The Daughter of the Commandant

My reflections during the journey were not very pleasant. According to

the value of money at that time, my loss was of some importance. I could

not but confess to myself that my conduct at the Simbirsk Inn had been

most foolish, and I felt guilty toward Saveliitch. All this worried me.

The old man sat, in sulky silence, in the forepart of the sledge, with

his face averted, every now and then giving a cross little cough. I had

firmly resolved to make peace with him, but I did not know how to begin.

At last I said to him-"Look here, Saveliitch, let us have done with all this; let us make

peace."

"Oh! my little father, Petr' Andrejitch," he replied, with a deep sigh,

"I am angry with myself; it is I who am to blame for everything. What

possessed me to leave you alone in the inn? But what could I do; the

devil would have it so, else why did it occur to me to go and see my

gossip the deacon's wife, and thus it happened, as the proverb says, 'I

left the house and was taken to prison.' What ill-luck! What ill-luck!

How shall I appear again before my master and mistress? What will they

say when they hear that their child is a drunkard and a gamester?"

To comfort poor Saveliitch, I gave him my word of honour that in future

I would not spend a single kopek without his consent. Gradually he

calmed down, though he still grumbled from time to time, shaking his

head-"A hundred roubles, it is easy to talk!"

I was approaching my destination. Around me stretched a wild and dreary

desert, intersected by little hills and deep ravines. All was covered

with snow. The sun was setting. My kibitka was following the narrow

road, or rather the track, left by the sledges of the peasants. All at

once my driver looked round, and addressing himself to me-"Sir," said he, taking off his cap, "will you not order me to turn

back?"

"Why?"

"The weather is uncertain. There is already a little wind. Do you not

see how it is blowing about the surface snow."

"Well, what does that matter?"

"And do you see what there is yonder?"

The driver pointed east with his whip.

"I see nothing more than the white steppe and the clear sky."

"There, there; look, that little cloud!"

I did, in fact, perceive on the horizon a little white cloud which I

had at first taken for a distant hill. My driver explained to me that

this little cloud portended a "bourane."[15] I had heard of the

snowstorms peculiar to these regions, and I knew of whole caravans

having been sometimes buried in the tremendous drifts of snow.

Saveliitch was of the same opinion as the driver, and advised me to turn

back, but the wind did not seem to me very violent, and hoping to reach

in time the next posting station, I bid him try and get on quickly. He

put his horses to a gallop, continually looking, however, towards the

east. But the wind increased in force, the little cloud rose rapidly,

became larger and thicker, at last covering the whole sky. The snow

began to fall lightly at first, but soon in large flakes. The wind

whistled and howled; in a moment the grey sky was lost in the whirlwind

of snow which the wind raised from the earth, hiding everything around

us.