“He has just entered his seventeenth year. Pétroucha was born the same year that Nastasia Garasimova lost her eye, and—”
“Well, well,” my father replied, “he starts for his regiment to-morrow.”
My mother burst into tears, and I jumped for joy.
“Don’t forget, André Pétrovitch,” said my mother to my father, who was writing my letter of introduction, “to remember me to Prince B——, and to bid him show every kindness to Pétroucha.”
“Pétroucha is not going to St. Petersburg,” my father replied. I was heart-broken. I had dreamed of nothing but St. Petersburg. When my father had finished the letter, he turned to me and said:
“This letter is addressed to André Karlovitch, my old companion in arms. He is at Orenberg, and you will join him there.” The kibitka was at the door. The servants had stowed away in it a tea-service, and pies of different sorts tied up in cloths. My parents gave me their blessing. My father said to me, “Good bye, Pierre; serve your Empress with fidelity; obey your superiors, don’t seek favours from them; and remember the proverb, ‘Take care of your coat while it is new, and of your honour while it is white.’” A hare-skin touloup, or cape, was thrown about me, and over it a fox-skin cloak. Thus equipped, I took my seat in the kibitka, and left my parents, accompanied by Savéliitch.
We arrived that night at Simbirsk, where I committed my first folly by losing one hundred roubles at billiards, while Savéliitch was out, executing some orders from home with which he had been entrusted. I lost this sum to Ivan Lowrine, a captain of hussars. On this occasion I also became intoxicated for the first time. Savéliitch hastened my departure the following morning, and reluctantly paid my losses. I promised him that, henceforth, I would not spend a single kopek without his consent.
We travelled rapidly; and, as we approached our destination, the country became a measureless waste, covered with snow. Presently, the coachman, taking off his hat, asked me anxiously whether we should not return; and, pointing to a white cloud far in the east, said, “That is the bourane!”
I had heard of the bourane, and I knew that it sometimes buried whole caravans of travellers. I knew it to be a tremendous cloud of snow, out of which few people, once fairly in it, ever made their way. But this one seemed to me to be a long way off, so I told the coachman to drive forward. We went at full gallop. The wind rose rapidly, however; the little white cloud became a huge moving snow mountain; very fine flakes began to fall about us; then the wind howled, and in a few minutes we could not see an inch beyond our noses. It was, in truth, the bourane. The horses stopped; the snow began to bury us; Savéliitch began to scold; the coachman played nervously with the horses’ harness—and no house could be seen. We had begun to believe we should be soon buried alive, when we suddenly perceived a black object near us, which we were afraid was a wolf, but which turned out to be a man. We asked our way; he replied that he knew the country under ordinary circumstances, but could not distinguish anything then. Suddenly he cried, “Turn to the left—there you will find a house: I smell the smoke.”
The coachman managed to whip the horses into unusual exertion, and we presently reached a hut lighted by a loutchina (a deal stick which serves for a candle). The ornaments of the little room into which we were ushered were a carbine and a Cossack hat. The Cossack host got us some tea; and then I inquired for a guide. Some one called out from a recess that he was cold, for he had pawned his touloup the day before, for brandy. I offered him a cup of tea, and he advanced to drink it. He was a remarkable fellow in appearance: tall, with very broad shoulders. He wore a black beard, and short hair; his eyes were restless and large; the expression of his face was, at times agreeable, at times malicious. He preferred brandy to tea; and, having held a mysterious conversation with the host, he retired for the night. I did not like the look of affairs; the hut was in the middle of the steppe—very lonely, and very like the meeting-place for thieves.