past two!” He indignantly shook his strong, close-cropped head, tinged with gray at the temples. “Past two o’clock! And it will get dark, don’t you get it?”

“A’course, why wouldn’t I be getting it—” the stationmaster began, but the doctor interrupted:

“I’ll tell you what, old man! You get me some horses if you have to dig them up out of the ground! If I don’t make it there today, I’ll take you to court. For sabotage.”

That familiar government word had a soporific effect on the stationmaster. He seemed to fall asleep, all his muttering and explaining coming to an abrupt halt. He wore a short vest, velour pants, and high white felt boots with yellow leather soles sewn on. His body was slightly bent at the waist; he seemed to freeze, remaining immobile in the dim light of the spacious, overheated chamber. On the other hand, his wife, who until now had been sitting quietly and knitting behind a calico curtain in the far corner, turned and peered out, showing her broad, expressionless face, which the doctor had already grown sick of over these last two hours of waiting, drinking tea with raspberry and plum jam and leafing through year-old copies of the magazine Niva:

“Mikhailych, what about asking Crouper?”

The stationmaster perked up immediately.

“Hmmm, we could try Crouper,” he said, scratching his left arm, and half turning to his wife. “But they want official horses.”

“I don’t care what kind they are!” the doctor exclaimed. “Horses! Horses! I just want hor-r-r-r-ses!”

The stationmaster shuffled over to the high counter:

“If he ain’t at his uncle’s in Khoprov, we c’n try…”

He lifted the telephone receiver, turned the handle a couple of times, stood up straight, put his left hand on the small of his back, and raised his balding head high as if trying to grow taller:

“Mikholai Lukich, it’s Mikhailych here. Tell me, our bread man passed your way this morning? No? All right then. A’course not! Not going nowhere now, not a chance … you’re right. Well now, I’ll be thanking you.”

He replaced the receiver carefully. Signs of animation appeared on his carelessly shaven, ageless face, and he shuffled over to the doctor:

“Crouper didn’t go to Khoprov for bread today. So he’s here, prob’ly lying about next to the stove, ’cause when he goes to fetch bread, he always drops by his uncle’s. They have a cup of tea and chat up a storm. He don’t bring our bread till suppertime.”

“He has horses?”

“He’s got a sledmobile.”

“A sledmobile?” The doctor frowned, taking out his cigarette case.

“If you beg him and explain, he’ll take you to Dolgoye on his snow sled.”

“And my horses?” Platon Ilich’s forehead puckered, as he remembered his sleigh, driver, and pair of work-issued official horses.

“They can stay put for the time bein’. You can go back on ’em!”

The doctor lit up and exhaled smoke:

“And where is this bread man of yours?”

“Not too far aways from here.” The stationmaster gestured behind him. “Vasya over there’ll take you. Vasya!”

No one answered his call.

“He’s like to be in the new cottage,” the stationmaster’s wife called out from somewhere behind the curtain.

She stood, her skirts swished across the floor, and she left the room. The doctor retrieved his heavy floor-length beaver coat from the coatrack, put it on, set a wide fox-fur hat with earflaps on his head, threw a long white scarf around his neck, pulled on his gloves, grabbed both of his traveling bags, and stepped firmly over the threshold of the door that the stationmaster had opened for him into the dark mudroom.

Platon Ilich Garin, the district doctor, was a tall, sturdy forty-two-year-old man with a long, narrow face and a large nose; he was closely shaven and always wore a look of concentrated dissatisfaction. His purposeful face, with its large, stubborn nose and puffy eyes, seemed to say: “You are all preventing me from achieving the very important thing I was destined by fate to accomplish, the thing I know how to do better than all of you, and to which I’ve already devoted most of my conscious life.” In the mudroom he ran into the stationmaster’s wife and Vasyatka, who immediately took his two traveling cases.

“The seventh house down thataways,” explained the stationmaster, running ahead and opening the door to the porch. “Vasyatka, show the doctor gentleman the way.”

Platon Ilich went outside, squinting. The day was frosty and overcast; a faint breeze had been blowing for the last three hours and a fine snow was still falling.

“He won’t ask fer too much,” the stationmaster mumbled, shivering in the wind. “He ain’t much interested in profits. Just as long as he can drive.”

Vasyatka put the traveling bags on the porch bench, disappeared back inside, and soon returned in a short fur coat, felt boots, and a hat; he grabbed the traveling bags and stomped the snow that had been swept off the porch.

“Let’s go, doctor, sir.”

The doctor followed, puffing on his cigarette. They walked along an empty, snow-covered village street. A good deal of snow had accumulated: it reached halfway up the doctor’s fur-lined knee-high boots.

“It’s coming down hard,” thought Platon Ilich, hurrying to finish his cigarette, which was burning quickly in the wind. “What the devil made me take a shortcut through this blasted station? It’s a godforsaken place, there are never any horses here in winter. I swore I wouldn’t, but, no! I had to go this way, Dummkopf. If I’d taken the high road, I’d have changed horses in Zaprudny and driven on, and so what if it’s seven versts farther, I’d be in Dolgoye by now. And the station there is well kept, and the road is wide. Dummkopf! Now you’re out somewhere on a wild goose chase!

Vasyatka energetically tramped through the snow ahead, swinging the identical travel bags like a woman carrying buckets on a yoke. Though the station was called the village of Dolbeshino, it was really just a settlement with ten farmyards scattered a fair distance apart. By the time they’d hiked down the powdery main road and reached the bread man’s house, Platon Ilich had begun to sweat a bit in his long coat. Snowdrifts had blown up against the old, sunken loghouse, and it looked like no one lived there. The only signs of human habitation were wisps of white smoke that the wind tore from the chimney.

The travelers passed through a front garden that was fenced off after a fashion, and stepped up onto the sagging, cracked porch, which was almost entirely buried in snow. Vasyatka gave the door a push with his shoulder and it turned out to be unlocked. They stepped into a dark entryway. Vasyatka bumped into something and said:

“Goodness … Ouch!” In the darkness, Platon Ilich could just make out two large barrels, a wheelbarrow, and a pile of junk. For some reason the bread man’s mudroom smelled like an apiary: beehives, caked pollen, and wax. The lovely summer aroma was totally at odds with the February blizzard. Vasyatka made his way with difficulty to the burlap-insulated door, opened it, and, grabbing one of the traveling cases under his arm, stepped over the high threshold:

“Hello in there!”

The doctor followed him in, ducking to miss the lintel overhead.

The izba was slightly warmer, lighter, and less cluttered than the mudroom: logs burned in a large Russian ceramic stove, a wood salt cellar stood by itself on the table, a round loaf of bread lay under a towel, a lone icon occupied a dark corner, and a pendulum clock hung on the wall like an orphan, stopped at half past six. The only pieces of furniture the doctor noticed were a chest and an iron bed frame.

“Uncle Kozma!” Vasyatka called out, carefully setting the traveling cases on the floor.

No one replied.

“Maybe he’s out in the courtyard?” Vasyatka turned his wide freckled face with its ridiculous, peeling red nose toward the doctor.

“What is it?” came a voice from the top of the stove, and a head with tangled red hair, a shaggy beard, and sleepy slits for eyes appeared.

“Hello, Uncle Kozma!” Vasyatka cried out joyfully. “There’s a doctor here’s in a hurry to get to Dolgoye, but there ain’t no horses at the station.”

“So?” He scratched his head.

“Well, you could take him there on the sledmobile.”

Platon Ilich walked over to the stove:

“There’s an epidemic in Dolgoye, and I must be there today, without fail. Without fail!”

“Epidemic?” The bread man rubbed his eyes with big, calloused fingers that had dirty nails. “I heard about it. They was talkin’ about it at the post office in Khoprov just yesterday.”

“There are sick people waiting for me there. I’m bringing the vaccine.”

The head on the stove disappeared, then the stairs creaked and squeaked. Kozma descended, in a fit of coughing, and came out from behind the stove. He was a short and stunted, skinny, narrow-shouldered man about thirty years old, with crooked legs and the kind of oversized hands tailors often have. His nose was sharp. His face, puffy with sleep, was kind and tried to smile. He stood barefoot in his underclothes in front of the doctor, scratching his tousled red hair.

“A vax-seen?” he said respectfully and cautiously, as though he was afraid to drop the word on his worn, cracked floorboards.

“A vaccine,” the doctor repeated, and took off his fox-fur hat, which had made him feel overheated right away.

“But there’s a blizzard, doctor, sir.” Crouper glanced at the dimmed window.

“I know there’s a blizzard! And there are sick people waiting for me!” the doctor raised his voice.

Scratching his head, Crouper went to look out the window, which was insulated with hemp chinking stuffed in around the sides.

“I didn’t even fetch the bread today.” He flicked a patch of window where the hoarfrost had melted from the stove’s heat, and looked out. “After all, man don’t live by bread alone, ain’t that right?”

“How much do you want?” The doctor was losing his patience.

Crouper looked back at him as though he expected to be beaten; he walked silently over to the right of the stove where there were buckets on the bench and shelves with earthenware pots and kettles, picked up a copper ladle, scooped some water out of the bucket, and began to drink so fast his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“Five rubles!” the doctor proposed, in such a threatening tone of voice that Crouper flinched.

He began to laugh, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve:

“Now what would I be needing…”

He put the ladle down, looked around, and hiccupped.

“But, I … I just fired up the stove…”

“People are dying out there!” the doctor shrieked.

Avoiding the doctor’s gaze, Crouper scratched his chest and squinted at the window. The doctor stared at the bread man with such an expression on his tense, large-nosed face, it was hard to tell whether he was ready either to beat him or to burst into tears.

Crouper sighed and scratched his neck:

“Hey, youngster, you just…”

“Wha?” Vasyatka opened his mouth, not understanding.

“Sit tight. When it catches—close the flue.”

“I’ll do that, Uncle Kozma.” Vasyatka took off his sheepskin coat, tossed it on the bench, and sat down next to it.

“Your sledmobile … what power is it?” the doctor asked in relief.

“Fifty horses.”

“Good! We’ll be in Dolgoye in about an hour and a half. And you’ll drive back with five rubles.”

“Come on now, yur ’onor…” Crouper smiled, waved his claw-like hand, and slapped himself on his thin haunches. “Alrighty, let’s go harness up.”

He disappeared behind the stove and soon came out in a thick homemade gray wool sweater and padded pants held up almost to his chest by an army belt; he clutched a pair of gray felt boots under his arm. He sat down on the bench next to Vasyatka, tossed the felt boots on the floor, and began wrapping his footcloths.

The doctor went outside to smoke. Nothing had changed: gray sky, snow, wind. The farm seemed to have died—there wasn’t a human voice or dog’s bark to be heard.

Platon Ilich stood on the porch and inhaled the refreshing cigarette smoke. He was already thinking about tomorrow: “I’ll do the vaccinations at night and in the morning we’ll go to the cemetery and take a look at the graves. We have to hope that the weather hasn’t interfered with the quarantine; if someone made it through the lea pastures—you’ll never find him. In Mitino there were two cordons and even that didn’t help—they broke through, and started biting the population … I wonder if Zilberstein is there already. I hope he’s there! It’s easier to vaccinate when you’ve got four hands. He and I could get through the whole village in one night … But no, leaving from Usokh, he won’t get there before me … It’s forty versts, and in this weather … Just my luck … A storm like this…”

Meanwhile, Crouper had put on his boots, thrown on a small black coat and tied it with a sash, tucked a pair of long heavy mittens under the sash, pulled on a hat, picked up a loaf of bread from the table, cut off the heel, and stuck it under his coat; he cut off another piece and took a bite. Still chewing, he winked at Vasyatka, who was sitting on the bench:

“A gulp of tea to warm the bones now, eh? But ain’t no time: just looky what a fuss he’s making. Epi-demic! Where’d he come in from?”

“Repishnaya, I think.” Vasyatka rubbed his eyes with a fist. “With the post horses. The mail driver, he went straight to bed.”

“Why shouldn’t they sleep, ’em fellers…” Crouper took a farewell glance at the stove, cuffed Vasyatka on the head, and went out into the backyard chewing his piece of rye bread.

The bread man’s yard was just as plain and old as the izba: a lopsided stall abutted it, stores of firewood were piled in disarray, and in the distance was a hay shed with a collapsed roof that had been hastily covered with poles and straw; close by a dark threshing barn looked like it hadn’t seen a threshing for at least four years. In contrast, a small stable resembling a bathhouse was new: it had a shingled roof, well-chinked walls, and two insulated windows. Next to it, under a snow-covered lean-to, stood the sledmobile. Crouper plowed through the snow in a fast, bowlegged gait, reached the stable, stuck his hand under his shirt, pulled out a key on a string, and opened the hanging lock.

From behind the door came an intermittent, shrill sound, like the trill of a large cricket. Then three more chimed in, then more, more, and more, until suddenly it seemed an entire swarm of crickets was chirping away noisily. Then came a grunt. The chirping in the stable grew even louder.

“Now, you lot, I’m here, I’m comin’…” Crouper unlocked the door, threw it wide open, and entered the stable.

He was met by pleasant, familiar smells. Leaving the door ajar so there would be more light, he walked through the smithy and tack room straight to the horses’ stalls. A joyous chirping filled the stable. In contrast to Crouper’s miserable hut and yard, his stable was exemplary: spanking new, clean, and tidy, a clear indication of the owner’s true passion. The stable was divided in half: the smithy and tack room began right at the door. There was a workbench with a small forge, also a tiny oven the size of a samovar, with a bellows fashioned from a beekeeper’s fumigator, and instruments neatly arrayed on the workbench: knives, little hammers, tiny pincers, a gimlet, saws, and a jar of horse ointment with a brush inside. In the middle of the workbench was a ceramic cup filled with tiny kopeck-sized horseshoes. Next to it was another cup that held tiny nails for the shoes. Little wooden yokes were strung in rows on the nearby wall, like dried mushrooms. A large kerosene lantern hung over the forge.

Beyond the forge and tack was the feed in a large woven basket filled with finely cut clover. Then came a partition, and behind it—the horse stalls. Smiling, Crouper leaned over the partition, and the modulating whinnies of fifty small horses filled the air. They occupied various stalls: some in pairs, some five together, some in threesomes. Each stall had two wood troughs—one for water, the other for feed. In the feed trough lay the white remains of the oatmeal Crouper had fed the horses at five that morning.

“Now, the lot of ye—we gonna go for a drive?” Crouper asked his horses, and they neighed even louder.

