Master and Man

“‘There now,’ he said addressing himself no longer to the cook but the girdle, as he tucked the ends in at the waist, ‘now you won’t come undone!’” 

One of several instances of Nikita’s rapport with the material world, this quote shows him speaking to his belt—a gesture of equality to that world that contrasts Brekhunov’s property-based relationship to it. Objects are not merely objects for Nikita’s use, though he does use them; they are also endowed with a life of their own. Objects, animals, and Nikita labor through the world in nearly equal accord, each doing what they must—the belt staying cinched, the horse being harnessed, Nikita accompanying Brekhunov. 

“‘Well, did you tell your wife not to give the cooper any vodka?’ he began in the same loud tone, quite convinced that Nikita must feel flattered to be talking with so clever and important a person as himself, and he was so pleased with his jest that it did not enter his head that the remark might be unpleasant to Nikita.” 

In this quote, Brekhunov’s self-deception is expressed in his ignorance of and insensitivity toward other people. So great is his view of himself—and it is important that he needs others to bolster this view—that he has no inkling of what, apart from himself, they might be interested in hearing. It is telling in regard to Brekhunov’s need for admiration, despite his delusional sense of extreme independence, that he strongly desires to talk.

“He saw beside the black thing they had noticed, dry, oblong willow-leaves were fluttering, and so he knew it was not a forest but a settlement, but he did not wish to say so.” 

This quote illustrates one of several mentions of a “black thing” that is seen by the travelers before transforming into what is actually is—a village, a copse of trees, etc. What is important about this repeated device is that it shows how firmly rooted the narration is within the travelers’ perspective. It also suggests the limits of their knowledge and perception, which Nikita and Brekhunov relate to in different ways. Brekhunov dislikes the unknown but is unskilled at intuiting his location for lack of perceptiveness to his surroundings—a result of his focus on himself and his future. Meanwhile, Nikita does not distinguish as much between what he does not know and what he does. He relates to the world in a way that has meaning in itself, and thus the world remains always, to him, relatively mysterious, regardless of the heightened disorientation of the storm. 

“At the end house of the village some frozen clothes hanging on a line—shirts, one red and one white, trousers, leg-bands, and a petticoat—fluttered wildly in the wind. The white shirt in particular struggle desperately, waving its sleeves about.”

One of the more vivid details of the story, this wind-torn shirt sleeve lends a precision to scenes in which readers are invited to immerse themselves. Typical of Tolstoy’s realist style is the detailing of precisely what clothes were hanging on the line (shirts of two different colors, four different items of clothing in general). An effect of reality, these details also suggest to Nikita a problematic lack of work: he surmises that someone was too lazy (“or dead”) to take them down. The flailing shirt sleeve further suggests the power of the storm over such meager human coverings as clothes, emptied here of their wearer and thus eerily portentous of the dangers to come.

“He frowned, and having shaken the snow off his cap and coat, stopped in front of the icons as if not seeing anyone, crossed himself three times, and bowed to the icons. Then, turning to the old master of the house and bowing first to him, then to all those at table, then to women who stood by the oven, muttering ‘A merry holiday!’ he began taking off his outer things without looking at the table.” 

Nikita’s entrance into the hut, where vodka is being drunk, is the trial he faces; Brekhunov’s is still to come. Disapproving of the behavior of others but not vocally judging them, Nikita makes clear the hierarchy to which he adheres: the first Master is God, symbolized by the house’s religious icons, and the second is the master of the house, the elder-patriarch. Respect for God does not negate respect for the hierarchical order of human society, including by gender, which is how Nikita relates to it. The fact that he averts his eyes suggests the presence of something unholy—dangerous to behold, like a petty demon. This contrasts with the salutations of the religious holiday.

“‘It’s no use asking them again. Maybe my age makes me timid. They’ll get there all right, and at least we shall get to bed in good time and without any fuss,’ he thought.” 

The inner thoughts of the peasant-elder who hosts the travelers as they rest exemplify a typically Tolstoyan stylistic device—namely, the narration of unspoken thoughts which reveal the reasons behind a characters’ decisions. Hardly ever simple and often contradictory, inner thoughts are affected by surrounding circumstance, showing characters to be multi-layered and decisions which affect the course of action to be so complex and haphazard that the smallest change could have altered them. 

“‘We shall have to say the night here,’ he said, as if preparing to spend the night at an inn, and he proceeded to unfasten the collar-straps. The buckles came undone. ‘But shan’t we be frozen?’ remarked Vasily Andreevich. ‘Well, if we are we can’t help it,’ said Nikita.” 

