starts with his every movement.

Nikita took the whip that hung over the front of the sledge and struck
him once. The good horse, unused to the whip, sprang forward and moved
at a trot, but immediately fell back into an amble and then to a walk.
So they went on for five minutes. It was dark and the snow whirled from
above and rose from below, so that sometimes the shaft-bow could not
be seen. At times the sledge seemed to stand still and the field to
run backwards. Suddenly the horse stopped abruptly, evidently aware
of something close in front of him. Nikita again sprang lightly out,
throwing down the reins, and went ahead to see what had brought him to
a standstill, but hardly had he made a step in front of the horse before
his feet slipped and he went rolling down an incline.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa!' he said to himself as he fell, and he tried to stop
his fall but could not, and only stopped when his feet plunged into a
thick layer of snow that had drifted to the bottom of the hollow.

The fringe of a drift of snow that hung on the edge of the hollow,
disturbed by Nikita's fall, showered down on him and got inside his
collar.

'What a thing to do!' said Nikita reproachfully, addressing the drift
and the hollow and shaking the snow from under his collar.

'Nikita! Hey, Nikita!' shouted Vasili Andreevich from above.

But Nikita did not reply. He was too occupied in shaking out the snow
and searching for the whip he had dropped when rolling down the incline.
Having found the whip he tried to climb straight up the bank where he