The younger ones reared and bucked; the shaft horses and the steppe horses snorted, shook their manes, and nodded. Crouper lowered his large, rough hand, still holding the piece of bread in the other, and began petting the horses. His fingers caressed their backs, stroked their manes, and they neighed, tossing their heads and stretching their necks. They playfully nipped his hand with their tiny teeth and pressed their warm nostrils against his fingers. Each horse was no bigger than a partridge. He knew every single one of them and could tell you what its story was, where it was from, and how he got it, how it worked, who its parents were, and describe its likes and dislikes—its personality. The backbone of Crouper’s herd, over half of it, consisted of broad-chested bay mares with short, dark red tails. Then came the chestnuts and dark-maned sorrels, eight more bays, four grays, two dapple grays, and two roans—one black roan and one red.

There were only stallions and geldings. Little mares were worth their weight in gold, and only horse breeders could afford them.

“Righty, a nice bit of bread,” said Crouper as he crumbled the bread and threw it into the troughs.

The horses leaned over. When he’d handed out all the bread crumbs and the horses had finished eating, Crouper clapped his hands and commanded loudly:

“Ha-a-a-rness!”

With a jerk he lifted the gate that opened all the stalls at once.

The horses walked along the cleanly swept wooden chute and mingled in a herd, greeting one another, nipping, whinnying, and bucking. The chute led to a partition wall, behind which the sled stood. Crouper gazed at the herd; his face brightened and he looked younger. His horses always made him happy, even when he was tired, drunk, or feeling downtrodden. He slid back the partition, letting the horses into the harness of the sledmobile. The herd moved briskly despite the cold billowing from the sled’s frozen interior.

“There ye go, there ye go,” Crouper encouraged the horses. “Ain’t so bad, you c’n stand the cold…”

He waited for the last horse to enter, then slid the partition shut, quickly went outside, locked the stable, and hid the key under his coat. Hurrying around the stable with a bowlegged gait, he raised the hood of the sled. The well-trained horses had moved into place and were waiting to be harnessed. There were five rows of ten horses under the hood. Crouper quickly pushed the horses’ heads through the collars and strapped them in. They went peacefully; only the two bays in the third row began to bicker and disturb the peace, as usual.

“Ye just wait, I’ll give ye a taste of the whip!” Crouper threatened them.

Harnessed up, the first row of ten well-fed shaft horses, all bays, pawed the frozen ribs of the drive belt. The chestnuts in the third row lowered their long-maned heads for their master, so he could place them in their collars, while the bays held themselves with the dignity of the highest order of the equine race, their ears perked forward. The grays kept on munching indifferently, the sorrels snorted and tossed their heads, and the dappled grays pranced impatiently. The energetic red roan neighed, baring his young teeth.

“There ye goes.” Crouper slid the wooden bolt of the hood across, locking all the horses in place; he took the tar pot, smeared the bearings of the drive belt, put on his mittens, grabbed a small whip, and went to fetch the doctor.

The doctor was standing on the stoop, smoking the last of his second papirosa.

“We c’n go, yur ’onor, sir,” Crouper informed him.

“Thank God…,” said the doctor, flicking his cigarette butt with an annoyed gesture. “Let’s be off, then.”

Crouper took one of the doctor’s travel bags and they walked back through the mudroom and into the courtyard, to the sled. Crouper unfolded the bearskin rug, the doctor seated himself, and while Crouper strapped his bags to the coach box in back, the doctor examined the horses. He seldom had occasion to see little horses and even less to travel by them, and though tired from the wait, he regarded them with interest as they stood in five rows under the hood, their little hooves striking the ribbed strip of the frozen drive belt.

“Small creatures, and yet they come to our aid in difficult, insurmountable circumstances…,” he thought. “How would I have continued on without these tiny beasts? It’s strange … all hope now lies with them. No one else will take me to this Dolgoye…”

He recalled the two ordinary horses that had brought him to this accursed Dolbeshino three and a half hours ago; they were utterly exhausted by the blizzard and were now lodged in the station stables, probably munching on something.

“The larger the animal, the more vulnerable it is to our vast expanses. And humans are the most vulnerable of all…”

The doctor stretched out his gloved hand, splayed his fingers, and touched the rumps of the two dark bays in the last row. The little horses glanced at him indifferently.

Crouper approached, sat down next to the doctor, fastened the rug, took up the reins, and flicked his whip:

“And off we go! Heigh-yup!”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue. The horses strained, and their hooves scraped against the drive belt; it responded with a screech and began to move under them.

“Heigh-yup! Ha!” cried Crouper as he whirled the whip over their heads.

The muscles of their small hindquarters rippled, the horses’ yokes creaked, the hooves scraped against the drive belt, which began to turn, turn, turn. The sled set off, and the snow squeaked under the runners.

Crouper stuck the whip back in its case and took hold of the reins. The sled was moving out of the yard. There weren’t any gates left, all that remained of them were two crooked posts. The sled moved between them, Crouper maneuvered it onto the high road and, smacking his lips, winked at the doctor:

“Off we go!”

The doctor raised his coat’s baby-beaver collar in satisfaction, and slid his hands under the rug. They soon left the high road: Crouper turned at the fork; to the left the road led to distant Zaprudny; to the right, Dolgoye. The sled turned right. The road was covered with snow, but here and there occasional mileposts and bare, wind-tossed bushes could be seen. The snow kept falling: flakes the size of oats fell on the horses’ backs.

“Why aren’t they covered?” asked the doctor.

“Let ’em breathe a bit, there’ll be time to cover up,” Crouper replied.

The doctor noticed that the driver was almost always smiling.

“A good-hearted fellow…,” he thought, and asked:

“So, then, is it profitable to keep little horses?”

“Well, how’s to put it.” Crouper’s smile widened, exposing his crooked teeth. “So far it’s enough for bread and kvass.”

“You deliver bread?”

“That’s right.”

“Live alone?”

“Alone.”

“Why’s that?”

“My fly got stuck.”

“Hmm … impotence,” the doctor realized.

“But were you married before?”

“I was.” Crouper smiled. “For two years. Afterward, when I buttoned up, I come to see that I ain’t got the knack for a woman’s body. Who’s gonna wanna live with me?”

“She left you?” asked the doctor, straightening his pince-nez.

“Left. And thank God.”

They rode on silently for a verst or so. The horses didn’t run very fast on the drive belt, but they weren’t slow either; you could tell that they were well tended to and well fed.

“Doesn’t it get lonely by yourself out there on the farmstead?” asked the doctor.

“No time for bein’ lonely. In the summer I haul hay.”

“And in the winter?”

“In the winter I haul … you!” Crouper laughed.

Platon Ilich chuckled.

Crouper somehow made him feel good, and calm; his usual sense of irritation left him and he stopped rushing himself and others. It was clear that Crouper would get him there no matter what happened, that he’d make it in time to save people from that terrible illness.

There was something birdlike in the driver’s face, the doctor thought, something that seemed a bit mocking, but at the same time was helpless, kind, and good-natured. This sharp-nosed, smiling face with its sparse reddish beard and swollen squinting eyes, swimming in a large old fur hat with earflaps, swayed next to him in time with the movement of the sled, perfectly happy with everything: the sled, the cold, his well-kept, smooth-gaited little horses, and this fox-fur-hatted doctor in a pince-nez who had appeared out of nowhere with his important travel bags—and even with the endless white plain that stretched far ahead until it drowned in a blur of swirling snow.

“Do you hire out for wagon trains?” the doctor asked.

“Naw, why shud I … The job pays enough. I used to work in Soloukhi for some folks, then I figured out that another’s bread goes down like lead. So I just stick to haulin’ my own bread. And thank God…”

“Why do they call you ‘Crouper’?”

“Ah…” The driver grinned. “From when I was young and I worked at the border. We was cuttin’ a road through the forest. Lived in barracks. I caught the croup, was up all the night long. Everbody’s sleepin’ and here I am coughin’ up a storm, they cain’t get a wink all night. They got good and mad at me and piled on the work: ‘You’s coughin’ all night, don’t give us no peace, so you go chop all the wood, light the fire, draw the water!’ They gave it to me good for that croup, they sure did. That’s what they’d say: ‘Crouper, do this! Crouper, do that!’ I was the young’un in the crew. It just stuck: ‘Crouper! Hey, Crouper!’”

“Your name is Kozma?”

“Kozma.”

“Well, then, Kozma—you don’t cough at night anymore?”

“Nope! The Lord looked out for me. Got a bit of ague in the back when the weather’s bad. But I’m healthy.”

“And you deliver bread?”

“That I do.”

“Isn’t it a bit unnerving to make the deliveries all alone?”

“Naw. By your lonesome is just fine, yur ’onor. The old-timers had a saying: Drive by your lonesome, you got an angel on each shoulder; drive in a pair, one angel to share; but drive in a troika, and the devil’ll grab the reins.”

“Wisely put!” The doctor laughed.

“And that’s the livin’ truth, yur ’onor. When the wagon train’s comin’ back—the whole string of ’em’ll turn off somewheres to drink up their pay.”

“And you don’t drink?”

“I drink. But I knows my limit.”

“Now that’s surprising!” The doctor chuckled as he wriggled around under the rug, trying to take out his cigarette case.

“What’s the surprise in it?”

“Bachelors usually drink.”

“If’n someone brings smoked fish by—I’ll drink. But I don’t keep none at home. What for? No time fer drink, yur ’onor—I got fifty horses to watch over, after all.”

“I see, I see.” The doctor tried to light his cigarette, but the match blew out.

The second blew out as well. The wind had risen noticeably, and the snow fell in large flakes on the horses’ backs, wedged itself into the corners of the hood, tickled the doctor’s face, and made a slight shushing sound on his pince-nez.

He lit up, and peered ahead:

“How many versts to Dolgoye?”

“’Bout seventeen.”

The doctor remembered that the stationmaster had said it was fifteen.

“Can we make it in a couple of hours in this weather?” Platon Ilich asked.

“Who knows? Hard to say.” Crouper grinned, pulling his hat down to his eyes.

“The road is smooth.”

“Right hereabouts it’s a good’un.” Crouper nodded.

The road ran along a field lined with bushes, so it could be seen even without the rare mileposts that stuck up out of the snow. The field soon gave way to a sparse forest, and the mileposts ended, but sleigh tracks merged into the road, marking the path ahead of them, and encouraging the doctor: someone had just recently traveled along this road.

The sled moved along the sleigh tracks; Crouper held the reins loosely, and the doctor smoked.

Soon the forest grew taller and thicker, the road began to descend, and the sled entered a birch grove. Crouper yanked the reins:

“Whoooaa!”

The horses stopped.

Crouper got down and fussed about under the hood.

“What happened?” asked the doctor.

“Gonna cover the horses,” the driver explained, unfurling a burlap tarp.

“Good idea,” the doctor agreed, squinting in the windstorm. “It’s snowing.”

“It’s snowing.” Crouper covered the hood with the canvas tarp, fastening it at the corners. He sat back down and smacked his lips: “Heigh-yup!”

The horses set off again.

“It’s calmer in the forest—there’s just one road, you can see it, no way to get lost…,” thought the doctor. He brushed the snow from his collar.

“How long ago did you decide to use the little horses?” the doctor asked Crouper.

“’Bout four years ago.”

“Why was that?”

“My little brother as lived in Khoprov, Grisha, he died. He left twenty-four horses. And his wife, stands to reason, didn’t wanna take care of ’em. She says: ‘I’m gonna sell ’em.’ Then God’s angel up and made me ask her: ‘How much?’ ‘Three apiece.’ And I had sixty rubles right then. I says: ‘I’ll buy ’em for sixty.’ So we made a deal. I put ’em in a basket and brought ’em back with me to Dolbeshino. Then I got lucky: our bread man, Porfiry, he went off to live in town with his son. I bought his sled fer a good price, and traded a radio fer more horses. And took his place delivering bread. Thirty rubles. That’s what we got to live on.”

“Why didn’t you buy an ordinary horse?”

“Oooorrrrdinaar-y!” Crouper puckered his lips and stretched them forward, which made him look just like a jackdaw in profile. “Cain’t cut enough hay fer an ordinary one. I’m on my lonesome, yur ’onor, like a heron standin’ in a swamp, wher’m I gonna sow that hay! Even fer a cow you cain’t never cut enough hay. I don’t even keep a cow no more, got rid of it. But fer the little ones—nothin’ to it: I plant a row of clover, cut it down, dry it—and it’ll last ’em the whole winter. Grind some oats fer ’em, give ’em a little water—quick as a wink and that’s the end of it.”

“But these days people keep big horses, too,” the doctor pointed out. “In Repishnaya we have a family that keeps a big horse.”

“But that’s a family, yur ’onor!” said Crouper, shaking his head so hard that his hat slipped down even further over his eyes.

Adjusting his hat, he asked the doctor:

“What kinda horse is it?”

“Twice the size of regular ones.”

“Twice? That ain’t much. I seen bigger’uns at the station. You see the new stable there?”

“No.”

“In the fall they builded a ginormous one. I heard tell on the radio how at the Nizhny market there was a cart horse tall as a four-story building.”

“Yes, there are horses that size.” The doctor nodded seriously. “They’re used for extra-heavy work.”

“You seen ’em?”

“I’ve seen them from a distance, in Tver. A draught horse that size was pulling a coal train.”

“Whaddye know!” exclaimed Crouper with a click of the tongue. “How much oats do a horse like that eat in a day?”

“Well,” said the doctor, squinting ahead and wrinkling his nose, “I think that…”

Suddenly the sled jerked and twisted, and a crack was heard; the doctor nearly flew headlong into the snow. Underneath the tarp the horses snorted.

“What…” Crouper only had time to exhale, as his hat fell off and he tumbled chest-first onto the steering rod.

The doctor’s pince-nez sailed off his nose and got tangled in the lace attached to it. He caught it and put it back on. The sled stood at the side of the road, listing to the right.

“Darn you…” Crouper slid down, rubbing his chest. He walked around the sled, squatted, and looked underneath it.

“What’s the problem?” asked the doctor without getting up.

“We banged into somethin’…” Crouper moved to the right side of the road and immediately plunged into deep snow; he turned over, grunting, and squeezed under the sled.

The doctor waited in the listing sled. Finally Crouper’s head appeared:

“Just a sec…”

He threw back the tarpaulin, which the falling snow had already covered, and pulled back on the reins, without returning to his seat:

“C’mon now, c’mon…”

The horses, snorting and huffing, began to prance backward. But the sled simply sputtered in place.

“Why don’t I get off…” The doctor unfastened the bearskin and stepped down.

