“Don’t meddle then!” answered Ignashka, whistling merrily to his horses.

The other driver, sitting in the same sledge as the counsellor, said nothing to Ignashka, and refrained altogether from taking part in the proceedings, though he was not yet asleep, as I concluded from his still glowing pipe, and from the fact that when we stopped I heard his regular, continuous talk. He was telling a tale. Only once, when Ignashka stopped for the sixth or seventh time, apparently vexed at the interruption in his enjoyment of the drive, he shouted to him⁠—

“Why, what are you stopping again for?⁠ ⁠… Trying to find the road, indeed! Don’t you see, there’s a snowstorm! The land-surveyor himself couldn’t find the road now; you should drive on as long as the horses will go. We shan’t freeze to death, I don’t suppose.⁠ ⁠… Do go on!”

“I dare say! A postillion was frozen to death last year, sure enough!” my driver retorted.