Nikita’s decision to stay the night is interwoven with his labors, including the unfastening of Mukhorty’s collar that follows their attempts to maneuver through the ravine. If Nikita’s physical labors indicate the initiative to press onward, when he finally speaks, it is to voice the impasse of his work. The ravine, exposed to the frigid storm, is no different from an inn for Nikita, who is at home amidst nature, however brutal. In Nikita’s view, when there is nothing to be done, there is no point dwelling in comparison to what could have been. Comfort and discomfort thus collapse into a simple or unreflective practicality.

“He became frightened. ‘Lord heavenly Father!’ he muttered, and was comforted by the consciousness that he was not alone but there was One who would not abandon him. He gave a deep sigh, and keeping the sackcloth over his head he got inside the sledge and lay down in the place where his master had been.” 

Nikita’s struggles during the storm parallel Brekhunov’s, but the difference in their responses stems from Nikita’s form of religious faith. He does not feel alone and settles into passivity with the thought of God, whereas Brekhunov can take comfort only when he takes control. Lying down in the place of the master as Brekhunov, Nikita is now (or perhaps always was) accompanied by the master that is God.

“It was real snow that lashed his face and covered him and chilled his right hand from which he had lost the glove, and this was a real desert in which he was now left alone like that wormwood, awaiting an inevitable, speedy, and meaningless death.” 

The repeated qualifier “real” reveals Brekhunov’s hopes that, during his attempted retreat to a village without Nikita, the utter disorientation he experiences is a bad dream. Emphasizing the thematic contrast between self-delusion and reality, this quote suggests that it is not optimism nor desire that constitutes reality, but the often-brutal conditions of an indifferent nature. Lest the storm be taken for a supernatural event, it is here described in starkly naturalist terms, as nothing could be more real than the assault of the elements against the human body. So, too, is reality captured by “meaningless” death—that is, death without individual purpose, which is always inevitable, even in comfort. What Brekhunov learns is that death becomes meaningful when it is not understood as the disappearance of the individual self, but the merger with others and with God.

“He began to pray to that same Nicholas the Wonder-Worker to save him, promising him a thanksgiving service with some candles. But he clearly and indubitably realized that the icon, its frame, the candles, the priest and the thanksgiving service, though very important and necessary in church, could do nothing for him here, and that there was and could be no connection between those candles and services and his present disastrous plight.” 

Brekhunov’s thoughts invoke the saint whose holiday contextualizes the story as a whole, indicating the dualistic vision of religion that serves as a central theme of his conversion. Whereas Brekhunov considers Nicholas a master with whom he might transact by offering him candles in exchange for protection, Nikita does not conceptualize the concrete aspects of religion. Instead, Nikita embodies Nicholas’s saintly qualities, including his special relationship to animals. Brekhunov is a problematic, exploitative master, whereas Nikita follows the model of a “master” like Nicholas, who is in essence a servant. Because of this, Brekhunov falsely considers Nicholas to be as transactional as he. Most significantly, it is by means of the reality of the storm—that is, of suffering—that he understands the limits of this material view of religion.

“Then suddenly, with the same resolution with which he used to strike hands when making a good purchase, he took a step back and turning up his sleeves began raking the snow off Nikita and out of the sledge.” 

 Brekhunov’s epiphany, in which he shifts from selfishness to selflessness, here occurs in the framework of the man he always was, with the gestures of a businessman. The resolve he knows from making deals becomes the foundation for the labor he will undertake to become, in the ethical-religious sense that Nikita offers, a human being and a worker.

“He remembered that Nikita was lying under him and that he had got warm and was alive, and it seemed to him that he was Nikita and Nikita was he, and that his life was not in himself but in Nikita.” 

Perhaps the central quote of the story, these lines describe the ultimate shift in Brekhunov from understanding himself as an independent being, the center of all things with dependent ties to no one, to a being fully expressed in the life of another. No longer mourning his individual passing, Brekhunov feels himself alive in the other with whom he understands his essential link.

“But the cart pressed down colder and colder, and then he heard a strange knocking, awoke completely, and remembered everything. The cold cart was his dead and frozen master lying upon him. And the knock was produced by Mukhorty, who had twice struck the sledge with his hoof.” 

A key instance of Tolstoy’s literary fascination with dreams, this quote shows the connection between dream images and the happenings of waking life that surround the sleeper. Rather than detaching dreams from reality, Tolstoy shows dreams—like inner thoughts—to be shaped by reality. Much like the travelers’ discovery through their journey that “something black” becomes, in reality, a forest or a village, Nikita discovers that his sense of something cold is Brekhunov’s corpse.