“C’mon now, c’mon!” Crouper pushed against the sled, helping the horses backstep.

The sled jerked backward, once, twice, and moved off of the unfortunate spot. It came to a halt crosswise on the road. Crouper ran around to the front and squatted. The doctor came over in his long, hooded coat. The tip of the right runner was split.

“There ye go, damnation … Ugh!” Crouper spat on the snow.

“It cracked?” asked the doctor, leaning over to get a closer look.

“It splitted,” Crouper said in an anguished voice, making a squelching sound.

“What did we hit?” asked the doctor, looking in front of the sled.

There was only loose snow, and new flakes falling on it. Crouper began to rake the snow away with his boot, and suddenly kicked something hard, which slid out. The driver and passenger leaned over, trying to see what it was, but couldn’t make out anything. The doctor wiped his pince-nez, put it on again, and suddenly saw it:

“Mein Gott…” He reached down cautiously.

His hand touched something smooth, hard, and transparent. Crouper got down on all fours to look. A transparent pyramid about the size of Crouper’s hat could just barely be discerned in the snow. The passenger and driver felt it. It was made of a dense, clear, glasslike material. The storm swirled snowflakes around the perfectly even facets of the pyramid. The doctor poked it—the pyramid easily slid to the side. He took it in his hands and stood. The pyramid was extraordinarily light; indeed, one could almost say that it weighed nothing at all. The doctor turned it in his hands:

“What the devil…”

Crouper looked it over, wiping the snow off his eyebrows:

“What’s that?”

“A pyramid,” said the doctor, wrinkling his nose. “Hard as steel.”

“That’s what hit us?” asked Crouper.

“Apparently.” The doctor turned the pyramid around. “What the hell is it doing here?”

“Maybe it fell off a wagon?”

“But what’s it for?”

“Oh now, yur ’onor…” Crouper brushed the snow away in annoyance. “Nowadays there’s so many things that ye cain’t figure out what they’s for…”

He grasped the broken tip of the runner and moved it carefully:

“Looks like it didn’t break all the ways.”

With a sigh of returning irritation, the doctor tossed the pyramid aside. It disappeared in the snow.

“Yur ’onor, we gotta tie that runner with somethin’. And turn right back ’round the way we come.” Crouper wiped his nose with his mitten.

“Back? What do you mean, back?”

“We only gone ’bout four versts. But down there in the hollow the snow’s bound to be deeper, and we’ll get stuck with a runner what’s tied. And that’ll be the end of the story.”

“Wait, what do you mean, go back?” said the doctor. “People are dying out there, orderlies are waiting, there’s an epi-dem-ic! We can’t go back!”

“We’ve got our own … epi-demic.” Crouper burst out laughing. “Just take a look-see how that runner splitted.”

The doctor squatted and examined the cracked runner.

“Cain’t go twelve versts with that. Lookit how the blizzard’s comin’ on.” Crouper glanced around.

The blizzard had indeed grown more intense, and the wind whirled the snow about faster.

“We’ll make it through the forest, and then we’ll get stuck in the hollow at the bottom—and that’ll be it. We’ll be in a real pickle.”

“What if we wrap it with something?” asked the doctor, examining the runner and brushing off the falling snow.

“What with? A shirt? We c’n tie it up but it ain’t gonna last long. It’ll come aparts. I don’t wanna go lookin’ for trouble, yur ’onor.”

“Wait, wait, just a minute…” The doctor tried to think. “Damned pyramid … Listen, what if … I’ve got elastic bandages. They’re strong. We’ll bandage it up good and tight and be off.”

“Bandage?” Crouper was perplexed. “A bandage’s weaker than a shirt, it’ll pull off right straightaway.”

“Elastic bandages are strong,” the doctor declared gravely as he stood up.

He said this with such conviction that Crouper fell silent and shuddered. He suddenly had the shivers.

The doctor strode over to his travel bags, unfastened one of them, opened it, quickly found a package of stretch bandages, and grabbed it. He noticed a vial and various ampoules in his travel bag, and exclaimed joyfully:

“I’ve got an idea! An idea!” He took one of the vials and hurried over to the runner.

Crouper kneeled next to him and scraped the snow aside with his mittens. He felt another pyramid.

“How ’bout that, another one,” he said, showing it to the doctor.

“To hell with it!” The doctor kicked the pyramid and it flew off.

He slapped Crouper on the back:

“Kozma, you and I will fix everything! If you had instant glue, would you glue the runner together?”

“Sure I would.”

“Well, then, we’re going to spread this ointment on here, it’s very thick and sticky, and then we’ll wrap the runner with a bandage. In this cold the ointment will harden and pull your runner together. You’ll be able to drive to Dolgoye and home five times with a runner like this.”

Crouper looked mistrustfully at the vial. The label read: VISHNEVSKY OINTMENT + PROTOGEN 17W.

The doctor uncorked the top and handed it to Crouper:

“It hasn’t had time to harden yet … Dip your finger in and spread it on the runner.”

Crouper pulled off his mittens and took the vial carefully with his big hands, but immediately gave it back to the doctor:

“Wait … Then we gotta put somefin under…”

He swiftly pulled an axe out from beneath the seat, walked into the forest, chose a young birch tree, and began to hack away.

The doctor set the vial down on the sled, stuck the bandage roll in his pocket, took out his cigarette case, and lit up.

“It’s coming down hard…,” he thought, squinting at the whirling snowflakes. “Thank God it’s not all that cold, it’s not cold at all, really…”

Hearing the sound of the axe, the horses began to snort under the tarp; the lively red roan whinnied delicately. A few other horses answered him.

Crouper had felled the birch, chopped off a log, and sharpened it against the birch stump before the doctor had finished his papirosa.

“There ye go…”

Having completed his task, he returned to the sled, breathing hard, and deftly thrust the birch wedge under the middle of the right runner. The tip lifted slightly. Crouper brushed away the snow under it:

“Now we’ll rub it on.”

The doctor gave him the vial and proceeded to unwrap the bandage packaging. Crouper lay down on his side next to the runner and rubbed the ointment along the crack in the wood.

“Just figures,” he muttered. “I run straight into tree stumps a coupla times, and nothin’ happens, but now, one bump and it might as well been a cleaver … Bloody damnation.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll bandage it up and we’ll make it there,” the doctor consoled Crouper while he watched him work.

The moment Crouper had finished, the doctor pushed him aside impatiently: “Come on, out of the way…”

Crouper rolled away from the runner. The doctor, grunting, sat down on the snow and then heaved himself over on his side, adjusted his position, and began to skillfully wrap the bandage.

“Now then, Kozma, you press the crack together and hold it!” he managed to gasp.

Crouper grabbed the tip and pressed the sides together.

“Excellent … excellent…” the doctor muttered as he continued to wrap the runner.

“Gotta tie the ends up top, else it’ll get cut off on the bottom,” Crouper advised.

“Don’t teach the teacher…,” the doctor wheezed.

He wrapped the runner tight and even, tied the ends up top, and expertly tucked them under the bandage.

“That’s the ticket!” Crouper smiled.

“What did you expect?” roared the doctor victoriously. He sat up, panting, and banged his fist on the side of the sled. “Let’s go!”

Inside, the horses neighed and snorted.

Crouper knocked the wedge out from under the runner, tossed the axe on the footboard, took off his hat, wiped his sweaty brow, and looked at the snow-dusted sled as though he were seeing it for the first time:

“Still, maybe we oughta go back, eh, yur ’onor, sir?”

“N-n-n-no!” The doctor stood up and brushed the snow off his coat, shaking his head in an insulted, threatening gesture. “Don’t even dare think about it. The lives of honest workers are in danger! This is an affair of state, man. You and I don’t have the right to turn back. It wouldn’t be Russian. And it wouldn’t be Christian.”

“’Course not.” Crouper plopped his hat on. “Christ be with us. Cain’t do without ’im.”

“That’s right, brother. Let’s go!” The doctor clapped him on the shoulder.

Crouper laughed, sighed, and gestured with his hand: “At yur service!”

Crouper threw back the snow-covered bear rug and sat down. Having fastened his own traveling bag in back, the doctor sat down next to Crouper, and wrapped himself in the rug with an expression of satisfaction and the feeling of an important job successfully accomplished.

“How’re ye doin’ in there?” Crouper looked under the tarpaulin.

In reply came friendly neighs from the horses, who had been standing in place all this time.

“Thank the Lord. Heigh-yup!”

The horses’ hooves scrabbled against the drive belt, then the sled trembled and moved. Crouper straightened it out, and steered it in the right direction. Glancing at the road, both riders noticed immediately that during the time they’d been working on the runner, snow had covered all trace of the sleighs that had traveled the path earlier; the road that lay ahead of them was white and untouched.

“Whoa, just look at all the snow—a herd of elephants couldn’t pack it down.” Crouper clicked his tongue and tugged on the reins. “Quick, let’s go now, faster.”

The horses, who’d been bored under their tarp, didn’t need any encouragement: they ran energetically on the frozen drive belt, their little shoed hooves tapping noisily. The sled started briskly across the fresh snow.

“If’n we cross the ravine, up ’bove past it, the road is good all the ways to the mill!” Crouper shouted, frowning in the snowy wind.

“We’ll make it!” the doctor encouraged him, hiding his face under his collar and fur cap, leaving only his nose, which had turned slightly blue, out in the open.

The wind blew large snowflakes about and swirled them into snowdrifts. The forest was sparse on either side, with clear indications of felled timber.

The doctor saw an old dry oak that had apparently been split by lightning many years before, and for some reason he remembered the time. He took out his pocket watch and checked it: “Past five already. How we’ve dawdled … Well, no matter … There’s no traveling fast in this kind of snow, but if we can keep at this crawl, we should make it in a couple of hours. How did we manage to run into that strange pyramid? What is it for? Must be some sort of table decoration—it’s clearly not a tool or machine. The transport must have been overloaded, carrying lots like it; one fell out and ended up under the sled…”

He remembered the crystal rhinoceros in Nadine’s house, the rhinoceros that stood on the shelf with her sheet music, the music she picked up with her small fingers, placed on the piano, and played, turning the pages with a brisk, abrupt movement, the kind of movement that instantly conveyed her impulsive nature, unreliable as ice in March. That sparkling rhinoceros with its sharp, crystal horn and dainty tail, curled like a pig’s, always looked at Platon Ilich with a hint of mockery, as though teasing him: remember, you’re not the only one who’s walking on thin ice.

“Nadine is already in Berlin,” he thought. “There’s never any snow there in winter. It’s probably rainy and dank. In the Wannsee, the lake never even freezes over, ducks and swans swim there all winter … Their house is nice, with that stone knight, the centuries-old linden trees and sycamores … How stupidly we parted. I didn’t even promise to write to her … When I get back I’ll definitely write to her, immediately, enough playing the insulted and injured—I’m not insulted and I’m not injured … And she’s marvelous, she’s wonderful, even when she’s nasty…”

“We should have taken that pyramid with us,” he said suddenly, and glanced at the driver.

Crouper, who didn’t hear him, drove along with his usual birdlike expression. He was happy that the sled was riding smoothly, as though it had never broken down, happy that his beloved horses were feeling lively, and that the blizzard wasn’t bothering them.

“How d’ye like that, it don’t even pull to one side,” Crouper thought, moving the steering rod with his right hand and holding the reins with his left. “Means the doctor bound the runner right. He’s got the knack and knows his business. Serious he is, that one. What a big nose. Just drive him to Dolgoye, ain’t nothin’ else will do. Doctors, they’s seen terrible sights, and knows a lot. Back last year that feller went under the thresher at Komagon’s, and in the city they sewed his leg on, and it grew back, runs faster’n it used to … And me, when my teeth acted up, that doctor in Novoselets, he give me a shot and opened up my jawbone … It didn’t hurt one bit, he took out three teeth, and half a cup of blood…”

The road sloped down, the forest grew even sparser, and ahead of them in the snowy mantle of the blizzard the vague contours of a large ravine arose.

“Right about here’s where we gotta hurry, yur ’onor,” said Crouper, “else mine won’t make it to the top in this kinda snow. After all, they ain’t three-story cart horses…”

“Let’s hurry, then!” the doctor answered cheerfully, turning around.

They jumped off the sled and immediately sank knee-deep in snow. The road was entirely blanketed. Crouper wedged the steering rod in a straight position, grabbed the back of the sled where traces of old flaking painted decorations could be seen, and began to run, pushing from behind. But the sled had barely passed the bottom of the ravine and started up the other side when it began to lose speed and then stopped completely. Crouper threw back the tarp and asked the horses: “What’s the matter?”

He flapped his mitten over their backs:

“C’mon, then, the lot of ye! C’mon, give it a tug!”

He let loose a loud whistle.

The horses leaned into the drive belt and Crouper pushed from the back. The doctor helped as well.

“Fas-ter! Fas-ter!” Crouper screeched.

The sled moved, crawling upward with great difficulty. But it soon stopped again. Crouper braced it from behind so it wouldn’t slide down into the ravine. The horses snorted. The doctor was about to fling himself at it again, but Crouper stopped him. Breathing heavily, he spat into the snow:

“Wait a bit, yur ’onor, we’ll get our strength back…”

The doctor was also out of breath.

“Not long now.” Crouper smiled, tilting his hat back. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it up in a bit.”

They stood, catching their breath.

Large, soft snowflakes fell thickly, but the wind seemed to have died down and was no longer throwing snow in their faces.

“I didn’t think it was so steep here…,” said the doctor, leaning against the sled and looking around while he turned his broad, snow-covered hat.

“Right here’s a stream,” said Crouper, breathing heavily. “In the summer ye gotta ford it. The water’s good. When I comes this way I always get down fer a drink.”

“I hope we don’t slide backward.”

“Naw, we won’t.”

After a bit, Crouper whistled and cried out to the horses:

“C’mon now or I’ll let you have it! Give it a tug! Tuug! Tug!”

The horses scraped at the drive belt. The passenger and the driver pushed the sled. It crawled slowly up the hill.

“C’mon! C’mon!” Crouper shouted and whistled.

But twenty paces on they came to a halt once again.

“You … damn…” The doctor slumped limply against the back of the sled.

“Just a minute, yur ’onor, just a minute…,” Crouper muttered in a stifled voice, as though defending himself. “You’ll see, after this we’ll go sliding down real easy-like, all the way to the ponds…”

“Why on earth did they put the road here … where it’s so steep … Idiots…,” the doctor puffed indignantly, shaking his hat.

“Where’s else to put it, yur ’onor?”

“Go around it.”

“But how could ye go around it here?”

