Gradually he
calmed down, though he still grumbled from time to time, shaking his
head--
"A hundred roubles, it is easy to talk!"
I was approaching my destination. Around me stretched a wild and dreary
desert, intersected by little hills and deep ravines. All was covered
with snow. The sun was setting. My _kibitka_ was following the narrow
road, or rather the track, left by the sledges of the peasants. All at
once my driver looked round, and addressing himself to me--
"Sir," said he, taking off his cap, "will you not order me to turn
back?"
"Why?"
"The weather is uncertain. There is already a little wind. Do you not
see how it is blowing about the surface snow."
"Well, what does that matter?"
"And do you see what there is yonder?"
The driver pointed east with his whip.
"I see nothing more than the white steppe and the clear sky."
"There, there; look, that little cloud!"
I did, in fact, perceive on the horizon a little white cloud which I
had at first taken for a distant hill. My driver explained to me that
this little cloud portended a "_bourane_."[15] I had heard of the
snowstorms peculiar to these regions, and I knew of whole caravans
having been sometimes buried in the tremendous drifts of snow.
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