It was already growing dark. The snowstorm had not increased but had also not subsided.
“If we could only hear those peasants!” said Vasíli Andréevich.
“Well they haven’t caught us up. We must have gone far astray. Or maybe they have lost their way too.”
“Where are we to go then?” asked Vasíli Andréevich.
“Why, we must let the horse take its own way,” said Nikíta. “He will take us right. Let me have the reins.”
Vasíli Andréevich gave him the reins, the more willingly because his hands were beginning to feel frozen in his thick gloves.
Nikíta took the reins, but only held them, trying not to shake them and rejoicing at his favourite’s sagacity. And indeed the clever horse, turning first one ear and then the other now to one side and then to the other, began to wheel round.
“The one thing he can’t do is to talk,” Nikíta kept saying. “See what he is doing! Go on, go on! You know best. That’s it, that’s it!”
The wind was now blowing from behind and it felt warmer.
“Yes, he’s clever,” Nikíta continued, admiring the horse. “A Kirgiz horse is strong but stupid. But this one—just see what he’s doing with his ears! He doesn’t need any telegraph. He can scent a mile off.”
Before another half-hour had passed they saw something dark ahead of them—a wood or a village—and stakes again appeared to the right. They had evidently come out onto the road.
“Why, that’s Gríshkino again!” Nikíta suddenly exclaimed.