"How do you know where the road is that you are so ready to say, 'Other people's horses, other people's harness—whip away!'"
It seemed to me the driver was right.
"Why," said I to the stranger, "do you think a house is not far off?"
"The wind blew from that direction," replied he, "and I smelt smoke, a sure sign that a house is near."
His cleverness and the acuteness of his sense of smell alike astonished me. I bid the driver go where the other wished. The horses ploughed their way through the deep snow. The kibitka advanced slowly, sometimes upraised on a drift, sometimes precipitated into a ditch, and swinging from side to side. It was very like a boat on a stormy sea.
Savéliitch groaned deeply as every moment he fell upon me. I lowered the tsinofka,[16] I rolled myself up in my cloak and I went to sleep, rocked by the whistle of the storm and the lurching of the sledge. I had then a dream that I have never forgotten, and in which I still see something prophetic, as I recall the strange events of my life. The reader will forgive me if I relate it to him, as he knows, no doubt, by experience how natural it is for man to retain a vestige of superstition in spite of all the scorn for it he may think proper to assume.
I had reached the stage when the real and unreal begin to blend into the first vague visions of drowsiness. It seemed to me that the snowstorm continued, and that we were wandering in the snowy desert. All at once I thought I saw a great gate, and we entered the courtyard of our house. My first thought was a fear that my father would be angry at my involuntary return to the paternal roof, and would attribute it to a premeditated disobedience. Uneasy, I got out of my kibitka, and I saw my mother come to meet me, looking very sad.
"Don't make a noise," she said to me. "Your father is on his death-bed, and wishes to bid you farewell."
Struck with horror, I followed her into the bedroom. I look round; the room is nearly dark. Near the bed some people were standing, looking sad and cast down. I approached on tiptoe. My mother raised the curtain, and said—
"Andréj Petróvitch, Petróusha has come back; he came back having heard of your illness. Give him your blessing."