No More Learning

"Heaven only knows, excellency," replied he, resuming his seat.

"It is not a sledge, it is not a tree, and it seems to me that it moves.
It must be a wolf or a man. "

I ordered him to move towards the unknown object, which came also to
meet us. In two minutes I saw it was a man, and we met.

"Hey, there, good man," the driver hailed him, "tell us, do you happen
to know the road? "

"This is the road," replied the traveller. "I am on firm ground; but
what the devil good does that do you? "

"Listen, my little peasant," said I to him, "do you know this part of
the country? Can you guide us to some place where we may pass the
night? "

"Do I know this country? Thank heaven," rejoined the stranger, "I have
travelled here, on horse and afoot, far and wide. But just look at this
weather! One cannot keep the road. Better stay here and wait; perhaps
the hurricane will cease and the sky will clear, and we shall find the
road by starlight.
"

His coolness gave me courage, and I resigned myself to pass the night on
the steppe, commending myself to the care of Providence, when suddenly
the stranger, seating himself on the driver's seat, said--

"Grace be to God, there _is_ a house not far off. Turn to the right, and
go on. "

"Why should I go to the right? " retorted my driver, ill-humouredly.

"How do you know where the road is that you are so ready to say, 'Other
people's horses, other people's harness--whip away! '"

It seemed to me the driver was right.

"Why," said I to the stranger, "do you think a house is not far off? "

"The wind blew from that direction," replied he, "and I smelt smoke, a
sure sign that a house is near. "

His cleverness and the acuteness of his sense of smell alike astonished
me. I bid the driver go where the other wished. The horses ploughed
their way through the deep snow. The _kibitka_ advanced slowly,
sometimes upraised on a drift, sometimes precipitated into a ditch, and
swinging from side to side. It was very like a boat on a stormy sea.

Saveliitch groaned deeply as every moment he fell upon me. I lowered the
_tsinofka_,[16] I rolled myself up in my cloak and I went to sleep,
rocked by the whistle of the storm and the lurching of the sledge. I had
then a dream that I have never forgotten, and in which I still see
something prophetic, as I recall the strange events of my life.