“We’ve got to get there,” said the driver, and he said something more which I could not catch in the wind.
I did not want to turn back; but to spend the night driving in the frost and the snowstorm about the absolutely desolate steppe of that part of the Don Cossack district was a very cheerless prospect. And although in the dark I could not see my driver distinctly, I somehow did not take to him, and felt no confidence in him. He was sitting with his legs hanging down before him exactly in the middle of his seat instead of on one side. His voice sounded listless; he wore a big hat with a wavering brim, not a coachman’s cap, and besides he did not drive in correct style, but held the reins in both hands, like a footman who has taken the coachman’s place on the box. And what prejudiced me most of all was that he had tied a kerchief over his ears. In short, the serious, bent back before my eyes impressed me unfavourably and seemed to promise no good.
“Well, I think it would be better to turn back,” said Alyoshka; “it’s poor fun being lost.”
“Lord, ’a’ mercy! how the snow is flying; no chance of seeing the road; one’s eyes choked up entirely. … Lord, ’a’ mercy!” grumbled the driver.
We had not driven on another quarter of an hour, when the driver, pulling up the horses, handed the reins to Alyoshka, clumsily extricated his legs from the box, and walked off to look for the road, his big boots crunching in the snow.
“Where are you going? Are we off the road, eh?” I inquired, but the driver did not answer. Turning his head to avoid the wind, which was cutting straight in his face, he walked away from the sledge.
“Well, found it?” I questioned him again, when he had come back.
“No, nothing,” he said with sudden impatience and annoyance, as though I were to blame for his having got off the road, and deliberately