The tired doctor waved his hand, indicating that he wasn’t about to argue. After catching their breath, they once again crawled upward to the sound of Crouper’s cries and whistles. They had to pause and rest another four times. When they finally emerged from the ravine, both the humans and the horses were exhausted.

“Thank the…” was all Crouper managed to gasp; he spat back at the accursed ravine and went to check the horses under the hood.

Steam rose from the little horses. They were in a lather, though it could hardly be seen: while they were making their way out of the ravine, twilight had descended. The exhausted doctor took off his hat, wiped off the sweat dripping from his head and brow, then took out a handkerchief and blew his nose like a horn. His thin white scarf had slipped out from under his coat and was dangling from his neck. The doctor scooped up a handful of snow and greedily stuffed it in his mouth. Crouper covered the horses, then kicked off his felt boots and shook out the snow that had gotten into them. Stumbling, the doctor climbed up onto the seat, leaned back, and sat with his face lifted to the falling snow.

“Well now, we made it.” Crouper put his boots back on, sat down next to the doctor, and gave him a tired smile. “Let’s go?”

“Let’s go!” the doctor almost screamed, fumbling for his cigarette case and matches in his deep, silk coat pockets, which were so delightful to the touch. The sensation of the familiar, soft, cozy silk calmed him and reassured him that the worst was now behind them, that the anxiety of the dangerous ravine was a thing of the past.

Platon Ilich lit a cigarette with the special pleasure of a person resting after heavy work. His narrow, overwrought face exuded heat.

“Want a cigarette?” he asked Crouper.

“Ever so grateful yur ’onor, but we don’t smoke.” The driver tugged on the reins and the horses pulled weakly.

“Why is that?”

“Never happened to.” Crouper smiled a tired, birdlike smile. “I’ll drink vodka, but don’t take tobacco.”

“Good for you!” The doctor smiled, just as tired, and blew smoke out of his full lips.

The horses worked quietly, and the sled drove over a snow-laden road, laying down its own path. The forest ended at the ravine; ahead, through the whirling snow a sloping field with the occasional island of bushes and willow reeds could be discerned.

“They’re exhausted, they are, my little horses.” Crouper slapped his mitten on the tarp. “Don’t worry, it’ll go easier now.”

The road began a gentle turn to the left, and fortunately a milepost appeared here and there.

“We pass the pond, and then the road’s straight through New Forest, cain’t hardly get lost,” Crouper explained.

“Let’s do it, my man,” the doctor encouraged him.

“They’ll rest a bit, and we’ll ride on.”

Hauling the sled at an unhurried pace, the horses gradually recovered from the torturous hill. They rode along like this for about two versts. By then it was almost completely dark. The snow fell thick, and the wind was still.

“Over there’s the mill pond.” Crouper pointed ahead with his whip, and the doctor thought he saw a large, snow-covered haystack in front of them.

They drew closer, and the haystack turned out to be a bridge over a stream. As they crossed it, something scraped at the bottom of the sled. Crouper grabbed the steering rod to straighten the angle, but the sled abruptly swerved to the right; it careened off the bridge, stopping in a snowdrift.

“Ay, damnation,” Crouper exclaimed.

“Don’t tell me it’s the runner again,” muttered the doctor.

Crouper jumped down, and his voice sounded:

“All right now, c’mon! C’mon! C’mo-on!”

The horses began backstepping obediently. Crouper threw his weight against the front of the sled and heaved. The sled barely made it out of the snowdrift; Crouper disappeared into the wintry shroud, but returned quickly:

“It’s the runner, yur ’onor. Your bandages come off.”

Irritated and exhausted, the doctor unfastened the rug, descended, and walked around the sled. He leaned over, barely able to distinguish the cracked tip of the runner.

“Damn it!” he cursed.

“Uh-huh.” Crouper snuffled.

“We’ll have to bandage it again.”

“What fer? We’ll go a coupla versts and it’ll come off again.”

“We must go on! We absolutely must!” The doctor shook his hat.

“Stubborn, he is…” Crouper looked at him, scratched his head under his hat, and gazed into the distance:

“Here’s what I’ll tell ye, yur ’onor. The miller lives near here. We’ll hafta go there. It’ll be easier to fix the runner.”

“A miller? Where?” asked the doctor, turning all about, seeing nothing.

“Over yonder, where the window’s lit up,” said Crouper, flapping his mitten.

The doctor peered into the snowy darkness and was indeed able to make out a faint light.

“I wouldn’t go to his place for ten rubles of money. But ain’t no choice. Don’t want to catch our death out here.”

“What’s wrong with him?” the doctor asked distractedly.

“Cusses. But his wife’s a good woman.”

“Well, then, let’s go right this instant.”

“Only let’s walk, ’cause the horses’re too tuckered to pull.”

“Let’s go!” The doctor headed directly for the light and sank into snow up to his knees.

“Thataway’s the road!” Crouper pointed.

Swearing and stumbling in his full-length coat, the doctor reached the utterly invisible road. Crouper strained to direct the sled, but he urged the horses on, walking next to them and holding the steering rod.

The road snaked along the banks of a frozen river, and the sled crept forward at an agonizing pace. Crouper grew tired and out of breath steering it. The doctor walked behind, giving the back of the seat an occasional push. Snow fell, thicker and thicker. At times the snowfall was so dense the doctor thought they were making circles around the bank of a lake. Now and then, the light ahead vanished completely, and then a twinkle would appear.

“We just had to run over that pyramid,” thought the doctor, grasping the back of the sled. “We would have been in Dolgoye a long time ago. This Kozma is right—there are so many pointless things in the world … Someone manufactures them, transports them to cities and villages, convinces people to buy them, and makes money on bad taste. And people do buy them, they’re thrilled, they don’t even notice the uselessness, the stupidity of the thing … It was just that sort of idiotic object that caused us so much harm today…”

Constantly correcting the sled, which kept bearing right, off the road, Crouper thought about the hateful miller, about how he’d already vowed to himself two times that he’d never go near there again. Now here he was once more, and he’d have to have dealings with him.

“Musta made a weak vow,” he thought. “I vowed on Commemoration I’d never set foot … and now here I am a runnin’ to him for help. If’n the vow was strong enough, nothin’ woulda happened, the angels woulda carried me over that mill on wings. And now—rush, knock, beg … Maybe I shouldn’t make no vows? Like Grandpa said: Don’t do no harm, and don’t make promises…”

Finally, ahead of them two willows arose, half buried in snowdrifts, and beyond them was the miller’s house with its two lit windows, perched right on the riverbank, almost hanging over the water. Through the snowstorm the frozen waterwheel looked to the doctor like a round staircase leading into the river from the house. The image was so convincing that he didn’t question it but assumed that the staircase was a necessary part of the household, used for something important having to do, most likely, with fishing.

The sled inched up to the miller’s house.

A dog began to bark behind the gates. Crouper got down, walked over to the house, and knocked on the lit window of a gatehouse. After a while, the gatehouse door opened a bit and someone, invisible in the dark, spoke out:

“What is it?”

“Hey there,” said Crouper, approaching him.

“Oh, you.” The person who’d opened the little gate recognized Crouper.

Crouper recognized him as well, although this was only the worker’s first year with the miller.

“I, um, I’m taking the doctor here to Dolgoye, and our runner broke, and it’s not too convenient to fix it out in the wind.”

“Ah … Just a minute…”

The little gate closed.

Several long minutes passed, then behind the gate there was some movement, the bolts clanked, and the gates started to open with a squeak.

“Enter the yard!” the very same worker shouted in a commanding voice.

Crouper smacked his lips loudly, directing the sled through the gateposts. It slid into the courtyard and the doctor walked in after it. The worker immediately shut and locked the gates. Though it was dark and snowy, the doctor could nonetheless discern a fairly spacious courtyard with a number of buildings.

“Mr. Doctor, welcome,” came a woman’s voice from the porch.

The doctor headed toward the voice.

“Watch your step, don’t trip,” the voice warned.

Platon Ilich could barely make out the door, and he tripped on the step; his hand grabbed the woman.

“Don’t trip,” she repeated, supporting him.

The woman exuded a sour country warmth. She held a candle, which immediately went out. The woman was the worker’s wife. She led the doctor through the mudroom entrance and opened the door.

The doctor entered a spacious izba, richly appointed by village standards. Two large kerosene lanterns illuminated the space: there were two ovens, one Russian, one Dutch; two tables, kitchen and dining; benches, trunks, shelves for dishes, a bed in the corner, a radio under a cozy; a portrait of the sovereign in an illuminated, iridescent frame, and portraits of his daughters Anna and Ksenia in the same type of frame. A double-barreled pistol and a Kalashnikov were hung on moose antlers, a tapestry depicting deer at a watering hole was attached to the wall, and a vodka still rested on a wooden stand.

The miller’s wife, Taisia Markovna, sat at the table; she was a large, portly woman about thirty years old. The table was set with a small round samovar and a two-liter jar of homemade vodka.

“Welcome, please come in,” the miller’s wife said, rising and adjusting the colorful Pavloposad shawl that had slipped from her round shoulders. “Goodness gracious, you’re all covered in snow!”

The doctor was indeed completely covered with snow. He looked like a snowman children make at Shrovetide—except for his bluish nose, which protruded from beneath his big, snow-covered fur hat.

“Avdotia, don’t just stand there, give him a hand,” the miller’s wife ordered.

Avdotia started brushing the snow off the doctor and helped him to take off his coat.

“Why on earth were you traveling at night, and in such a snowstorm?” The miller’s wife came from behind the table, her skirt rustling.

“When we left it was light,” the doctor answered, handing over his heavy, wet clothes, and remaining in his dark-blue three-piece suit and white scarf. “We broke down along the road.”

“How horrible.” The miller’s wife smiled, approaching the doctor, holding the end of her scarf in her plump white hands.

“Taisia Markovna,” she bowed to the doctor.

“Dr. Garin.” Platon Ilich nodded at her, rubbing his hands.

As soon as he entered the izba he realized that he was freezing, exhausted, and hungry.

“Have tea with us, it will warm you up.”

“Gladly.” The doctor took off his pince-nez and squinted at the samovar as he began to wipe the lenses gingerly with his scarf.

“Where have you come from?” the miller’s wife asked.

Her voice was deep and pleasant; she spoke in a slight singsong and her accent wasn’t local.

“I left Repishnaya this morning. It turned out there weren’t any horses in Dolbeshino, so I had to hire a local driver with his own dray.”

“Who?”

“Kozma.”

“Crouper?” squeaked a little voice at the table.

The doctor put on his pince-nez and looked: next to the samovar, a little man sat on the table with his legs dangling over the edge. He wasn’t any bigger than the shiny new little samovar. His clothes were small, but entirely in keeping with the clothes of a prosperous miller: he wore a red knit sweater, mousy gray wool trousers, and stylish red boots, which he swung back and forth. The man held a tiny hand-rolled cigarette, which he had just finished gluing with his little tongue. His face was unattractive, pale, and he had no eyebrows. The sparse fair-colored hair sticking up from his head turned into a sparse light beard on his cheeks.

The doctor had often had occasion to see and treat little people, and thus he showed no surprise. He retrieved his cigarette case, opened it, and took out a papirosa. Screwing it into the corner of his fleshy lips with an accustomed gesture, he answered the little fellow:

“Yes, that’s him.”

“Well, some driver you found yourself!” The little man laughed nastily, putting his homemade cigarette in his unpleasant, large mouth and taking out a lighter the size of a three-kopeck coin from his pocket. “The devil knows where that guy’ll take you.”

He struck his lighter, a stream of blue gas flared, and the little man stretched the lighter up toward the doctor.

“Crouper? Where is he?” The miller’s wife turned to look at the maid, her calm brown eyes slightly shiny from vodka.

“In the barnyard,” the maid answered. “Should I call him?”

“Of course, tell him to come in, he can warm up.”

The doctor leaned down toward the little man, who stood politely, the lighter thrust upward forcefully, as though he were holding a torch. His hand shook, and it was clear that he was drunk. The doctor lit his papirosa, stood up straight, inhaled, and then exhaled a wide stream of smoke over the table. The little man bowed slightly to the doctor:

“Semyon, Markov’s son. Miller.”

“Dr. Garin. You and your wife have the same patronymic?”

“Yes!” the little man chuckled, and swayed, steadying himself against the samovar, then snatching his hand back immediately.

“Markovna and Markich. Just turned out that fucking way…”

“Don’t swear,” said the miller’s wife, coming over. “Sit down, doctor, have your tea. And there’s no sin in having a bit of vodka in this weather.”

“No, no sin,” agreed the doctor, who really wanted a drink.

“Of course! Vodka after tea keeps the soul frost-free!” the miller squeaked. He staggered over to the jar, embraced it, and gave it a ringing slap.

He was the same height as the bottle.

The doctor sat down, and Avdotia set a plate, a shot glass, and a three-pronged fork in front of him. The miller’s wife picked up the bottle, pushing aside the miller, who sat down abruptly on the table, bumping his back against a hunk of wheat bread. She filled the doctor’s glass: “Here’s to your health, doctor.”

“What about me?” whined the miller, dragging on his little cigarette.

“You’ve had enough already. Sit there and smoke.” The miller didn’t argue with his wife; he just sat, leaning against the bread, puffing away.

The doctor lifted the shot glass and downed it quickly and quietly, still holding a papirosa in his left hand; he caught some sour cabbage on his fork and had a bite. The miller’s wife placed a piece of homemade ham on his plate, and potatoes fried in lard.

“Anything else, Markovna?” Avdotia asked.

“That’s it. Go about your business. And tell Crouper to come in here.”

Avdotia left.

After taking several deep drags on his papirosa, the doctor quickly stubbed it out in a small granite ashtray full of tiny cigarette butts, and began to devour the food.

“Crouuuu-per!” the miller drawled, skewing his froglike lips, which were already ugly enough. “She went and found the dear guest. Crouper! Just a bum, that scum!”

“We’re always pleased to have guests,” the miller’s wife said calmly, pouring herself some liquor; she smiled at the doctor and ignored her husband. “To your health, doctor.”

Platon Ilich’s mouth was full, so he nodded silently.

“Pour me some!” whined the miller.

Taisia Markovna set down her glass, sighed, picked up the bottle, and splashed some vodka into the steel thimble that stood on a tiny plastic table. The doctor hadn’t immediately noticed the standard plastic table made for little people standing between the dish with the ham and the cup with pickles. The thimble gleamed on the little table, which held glasses and plates with the same food as the big table for regular people, slivers sliced from the larger portions: a snippet of ham, a dab of lard, a piece of pickle, bread crumbs, a marinated mushroom, and some cabbage.

