Two of the sledges were the common household sledges; the third was the old count’s, with a trotting horse from Orlov’s famous stud; the fourth, Nikolay’s own, with his own short, shaggy, raven horse in the shafts. Nikolay, in his old lady’s crinoline and a hussar’s cloak belted over it, stood up in the middle of the sledge picking up the reins. It was so light that he could see the metal discs of the harness shining in the moonlight, and the eyes of the horses looking round in alarm at the noise made by the party under the portico of the approach.
Sonya, Natasha, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nikolay’s sledge. In the count’s sledge were Dimmler with his wife and Petya; the other mummers were seated in the other two sledges.
“You go ahead, Zahar！” shouted Nikolay to his father’s coachman, so as to have a chance of overtaking him on the road.
The count’s sledge with Dimmler and the others of his party started forward, its runners creaking as though they were frozen to the snow, and the deep-toned bell clanging. The trace-horses pressed close to the shafts and sticking in the snow kicked it up, hard and glittering as sugar.
Nikolay followed the first sledge： behind him he heard the noise and crunch of the other two. At first they drove at a slow trot along the narrow road. As they drove by the garden, the shadows of the leafless trees often lay right across the road and hid the bright moonlight. But as soon as they were out of their grounds, the snowy plain, glittering like a diamond with bluish lights in it, lay stretched out on all sides, all motionless and bathed in moonlight. Now and again a hole gave the first sledge a jolt; the next was jolted in just the same way, and the next, and the sledges followed one another, rudely breaking the iron-bound stillness.
“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks！” Natasha’s voice rang out in the frost-bound air.
“How light it is, Nikolenka,” said the voice of Sonya.
Nikolay looked round at Sonya, and bent down to look at her face closer. It was a quite new, charming face with black moustaches, and eyebrows that peeped up at him from the sable fur—so close yet so distant—in the moonlight.
“That used to be Sonya,” thought Nikolay. He looked closer at her and smiled.
“What is it, Nikolenka？”
“Nothing,” he said, and turned to his horses again.
As they came out on the trodden highroad, polished by sledge runners, and all cut up by the tracks of spiked horseshoes visible in the snow in the moonlight—the horses of their own accord tugged at the reins and quickened their pace. The left trace-horse, arching his head, pulled in jerks at his traces. The shaft-horse swayed to and fro, pricking up his ears as though to ask： “Are we to begin or is it too soon？” Zahar’s sledge could be distinctly seen, black against the white snow, a long way ahead now, and its deep-toned bell seemed to be getting further away. They could hear shouts and laughter and talk from his sledge.
“Now then, my darlings！” shouted Nikolay, pulling a rein on one side, and moving his whip hand. It was only from the wind seeming to blow more freely in their faces, and from the tugging of the pulling trace-horses, quickening their trot, that they saw how fast the sledge was flying along. Nikolay looked behind. The other sledges, with crunching runners, with shouts, and cracking of whips, were hurrying after them. Their shaft-horse was moving vigorously under the yoke, with no sign of slackening, and every token of being ready to go faster and faster if required.
Nikolay overtook the first sledge. They drove down a hill and into a wide, trodden road by a meadow near a river.
“Where are we？” Nikolay wondered. “Possibly Kosoy Meadow, I suppose. But no; this is something new I never saw before. This is not the Kosoy Meadow nor Demkin hill. It’s something—there’s no knowing what. It’s something new and fairy-like. Well, come what may！” And shouting to his horses, he began to drive by the first sledge. Zahar pulled up his horses and turned his face, which was white with hoar-frost to the eyebrows.
Nikolay let his horses go; Zahar, stretching his hands forward, urged his on. “Come, hold on, master,” said he.
The sledges dashed along side by side, even more swiftly, and the horses’ hoofs flew up and down more and more quickly. Nikolay began to get ahead. Zahar, still keeping his hands stretched forward, raised one hand with the reins.
“Nonsense, master,” he shouted. Nikolay put his three horses into a gallop and outstripped Zahar. The horses scattered the fine dry snow in their faces; close by they heard the ringing of the bells and the horses’ legs moving rapidly out of step, and they saw the shadows of the sledge behind. From different sides came the crunch of runners over the snow, and the shrieks of girls. Stopping his horses again, Nikolay looked round him. All around him lay still the same enchanted plain, bathed in moon-light, with stars scattered over its surface.
“Zahar’s shouting that I’m to turn to the left, but why to the left？” thought Nikolay. “Are we really going to the Melyukovs’; is this really Melyukovka？ God knows where we are going, and God knows what is going to become of us—and very strange and nice it is what is happening to us.” He looked round in the sledge.
“Look, his moustache and his eyelashes are all white,” said one of the strange, pretty, unfamiliar figures sitting by him, with fine moustaches and eyebrows.
“I believe that was Natasha,” thought Nikolay; “and that was Madame Schoss; but perhaps it’s not so; and that Circassian with the moustaches I don’t know, but I love her.”
“Aren’t you cold？” he asked them. They laughed and did not answer. Dimmler from the sledge behind shouted, probably something funny, but they could not make out what he said.
“Yes, yes,” voices answered, laughing.
But now came a sort of enchanted forest with shifting, black shadows, and the glitter of diamonds, and a flight of marble steps, and silver roofs of enchanted buildings, and the shrill whine of some beasts. “And if it really is Melyukovka, then it’s stranger than ever that after driving, God knows where, we should come to Melyukovka,” thought Nikolay.
It certainly was Melyukovka, and footmen and maid-servants were running out with lights and beaming faces.
“Who is it？” was asked from the entrance.
“The mummers from the count’s; I can see by the horses,” answered voices.