“Never mind, you’ll get there,” murmured Wiseacre in a voice which conveyed his assurance that in this world there was no need of hurrying—that it was all the same in the long run.
The heavy, awkward barge parted from the bank, and made its way slowly through the willows; and only the slightly perceptible backward movement of the willows indicated that the barge was moving at all. The ferrymen, with measured slowness, swung their oars. Wiseacre lay on his stomach across the helm, and, describing a curve in the air, was thrown from one side to the other. In the dark, it seemed as if a number of men were sitting on some long-clawed antediluvian animal and were floating towards that cold, melancholy land seen only in nightmares.
The barge passed beyond the willows and was now in the open. Presently, on the other bank, could be heard the creaking and the measured dipping of the oars; while those in the boat could hear some one shouting, “Quicker! Quicker!” Another ten minutes, and the barge struck heavily against the landing.
“It keeps on snowing! It keeps on snowing!” grumbled Simon, wiping the snow from his face. “God knows where it all comes from!”
On the bank stood a rather thin, low-statured old man, dressed in a short foxskin coat and a white lambskin cap. He stood at some distance from the horses and did not move; his face had a morose, concentrated expression, as if he were making an effort to recall something and were angry at his disobedient memory. When Simon, smiling, approached him, and took off his cap, the man said:
“I am in great haste to go to Anastasevka. My daughter is worse again, and there, I am told, a new doctor has come.”
The coach was wheeled on board the barge, which started to cross back. The man, whom Simon called Vassili Sergeyich, stood all the time immovable, tightly compressing his thick lips, and looking with a fixed gaze into the distance. When the driver asked permission to smoke in his presence, he did not reply, as if he had not heard. Simon lay on the bottom of the boat, on his stomach, looked at him derisively, and said:
“Even in Siberia people live. L-live!”
The face of Wiseacre wore a triumphant expression, as if he had demonstrated something and rejoiced that what he had prophesied had come true. The unhappy, helpless look of the man in the foxskin coat apparently afforded him considerable gratification.
“Rather muddy now for travelling, Vassili Sergeyich,” said he, while the horses were being harnessed. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to postpone your trip for a week or two, till it gets a bit more dry. Perhaps it were better you didn’t go at all.... If there were only some sense in your going! Well, you yourself know that people travel eternally, day and night, and get nowheres. What do you say?”