"We are going to Bragino!" I said to the coachman, getting into the
sledge.

"It's a long way," sighed Nikanor; "it will be twenty miles, or maybe
twenty-five."

"Oh, please, my dear fellow," I said in a tone as though Nikanor had the
right to refuse. "Please let us go!"

Nikanor shook his head doubtfully and said slowly that we really ought
to have put in the shafts, not Circassian, but Peasant or Siskin; and
uncertainly, as though expecting I should change my mind, took the reins
in his gloves, stood up, thought a moment, and then raised his whip.

"A whole series of inconsistent actions..." I thought, screening my face
from the snow. "I must have gone out of my mind. Well, I don't care...."

In one place, on a very high and steep slope, Nikanor carefully held
the horses in to the middle of the descent, but in the middle the horses
suddenly bolted and dashed downhill at a fearful rate; he raised his
elbows and shouted in a wild, frantic voice such as I had never heard
from him before:

"Hey! Let's give the general a drive! If you come to grief he'll buy new
ones, my darlings! Hey! look out! We'll run you down!"

Only now, when the extraordinary pace we were going at took my breath
away, I noticed that he was very drunk. He must have been drinking at
the station. At the bottom of the descent there was the crash of ice; a