VIII

When I regained consciousness, the swarm of bees had flown away, and I found myself at the bottom of a deep hole under the snow; I was lying at the very bottom of it with outstretched arms and legs, and I felt nothing; neither cold, nor hunger, nor thirst. No, nothing at all. Only my head was so confused and dull that it caused me some trouble to recall to my memory all that had happened to me, and in what position I then was. But of course all this became clear at last, and the first thought that entered my mind at the time was that my savage had woken up before me, and had run off alone, leaving me to my fate.

Indeed, looking at it from an impartial point of view, he should have done so, especially after my threats of yesterday to have him baptized, and to have search made for his brother Kuz’ma-Demyan; but he in his heathen manner acted differently. I had scarcely moved my stiffened limbs and sat up on the bottom of my hollowed grave, when I saw him about thirty paces from me. He was standing under a large rime-covered tree, and was making strange movements, and above him on a long branch a dog was hanging, from whose ripped up belly the still warm intestines were hanging out.

I understood that he was making a sacrifice, or, as they say, performing a mystery, and to speak the truth, I was not sorry that this sacrifice had detained him until I was awake, and could prevent him from abandoning me. For I was firmly persuaded that the heathen must certainly have the unchristian intention of doing so, and I envied Father Kiriak, who was now, though suffering the same misfortunes, at least in the company of a Christian, who would doubtless be more reliable than my heathen. It may have been caused by my own difficult position, that a suspicion was born in me that perhaps Father Kiriak, who was able to foresee, better than I could, all the accidents of Siberian travel, had, under the guise of benevolence, cunningly managed to pass on to me the heathen, while he took the Christian for himself. Of course this was not at all like Father Kiriak, and even now, when it recurs to my memory, I feel ashamed of these suspicions; but what was I to do when they crossed my mind?

I crawled out of the snow heap and began to approach my savage; he heard the snow creak under my feet, and turned round, but at once resumed the performance of his mysteries.

“Well, have you not bowed enough?” I said, after standing beside him for about a minute.

“Enough, Bachka” – and returning at once to the sledge, he began to reharness the remaining dogs. When they were harnessed we started.

“To whom were you making that sacrifice?” I asked him, pointing back.

“I don’t know, Bachka.”

“But you sacrificed the dog to some one? – to God or to the devil? – to Shaytan?

“To Shaytan, Bachka, of course, to Shaytan.”

“Why did you make him this gift?”

“Because he did not freeze us, Bachka; it was for that I gave him the dog for him grub.”

“H’m! yes, for him grub – he won’t burst, but I’m sorry for the dog.”

“Why, Bachka, why are you sorry? The dog was a bad one, it would soon have died; it does not matter – let him have it – let him grub?”

“So that’s how you reckon? You gave him a dog that was half dead.”

“Of course, Bachka.”

“Please tell me, where are you driving now?”

“Don’t know, Bachka, we’re looking for the track.”

“But where is my priest – my companion?”

“Don’t know, Bachka.”

“How are we to find him?”

“Don’t know, Bachka.”

“Perhaps he has been frozen.”

“Why should he be frozen? There’s snow, he won’t freeze.”

I remembered that Kiriak had the bottle with warming drink, and the basket of provisions, and was reassured. I had nothing of the sort with me, and now I would gladly have eaten even the dogs’ dried fish; but I was afraid to ask for it, because I was not sure if we had any.

All day long we seemed to be going round and round at random; I saw it, if not by the passionless face of my driver, by the restless, irregular and troubled movements of his dogs, which seemed to be jumping about, fidgeting, and always throwing themselves from side to side. My savage had much trouble with them, but his unchanging passionless indifference did not desert him for a moment; he only seemed to work with his long stick with greater attention, without which on this day we should have been thrown out at least a hundred times, and left either in the middle of the wilderness or else by the woods which we were constantly skirting.

Suddenly one of the dogs stuck its muzzle into the snow, twitched with its hind legs, and fell. My savage knew better than I did what this meant, and what new misfortune was threatening us, but he neither showed alarm nor agitation; now as always he planted his stick into the snow with a firm, steady hand, and gave me this anchor of safety to hold, while he quickly sprang out of the sledge, extracted the exhausted dog from its harness, and dragged it to the back of the sledge. I thought he was going to dispatch it and throw it away, but when I looked back I saw that this dog was also suspended from a tree with its body ripped open and its bloody intestines hanging out. It was a horrible sight.

“What’s this again?” I shouted to him.

“It’s for Shaytan, Bachka.”

“Come, brother, that’s enough for your Shaytan. It’s too much for him to eat two dogs a day.”

“Never mind, Bachka, let him grub.”

“No, it’s not ‘never mind,’” I said. “But if you go on killing them at this rate, you will soon have killed them all for Shaytan.”

“Bachka, I only give him those that die.”

“You had better feed them.”

“There’s no food, Bachka.”

“So!” This only proved what I had feared.

The short day was already sinking into evening, and it was evident that the remaining dogs were quite exhausted; their strength was gone, and from time to time they began to gasp wildly and to sit down. Suddenly another fell, while all the rest, as if by agreement, sat down on their haunches and began to howl, as if they were celebrating a requiem for it.

My savage arose, and was about to hang up the third dog for Shaytan, but this time I strictly forbade it. I was so tired of seeing the ceremony, and this abomination seemed only to increase the horror of our situation.

“Stop!” I said, “don’t touch it; let it die a natural death.”

He did not dispute it, but with his usual imperturbable calmness, did the most unexpected thing. He silently stuck his long stick into the snow in front of our sledge, and began to unharness the dogs one after the other, and let them go free. The hungry animals seemed to forget their weariness; they whined, began to yelp and suddenly rushed off in a pack in the same direction, and in a moment they were lost to sight in the wood beyond the distant fallow land. All this happened so quickly that it reminded me of the story of “Il’ià Murometz”: “All saw Il’ià mount his horse, but none saw him ride away.” Our motive power had left us; we would have to walk. Of the ten dogs which so lately had been strong and healthy, only one remained with us, and it lay at our feet in its harness dying.

