‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ he said to himself as he fell, and he tried to stop his fall but could not, and only stopped when his feet plunged into a thick layer of snow that had drifted to the bottom of the hollow.
The fringe of a drift of snow that hung on the edge of the hollow, disturbed by Nikita’s fall, showered down on him and got inside his collar.
‘What a thing to do!’ said Nikita reproachfully, addressing the drift and the hollow and shaking the snow from under his collar.
‘Nikita! Hey, Nikita!’ shouted Vasili Andreevich from above.
But Nikita did not reply. He was too occupied in shaking out the snow and searching for the whip he had dropped when rolling down the incline. Having found the whip he tried to climb straight up the bank where he had rolled down, but it was impossible to do so: he kept rolling down again, and so he had to go along at the foot of the hollow to find a way up. About seven yards farther on he managed with difficulty to crawl up the incline on all fours, then he followed the edge of the hollow back to the place where the horse should have been. He could not see either horse or sledge, but as he walked against the wind he heard Vasili Andreevich’s shouts and Mukhorty’s neighing, calling him.
‘I’m coming! I’m coming! What are you cackling for?’ he muttered.
Only when he had come up to the sledge could he make out the horse, and Vasili Andreevich standing beside it and looking gigantic.
‘Where the devil did you vanish to? We must go back, if only to Grishkino,’ he began reproaching Nikita.
‘I’d be glad to get back, Vasili Andreevich, but which way are we to go? There is such a ravine here that if we once get in it we shan’t get out again. I got stuck so fast there myself that I could hardly get out.’
‘What shall we do, then? We can’t stay here! We must go somewhere!’ said Vasili Andreevich.