"
His cleverness and the acuteness of his sense of smell alike astonished
me. I bid the driver go where the other wished. The horses ploughed
their way through the deep snow. The _kibitka_ advanced slowly,
sometimes upraised on a drift, sometimes precipitated into a ditch, and
swinging from side to side. It was very like a boat on a stormy sea.
Saveliitch groaned deeply as every moment he fell upon me. I lowered the
_tsinofka_,[16] I rolled myself up in my cloak and I went to sleep,
rocked by the whistle of the storm and the lurching of the sledge. I had
then a dream that I have never forgotten, and in which I still see
something prophetic, as I recall the strange events of my life. The
reader will forgive me if I relate it to him, as he knows, no doubt, by
experience how natural it is for man to retain a vestige of superstition
in spite of all the scorn for it he may think proper to assume.
I had reached the stage when the real and unreal begin to blend into the
first vague visions of drowsiness. It seemed to me that the snowstorm
continued, and that we were wandering in the snowy desert. All at once I
thought I saw a great gate, and we entered the courtyard of our house.
My first thought was a fear that my father would be angry at my
involuntary return to the paternal roof, and would attribute it to a
premeditated disobedience.
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