hasn't,' she replied. He heard someone drive up to the front
steps. 'It must be him.' 'No, he's gone past.' 'Nikolaevna!

I say, Nikolaevna, isn't he here yet?' 'No.' He was still
lying on his bed and could not get up, but was always waiting.

And this waiting was uncanny and yet joyful. Then suddenly his
joy was completed. He whom he was expecting came; not Ivan

Matveich the police-officer, but someone else--yet it was he
whom he had been waiting for. He came and called him; and it

was he who had called him and told him to lie down on Nikita.
And Vasili Andreevich was glad that that one had come for him.

'I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but
woke him up not at all the same person he had been when he fell

asleep. He tried to get up but could not, tried to move his
arm and could not, to move his leg and also could not, to turn

his head and could not. He was surprised but not at all
disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was

not at all disturbed by that either.
He remembered that Nikita was lying under him and that he had

got warm and was alive, and it seemed to him that he was Nikita
and Nikita was he, and that his life was not in himself but in

Nikita. He strained his ears and heard Nikita breathing and
even slightly snoring. 'Nikita is alive, so I too am alive!'

he said to himself triumphantly.
And he remembered his money, his shop, his house, the buying

and selling, and Mironov's millions, and it was hard for him to
understand why that man, called Vasili Brekhunov, had troubled

himself with all those things with which he had been troubled.
'Well, it was because he did not know what the real thing was,'

he thought, concerning that Vasili Brekhunov. 'He did not
know, but now I know and know for sure. Now I know!' And again

he heard the voice of the one who had called him before. 'I'm
coming! Coming!' he responded gladly, and his whole being was

filled with joyfulemotion. He felt himself free and that
nothing could hold him back any longer.

After that Vasili Andreevich neither saw, heard, nor felt
anything more in this world.

All around the snow still eddied. The same whirlwinds of snow
circled about, covering the dead Vasili Andreevich's fur coat,

the shivering Mukhorty, the sledge, now scarcely to be seen,
and Nikita lying at the bottom of it, kept warm beneath his

dead master.
X

Nikita awoke before daybreak. He was aroused by the cold that
had begun to creep down his back. He had dreamt that he was

coming from the mill with a load of his master's flour and when
crossing the stream had missed the bridge and let the cart get

stuck. And he saw that he had crawled under the cart and was
trying to lift it by arching his back. But strange to say the

cart did not move, it stuck to his back and he could neither
lift it nor get out from under it. It was crushing the whole

of his loins. And how cold it felt! Evidently he must crawl
out. 'Have done!' he exclaimed to whoever was pressing the

cart down on him. 'Take out the sacks!' But the cart pressed
down colder and colder, and then he heard a strange knocking,

awoke completely, and remembered everything. The cold cart was
his dead and frozen master lying upon him. And the knock was

produced by Mukhorty, who had twice struck the sledge with his
hoof.

'Andreevich! Eh, Andreevich!' Nikita called cautiously,
beginning to realize the truth, and straightening his back.

But Vasili Andreevich did not answer and his stomach and legs
were stiff and cold and heavy like iron weights.

'He must have died! May the Kingdom of Heaven be his!' thought
Nikita.

He turned his head, dug with his hand through the snow about
him and opened his eyes. It was daylight; the wind was

whistling as before between the shafts, and the snow was
falling in the same way, except that it was no longer driving

against the frame of the sledge but silently covered both
sledge and horse deeper and deeper, and neither the horse's

movements nor his breathing were any longer to be heard.
'He must have frozen too,' thought Nikita of Mukhorty, and

indeed those hoof knocks against the sledge, which had awakened
Nikita, were the last efforts the already numbed Mukhorty had

made to keep on his feet before dying.
'O Lord God, it seems Thou art calling me too!' said Nikita.

'Thy Holy Will be done. But it's uncanny. . . . Still, a man
can't die twice and must die once. If only it would come

soon!'
And he again drew in his head, closed his eyes, and became

unconscious, fully convinced that now he was certainly and
finally dying.

It was not till noon that day that peasants dug Vasili
Andreevich and Nikita out of the snow with their shovels, not

more than seventy yards from the road and less than half a mile
from the village.

The snow had hidden the sledge, but the shafts and the kerchief
tied to them were still visible. Mukhorty, buried up to his

belly in snow, with the breeching and drugget hanging down,
stood all white, his dead head pressed against his frozen

throat: icicles hung from his nostrils, his eyes were covered
with hoar-frost as though filled with tears, and he had grown

so thin in that one night that he was nothing but skin and
bone.

Vasili Andreevich was stiff as a frozencarcass, and when they
rolled him off Nikita his legs remained apart and his arms

stretched out as they had been. His bulging hawk eyes were
frozen, and his open mouth under his clipped moustache was full

of snow. But Nikita though chilled through was still alive.
When he had been brought to, he felt sure that he was already

dead and that what was taking place with him was no longer
happening in this world but in the next. When he heard the

peasants shouting as they dug him out and rolled the frozen
body of Vasili Andreevich from off him, he was at first

surprised that in the other world peasants should be shouting
in the same old way and had the same kind of body, and then

when he realized that he was still in this world he was sorry
rather than glad, especially when he found that the toes on

both his feet were frozen.
Nikita lay in hospital for two months. They cut off three of

his toes, but the others recovered so that he was still able to
work and went on living for another twenty years, first as a

farm-labourer, then in his old age as a watchman. He died at
home as he had wished, only this year, under the icons with a

lighted taper in his hands. Before he died he asked his wife's
forgiveness and forgave her for the cooper. He also took leave

of his son and grandchildren, and died sincerely glad that he
was relieving his son and daughter-in-law of the burden of

having to feed him, and that he was now really passing from
this life of which he was weary into that other life which

every year and every hour grew clearer and more desirable to
him. Whether he is better or worse off there where he awoke

after his death, whether he was disappointed or found there
what he expected, we shall all soon learn.

End

• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
• emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
• stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
• evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
• frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• stomach [´stʌmək] n.胃；胃口，食欲 (初中英语单词)
• daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
• silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
• hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
• desirable [di´zaiərəbəl] a.向往的；极好的 (初中英语单词)
• joyful [´dʒɔifəl] a.高兴的，充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
• concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
• gladly [´glædli] ad.愉快地，高兴地 (高中英语单词)
• sledge [sledʒ] n.雪橇；大锤 (高中英语单词)
• whoever [hu:´evə] pron.任何人，无论谁 (高中英语单词)
• hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
• sincerely [sin´siəli] ad.真诚地；诚恳地 (高中英语单词)
• joyfully [´dʒɔifuli] ad.高兴地，快乐地 (英语四级单词)
• daybreak [´deibreik] n.黎明，拂晓 (英语四级单词)
• bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
• carcass [´kɑ:kəs] n.(动物的)尸体 (英语四级单词)
• watchman [´wɔtʃmən] n.(夜间)看守人 (英语四级单词)
• uncanny [ʌn´kæni] a.神秘的；离奇的 (英语六级单词)
• calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
• cooper [´ku:pə] v.&n.制桶工人；修桶工人 (英语六级单词)