“Why don’t you go on?” I said, impatiently, to the driver.

“But where to?” he replied, getting out of the sledge.  “Heaven only knows where we are now.  There is no longer any road, and it is all dark.”

I began to scold him, but Saveliitch took his part.

“Why did you not listen to him?” he said to me, angrily.  “You would have gone back to the post-house; you would have had some tea; you could have slept till morning; the storm would have blown over, and we should have started.  And why such haste?  Had it been to get married, now!”

Saveliitch was right.  What was there to do?  The snow continued to fall—­a heap was rising around the kibitka.  The horses stood motionless, hanging their heads and shivering from time to time.

The driver walked round them, settling their harness, as if he had nothing else to do.  Saveliitch grumbled.  I was looking all round in hopes of perceiving some indication of a house or a road; but I could not see anything but the confused whirling of the snowstorm.

All at once I thought I distinguished something black.

“Hullo, driver!” I exclaimed, “what is that black thing over there?”

The driver looked attentively in the direction I was pointing out.

“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 light, 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?”