Taking one last drag on his cigarette, and blowing the smoke out with an unpleasant, serpentine hiss, the miller tossed the butt down, stood up, and with a grand gesture stomped it out with his boot. The doctor noticed that the soles of his red boots were copper. The miller picked up the thimble and stretched unsteadily toward the doctor.

“Here’s to you, Mr. Doctor! To our dear guest! And against any sort of scummy riffraff.”

The doctor chewed, watching the miller silently. The miller’s wife again filled his glass. The doctor clinked glasses with each of them. They all drank: the doctor downed his glass just as quickly and quietly; Taisia Markovna drank slowly, with a sigh, her large bosom heaving; and the miller drank with a tormented backward toss of his head.

“Whew!” The miller’s wife exhaled, pursing her small lips like a straw. She sighed, adjusted the shawl on her shoulders, crossed her plump hands on her high bosom, and examined the doctor.

“Whoa!” the miller grunted. He banged his empty thimble on the little table, grabbed his crumbs, held them to his nose, and sniffed loudly.

“How did you come to break down?” the miller’s wife asked. “Or did you hit a tree stump?”

“That’s about what happened,” the doctor agreed, and stuffed a piece of ham in his mouth, as he had no desire to tell the bizarre story of the pyramid.

“What do you expect from Crouper? He’s an asshole!” the miller squawked.

“Oh, you think everybody’s an asshole. Let me talk with the man. Where did it happen?”

“About three versts from here.”

“Must have been in the ravine.” The miller picked up a little knife and stumbled over to the pickles, speared one, and cut off a piece like a wedge of watermelon. He stuffed it in his mouth and crunched noisily.

“No, it was before the ravine.”

“Before?” Taisia Markovna caught her breath. “But the road’s wide, even though it goes through forest.”

“Huh, that half-wit drove off the road, hmmm, and straight into a birch tree…” The miller nodded, still chewing on his pickle.

“We hit something hard. Bad luck. But my driver’s good.”

“He’s good,” the miller’s wife agreed. “Markich here just doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like anyone.”

“I like … Don’t tell lies…,” said the miller with his mouth full.

Suddenly he spit out the chewed-up pickle with a snort and stamped his foot:

“I like you, stupid! Don’t argue with me.”

“Who’s arguing?” His wife laughed, looking at the doctor. “And where are you going, from Repishnaya?”

“To Dolgoye.”

“To Dolgoye?!” She stopped smiling and her face looked shocked.

“To Dolgoye?!” the miller screeched and stood stock-still.

“To Dolgoye,” the doctor repeated.

The miller and his wife looked at each other.

“They’ve got the black plague, we saw it on the radio,” said Taisia Markovna, raising her black eyebrows in surprise.

“I saw it on the radio this morning!” The miller nodded his head. “They’ve got the black plague!”

“Yes. The black sickness.” The doctor nodded as he finished chewing and leaned against the back of the chair.

His large nose had turned red and sweaty from the vodka and food. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

“They’ve … The … There’s troops on the outskirts. Where do you think you’re going?” The miller staggered back and stumbled.

“I’m bringing the vaccine.”

“Vaccine? To inoculate them?” the miller’s wife asked.

“That’s right. To vaccinate the ones who are left.”

“The ones that d-d-didn’t get bit yet?” Stepping back once more, the miller reclined on the pickle.

It was clear that the last thimbleful had knocked him off his feet.

“Yes. The ones that haven’t been bitten yet.”

The doctor retrieved a cigarette from his case and lit up with the satisfied sigh of a man who has assuaged his hunger.

“Aren’t you afraid to go there?” asked the miller’s wife, her bosom heaving.

“That’s the nature of my job. And what’s to be afraid of? The troops are there.”

“But they … mmm … Those … They’re … quick ones,” she said, her plump hand spinning her empty glass in worry.

“They! The-e-y! Oh, they’re quick ones, they are! They are so qui-i-i-ck!” shouted the miller, holding on to a bump on the pickle, and shaking his head, as though offended.

“They can tunnel underground.” She licked her lips.

“Tunnel! That’s right! They tunnel under!”

“And they can come out anywhere at all.”

“And they c-c-can … They c-can! Those dirty…”

“They can, of course,” agreed the doctor. “Even in winter they have no trouble digging their way through frozen earth.”

“Lord Almighty,” said the miller’s wife, crossing herself. “Are you armed?”

“Of course.” The doctor puffed on his papirosa.

He liked the miller’s wife. There was something maternal, kind, and cozily caring about her that brought back memories of childhood, when his mother was still alive. The miller’s wife wasn’t beautiful, but her femininity was winning. Talking to her was a pleasure.

“That drunkard got lucky,” the doctor thought, looking at her plump hands and her smooth, pudgy fingers, with their tiny nails, which were spinning the drinking glass.

The door opened and Crouper entered.

“Oho! It’s Iva-an Susanin!” The miller burst out laughing, holding on to the pickle. “What were you doing, running into a birch tree? A birdbrain, that’s what you are.”

“Really, it’s true—a birdbrain,” the doctor agreed silently. He looked at Crouper.

“Greetings!” Crouper took off his hat, bowed, crossed himself in front of the icon, and began to remove his snowy clothes.

“Who said you could do that?” the miller objected. “Asshole!”

“Stop cursing, Senya.” The miller’s wife slapped her heavy hand on the table.

“You’re an enemy of the s-s-state. Got it? A s-s-sa-saboteur!” The miller, staggering around the hors d’oeuvres, crossed the table toward Crouper. “They should sh-sh-ut you up for it!”

He tripped and planted himself on the lard.

“Just sit there!” grinned the miller’s wife. “Come in, Kozma. Have a seat.”

Crouper smoothed his red, sweaty hair and sat down at the table.

“All those scummy bums should be locked up … You’re a fucking asshole!” the miller screeched, staring nastily at Crouper.

“Now, now…” Losing patience, the miller’s wife scooped up her husband and put him on her bosom, pressing him tightly. “Sit!”

Holding on to her husband with one hand, she poured some vodka into a tea glass for Crouper:

“Drink,” she said. “It will warm you up.”

“Thank you, Taisia Markovna.”

Crouper sat down at the table, picked up a glass with his clawlike hand, leaned over it, opened his magpie mouth, and began slowly sucking in the moonshine, straightening up as he drank.

When he finished, he exhaled, frowned, took a piece of bread, sniffed it, and put it on the table.

“Have a bite, Kozma, don’t be shy.”

“Go on, stuff your face!” the miller chortled.

And then the miller began to sing in a tremulous voice:

There was an old woman from Tula,

Said, “I’m off to the States to make moolah.”

“You stupid old cunt,” her old man did swear,

“They ain’t got no trains that go there.”

“Now you stop that!” The wife poked the miller.

He laughed tipsily.

Crouper stuck a piece of lard in his mouth, bit off some bread, and chewed rapidly. He’d just swallowed when the doctor asked him:

“What about the sled?”

“The steering rod? Pulled it out, nailed it back.”

“Does it work?”

“Yup.”

“Then let’s get going.”

“You’re going to travel? To Dolgoye?” The miller’s wife smiled grimly.

“They’re waiting for me.”

“Ah, go on … Let that rag pile go. The doctor can stay!” The miller shook his fist at Crouper.

“Hold on now!” Taisia Markovna pressed her husband to her bosom. “You can’t go off into the storm at night. You’ll lose the road straightaway.”

“S-s-straight! Away!” The miller shook his head.

“I absolutely must get to Dolgoye today,” the doctor asserted stubbornly.

The miller’s wife sighed deeply, rocking her husband like a baby:

“You’ll get across the grove, and the old village, but that’s where the fields start and there’s no mileposts either. You’ll get stuck in the field. You have to spend the night.”

“Can’t anyone show us the way? Your worker, for instance?”

“What?” The miller’s wife grinned. “You think he has cat eyes? He can’t see at night. And he’s not from around here.”

“He’s just the g-guy you want…” The miller dug his boots into his wife’s chest, climbed up to her neck, and stared at Crouper. “And you there, you just … take that!”

The miller gave Crouper the finger. Crouper was eating cabbage slaw and paid no attention to him.

“Stay till morning.” With her free hand the miller’s wife set a glass under the samovar tap and turned the spigot. Boiling water poured into the glass.

“They’re expecting me today.” The doctor stubbed out his cigarette.

“Even if you don’t get lost, you still won’t make it till morning time. Leave now and you’ll not go far.”

“Maybe we oughta stay, doctor, sir?” Crouper asked timidly.

“You jess get th’ell outta! Ya lost a horse at the market! You loser loafer!!” the miller shouted, kicking his feet against his wife’s bosom.

“Stay now, don’t be silly.” The miller’s wife poured strong brew from a Chinese teapot. “The storm will die down, and you’ll fly along.”

“And if it doesn’t?” The doctor looked at Crouper as though the weather depended on him.

“If’n it don’t, it’s a sight calmer in the light,” Crouper answered. Something stuck in his throat and he had a coughing fit.

“He lost the horse to passs-churs, lost traaa-ck-o-vvvit!” The miller refused to quiet down. “They oughta lock ye up fer horse-thieving!”

“Stay.” The miller’s wife set the glass of tea down in front of the doctor and began to pour some for Crouper.

“And the horses c’n rest a piece.”

“No snoozin’, not a wink … They’ll rest in peace, not rest a piece, thass whachur horses’ll do!” cackled the miller.

The miller’s wife laughed, her chest rose, and her husband rocked on it as though on a wave.

“Maybe we really should stay?” thought the doctor.

He looked around for a clock on the well-chinked wall, but didn’t see one; he was about to take his pocket watch out but suddenly saw small, glowing numbers hovering in the air over a metal circle lying on the sewing machine: 19:42.

“We could try to get there by midnight … But if we get lost, as she pointed out…,” the doctor thought.

He took a sip of tea.

“We could stay and leave at first light. If the blizzard has stopped, we’ll get there in an hour and a half. If I give them vaccine-2 eight hours later, nothing terrible will happen. That’s acceptable. I’ll write an explanatory note…”

“Nothing terrible will happen if you get there tomorrow,” said the miller’s wife, as though she’d read his mind. “Have some more vodka.”

Deep in thought, the doctor bit his lower lip and glanced at the numbers glowing in the air.

“So we’re staying?” Crouper asked, no longer chewing.

“Very well.” Platon Ilich sighed with disappointment. “We’re staying.”

“Thank God!” Crouper nodded.

“Yes, thank God,” the miller’s wife almost sang, as she filled the glasses.

“What about me? What about me?” The miller tottered and swayed on her chest.

She dripped a few drops from the bottle into the thimble and handed it to the miller.

“May you be healthy!” She raised her glass.

The doctor, Crouper, and the miller all drank.

Taking a bite of ham, the doctor now looked at the room not just as a stopping place but as the night’s lodging: “Where will she put us? In another izba? We had to end up here for the night. Damn this blizzard…”

Crouper took a deep breath and relaxed. He warmed up right away and was glad that he wouldn’t have to go out into the dark now, glad not to get lost looking for the road, torturing himself and his horses; glad that his horses would spend the night in the warmth of the miller’s stable, that he would give them some oats—he always had a bag of oats stored under the seat—and that he himself would sleep here, most likely on top of the stove, in the warmth, and that the nasty miller couldn’t touch him; glad that they’d leave early the next morning, and that when he’d delivered the doctor to Dolgoye, he’d get five rubles and drive back home.

“Oh well, perhaps it’s for the best,” said the doctor, reassuring himself.

“It’s for the best.” The miller’s wife smiled at him. “I’ll put you upstairs, and Kozma—on the stove. It’s quiet and warm upstairs.”

“Ow, what the … Got a leg cramp…,” the miller squeaked, grabbing his right leg, his drunken face grimacing.

“Time for bed.” The miller’s wife picked him up to take him off her chest, but at that moment the miller dropped the thimble. It rolled down his wife’s large body and fell under the table.

“Now look what you’ve done, Semyon Markich, gone and lost your cup.” Lovingly, as though he were a child, the miller’s wife placed him in front of her on the edge of the table.

“Huh? Whass, how’s … the … what?” muttered the thoroughly drunk miller.

“That’s what,” she replied. Standing, she lifted her husband with two hands, carried him over to the bed, set him down on it, and drew the curtains.

“Lie down, time to go night-night.” She rustled the pillows and blanket, tucking her husband in.

“Wake me up early tomorrow,” the doctor told Crouper.

“The crack of dawn, first light,” the driver replied, nodding his reddish magpie-shaped head.

It was obvious that the vodka, warmth, and food had made Crouper tipsy, and that he was ready to sleep.

“Let ’em all … all o’ them…’em all…” The miller’s drunken squeak could be heard behind the curtain.

“Sorta like a cricket … chirp chirp,” Crouper thought, smiling his birdlike smile.

“Taa-iiii-sssia … Taiss … Let’s cuddle and have a roll in the hay,” the miller peeped.

“We will, we will. Sleep tight.”

Taisia Markovna emerged from behind the curtains, walked over to the guests, squatted, and looked under the table.

“It’s somewhere…”

“A handsome woman,” the doctor thought all of a sudden.

Squatting and looking under the table with her marvelous, cloudy eyes, she awoke his desire. She wasn’t pretty, that was particularly noticeable now, when the doctor saw her face from above. Her brow was a bit low; her chin heavy and tilted downward; all in all her face adhered to the typically crude peasant model. But her carriage, her white skin, her buxom bosom, rising and falling, aroused the doctor.

“There it is.” She reached under the table and bent over.

Her hair was woven into a black braid, and the braid wound round her head.

“A delicious woman the miller has…,” the doctor thought, and suddenly, ashamed of his thoughts, he gave a tired sigh and laughed.

The miller’s wife stood up; smiling, she showed him her little finger with the thimble on it.

“There you go!”

She sat down at the table:

“He likes to drink out of my thimble, though we have glasses.”

And indeed—on the miller’s table, amid the little plates, there was a little glass.

“I c’d go to sleep now,” Crouper said with a hint of complaint in his voice as he turned his tea glass upside down.

“Go on, love.” The miller’s wife took the thimble off her finger and placed it upside down on the overturned glass. “There’s a pillow and a blanket atop the stove.”

“Mighty grateful, Tais’ Markovna.” Crouper bowed to her and climbed up on top of the tile stove.

The doctor and the miller’s wife remained alone at the table.

“So then, you do your doctoring in Repishnaya?” she inquired.

“Yes, in Repishnaya.” The doctor took a gulp of tea.