My savage stood by with the same apathy, resting on his stick, and looking at his feet.

“Why did you do that?” I cried.

“I’ve let them go, Bachka.”

“I see you have; but will they come back?”

“No, Bachka, they won’t; they’ll become wild.”

“Why did you let them loose?”

“They want to grub, Bachka, let them catch an animal – they’ll grub.”

“But what shall we grub?”

“Nothing, Bachka.”

“Ah! you monster!”

He evidently did not understand, and did not answer, but stuck his stick into the snow, and went away. Nobody would have guessed why he went away from me. I shouted after him, called him back, but he only gazed at me with his dull eyes and growled, “Hold your tongue, Bachka,” and went further. He also soon disappeared in the skirts of the forest, and I remained quite alone.

Is it necessary for me to dwell on the terrible position in which I found myself, or perhaps you will better understand all its horrors, when I tell you I could think of nothing but that I was hungry, that I wanted to eat not in the human sense of the wish for food, but to devour as a famished wolf would devour its prey. I took my watch out of my pocket, pressed the spring, and was staggered by a new surprise: my watch had stopped – a thing that had never happened before. With trembling hands I tried to wind it up, and convinced myself it had stopped only because it had run down; it could go for nearly two days. This proved to me that when we passed the night under the snow, we had lain for more than twenty-four hours in our icy grave! How long had it been? Perhaps twenty-four hours, perhaps thrice that time. I no longer was surprised that I was suffering so acutely from hunger. This proved that at the very least I had not eaten for three days, and when I realized it I felt the torments of hunger all the sharper.

If I could only eat – eat anything! a dirty, a nasty thing – only eat something! That was all I could understand, as I cast my eyes in unbearable suffering despairingly around me.

IX

We were on a flat elevation, behind us lay an enormous limitless waste, before us its endless continuation, to the right a hollow filled with snow-drifts bounded by rising ground, while beyond, at a great distance, the blue line of the forest, into which our dogs had disappeared, showed dimly on the horizon. To the left stretched the skirts of another wood, along which we had driven until our team had been dispersed, and we ourselves were standing at the foot of a huge snowdrift, that had been blown over a small hillock covered with tall pines and firs, that seemed to reach to the sky. Sitting on the edge of the sledge, exhausted by hunger and numb with cold, I could not pay any attention to what was around me, nor did I notice when my savage appeared beside me. I neither saw how he approached, nor how he silently seated himself near me, and now at last when I noticed him he was sitting, with his long stick across his knees, and his hands hidden in the breast of his fur coat. Not a feature of his face had changed, not a muscle had moved, and his eyes had no expression beyond a dull calm submission.

I looked at him, but did not speak to him, and he as was his wont, never spoke first; this time he remained silent too. We understood each other, and we sat thus, side by side, through the endless dark night without exchanging a single word.

But as soon as the grey dawn began to show itself in the sky, the savage silently rose from the sledge, stuck his hands deeper into the bosom of his fur coat, and again began to wander about, and, constantly stopping, he would examine the trees long, very long, and then walk on. At last he disappeared from my sight, and then in the same quick passionless way returned, and at once dived under the sledge and began to arrange or to disarrange something.

“What are you doing there?” I asked – and in speaking made the unpleasant discovery that my voice had become weak and had even quite changed its tone, while my savage spoke now as before, biting off his words jerkily.

“Getting my snow-shoes, Bachka.”

“Snow-shoes!” I cried in horror, and it was now that I understood for the first time the meaning of “sharpening one’s snow-shoes.” “Why are you getting your snow-shoes?”

“I shall run away at once.”

“Ah, you villain!” I thought. “Where are you going?”

“I shall run to the right, Bachka.”

“Why will you run that way?”

“To bring you grub.”

“You lie!” I said. “You want to desert me.”

But without the slightest confusion he answered:

“No, I shall bring you grub.”

“Where will you find grub?”

“Don’t know, Bachka.”

“You don’t know then where you are running?”

“To the right.”

“Who is there to the right?”

“Don’t know, Bachka.”

“If you don’t know, why are you running away?”

“Have found a sign – there’s a tent.”

“You lie, my dear fellow,” I said. “You want to leave me here alone.”

“No, I will bring grub.”

“Well, go, only it’s better not to lie, go where you like.”

“Why lie, Bachka, not good lie.”

“It’s not at all good, brother, but you are lying.”

“No, Bachka, I don’t lie; come with me. I show you sign.”

He caught up the snow-shoes, and his stick, and dragging them after him, took me by the hand, led me up to a certain tree, and asked:

“Bachka, do you see?”

“What is there to see?” I answered. “I see a tree and nothing more.”

“But there on the large branch, twig on twig, do you see?”

“Well, and what of that? There is a twig, and probably the wind blew it there.”

“No wind, Bachka; it’s not wind, but kind man put it there – on that side there’s a tent.”

It was very evident he was either deceiving me, or was himself deceived, but what was I to do? I could not keep him by force from going and what would be the use of preventing him? Was it not all the same to die from starvation and cold – alone, or for two to die together? Let him run away and save himself if he could do so, and I said to him as the monks do: “Save thyself, brother.”

He answered quietly: “Thank you, Bachka,” and with these words fixed his snow-shoes firmly on his feet took his stick over his shoulder, scraped first with one foot and then with the other, and ran away. In a minute he was lost to sight, and I remained quite alone in the midst of snow and frost, and now quite exhausted by the acute cravings of hunger.