Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
'But I must cover up the horse first he sweated so, poor thing. Let go! he added, drawing the drugget from under Vasili Andreevich. Having got the drugget he folded it in two, and after taking off the breechband and pad, covered Mukhorty with it. 'Anyhow it will be warmer, silly! he said, putting back the breechband and the pad on the horse over the drugget.
All around the snow still eddied. The same whirlwinds of snow circled about, covering the dead Vasili Andreevich's fur coat, the shivering Mukhorty, the sledge, now scarcely to be seen, and Nikita lying at the bottom of it, kept warm beneath his dead master. Nikita awoke before daybreak. He was aroused by the cold that had begun to creep down his back.
'I expect it won't be long before dawn. But he at once remembered that it was lighter because the moon had risen. He sat up and looked first at the horse. Mukhorty still stood with his back to the wind, shivering all over.
'That's a good horse, said Isay, with a shrewd glance at Mukhorty, and with a practised hand he tightened the loosened knot high in the horse's bushy tail. 'Are you going to stay the night? 'No, friend. I must get on. 'Your business must be pressing. And who is this? Ah, Nikita Stepanych! 'Who else? replied Nikita. 'But I say, good friend, how are we to avoid going astray again?
Mukhorty, buried up to his belly in snow, with the breeching and drugget hanging down, stood all white, his dead head pressed against his frozen throat: icicles hung from his nostrils, his eyes were covered with hoar-frost as though filled with tears, and he had grown so thin in that one night that he was nothing but skin and bone.
'He must have frozen too, thought Nikita of Mukhorty, and indeed those hoof knocks against the sledge, which had awakened Nikita, were the last efforts the already numbed Mukhorty had made to keep on his feet before dying. 'O Lord God, it seems Thou art calling me too! said Nikita. 'Thy Holy Will be done. But it's uncanny.... Still, a man can't die twice and must die once.
And the knock was produced by Mukhorty, who had twice struck the sledge with his hoof. 'Andreevich! Eh, Andreevich! Nikita called cautiously, beginning to realize the truth, and straightening his back. But Vasili Andreevich did not answer and his stomach and legs were stiff and cold and heavy like iron weights. 'He must have died! May the Kingdom of Heaven be his! thought Nikita.
'I am lost! thought Vasili Andreevich. 'I shall lose the track and not catch the horse. But at that moment he saw something black. It was Mukhorty, and not only Mukhorty, but the sledge with the shafts and the kerchief.
Nikita meanwhile unharnessed Mukhorty. He unstrapped the belly-band and the back-band, took away the reins, loosened the collar-strap, and removed the shaft-bow, talking to him all the time to encourage him. 'Now come out! come out! he said, leading him clear of the shafts. 'Now we'll tie you up here and I'll put down some straw and take off your bridle.
Mukhorty, with the sacking and the breechband twisted round to one side, was standing not in his former place but nearer to the shafts, shaking his head which the reins he was stepping on drew downwards.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking