Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/187

Rh my breath. God's anger! How much poetry there is in this popular conception!

The wheels revolved faster and faster; I could see by the backs of Vasíli and Filípp, who impatiently waved his whip, that they, too, were afraid. The calash rapidly descended a hill, and rattled over a board bridge; I was afraid to move, and every minute expected our common destruction.

"Whoa!" the trace-leather was torn, and we were compelled to stop, in spite of the uninterrupted, deafening peals.

Leaning my head against the edge of the calash, I followed, in breathless expectancy, and against hope, the movements of the fat, black fingers of Filípp, who leisurely tied a knot and straightened out the traces, all the time striking the off horse with the palm of his hand and with the whip handle.

Agitated feelings of melancholy and terror grew apace in me with the storm, but when the majestic moment of silence came, which generally preceded the burst of storm, these feelings were so intensified that, if this condition had lasted another fifteen minutes, I should have died of excitement. Just then there issued from underneath the bridge a human being, having on nothing but a dirty, ragged shirt, with a swollen, meaningless countenance, a shaking, close-cropped bare head, crooked, fleshless legs, and a shining, red stump of a hand which he thrust straight into the calash.

"Good people! Give, for Christ's sake, to the poor man!" resounded his ailing voice, and the beggar made the sign of the cross with each word, and bowed low to the ground.

I cannot express the sensation of cold terror which at that moment took possession of my soul. A chill ran through my hair, and my eyes were directed to the beggar with a blank stare of terror.