“Is it hard?”

“Sometimes. When people are sick frequently—it can be difficult.”

“And when is the sickness greater? In winter?”

“Epidemics happen in the summer, too.”

“Epidemics,” she repeated, shaking her head. “We had one about two years back.”

“Dysentery?”

“That’s it. Something got into the river. The kids swimming took sick.”

The doctor nodded. There was clearly something about the woman sitting opposite him that excited him. He looked her over furtively, a bit at a time. She sat calmly, a little smile on her face, and regarded the doctor as if he were a distant relation who’d stopped by when he saw the lights on. She didn’t seem particularly interested in the doctor and spoke with him the same way she did with Crouper and Avdotia.

“Is it boring for you here in winter?” asked Platon Ilich.

“A bit.”

“Summer’s probably fun, no?”

“Oh, summer…” She raised her hands. “Summer is bustling, something every which way you turn.”

“People bring their grain to the mill?”

“Of course they do!”

“Are the other mills far from here?”

“Twelve versts, in Dergachi.”

“So there’s plenty of work.”

“There’s plenty of work,” she repeated.

They sat in silence. The doctor drank tea, the miller’s wife played with the end of her kerchief.

“Should we watch the radio?” she suggested.

“Why not,” said the doctor, smiling.

He really didn’t want to say goodnight to this woman and go upstairs to sleep. The miller’s wife rose and took a knitted cover off the receiver, picked up the black remote control, returned to the table, turned down the lamp wick, sat back down in her chair, and pressed the red button on the remote. The radio clicked and a round hologram with a thick number “1” in the right corner appeared above them. Channel 1 had the news: a story about the reconstruction of the automobile plant in Zhiguli; another about a new single-occupancy sledmobile with a potato-fueled engine. The miller’s wife switched to Channel 2. A regular church service was on. The miller’s wife crossed herself and glanced at the doctor. He stared indifferently at the middle-aged priest in raiment and the young deacons. She turned to the last channel, Channel 3, the entertainment channel. They were showing a concert, as always. First, two beauties in sparkling traditional headgear sang a duet about a golden grove. Then a jolly, broad-faced fellow, winking and clucking, sang about the cunning intrigues of his indefatigable, atomic mother-in-law, causing the miller’s wife to laugh a few times, and a weary smirk to appear on the doctor’s face. Then the young men and girls began a long dance on the deck of the Yermak, a steamship sailing down the Yenisei River.

The doctor dozed.

The miller’s wife turned the set off.

“I can see you’re tired,” she said, rearranging the scarf, which had slipped off her shoulder.

“I’m … not … the least … bit … tired,” the doctor mumbled, shaking off his stupor.

“You’re tired, tired.” She rose. “Your eyes are shutting. It’s time for me to get some sleep, too.”

The doctor stood up. Despite his bleary drowsiness, he didn’t want to part with the miller’s wife.

“I’ll go out for a smoke.” He took off his pince-nez, wiped the bridge of his nose, and blinked his swollen eyes.

“Go ahead. I’ll get everything ready.”

The miller’s wife left, her skirts rustling.

“She’ll be upstairs,” the doctor thought, and his heart pounded. He heard two snores—one slight, Crouper, from the stove; the other, from behind the curtain, sounded like the chirr of grasshoppers.

“Her husband’s asleep … A drunken swamp rat. No, a watery drunk! A mill pond drunk!”

The doctor burst out laughing, took out a papirosa, lit it, and left the room. Passing through the cold, dark mudroom entrance, he bumped into something and had trouble finding the door to the courtyard; eventually, he pulled back the bolt and stepped outside.

It was windy, but the snow had stopped and the sky was clear; the moon shone through tufts of dark clouds. “It’s settled down,” said the doctor, puffing on his cigarette.

“We could even leave now.” He walked to the middle of the courtyard, mounds of snow crunching underfoot.

But his heart was pounding, sending jolts of hot longing through him.

“No, I’m not going anywhere…”

“Tomorrow!” he said decisively. Clenching his papirosa between his teeth, he walked over to the woodpile and relieved himself.

A dog barked in the cowshed.

The doctor quickly finished smoking and tossed the papirosa in the snow.

“Does she usually sleep with her husband on the bed behind the curtain? Where else would she sleep? So big and white, and next to her he’s like some child’s doll.”

He stood, taking in the invigorating, frosty air, and looking up at the stars that twinkled between the moving clouds. The moon peeked out and illuminated the courtyard: the storehouse, a shed, snow-capped haystacks—everything gleamed in the fresh, new-fallen snow, in myriad snowflakes. The snow-dusted courtyard and the frigid calm exuded by the wood, which, once upon a time, people had shaped and nailed together into these buildings—all this only intensified Platon Ilich’s desire. The contours of the immobile woodshed, filled with hundreds of frozen birch logs and kindling, all doomed to a brilliant death in the stove, seemed to tell him: in that house there is something warm, alive, trembling, on which the whole human world rests and upon which all its woodsheds, villages, sleds, cities, epidemics, airplanes, and trains depend. And this warmth, this femininity, awaits your desire, your touch.

Shivers ran down the doctor’s spine; he shuddered, shrugged his shoulders, exhaled, and went back into the house. Passing through the entryway, he felt for the door to the kitchen, opened it, and was immediately met with another dusky darkness. The lamp wasn’t burning, but there was a candle on the table.

“I made the bed for you upstairs,” called the voice of the miller’s wife. “Goodnight.”

Judging by the voice, she was already lying on the bed behind the curtain. Crouper and the miller were still snoring. Adding to the racket was the chirp of a real cricket, responding amusingly to the miller’s cheeps.

The doctor heaved a sigh, not knowing what to do. He wanted to ask the miller’s wife something, find an excuse to stay, but then he quickly realized how ridiculous it would seem, and, all in all, how stupid and vulgar his thoughts were. He was suddenly ashamed.

“Idiot!” he cursed himself. “Good night.”

“Don’t kill yourself on the stairs. Take the light,” came her voice, barely audible, from the darkness of the main room.

The doctor took the candle from the table and went silently upstairs. The staircase led to the attic directly from the entryway; the steps were narrow and creaked under the doctor’s boots.

“Idiot. A regular idiot!”

Upstairs there were two rooms: in the first were woven baskets, chests, boxes, strings of onion, garlic, and dried pears. The garden aroma was soothing. The doctor passed that room; the door to the other one was ajar. He found himself in a small room with a dark window, a bed, a little table, a chair, and a small dresser. The bedclothes were turned back.

The doctor set the candle on the table, closed the door, and began to undress.

“Beddy-bye, the calf’s asleep.” Noticing a clay cow on the windowsill, he remembered the children’s rhyme.

“What a strange family … Though perhaps it isn’t strange, but quite normal for the times. And they live well, prosperously … For how long? How old is she, I wonder … thirty?”

He recalled her calm hands, the ring on her pinky finger, and the look of her dark-brown eyes.

“Guten Abend, schöne Müllerin…,” he said aloud, recalling Nadine’s beloved Schubert. He took off his shirt.

“One should never abandon one’s principles. As in chess, one should not stoop lower than the floor and make forced moves. Coercion is not the way to live—the palliatives of work are more than enough. Life offers choice: one should always choose what comes naturally, what will not cause you to regret your own lack of willpower later in life. Only epidemics leave you no choice.”

Remaining in his underclothes, he removed his pince-nez, placed it on the table, blew out the candle, and climbed into the cold bed. Upstairs, as always, it was chilly.

“A good night’s sleep.” The doctor pulled the blanket right up to his nose. “And leave bright and early tomorrow. As early as possible.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Yes?” The doctor raised his head.

The door opened and a burning candle appeared. The doctor picked up the pince-nez from the table and put it to his eyes. The miller’s wife entered the room inaudibly, barefoot; she wore a long white nightgown and her colorful shawl around her shoulders. She held the burning candle in one hand and a cup in the other.

“Forgive me, I forgot to leave you water. Our ham’s so salty, you’ll be wanting a drink in the night.”

She leaned over, and her loose hair fell from her shoulders to her breasts as she set the cup on the table. Her eyes met the doctor’s, her face as calm as ever. She blew out the candle and straightened up. And remained.

The doctor tossed his pince-nez on the table, threw back the blanket in one movement, stood up, and embraced her warm, soft, large frame.

“There we go…,” she said softly, putting her hands on his shoulders.

He drew her toward the bed.

“I’ll close the door…,” she whispered in his ear, and his heart pounded like a hammer.

But he didn’t want to let her go. He pressed against her body and his lips found her neck. The woman smelled of sweat, vodka, and lavender oil. In one movement he tore off her nightgown and grabbed her by the butt.

Her bottom was big and plushy and cool.

“Oh…,” she murmured.

The doctor threw her back on the bed; trembling, he began tearing off his underclothes. But neither the clothes nor his hands would obey. “Damn…” He pulled hard and a button flew off and rolled across the floor.

Having managed to get one leg free of his hateful underwear, he fell on her and spread her smooth, plump legs roughly with his own. Her legs opened obediently and bent at the knees. In an instant, trembling and panting, he entered the substantial body, which gave itself to him. She moaned and embraced him.

He grabbed her by the round, sloping shoulders he had admired at the table, made a few spasmodic thrusts, and couldn’t contain himself: his seed flooded into her.

“Sweetheart.” She pressed her head to his with a calming movement.

But he could not calm down. He did not want to calm down. He squeezed her, and began to push, as though racing to catch up with the desired body slipping away from him. Her legs opened wider, letting him in, and her warm hand slid down his back and grabbed his rear. The doctor’s movements were brusque. He seized the woman in his arms and dug his fingers into her. His backside trembled and squeezed tight in time with his movement. As if to calm it, the woman’s hand began to press down gently. The doctor panted noisily into her neck, and his head shuddered.

“My sweetheart.”

She pushed down on his buttocks, sensing the fury of the contracting muscles.

“My sweet…”

Her hand soothed him, as if to say with its every move: there’s no hurry, I’m not going anywhere, I’m yours tonight.

He understood the language of that hand; the convulsions left his body and he began to move more slowly, rhythmically. With her left hand the woman lifted his hot head and brought her lips to his parched, open mouth. But he didn’t have the strength to respond to her kiss. He took intermittent, greedy breaths.

“My sweet…,” she exhaled into his mouth.

The doctor had her; trying to stretch out the pleasure, he obeyed her delicate feminine hand. Her body responded to him, her wide hips squeezed his legs in time with his movement: they opened and squeezed, opened and squeezed. Her ample chest rocked him.

“My sweet,” she exhaled into him once again. And her breath seemed to sober him up. He answered her kiss, their tongues meeting in the hot darkness of their bodies.

They kissed.

Her hand stroked and calmed him. Understanding that the man was ready to enjoy her for a long while, the woman gave herself to him utterly. A moan began in her large, heaving breast. And she allowed herself to be helpless. Her breasts and hips trembled.

“Plow me, my sweet … plow me,” she whispered into his cheek, and gripped him with both arms.

He swam in her body and the wave continued, rolling further and further, till it seemed it would never end.

But the wave suddenly surged; he understood his helplessness, and his body trembled in anticipation. Her hand once again touched his buttocks, but its touch was no longer gentle, it was forceful, commanding. The hand pushed and clutched him, and her fingers dug into him as though each one wore a thimble.

With a roar he spurted into the wave.

The woman moaned and cried out under him. He lay on top of her, exhaustedly breathing into her neck.

“Hot…,” she whispered, and stroked his head.

The doctor caught his breath, then turned over and lifted his head.

“Strong…,” she said.

He sat upon the edge of the bed and looked at the miller’s wife in the darkness. Her body took up the entire bed. The doctor put his hand on her chest. She immediately covered his hand with her palms: “Have a drink of water.”

The doctor remembered the cup, picked it up, and drank the water thirstily. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and poured light in through the window. The doctor was able to locate his pince-nez, so he put it on. The miller’s wife lay with her chubby hands behind her head. The doctor stood and fumbled in his trouser pockets for his cigarette case and matches. He lit up, and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t think you’d come to me,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“But you wanted me to.” She smiled.

“I did,” he said with a doomed sort of nod.

“And I wanted to also.”

They gazed at each other silently. The doctor smoked, and the light of the papirosa was reflected in his pince-nez.

“Let me have a smoke, too.”

He handed her the papirosa. She inhaled, held the smoke for a while, then let it out carefully. The doctor watched. He suddenly realized he had absolutely no desire to talk to her.

“You’re a bachelor?” she asked, and returned the cigarette to him.

“You can tell?”

“Yes.”

He scratched his chest:

“My wife and I split up three years ago.”

“You left her?”

“She left me.”

“So that’s what happened,” she said respectfully.

They sat quietly.

“Any children?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“She couldn’t conceive.”

“Ah, so that’s it. I gave birth, but it died.”

They sat silently again.

The silence stretched on and on.

The miller’s wife sighed and sat up on the bed. She put her hand on the doctor’s shoulder: “I’ll go now.”

The doctor said nothing.

She turned over on the bed and the doctor squeezed to one side. She lowered her plump feet to the floor, stood up, and straightened her nightgown, while the doctor sat with the extinguished cigarette in his mouth.

The miller’s wife stepped toward the door. He took her hand:

“Wait.”

She sat back down.

“Stay a bit longer.”

She pulled a lock of hair back from her face. The moon moved behind clouds and the room was plunged into darkness. The doctor caressed her; she touched his cheek:

“Is it hard without a wife?”

“I’m used to it.”

“May God help you meet a good woman.”

He nodded. She stroked his face. The doctor took her hand in his and kissed the sweaty palm.

“Come see us on the way back,” she whispered.

“It won’t work out.”

“You’ll go a different way?”

He nodded. She moved closer, lightly touching him with her breast, and kissed his cheek:

“I’ll go now. My husband will be mad.”

“He’s asleep.”

“He gets cold without me. Too cold, and he’ll wake up and start whining.”

She stood up.

The doctor didn’t try to keep her any longer. Her nightgown rustled in the dark, the door squeaked and closed, and the steps of the staircase creaked under her bare feet. The doctor took out another papirosa, lit it, rose to his feet, and walked to the window.

“Guten Abend, schöne Müllerin…,” he said, gazing at the dark sky hanging over the snowy field.

He smoked his cigarette, stubbed it out on the windowsill, got in bed, and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Crouper also slept soundly. He fell asleep as soon as he got up on the warm oven bed, put a log under his head, and covered himself with the patchwork quilt. Falling asleep to the sound of the doctor’s strong, nasal voice chatting with the miller’s wife, he thought of the toy elephant that his late father had brought six-year-old Kozma from the fair. The elephant could walk, move its trunk, flap its ears, and sing an English song:

Love me tender, love me sweet,

Never let me go.

