Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/188

152 Vasíli handed the beggar some alms and instructed Filípp in regard to the fastening of the trace-leather, and when all was done, Filípp gathered up his lines, climbed on his box, and began to fetch something out of his side pocket. No sooner did we start, than a blinding flash of lightning, which for a moment filled the ravine with a sheet of fiery light, compelled the horses to stop; without the slightest interval, it was accompanied by such a deafening crack of thunder that it seemed the whole vault of heaven would cave in upon us. The wind grow stronger; the manes and tails of the horses, Vasíli's cloak and the edges of the boot took the same direction, and desperately flapped in the gusts of the furious wind A large drop of rain fell upon the leather top of the calash; then another, a third, a fourth, and suddenly it sounded as if some one had started drumming over our heads, and the whole country resounded with the even pattering of the falling rain. By the movement of Vasíli's elbow I could tell that he was untying his purse; the beggar continued making the signs of the cross and the low obeisances, and ran along so near the very wheels that I thought he would be run over. "Give, for Christ's sake!" Finally a copper coin flew past us, and the pitiful creature, whose dripping wet shirt closely fitted his lean body, swaying in the wind, stopped perplexed in the middle of the road, and disappeared from my sight.

The slanting rain was driven by the wind, and fell as from a bucket; streams ran down Vasíli's frieze back and into a puddle of turbid water, which had formed itself on the boot. The dust, gathering up in globular form, was changed into liquid mud, which was kneaded by the turning wheels. The jolts of the carriage became less frequent, and streams of turbid water ran along the clayey ruts. The lightning flashed over a greater space and was paler, and the bursts of thunder were not so striking in the even patter of the rain.