Vladimir Sorokin - The Blizzard

Before them a birch grove came into view.

“C’mon now, faster.” Crouper clicked and whistled. “Get a move on.”

The little horses increased their pace obediently.

They entered the grove at full tilt. Birch trunks lined the road.

“What a beautiful grove,” muttered the doctor.

“Eh?” Crouper turned toward him.

“I said the grove is beautiful.”

“Beautiful. If’n ye just chop it down.”

The doctor chuckled.

“Why chop it down? It’s pretty just the way it is.”

“Pretty,” Crouper agreed. “Won’t last long. They’ll cut it down anyway.”

Snow began to fall, at first lightly, but by the time they’d passed through the birch grove, large flakes fell thick and fast.

“Wouldn’t ye know it!” Crouper laughed.

The road led through a field, but there weren’t any markers to be seen. Neither were there any traces of runners on the road. The field lay ahead, lost in the snowstorm; only here and there overgrown weeds or the rare bush stuck out.

They had driven half a verst when the sled slid into deep snow.

“Whoa!” Crouper pulled back on the reins.

The horses stopped.

“I’ll go look for the road.” Crouper jumped down, grabbed the whip, and walked back.

The doctor remained alone in the sled. Snowflakes continued falling in a dense veil as though they’d never stopped. Under the hood the horses snorted and stamped their hooves.

About ten minutes passed, and Crouper returned:

“Found it!”

He turned the sled around, leading it along his own tracks, while he tramped next to it, his legs plowing deep swaths through the snow.

They regained the road. But the doctor would never have guessed that this was a road; only Crouper could distinguish it in the snowy field.

“We won’t go fast, yur ’onor, sir, else we’ll up and drive off it!” Crouper shouted, wiping the snow off his face.

“Drive as you see fit,” the doctor replied. “What about the runner?”

“Still holding. I nailed it together.”

The doctor nodded in approval.

They moved slowly along the road. Crouper steered, gazing ahead. The snow thickened and the wind picked up, forcing the passenger and the driver to shield their faces.

The doctor sat with his collar pulled up and the rug all the way to his cheekbones. But the snow flew right into his eyes, under his pince-nez, and burrowed into his face, filling his nostrils.

“Damn it…,” thought the doctor. “They don’t put up stakes to mark the roads … Could be a lawsuit if you think about it … Doesn’t matter to anyone. Not the road authorities, the forest rangers, the patrols … What could be easier? Chop down a cart full of stakes in the fall, hammer them in every half verst at the least—though more often would be better, of course—so people can travel without worrying in winter. Swinishness, that’s what it is … It’s downright … obscene.”

In front of them an endless, shapeless field stretched on, as though there were nothing else on earth, nothing but these miserable bushes and weeds.

“Slow going till Old Market, and then it’ll be easier!” Crouper shouted.

“How does he see this road?” thought the doctor in amazement, hiding from the blizzard. “Professional instinct, no doubt…”

But soon they drove off the road again.

“Ay, damnation…,” said Crouper.

Once again he walked back, drawing a line in the snow with his whip. The doctor sat there like a snowman, buried in the blizzard, just brushing the flakes from his nose and pince-nez now and then.

Crouper disappeared for a long time; the doctor considered firing three shots from the revolver that lay in his travel bag.

When Crouper finally returned, he was completely exhausted, his jacket open at the chest, his face red.

“Well, did you find it?” asked the doctor, shifting and brushing bits of snow off.

“Found it,” said Crouper, breathing heavily. “But almost got lost meself. Cain’t see nothin’.”

He scooped some snow off the sled and took a bite.

“And how will we make it?”

“Bit by bit yur ’onor, sir. God willing, we’ll make it to Old Market. From theres on the road’s wide, packed down.”

Crouper smacked his lips. The horses 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.