You have made my life complete,

And I love you so.

After the elephant he thought of the horse the drunken miller kept harping on. Vavila, the late merchant Riumin’s groom, had entrusted Crouper with the horse. This was at the fair in Pokrovskoye, before Kozma got married, but when he was already known as “Crouper.” Vavila had a year-old colt for sale, and he had been walking around the fair with him all morning, trying to sell him. He got greedy, and thought some Chinese people and Gypsies were trying to cheat him. He asked Kozma to hold on to the colt, said he was going to “stuff his face and take a dump.” He gave Kozma five kopecks. Kozma found a spot by the willow, near where the saddler’s stalls began. He stood there with the colt and cracked sunflower seeds. Right about then some movie people from Khliupin put up two receivers and stretched “tableau vivant” screens between them. They displayed dolphins. It turned out that the picture wasn’t just lifelike, but touchable; the dolphins swam from one screen to the other and you could touch them. First kids and then men and women came up to touch the dolphins. Crouper tied the colt to the willow and waded through the crowd. He reached out and touched a dolphin. He liked it. The dolphin was smooth and cool, and it made friendly, squeaky noises. And the sea was nice and warm. Pushing his way forward, Crouper entered the water up to his chest and kept on touching and touching. The dolphins dove down in one monitor and swam over to the other one. Crouper touched their backs and stomachs, and grabbed them with his hands, trying to hold on to them. But they were agile and slipped right out of his grasp. He felt happy and fell in love with dolphins then and there. When the movie fellows turned the picture off and went around the crowd with a hat out, Crouper threw in his five-kopeck coin without a thought. Then he remembered the colt and went back to the willow: there was no trace of the horse. Vavila chased Crouper through the fair and landed a few good punches. The merchant Riumin sacked Vavila. They never found the colt.

The doctor awoke to the sound of Crouper’s voice:

“Yur ’onor, sir, it’s time.”

“What is it?” the doctor grumbled with his eyes closed.

“The dawn’s up.”

“Let me sleep.”

“You asked me to wake ye.”

“Go away.”

Crouper left.

Two hours later the miller’s wife climbed up to the doctor’s room and touched his shoulder:

“It’s time for you to go, doctor.”

“What?” the doctor murmured with his eyes closed.

“It’s already eleven o’clock.”

“Eleven?” He opened his eyes and turned over.

“Time for you to get up.” She looked at him with a smile.

The doctor fumbled for his pince-nez on the side table, placed it on his wrinkled face, and looked up. The miller’s wife hung over him—large, nicely dressed in a fur-lined top with a string of viviparous pearls on her neck, braids circling her head, and a pleased, smiling face.

“What do you mean, eleven?” the doctor asked more calmly, finally remembering everything that had happened during the night.

“Come and have tea.” She squeezed his wrist, turned, and disappeared behind the door, her long blue skirt rustling.

“Damn…” The doctor stood up and looked at his watch. “It really is eleven.”

He looked at the window. Daylight flooded through it.

“The idiot didn’t wake me.” The doctor remembered Crouper and his magpie-shaped head.

He dressed quickly and went downstairs. The kitchen was bustling: Avdotia was sliding a large kettle into the recently lit Russian oven with a long-handled poker; her husband was making something on the bench in the corner; and at the far table the miller’s wife sat majestically alone. The doctor headed for the washbasin that stood in the corner to the right of the oven, splashed his face with cold water, and dried it with a fresh towel that the miller’s wife had hung there especially for him. He wiped his pince-nez, looked at himself in the small, round mirror, and touched the stubble on his cheeks:

“Hmm…”

“Doctor, come have a cup of tea,” the strong voice of the miller’s wife sounded from the other side of the room.

Platon Ilich went to her.

“Good morning.”

“And a very fine morning to you, too.” She smiled.

The doctor crossed himself before the icon and sat down at the table. The same little samovar stood on the table and the same ham lay on a dish.

The miller’s wife poured tea into a large cup with a portrait of Peter the Great, and dropped in two sugar cubes without asking.

“Where’s my driver?” asked the doctor, looking at her hands.

“On the other side. He’s been up for quite a while now.”

“Why didn’t he wake me?”

“Can’t say.” She smiled pleasantly. “Some fresh blini?”

The doctor noticed a stack of piping-hot pancakes on the table.

“Gladly.”

“With jam, honey, or sour cream?”

“With … honey.”

He frowned. He felt uncomfortable with the woman now.

“What drama…,” he thought as he sipped the tea.

“How’s the weather?” He glanced at the windows.

“Better than yesterday,” answered the miller’s wife, looking him straight in the eye.

“A strong woman…,” he thought, and remembering her little husband, he cast his eyes about the room.

The miller was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s still sleeping,” she said, as though she’d read the doctor’s mind. “Got a hangover. Eat up.”

She set a plate of blini in front of him and slid the honeypot over. The doctor began eating the delicious, warm blini. Crouper entered the room and stopped at the door. He was dressed for the road and held his hat in hand.

“There’s our hero…,” the doctor grumbled. He swallowed a piece of pancake and almost shouted:

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

Crouper smiled his birdlike smile:

“How’s that I didn’t wake ye? Went right upstairs come first light.”

“And…?”

“I says: Doctor, time to go. And you says: Let me sleep.”

The miller’s wife laughed and poured tea into her saucer.

“That’s impossible!” The doctor banged his fist on the table.

“As the Lord’s my witness,” Crouper said, waving his hat toward the icon.

“Well then, that means you were having a good sleep.” The miller’s wife blew on the tea in the saucer.

The doctor met her pleasant eyes and glanced at the other people in the room, as though seeking their support. Avdotia was busy at the oven, looking for all the world like she knew everything that had happened the night before, and her husband was sitting in the corner with a sort of ambiguous smile on his face, it seemed to the doctor.

“How could they possibly know?” he thought. “Ah, to hell with them…”

“You could have given me a shake,” the doctor said a bit more softly, realizing that he was going to be driving all the way to Dolgoye with this fellow.

“Cain’t worry someone who’s sleeping. It’s a pity.” Crouper stood, holding his hat in two hands over his stomach.

“Of course it’s a pity,” said the miller’s wife with smiling eyes, as she sipped tea from her saucer.

“What about the sled?” the doctor said, to change the subject.

“Fixed it. We’ll get there.”

“You wouldn’t have a phone, would you?” the doctor asked the miller’s wife.

“We do, but it doesn’t work in winter.” She dunked a sugar cube into the saucer and put it in her mouth.

“Very well, I’ll finish my tea and come out,” the doctor said to Crouper, as though dismissing him. Crouper left silently.

The doctor ate his blini, washing them down with tea.

“Tell me, this blackness, where’d it come from?” asked the miller’s wife as she rolled the piece of sugar around in her mouth and slurped her tea.

“From Bolivia,” said the doctor with distaste.

“From so far? How’d that happen? Someone brought it?”

“Someone brought it.”

She shook her head:

“My, my. But how do they rise from the grave in winter? I mean, the ground is frozen through and through.”

“The virus transforms the human body, making the muscles considerably stronger,” the doctor muttered, glancing aside.

“Markovna, them’s got claws like a bear’s!” the worker suddenly said in a loud voice. “I seen it on the radio: they can crawl through earth, through the floor if’n they wants, like moles. They get through and rip people to shreds!”

Avdotia crossed herself.

The miller’s wife set the saucer on the table, sighed, and also crossed herself. Her face grew serious and immediately seemed heavier and less attractive.

“Doctor, now you make sure to be careful out there,” she said.

Platon Ilich nodded. His nose was red from drinking tea. He retrieved his handkerchief and wiped his lips.

“They’s mighty vicious.” The worker shook his head.

“The Lord is merciful,” said the miller’s wife, her chest heaving.

“Time for me to go,” said the doctor, squeezing his fists and rising from the table. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

He bowed his head slightly.

“Always welcome.” The miller’s wife rose and bowed to him.

The doctor went over to the coatrack, and Avdotia awkwardly tried to help him put on his coat. The miller’s wife came over and stood nearby, her arms crossed.

“Farewell,” nodded the doctor as he put on his fur hat and pulled the earflaps down.

“Goodbye,” she said, bowing her head.

He walked out into the courtyard. The sled was already there, and Crouper sat holding the reins. Someone was busy in the barn, and the gates were open wide. The doctor looked at the sky: overcast, windy, but no snow.

“Thank God.” The doctor took out his cigarette case, lit up, and began to settle in. Crouper waited until he was wrapped and buttoned up; then he smacked his lips and jerked the reins. Inside the hood the doctor could hear snorting and the already familiar clatter of tiny hooves. The sled set off and Crouper took hold of the steering rod.

“You know the road?” asked the doctor, inhaling the invigorating cigarette smoke with pleasure.

“There ain’t but one hereabouts.”

The sled moved slowly out of the courtyard, the runners squeaking.

“How much farther?” The doctor tried to remember.

“Roundabout nine versts. The road’ll take us through New Forest, then there’s Old Market, then there’s fields—a baby could make it ’cross.”

“Drive safely!” came a familiar female voice.

The miller’s wife stood on the porch.

The doctor silently waved his hat, holding it by the earflap, which was rather awkward, and Crouper smiled and waved his mitten:

“S’long Markovna!”

The miller’s wife watched them as they moved farther and farther away.

“She’s an interesting woman, I have to admit,” thought the doctor. “How quickly everything happened … But did I want it to? Yes, I did. And I don’t regret a thing…”

“The miller’s got hisself a good woman.” Crouper smiled.

The doctor nodded.

“Luck, that’s what,” said Crouper thoughtfully, pushing his hat back off his forehead. “Like they says, ‘On lucky days, even a rooster lays.’ So there ye go: one fellow’s kind and loving, but luck don’t shine on him. Then some drunk with a foul mouth catches hisself a wife of gold.”

“But how did that drunk manage to get the mill?”

“He got lucky.”

“How so? The mill just fell straight from heaven?”

“Don’t know ’bout heaven, but his papa, he’s one of the little fellers, too, made hisself a fortune on taxes and bought that mill, and put his son in it. And that was that.”

The doctor had nothing to add, and for that matter, he didn’t feel like chatting with Crouper first thing in the morning.

“Markovna, she does all the work. He just shouts at everthin’ in sight.”

“Ah, to hell with him…” the doctor said, putting an end to the conversation.

Speeding along the riverbank, where the night before they’d trudged behind the broken sled, they passed willows and haystacks. They moved along smoothly at a clip, and the fresh, untouched snow whooshed softly under the runners. Soon, that same bridge appeared. Crouper kept to the left, turning onto the road. Though covered in new-fallen snow, it was quite discernible.

“How d’ye like that, ain’t nobody passed by after us!” Crouper nodded at the road. “All gone and hid ’emselves from the blizzard.”

“Maybe they drove by and then the tracks were covered.”

“Don’t look like it.”

The sled moved swiftly along the road. Bushes, bushes, and more bushes began to appear. The wind blew at their backs, giving the sled some help.

“Zilberstein is probably cursing me. But what could I do? There isn’t even a telephone here. ‘It doesn’t work in winter!’ Ridiculous! Nine—no, eight—versts now. Getting closer … I’ll start the vaccinations straightaway, the delay won’t matter…”

Before them a birch grove came into view.

“C’mon now, faster.” Crouper clicked and whistled. “Get a move on.”

The little horses increased their pace obediently.

They entered the grove at full tilt. Birch trunks lined the road.

“What a beautiful grove,” muttered the doctor.

“Eh?” Crouper turned toward him.

“I said the grove is beautiful.”

“Beautiful. If’n ye just chop it down.”

The doctor chuckled.

“Why chop it down? It’s pretty just the way it is.”

“Pretty,” Crouper agreed. “Won’t last long. They’ll cut it down anyway.”

Snow began to fall, at first lightly, but by the time they’d passed through the birch grove, large flakes fell thick and fast.

“Wouldn’t ye know it!” Crouper laughed.

The road led through a field, but there weren’t any markers to be seen. Neither were there any traces of runners on the road. The field lay ahead, lost in the snowstorm; only here and there overgrown weeds or the rare bush stuck out.

They had driven half a verst when the sled slid into deep snow.

“Whoa!” Crouper pulled back on the reins.

The horses stopped.

“I’ll go look for the road.” Crouper jumped down, grabbed the whip, and walked back.

The doctor remained alone in the sled. Snowflakes continued falling in a dense veil as though they’d never stopped. Under the hood the horses snorted and stamped their hooves.

About ten minutes passed, and Crouper returned:

“Found it!”

He turned the sled around, leading it along his own tracks, while he tramped next to it, his legs plowing deep swaths through the snow.

They regained the road. But the doctor would never have guessed that this was a road; only Crouper could distinguish it in the snowy field.

“We won’t go fast, yur ’onor, sir, else we’ll up and drive off it!” Crouper shouted, wiping the snow off his face.

“Drive as you see fit,” the doctor replied. “What about the runner?”

“Still holding. I nailed it together.”

The doctor nodded in approval.

They moved slowly along the road. Crouper steered, gazing ahead. The snow thickened and the wind picked up, forcing the passenger and the driver to shield their faces.

The doctor sat with his collar pulled up and the rug all the way to his cheekbones. But the snow flew right into his eyes, under his pince-nez, and burrowed into his face, filling his nostrils.

“Damn it…,” thought the doctor. “They don’t put up stakes to mark the roads … Could be a lawsuit if you think about it … Doesn’t matter to anyone. Not the road authorities, the forest rangers, the patrols … What could be easier? Chop down a cart full of stakes in the fall, hammer them in every half verst at the least—though more often would be better, of course—so people can travel without worrying in winter. Swinishness, that’s what it is … It’s downright … obscene.”

In front of them an endless, shapeless field stretched on, as though there were nothing else on earth, nothing but these miserable bushes and weeds.

“Slow going till Old Market, and then it’ll be easier!” Crouper shouted.

“How does he see this road?” thought the doctor in amazement, hiding from the blizzard. “Professional instinct, no doubt…”

But soon they drove off the road again.

“Ay, damnation…,” said Crouper.

Once again he walked back, drawing a line in the snow with his whip. The doctor sat there like a snowman, buried in the blizzard, just brushing the flakes from his nose and pince-nez now and then.

Crouper disappeared for a long time; the doctor considered firing three shots from the revolver that lay in his travel bag.

When Crouper finally returned, he was completely exhausted, his jacket open at the chest, his face red.

