The Guide

I was approaching my destination. Around me stretched a wild and dreary
desert, intersected by little hills and deep ravines. All was covered
with snow. The sun was setting. My kibitka was following the narrow
road, or rather the track, left by the sledges of the peasants. All at
once my driver looked round, and addressing himself to me-"Sir," said he, taking off his cap, "will you not order me to turn
back?"

"Why?"

"The weather is uncertain. There is already a little wind. Do you not
see how it is blowing about the surface snow."

"Well, what does that matter?"

"And do you see what there is yonder?"

The driver pointed east with his whip.

"I see nothing more than the white steppe and the clear sky."

"There, there; look, that little cloud!"

I did, in fact, perceive on the horizon a little white cloud which I
had at first taken for a distant hill. My driver explained to me that
this little cloud portended a "bourane."[15] I had heard of the
snowstorms peculiar to these regions, and I knew of whole caravans
having been sometimes buried in the tremendous drifts of snow.
Saveliitch was of the same opinion as the driver, and advised me to turn
back, but the wind did not seem to me very violent, and hoping to reach
in time the next posting station, I bid him try and get on quickly. He
put his horses to a gallop, continually looking, however, towards the
east. But the wind increased in force, the little cloud rose rapidly,
became larger and thicker, at last covering the whole sky. The snow
began to fall lightly at first, but soon in large flakes. The wind
whistled and howled; in a moment the grey sky was lost in the whirlwind
of snow which the wind raised from the earth, hiding everything around
us.