The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin­ Page B

reluctantly scraped their hooves against the drive belt. The sled didn’t budge.
    “What’s the matter? Get yurselfs a bellyful at the miller’s?” Crouper upbraided them.
    The sled barely moved.
    The doctor got down and banged on the hood in annoyance:
    “Let’s go.”
    The horses snorted; the roan let out a piercing neigh. And the others neighed, too.
    “No need to scare ’em,” said Crouper, displeased. “They ain’t scaredy beasts, thank God”
    He jerked the reins and smacked his lips:
    “There now, come along.”
    The sled strained. Crouper held the steering rod, leaned his other arm on the hood, and pushed. The doctor pushed against the back of the sled.
    The sled started. Crouper steered it, but soon stopped and wiped his face:
    “Cain’t see a thing … Yur ’onor, sir, you go on ahead and follow my tracks, elsewise it ain’t clear which way to go.”
    The doctor went ahead, following Crouper’s tracks. The snow quickly covered them, and the wind blew straight in the doctor’s face. The tracks stretched on ahead, and then began to bear right, going in a circle, it seemed to the doctor.
    “Kozma! The tracks are circling back!” the doctor shouted, shielding himself from the wind.
    “Means I went round and round out there,” Crouper shouted. “Keep left and walk straight!”
    The doctor bore left and suddenly fell to his waist in snow.
    “Just figures … Damn it…,” the doctor mumbled.
    As though mocking them, the wind blew harder, tossing snow in their faces.
    “Now this…” The doctor stood up, leaning on Crouper.
    “The devil pushed us into a gully!” Crouper yelled in his ear. “Quick, while the tracks are still there! There they are, just ahead!”
    The doctor stepped decisively ahead, raising his legs high and pulling them out of the snow. The sled followed him.
    The doctor walked on, keeping his eyes wide open behind his ice-coated pince-nez. Finally, just as he began to be truly exhausted and his fur-lined coat seemed heavier than a pood weight, he made out a track barely distinguishable in the snow.
    “Tracks!” he shouted, but snow fell in his mouth and he began to cough, leaning into the blizzard.
    Crouper understood and directed the sled along the tracks. They soon came out onto the road.
    “Thank the Lord!” said Crouper, crossing himself when the sled was finally on hard snow. “Have a seat, sir!”
    Breathing heavily, the doctor plopped down on the seat and leaned back, too weak to close his coat. Snow had filled his boots, and he could feel that his feet were wet, but he didn’t have the energy to remove his boots and brush off the snow. Crouper covered him with the rug.
    “We’ll stand a tad, let the horses rest.”
    They stopped. The blizzard howled around them. The wind had gathered such force that it pushed the sled, causing it to sway and jerk like a living creature. The strong wind also blew the snow off the road, however, and the way was visible now—well traveled with hard-packed snow.
    The doctor wanted to smoke but didn’t have the strength to take his beloved, handsome cigarette case out of his pocket. He sat in a daze, his blue nose protruding between his hat and his collar, wishing with his entire being to overcome this wild, hostile, wailing white expanse that wanted only one thing from him—that he become a snowdrift and cease forever to desire anything at all. He remembered his winter doctor’s visits to patients, but he couldn’t recall a storm so intense that the elements impeded him. About three years ago, he got lost with the mail carriage, and he and the coachman lit a fire that night until a transport saw them and helped them out; and there was the time that he ended up in the wrong village, having driven almost six versts too far. But this was the first time he’d experienced such a powerful blizzard.
    Crouper, no less tired than the doctor, dozed a bit. He remembered that before setting off he’d left the station boy to close the