“Well, did you find it?” asked the doctor, shifting and brushing bits of snow off.

“Found it,” said Crouper, breathing heavily. “But almost got lost meself. Cain’t see nothin’.”

He scooped some snow off the sled and took a bite.

“And how will we make it?”

“Bit by bit yur ’onor, sir. God willing, we’ll make it to Old Market. From theres on the road’s wide, packed down.”

Crouper smacked his lips. The horses reluctantly scraped their hooves against the drive belt. The sled didn’t budge.

“What’s the matter? Get yurselfs a bellyful at the miller’s?” Crouper upbraided them.

The sled barely moved.

The doctor got down and banged on the hood in annoyance:

“Let’s go.”

The horses snorted; the roan let out a piercing neigh. And the others neighed, too.

“No need to scare ’em,” said Crouper, displeased. “They ain’t scaredy beasts, thank God”

He jerked the reins and smacked his lips:

“There now, come along.”

The sled strained. Crouper held the steering rod, leaned his other arm on the hood, and pushed. The doctor pushed against the back of the sled.

The sled started. Crouper steered it, but soon stopped and wiped his face:

“Cain’t see a thing … Yur ’onor, sir, you go on ahead and follow my tracks, elsewise it ain’t clear which way to go.”

The doctor went ahead, following Crouper’s tracks. The snow quickly covered them, and the wind blew straight in the doctor’s face. The tracks stretched on ahead, and then began to bear right, going in a circle, it seemed to the doctor.

“Kozma! The tracks are circling back!” the doctor shouted, shielding himself from the wind.

“Means I went round and round out there,” Crouper shouted. “Keep left and walk straight!”

The doctor bore left and suddenly fell to his waist in snow.

“Just figures … Damn it…,” the doctor mumbled.

As though mocking them, the wind blew harder, tossing snow in their faces.

“Now this…” The doctor stood up, leaning on Crouper.

“The devil pushed us into a gully!” Crouper yelled in his ear. “Quick, while the tracks are still there! There they are, just ahead!”

The doctor stepped decisively ahead, raising his legs high and pulling them out of the snow. The sled followed him.

The doctor walked on, keeping his eyes wide open behind his ice-coated pince-nez. Finally, just as he began to be truly exhausted and his fur-lined coat seemed heavier than a pood weight, he made out a track barely distinguishable in the snow.

“Tracks!” he shouted, but snow fell in his mouth and he began to cough, leaning into the blizzard.

Crouper understood and directed the sled along the tracks. They soon came out onto the road.

“Thank the Lord!” said Crouper, crossing himself when the sled was finally on hard snow. “Have a seat, sir!”

Breathing heavily, the doctor plopped down on the seat and leaned back, too weak to close his coat. Snow had filled his boots, and he could feel that his feet were wet, but he didn’t have the energy to remove his boots and brush off the snow. Crouper covered him with the rug.

“We’ll stand a tad, let the horses rest.”

They stopped. The blizzard howled around them. The wind had gathered such force that it pushed the sled, causing it to sway and jerk like a living creature. The strong wind also blew the snow off the road, however, and the way was visible now—well traveled with hard-packed snow.

The doctor wanted to smoke but didn’t have the strength to take his beloved, handsome cigarette case out of his pocket. He sat in a daze, his blue nose protruding between his hat and his collar, wishing with his entire being to overcome this wild, hostile, wailing white expanse that wanted only one thing from him—that he become a snowdrift and cease forever to desire anything at all. He remembered his winter doctor’s visits to patients, but he couldn’t recall a storm so intense that the elements impeded him. About three years ago, he got lost with the mail carriage, and he and the coachman lit a fire that night until a transport saw them and helped them out; and there was the time that he ended up in the wrong village, having driven almost six versts too far. But this was the first time he’d experienced such a powerful blizzard.

Crouper, no less tired than the doctor, dozed a bit. He remembered that before setting off he’d left the station boy to close the oven flue so the house would be warm when he returned. The house had warmed up, that was certain, but its master had spent the night elsewhere. He imagined his izba, unheated since morning, and Hoop, the hog, who would be hungry by now. He thought that if the boar squealed with hunger this morning, his neighbor, Fyodor Kirpaty, would think to look in and give him some feed. He thought about the clock ticking alone in the dark, unheated house. Or maybe the clock had already stopped … That’s right, it’d stopped, of course, he hadn’t wound it … He felt chilled and uncomfortable.

“Hey!” the doctor shoved him. “What are you doing? Sleeping? You can’t sleep, you’ll freeze.”

Crouper turned and shook himself, coming to his senses. He began to shiver.

“Naw, I’s … just resting up a bit.” He took hold of the steering rod and tugged on the reins.

The horses moved without urging, apparently feeling the smooth road. The sled carried on.

The road went straight and, miraculously, the strong wind bared it, blowing the snow into drifts on the side. Thus they crossed the field fairly fast and easily; but then the road sloped down and was lost in the snow. Crouper hurried and walked alongside. No sign of the road remained: in the hollow, the snow was equally smooth everywhere while the blizzard whirled and wailed above it.

“I’ll … Damnation.” The wind knocked Crouper down, but he held on to the steering rod.

The wind in the hollow blew so hard that the sled swayed. They lost the road right away and the sled halted in deep snow. Without a word, the doctor got down and walked on ahead through the snow. He found the road quickly; he tested it with his feet and kept going. Crouper followed in his path.

Slowly, step by step, they moved ahead. The doctor kept walking … He stumbled, sank into the snow, and staggered in the wind—but he didn’t lose the road. The hollow went on and on. Suddenly, the doctor saw a hill coming closer, then realized that it wasn’t a hill but some sort of whirling snow cloud, racing toward them. He crouched. Over his head flew an impenetrable vortex of snow; his pince-nez was torn from his face and fluttered on its ribbon.

“Lord Almighty, forgive me for my sins…,” the doctor muttered, falling down on all fours.

The tornado stormed by, and to the doctor it seemed like a vast helicopter of impossible size. The horses neighed in fright under the hood. Crouper squatted, too, but didn’t let go of the steering rod.

This frightful thing passed over them and disappeared.

The doctor put on his pince-nez and looked at the rise ahead, the way out of the hollow. He saw the bared road.

“There’s the road!” he shouted to Crouper.

But Crouper had already seen it himself. Pleased, he waved his mitten at the doctor: “Yep!”

They made it to the road, sat back down, and drove on. The sled emerged from the hollow onto a gently sloping hillock, and Crouper stopped abruptly: there was a fork in the road. He didn’t remember this fork. In good weather he wouldn’t have noticed it, he would have gone the way everyone did. But now he had to decide which way—right or left.

“Old Market is ’bout two versts from the grove,” Crouper thought, pushing his hat back on his forehead, which was damp from sweat and snow. “That means it’s real close by, prob’ly to the left, and the road on the right, now, must lead around to the meadow. The meadow here’s a beauty, nice and smooth … So … we go left.”

The doctor silently awaited the driver’s decision.

“Left!” Crouper shouted, turning the steering rod to the left and giving the reins a jerk.

The sled edged to the left.

“Where are we?” yelled the doctor.

“In Old Market! We c’n rest up here, and afterward the road runs straight.”

The doctor nodded joyfully.

Crouper had been in Old Market only twice: for Matryona Khapilova’s wedding, and with his little brother, who bought a couple of piglets from the old man Avdei Semyonich, whom everyone called Fat Ass. But that had been in the fall and spring, not in the winter in a blizzard. Crouper liked Old Market: there were only nine households, all of them well kept and prosperous. The people there made a living by carving, threshing, and making counterweights. And their meadows were fine. Crouper and his brother and the piglets rode back by way of the meadows because the high road was muddy with the spring thaw. The smoothness and expanse of the Old Market meadows had impressed Crouper. But right now they were all under the snow.

The sled crawled across the flat land. Crouper remembered that just before Old Market there was a little grove, maybe linden, maybe oak.

“As soon as the grove shows up—Old Market’s right there. We’ll knock on a door to warm up. We’ll sit an hour or so and move on. Not far now…,” Crouper thought.

Sensing a village, the horses quickened to a trot even though the road was beginning to disappear under the snow and was soon entirely gone.

“I’ll have to change my boots right away…” The doctor wiggled his toes, which were wet and already beginning to freeze.

Crouper glanced back at the doctor. “The grove’ll be comin’ up now, and then Old Market,” he said to cheer up the doctor.

The doctor looked spent. His nose and pince-nez stuck out comically from the snow-covered figure hunched over the seat.

“Like a snow woman…,” Crouper chuckled to himself. “The old elephant, he’s tuckered now. Such bad luck he’s got with the weather…”

They moved at a slow pace along the white fluffy desert, but the grove of trees didn’t appear.

“Not a mistake here ’bouts, too?” Crouper thought, gazing into the storm with his eyelids forced wide open, though they drooped with exhaustion and threatened to stick together.

Finally the trees could be seen up ahead.

“Thank God…” Crouper laughed.

They reached the grove. The trees were huge, old. Crouper remembered very young trees with the first May leaves.

“Couldn’t have growed up so fast.” He rubbed his eyes.

Suddenly he made out a cross under the trees. Then another, and a third. They came closer. There were more and more crosses, sticking out of the snow.

“Lordy, it’s a cem’tery…” Crouper exhaled, pulling back on the reins.

“A cemetery?” The doctor began furiously wiping his pince-nez.

“A cem’tery,” Crouper repeated, dismounting.

“Well, where’s the village?” muttered the doctor, staring at the tilted crosses around which the blizzard danced and twined as though teasing and mocking them.

“Huh?” said Crouper, bending away from the wind.

“I said, where’s the village?!” the doctor shouted in a voice filled with hatred, for the storm, the cemetery, and that idiot birdbrain Crouper who had led him who knows where. He was angry at his wet toes freezing in his boots; at his heavy, fur-lined, snow-covered coat; at the ridiculous painted sled with its idiotic midget horses inside that idiotic plywood hood; at the blasted epidemic, brought to Russia by some swine from far-off, godforsaken, goddamned Bolivia, which no decent Russian person had any need for at all; at that scientific, pontificating crook Zilberstein, who cared only about his own career and had left earlier on the mail horses without a thought for his colleague, Dr. Garin; at the endless road surrounded by drowsy snowdrifts; at the snakelike, snowy wind whipping ominously above them; at the hopeless gray sky, tattered like the sieve of some stupid, grinning, sunflower-seed-cracking old woman, which kept sowing, sowing, and sowing these accursed snowflakes.

“’Round here somewheres…” Crouper turned his head this way and that, utterly bewildered.

“Why did you drive to the cemetery?” the doctor shouted angrily.

“Just did, yur ’onor, that’s all…” The driver frowned.

“Haven’t you been here before, you idiot?!” shouted the doctor, and began to cough.

“Sure enough I been here!” Crouper shouted, taking no offense. “Only it was summer.”

“Then why the hell…” The doctor began to talk but the snow flew into his mouth.

“I been here, yes I have.” Crouper turned his head back and forth like a magpie. “But I don’t know ’bout the cem’tery, cain’t ’member it at all.”

“Drive, drive! Why did you stop?” the doctor shouted, and began coughing.

“Ain’t sure which’s the right way.”

“Cemeteries are never far from the village,” the doctor suddenly screamed, so loud that he scared himself.

Crouper paid no attention to the shout. He thought a moment longer, turning his head from side to side, then led the sled decisively to the left of the cemetery, into the field.

“If’n the fork was Old Market one way, and the meadows t’other, and the cem’tery’s close by Old Market, then I went true. The fork musta been here but we missed it. Now Old Market’ll be left, and then the meadows.”

Having calmed down and recovered from his own shouting, the doctor didn’t even ask why Crouper hadn’t retraced his steps but had turned the sled left and was crossing the field.

“It’s all right, it’ll be all right,” the doctor muttered, trying to cheer himself. “There are a lot of idiots in the world. And even more assholes.”

Dragging himself through the deep snow, Crouper led the sled into the field. He was so certain of the direction that he didn’t pay much heed to the gathering snowy gloom that parted reluctantly ahead of him. The sled moved along heavily and the horses pulled grudgingly, but Crouper just kept walking alongside, letting the steering rod go and lightly nudging the sled; he walked with such certainty that gradually the doctor, too, was affected.

“We’ll be there any minute…,” Crouper mumbled to himself, still smiling.

And indeed—the contours of a building soon appeared ahead of them in the whirling snow.

“We made it, doctor, sir!” The driver winked at his passenger.

Upon seeing the approaching house, the doctor was suddenly dying for a smoke. He also wanted to cast off his heavy coat and leaden hat, remove his wet boots, and sit down in front of a fire.

Crouper desperately wanted a drink of kvass. He blew his nose into his sleeve and walked along calmly, letting the sled move ahead of him.

“Who lives on the outskirts?” Crouper tried to remember, though there was no point in it since the only Old Marketers he knew were Matryona, her husband, Mikolai, and old Fat Ass. “Matryona’s house is the third on the right, and Fat Ass’s is next door to Matryona’s…”

He glanced at the approaching building from under his hat, and his heart skipped a beat: this wasn’t an izba. It wasn’t even a drying barn or a hayloft. It didn’t look like a bathhouse either.

The sled drove up to a dark-gray tent with a pointed top. On the surface of the tent was the image of a living, slowly blinking eye, an image familiar to both the driver and the passenger.

“Mindaminters!” exclaimed Crouper.

“Vitaminders!” said the doctor.

The sled arrived at the tent and stopped.

Crouper followed it. The doctor turned, stepped down, and shook off the snow. The wind carried the faint odor of exhaust. Then they heard an expensive gasoline generator at work inside the tent.

“So where’s your Old Market?” the doctor asked, without anger this time, because he was happy that the lifeless white expanse had finally afforded him an encounter with civilization.

“Roundabout near here somewhere…,” Crouper muttered, looking at the smooth, taut, zoogenous felt of the tent.

He noticed a felt door, and knocked on it with his mitten. Inside, an iridescent signal floated up immediately. A felt window opened in the door and a narrow-eyed face and chewing mouth appeared:

“Whaddya want?”

“We got lost. We’re lookin’ fer Old Market.”

“Who?”

“Me, and the doctor here. We’re on our way to Dolgoye.”

The face disappeared and the window closed.

“Vitaminders,” said the doctor, shaking his head, with a tired chuckle. “Just our luck to meet up with them.”

But he was pleased: the smooth, sturdy tent, standing firm in the wind, evinced the victory of humanity over the blind elements.

A few long minutes passed and the door finally opened.

“Please enter.”