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First recorded in Russian: January 1886
English translation: 1912
Translated by Constance Clara Garnett |
It was twilight. Big flakes of wet snow whirled lazily above the lately lit street lamps. The falling snow spread thin and softly on roofs, horses’ backs, shoulders, and caps. 1 |
Iona Ppotapov, the sledge-driver, is all white like a ghost. He was sitting on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent. If a regular snowdrift fell on him, it seemed as though he would not think it necessary to shake it off even then. 2 |
His little mare was white and motionless, too. Her stillness, the angularity of her lines, and the stick-like straightness of her legs made her look like a half-penny gingerbread horse. 3 |
She was probably lost in thoughts. Anyone who had been torn away from the plough, from the familiar grey landscapes, and cast into this slough whole of monstrous lights of unceasing uproar and hurrying people was bound to think. 4 |
It had been a long time since Iona and his nag had budged. They came out of the yard before dinnertime and had yet to have a single fare. 5 |
Now, the shades of evening were falling on the town. The pale light of the street lamps changed to a vivid colour, and the bustle of the street grew noisier. 6 |
“Sledge to Vyborgskaya! Sledge!” Iona heard. 7 |
While preparing the sledge, Iona, through his snow-plastered eyelashes, saw an officer in a military overcoat with a hood over his head. 8 |
“To Vyborgskaya.” repeated the officer: “Are you asleep? To Vyborgskaya!” 9 |
In token of assent, Iona gave a tug at the reins, which sent cakes of snow flying from the horse’s back and shoulders. 10 |
The officer got into the sledge. Iona clicked to the horse, craned his neck like a swan, rose in his seat, and brandished his whip, more out of habit than necessity. 11 |
The mare, too, craned her neck, crooked her stick-like legs, and hesitatingly set off. 12 |
“Where are you shoving devil?” Iona heard shouts from the dark mass shifting to and from before him. 13 |
“Where the devil are you going? Keep to the right! You don’t know how to drive! Keep to the right!” said the officer angrily. 14 |
Another coachman driving a carriage swore at him. A pedestrian crossing the road and brushing the horse’s nose with his shoulder looked at him angrily and shook the snow off his sleeve. 15 |
Iona fidgeted on the box as though he were sitting on thorns, jerked his elbows, and turned his eyes about like one possessed as though he did not know where or why he was there. 16 |
“What rascals they all are! They try to run against you or fall under the horse’s feet. They must be doing it on purpose.” said the officer jocosely. 17 |
Iona looked at his fare and moved his lips as if he wanted to say something. But nothing came but a sniff. 18 |
“What?” inquired the officer. 19 |
Iona gave a wry smile, strained his throat and brought it out huskily: “My son…my son died this week, sir.” 20 |
“Hmm! What did he die of?” 21 |
Iona turned his whole body around to his fare and said, “Who can tell? It must have been from a fever. He lay three days in the hospital, and then he died. God’s will.” 22 |
“Turn around, you devil!” came out of the darkness. “Have you gone cracked you old dog? Look where you are going!” 23 |
“Drive on! Drive on! We shall not get there till tomorrow while going on at this speed. Hurry up!” said the officer. 24 |
Iona craned his neck again, rose in his seat, and swung his whip with heavy grace. Several times, he looked around at the officer, but the latter kept his eyes shut and was disinclined to listen. 25 |
Putting his fare down at Vyborgskaya, Iona stopped by a restaurant and sat huddled on the box again. 26 |
Again, the wet snow started painting him and his horse white. 27 |
One hour passed. And then another hour passed too. 28 |
Three young men, two tall and thin, one short and hunchbacked, came up, railing at each other and loudly stamping on the pavement with their goloshes. 29 |
“Cabby, to the Police Bridge! The three of us. Twenty kopecks!” the hunchback cried in a cracked voice. 30 |
Iona tugged at the reins and clicked to his horse. Twenty kopecks is not a fair price, but he had no thoughts for that. Whether it was a rouble or five kopecks did not matter to him then, so long as he had a fare. 31 |
The three young men, shoving each other and using foul language, went up to the sledge, and all three tried to sit down at once. 32 |
One problem remained to be settled amongst them before they sat in. ’Which one is to sit down, and which one is to stand?’ After a long altercation, ill-temper, and abuse, they concluded that the hunchback must travel standing because he was the shortest. 33 |
“Well. Drive on!” said the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling himself and breathing down at Iona’s neck. “Cut along! What a cap you have got, my friend! You would not find a worse cap in all Petersburg.” 34 |
“He-he! he-he!” laughed Iona. ”It’s nothing to boast of!” 35 |
“Well, then, if nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like this all the way? Eh! Shall I give you one in the neck?” 36 |
“My head aches. At the Dukmasovs yesterday, Vaska and I drank four bottles of brandy.” said one of the tall ones. 37 |
“I cannot make out why you talk such stuff, You lie like a brute.” said the other tall one angrily. 38 |
“If it is not true, strike me dead, it is the truth!” 39 |
“It is about as true as that a louse coughs.” 40 |
“He-he! Me-er-ry gentlemen!” grinned Iona. 41 |
“Tfoo! The devil will take you! Will you get on, you old plague, or won’t you? Is that the way to drive? Give her one with the whip. Give it her well.” cried the hunchback indignantly. 42 |
Iona felt behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of the hunchback. While looking at the people in front, Iona heard abuse addressed to him. 43 |
And the feeling of loneliness slowly began to be heavy on his heart. The hunchback swore at him till he choked over some elaborately whimsical string of epithets and was overpowered by his cough. 44 |
One of the tall companions began talking of a certain Nadyezhda Petrovna. 45 |
Iona looked around at them. Waiting until they paused, he looked around once more and said, “This week…my son…my son died!” 46 |
“We shall all die,” said the hunchback with a sigh, wiping his lips after coughing. 47 |
“Come on! Drive on! Drive on! My friends, I cannot stand crawling like this! When will he get us there?” 48 |
“Well, you give him a little encouragement. One in the neck!” 49 |
“Do you hear, you old plague? I’ll make you wise. Do you hear, you old dragon? Or don’t you care to hang what we say?” 50 |
And Iona heard rather than felt a slap on the back of his neck. 51 |
“He! he! Merry gentlemen. God give you health!” Iona laughed. 52 |
“Cabman, are you married?” asked one of the tall ones. 53 |
“Am I married? Merry gentlemen. The only wife for me now is the damp earth. The grave, that is! Here, my son is dead, and I am alive. It’s strange; death has come in through the wrong door. Instead of coming for me, it went for my son.” 54 |
Iona turned around to tell them how his son died, but at that point, the hunchback gave a faint sigh and announced, “Thank God! Arrived at last.” 55 |
After taking his twenty kopecks, Iona gazed at them long until the travellers disappeared into a dark entry. 56 |
Again, he was alone, and there was silence for him. The misery which had been for a brief space eased came back again and tore his heart more cruelly than ever. 57 |
With a look of anxiety and suffering, Iona’s eyes strayed restlessly among the crowds moving to and from on both sides of the street. Can he not find among those thousands someone who would listen to him? But the crowd flittered, heedless of him and his misery. 58 |
Iona’s miseries were immense, beyond all bounds. If his heart were to burst and his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world, it seemed, but yet it was not seen. 59 |
His miseries had found a hiding place in such an insignificant shell that one would not have found it with even a candle by daylight. 60 |
Iona saw a house-porter with a parcel and decided to address him. 61 |
“What time will it be, friend?” he asked. 62 |
“Going on for ten. Why have you stopped here? Drive on!” 63 |
Iona drove a few paces away, bent himself double, and gave himself up to his misery. He felt it was no good to appeal to people. 64 |
But before a few minutes had passed, he drew himself up, shook his head as though he felt a sharp pain, and tugged at the reins. He can bear it no longer. 65 |
’Back to the yard! To the yard!’ he thought. 66 |
His little mare, as though she knew his thoughts, fell to trotting. Iona sat by a big dirty stove for an hour and a half. Many people were snoring near the stove, on the floor, and on the benches. 67 |
The air was full of smells and stuffiness. Iona looked at the sleeping figures, scratched himself, and regretted that he had come home so early. 68 |
’I had not even earned enough to pay for the oats. That’s why I am so miserable. A man who knows how to do his work, who has had enough to eat, and whose horse has had enough to eat is always at ease. he thought. 69 |
In one of the corners, Iona saw a young cabman get up, clear is throat sleepily, and prepare to go to the water bucket. 70 |
“Want a drink?” Iona asked him. 71 |
“Seems so.” 72 |
“May it do you good. But my son is dead, mate. Do you hear? This week in the hospital. It’s a queer business.” 73 |
Iona looked to see the effect his words had on him, but he saw nothing. The young man had covered his head and long gone asleep. 74 |
Iona sighs and scratches himself. Just as the young man had been thirsty for water, he thirsted for speech. 75 |
His son soon had been dead a week, and he had not talked to anybody yet. He wanted to talk of it properly, with deliberation. 76 |
Iona wanted to tell how his son had been taken ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died, and so on. He wanted to describe the funeral and how he went to the hospital to get his son’s clothes. 77 |
He still had his daughter Anisya in a faraway country and wanted to talk about her, too. Yes, he has plenty to talk about now. 78 |
His listener ought to sigh and exclaim and lament. It would be even better to talk to women. They blubber at the first word. 79 |
’Let’s go out and have a look at the mare. There is always time for sleep. I will have enough sleep, no fear.’ Iona thought. 80 |
He put on his coat and entered the stables where his mare stood. He thought about oats, about hay, about the weather. He could not think about his son when he was alone. 81 |
Talking about him with someone was possible. But thinking of and picturing him is an insufferable anguish. 82 |
“Are you munching? There, munch away, munch away. Since we have not earned enough for oats, we will eat hay.” Iona asked his mare, seeing her shining eyes. 83 |
“Yes, I have grown too old to drive. My son ought to be driving, not I. He was a real cabman. He ought to have lived.” 84 |
Iona was silent for a while, and then he went on to say. 85 |
“That’s how it is, old girl. Kuzma Ionitch is gone. He said goodbye to me. He went and died for no reason. How am I going to explain that to you.” 86 |
“Suppose you had a little colt, and you were your mother to that little colt, and all at once, that little colt went and died. You would be sorry. Would not you?” 87 |
The little mare was munching, listening, and breathing on her master’s hands. 88 |
Iona was carried away with that and started telling her everything. 89 |
Iona said everything. Everything about how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died, how the funeral took place, how he went to the hospital to collect the dead man’s clothes. 90 |
The mare listened to all. 91 ★ |
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