Vladimir Sorokin - The Blizzard

“Hold on now!” Taisia Markovna pressed her husband to her bosom. “You can’t go off into the storm at night. You’ll lose the road straightaway.”

“S-s-straight! Away!” The miller shook his head.

“I absolutely must get to Dolgoye today,” the doctor asserted stubbornly.

The miller’s wife sighed deeply, rocking her husband like a baby:

“You’ll get across the grove, and the old village, but that’s where the fields start and there’s no mileposts either. You’ll get stuck in the field. You have to spend the night.”

“Can’t anyone show us the way? Your worker, for instance?”

“What?” The miller’s wife grinned. “You think he has cat eyes? He can’t see at night. And he’s not from around here.”

“He’s just the g-guy you want…” The miller dug his boots into his wife’s chest, climbed up to her neck, and stared at Crouper. “And you there, you just … take that!”

The miller gave Crouper the finger. Crouper was eating cabbage slaw and paid no attention to him.

“Stay till morning.” With her free hand the miller’s wife set a glass under the samovar tap and turned the spigot. Boiling water poured into the glass.

“They’re expecting me today.” The doctor stubbed out his cigarette.

“Even if you don’t get lost, you still won’t make it till morning time. Leave now and you’ll not go far.”

“Maybe we oughta stay, doctor, sir?” Crouper asked timidly.

“You jess get th’ell outta! Ya lost a horse at the market! You loser loafer!!” the miller shouted, kicking his feet against his wife’s bosom.

“Stay now, don’t be silly.” The miller’s wife poured strong brew from a Chinese teapot. “The storm will die down, and you’ll fly along.”

“And if it doesn’t?” The doctor looked at Crouper as though the weather depended on him.

“If’n it don’t, it’s a sight calmer in the light,” Crouper answered. Something stuck in his throat and he had a coughing fit.

“He lost the horse to passs-churs, lost traaa-ck-o-vvvit!” The miller refused to quiet down. “They oughta lock ye up fer horse-thieving!”

“Stay.” The miller’s wife set the glass of tea down in front of the doctor and began to pour some for Crouper.

“And the horses c’n rest a piece.”

“No snoozin’, not a wink … They’ll rest in peace, not rest a piece, thass whachur horses’ll do!” cackled the miller.

The miller’s wife laughed, her chest rose, and her husband rocked on it as though on a wave.

“Maybe we really should stay?” thought the doctor.

He looked around for a clock on the well-chinked wall, but didn’t see one; he was about to take his pocket watch out but suddenly saw small, glowing numbers hovering in the air over a metal circle lying on the sewing machine: 19:42.

“We could try to get there by midnight … But if we get lost, as she pointed out…,” the doctor thought.

He took a sip of tea.

“We could stay and leave at first light. If the blizzard has stopped, we’ll get there in an hour and a half. If I give them vaccine-2 eight hours later, nothing terrible will happen. That’s acceptable. I’ll write an explanatory note…”

“Nothing terrible will happen if you get there tomorrow,” said the miller’s wife, as though she’d read his mind. “Have some more vodka.”

Deep in thought, the doctor bit his lower lip and glanced at the numbers glowing in the air.

“So we’re staying?” Crouper asked, no longer chewing.

“Very well.” Platon Ilich sighed with disappointment. “We’re staying.”

“Thank God!” Crouper nodded.

“Yes, thank God,” the miller’s wife almost sang, as she filled the glasses.

“What about me? What about me?” The miller tottered and swayed on her chest.

She dripped a few drops from the bottle into the thimble and handed it to the miller.

“May you be healthy!” She raised her glass.

The doctor, Crouper, and the miller all drank.

Taking a bite of ham, the doctor now looked at the room not just as a stopping place but as the night’s lodging: “Where will she put us? In another izba ? We had to end up here for the night. Damn this blizzard…”

Crouper took a deep breath and relaxed. He warmed up right away and was glad that he wouldn’t have to go out into the dark now, glad not to get lost looking for the road, torturing himself and his horses; glad that his horses would spend the night in the warmth of the miller’s stable, that he would give them some oats—he always had a bag of oats stored under the seat—and that he himself would sleep here, most likely on top of the stove, in the warmth, and that the nasty miller couldn’t touch him; glad that they’d leave early the next morning, and that when he’d delivered the doctor to Dolgoye, he’d get five rubles and drive back home.

“Oh well, perhaps it’s for the best,” said the doctor, reassuring himself.

“It’s for the best.” The miller’s wife smiled at him. “I’ll put you upstairs, and Kozma—on the stove. It’s quiet and warm upstairs.”

“Ow, what the … Got a leg cramp…,” the miller squeaked, grabbing his right leg, his drunken face grimacing.

“Time for bed.” The miller’s wife picked him up to take him off her chest, but at that moment the miller dropped the thimble. It rolled down his wife’s large body and fell under the table.

“Now look what you’ve done, Semyon Markich, gone and lost your cup.” Lovingly, as though he were a child, the miller’s wife placed him in front of her on the edge of the table.

“Huh? Whass, how’s … the … what?” muttered the thoroughly drunk miller.

“That’s what,” she replied. Standing, she lifted her husband with two hands, carried him over to the bed, set him down on it, and drew the curtains.

“Lie down, time to go night-night.” She rustled the pillows and blanket, tucking her husband in.

“Wake me up early tomorrow,” the doctor told Crouper.

“The crack of dawn, first light,” the driver replied, nodding his reddish magpie-shaped head.

It was obvious that the vodka, warmth, and food had made Crouper tipsy, and that he was ready to sleep.

“Let ’em all … all o’ them…’em all…” The miller’s drunken squeak could be heard behind the curtain.

“Sorta like a cricket … chirp chirp,” Crouper thought, smiling his birdlike smile.

“Taa-iiii-sssia … Taiss … Let’s cuddle and have a roll in the hay,” the miller peeped.

“We will, we will. Sleep tight.”

Taisia Markovna emerged from behind the curtains, walked over to the guests, squatted, and looked under the table.

“It’s somewhere…”

“A handsome woman,” the doctor thought all of a sudden.

Squatting and looking under the table with her marvelous, cloudy eyes, she awoke his desire. She wasn’t pretty, that was particularly noticeable now, when the doctor saw her face from above. Her brow was a bit low; her chin heavy and tilted downward; all in all her face adhered to the typically crude peasant model. But her carriage, her white skin, her buxom bosom, rising and falling, aroused the doctor.

“There it is.” She reached under the table and bent over.

Her hair was woven into a black braid, and the braid wound round her head.

“A delicious woman the miller has…,” the doctor thought, and suddenly, ashamed of his thoughts, he gave a tired sigh and laughed.

The miller’s wife stood up; smiling, she showed him her little finger with the thimble on it.

“There you go!”

She sat down at the table:

“He likes to drink out of my thimble, though we have glasses.”

And indeed—on the miller’s table, amid the little plates, there was a little glass.