Master and Man

Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov had one thought on his mind that winter afternoon, and it was money.

He was a merchant in a Russian village, the richest man for miles around. He owned an inn, a shop and a great deal of land, and he was always looking for more. Now he had heard of a grove of trees that a landowner wanted to sell cheaply. If he went today, before anyone else, he could make a fine profit.

The weather was turning bad. His wife begged him to wait. But Vasili Andreevich would not wait. He called for his sledge, and for his workman, Nikita.

The servant

Nikita was about fifty, a gentle peasant with a soft voice who could do any job and never complained. He had once been a heavy drinker, but he had given it up. He worked for Vasili Andreevich all year round.

His master cheated him. He paid Nikita less than half of what his work was worth, and paid it mostly in goods from his own shop, at prices he set himself. Nikita knew this. But he had a family to feed and nowhere better to go, and he did not like to quarrel. So he said nothing.

Nikita harnessed Mukhorty, the strong bay horse he loved, put on his old coat and climbed into the sledge beside his master, who was wrapped in two fur coats.

Lost in the white

They set off across the open fields. Soon the wind rose. Snow swirled across the road and hid the track. Before long they could not see where the road went at all.

They wandered off the way and came, by chance, to a village. They set off again, lost the road again and, to their surprise, came back to the very same village. A family there invited them in, warmed them by the stove and gave them tea. The host begged them to stay the night.

Nikita longed to stay. But Vasili Andreevich thought of the grove, and of the profit, and of rival buyers. He insisted they go on.

So they went back out into the storm. It was getting dark. Soon they were lost again, and this time completely. Mukhorty could not find the way. At last they stopped in the middle of an empty field, with the snow piling up around them.

The long night

Nikita did what he could. He tied a cloth to a pole as a signal, covered the horse, and settled down in the back of the sledge on a little straw. He was cold to the bone in his thin coat. He was quietly ready for whatever God sent. If he died, he thought, it would not be so bad a thing.

Vasili Andreevich could not settle. He sat in the sledge in his warm furs, counting over his money, his land and his plans. He was proud of all he had built. He did not want to die here, in a snowy field, over a few trees.

At last fear took hold of him. Without a word, he climbed onto the horse and rode off into the dark, leaving Nikita behind in the sledge.

He did not get far. The horse wandered in the snow, and they went round in a circle. To his horror, Vasili Andreevich found himself back where he had started, at the sledge. The horse had brought him back.

The warmth

Nikita lay in the sledge, covered in snow. He told his master in a weak voice that he was dying. He asked him to give the money owed to him to his family, and to forgive him.

Vasili Andreevich stood looking at him for a moment.

Then, without thinking about it, he did something he had never done in his life. He swept the snow off Nikita. He opened his fur coats and lay down on top of his servant, covering him with his own body to keep him warm.

As he lay there, he felt Nikita grow warmer beneath him. And a strange joy came over Vasili Andreevich. He thought no more of money, or the grove, or his shop. He felt only that Nikita was alive, and so, somehow, was he. He lay still, his heart full, as the snow covered them both.

The morning

In the morning, peasants found the sledge buried in a drift, only a short way from a village.

Vasili Andreevich was dead, frozen where he lay. Mukhorty, too, had died in the night. But under his master's body, Nikita was alive.

He lost some of his toes to the frost. But he lived for twenty more years, working as before. When his time came, he died peacefully at home, under the icons, with his family around him.

About this story

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), the Russian author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, wrote "Master and Man" in 1895, late in his life, when he was writing more and more about faith, death and love for others. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.