throwing down the reins, and went ahead to see what had brought him to a standstill, but hardly had he made a step in front of the horse before his feet slipped and he went rolling down an incline.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said to himself as he fell, and he tried to stop his fall but could not, and only stopped when his feet plunged into a thick layer of snow that had drifted to the bottom of the hollow.
The fringe of a drift of snow that hung on the edge of the hollow, disturbed by Nikíta’s fall, showered down on him and got inside his collar.
“What a thing to do!” said Nikíta reproachfully, addressing the drift and the hollow and shaking the snow from under his collar.
“Nikíta! Hey, Nikíta!” shouted Vasíli Andréevich from above.
But Nikíta did not reply. He was too occupied in shaking out the snow and searching for the whip he had dropped when rolling down the incline. Having found the whip he tried to climb straight up the bank where he had rolled down, but it was impossible to do so: he kept rolling down again, and so he had to go along at the foot of the hollow to find a way up. About seven yards farther on he managed with difficulty to crawl up the incline on all fours, then he followed the edge of the hollow back to the place where the horse should have been. He could not see either horse or sledge, but as he walked against the wind he heard Vasíli Andréevich’s shouts and Mukhórty’s neighing, calling him.
“I’m coming! I’m coming! What are you cackling for?” he muttered.
Only when he had come up to the sledge could he make out the horse, and Vasíli Andréevich standing beside it and looking gigantic.
“Where the devil did you vanish to? We must go back, if only to Gríshkino,” he began reproaching Nikíta.