"Stephan," said the stout official, "can the sledge go through the wood?"
"No," was the sulky reply.
"Ah, but when you get something on your obstinate neck it can. Turn round, rascal! In winter one can go everywhere."
Anjuta had become quite silent. Why was the kind gentleman so angry all of a sudden? The sledge had already reached the wood.
"How pleased Grandfather will be!" she thought, and smiled again her happy childish smile.
XII
Ivan the Runaway's heart sank when Anjuta had gone. "Not even can I pray for her, sinner that I am!" he thought. "I would only bring down misfortune on her."
Suppose a stray wolf attacked her, or she lost her way? There would be no one to help her. His imagination continued to conjure up ever darker and darker images. He saw her little body writhing under the claws of a hungry wild beast, or sinking in the treacherous snow of a deep ravine; he saw her wandering blindly in the thickets of the forest and heard her childish voice crying, "Grandfather, Grandfather, I am frightened!"
Hour after hour passed. The hut seemed too narrow for him. He knew that she would spend the night in the village, and yet he ventured out in the cold, drawn by the hope that he would see her suddenly standing before him laughing and happy with radiant eyes.
Over the white-clothed forest there brooded a foreboding silence; the sky was overcast by dark clouds and the pine-trees towered gaunt and forbidding. A feeling of terror slowly stole over him. Formerly he had never known it in his solitude, but Anjuta had accustomed him to human companionship. Was not somebody creeping near, just as he himself had often crept when on a thievish expedition? His heart beat violently as though it would burst; he stuffed a handful of snow in his mouth in order to quench the burning sensations within him.