Vladimir Sorokin - The Blizzard

“Good’s important, ’course it is. Do good, and it’ll come back twice over.”

“Well put, Kozma! You and I are going to the end of the world in order to do good for people! And what a wonderful thing that is!”

“Sure enough, yur ’onor. As long as we get there.”

They drove through the grove and arrived at the fork. Both roads—the one to the left that led into the field, and the other, which turned right toward some bushes—were high with snowdrifts and untraveled.

“There’s our road!” Crouper turned the rudder decisively to the right, and the sled shifted with a slight squeak and moved along the snow-covered road.

The doctor noticed that it was already getting dark. He took out his watch. It was exactly six.

“How is that possible?” he thought. “How long was I at the Vitaminders? Could it really have been almost six hours? How many hours does the product last? I should ask them…”

The road ran past patches of underbrush. It was a decent road, no wider and no narrower than others, and packed down, so it was visible even in the deepening twilight. The blizzard hadn’t slackened; it was just as strong as ever.

After the turn the snow blew straight at their faces. The sled slowed down.

Crouper steered, and the horses pulled, their hooves making a crunching sound inside the hood. The doctor looked straight ahead.

Soon it was entirely dark. There was no moon. But this didn’t bother either the doctor or Crouper. They continued on their way, just as calmly and surely. The doctor felt that the blizzard itself was showing them the way, forcing Crouper to steer directly into the wind. Snowflakes flew out of the dark into the travelers’ faces, and they just needed to keep heading in that direction, without turning.

“Drive into the wind, overcome all difficulties, all nonsense and foolishness, move straight on, fearing nothing and no one, move along your own path, the path of your destiny, move onward steadfastly, stubbornly. That is the very meaning of our lives!” thought the doctor.

The sled leaned to the left, its nose tipped downward into the snow, and it stopped. The horses snorted and whinnied.

“Now we’ve gone off.” Crouper got down, stepped into the snow, and immediately sank in almost to his waist. “Tarnation…”

The doctor also got down and brushed off the snow.

“It’s a gully!” Crouper shouted to him from the ditch. “Thank God we didn’t fall in! Yur ’onor, gimme a hand to get outta here…”

The doctor walked toward him but sank down himself; groaning, he grabbed the driver’s arm and pulled. They turned over and over in the snow, helping each other. First the doctor pulled Crouper out of the ditch, then, once out, Crouper helped the stumbling doctor. Rolling around and around in the snow, they grumbled and cursed; the doctor lost his hat, but Crouper grabbed it.

Once they had made it out of the gully, they sat in the snow, leaning against the sled, and rested.

“We’ll be needin’ to push the sled,” Crouper said, asking the doctor for help.

“We’ll do it!” said the doctor, energetically shaking his hat as he stood up. “Just show me how!”

Crouper pushed against the back of the seat and gave the horses the command to back up.

“Whoa now … back, back, back…”

The doctor pushed from the other side.

After four tries they managed to slide the sled out of the ditch. They rested a bit, then sat back down and drove on. The road ran along some bushes, then sloped downward and dissolved into the snowy darkness. It was completely impossible to make it out. Crouper got down and walked ahead, feeling for the road with his feet. The doctor picked up the reins and slowly steered after him. They inched through the dip and eventually made it out. And here Crouper lost the road. He walked around in circles, up to his knees in snow; he kept falling into ditches, tripping, falling, and getting up again. The doctor could barely see his figure in the darkness.

Finally, Crouper returned, utterly exhausted; he fell to his knees and embraced the sled:

“Lordy…”

“Well, what is it?” asked the doctor.

“It’s gone an’ disappeared, like the earth swallowed it…”

“What do you mean ‘disappeared’? Where did it go?”

“God knows … The devil must be leadin’ us on, yur ’onor…”

“Let me go and look for it.”

“Wait up, yur ’onor, sir…”

But the doctor headed energetically into the snow-spitting blackness. First he decided to walk straight ahead of the sled. But after about thirty steps through deep snow he hadn’t found anything resembling a firm road. He returned to the sled and went to the left. He immediately ran into bushes. The doctor walked around them and continued on, trying not to deviate from the direction he’d chosen. But bushes again blocked his path. He again skirted them. The snow became very deep, and the doctor fell down.

“Nothing!” He spit at the wind-blown bush and gave a tired laugh.

Exhaustion, darkness, and the blizzard had not deprived Platon Ilich of the extraordinary, joyous, and buoyant mood that he had acquired earlier in the day at the Vitaminders.

“What an adventure!” he thought, breathlessly stomping through the snow. “This will be something to remember. I’ll tell Zilberstein, and he’ll have to buy me a drink, the skinflint…”

He started to go around the bush but tripped on something and fell. His hat went flying. The doctor sat up and stayed put for a while, exposing his overheated head to the blizzard. Then he put on his hat and felt around in the snow. He had tripped on a large boulder.

“Glaciers … The great glaciers … They rolled across Rus, bringing stones with them. And a new era began for humanity: man took up the stone axe…”

Pushing against the boulder, he rose. He reversed direction, following his tracks. But he was soon off course and for some reason ended back at the boulder.

“I went in a circle,” thought the doctor.

He spoke out loud:

“Why?”

Straining his eyes in the darkness, he picked out his tracks. Once more he followed the path he had just tamped down. And once again he arrived at the boulder.

“Nonsense!”

He laughed, removed his pince-nez, and for the hundredth time wiped it with his white scarf, which fluttered in the wind. Again he went around the mysterious bush. According to the tracks, it seemed that he had been going in circles the whole time.

“This can’t be. How did I get to the bush in the first place?!”

The doctor remembered that he had gone around the bush to the right the first time. Moving away from the stone, he headed left. But there were no tracks leading to the bush. He spit and walked straight on. He soon ran into another bush, most unpleasantly. Its branches painfully snatched the pince-nez from his face.

“Damnation…” The pince-nez dangled from its cord; he grabbed it, went around the bush, and continued on.

Ahead was darkness, wind, and snow. There was no end to the deep snow underfoot. There was no road, nor any trace of people. He trudged through the snow a bit longer, and stopped. He could feel that his boots had filled with snow and his feet were very cold. He didn’t want to return to that damned bush. He took a deep breath and shouted at the top of his lungs:

“Kozzz-maaaa!”

The only reply was the howl of the blizzard.

He shouted again. To the right he heard something that could have been an answering shout. The doctor headed toward the voice. The snow was now so deep that he was literally climbing over it, wallowing about, backstepping, and sinking down again. Exhausted and breathless, he finally came to the sled. Motionless and covered with snow, it looked rather like a large snowdrift in the dark. A snow-dusted Crouper sat in it, shivering. He didn’t react to the doctor’s appearance.