Father Sergius and Master and Man

These two works, Father Sergius and Master and Man are classic examples of Tolstoy's talent as a storyteller and both exhibit a common theme within the works .
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They eventually find themselves in a town and stop to rest before Vasily Andreyevich decides they must set back out. They lose the road and the horse gets so tired that they decide to try to sleep out the night and find their way in the morning.

Master and Man (short story)

Nikita, who is not as warmly dressed, soon finds himself about to die from hypothermia. Vasily Andreyevich decides to leave Nikita to die and sets out on his own on the horse. He wanders through the snow in circles and eventually falls off the horse, finding himself back by Nikita and the sleigh.

The master then lies on top of the peasant to keep him warm through the cold night. In the morning, peasants dig out the sleigh, which was only half a mile from town.

Father Sergius

They find Vasily Andreyevich and the horse dead but Nikita is still alive. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Plot summary [ edit ] In this short story, a land owner named Vasily Andreyevich Brekhunov takes along one of his peasants, Nikita, for a short journey by sleigh. External links [ edit ] Wikisource has original text related to this article: I understand very well! He was quite aware that Vasili Andreevich was cheating him, but at the same time he felt that it was useless to try to clear up his accounts with him or explain his side of the matter, and that as long as he had nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.

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Now, having heard his master's order to harness, he went as usual cheerfully and willingly to the shed, stepping briskly and easily on his rather turned-in feet; took down from a nail the heavy tasselled leather bridle, and jingling the rings of the bit went to the closed stable where the horse he was to harness was standing by himself. Let me water you first,' he went on, speaking to the horse just as to someone who understood the words he was using, and having whisked the dusty, grooved back of the well-fed young stallion with the skirt of his coat, he put a bridle on his handsome head, straightened his ears and forelock, and having taken off his halter led him out to water.

Picking his way out of the dung-strewn stable, Mukhorty frisked, and making play with his hind leg pretended that he meant to kick Nikita, who was running at a trot beside him to the pump. After a drink of the cold water the horse sighed, moving his strong wet lips, from the hairs of which transparent drops fell into the trough; then standing still as if in thought, he suddenly gave a loud snort. But don't go asking for any later,' said Nikita quite seriously and fully explaining his conduct to Mukhorty.


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Then he ran back to the shed pulling the playful young horse, who wanted to gambol all over the yard, by the rein. There was no one else in the yard except a stranger, the cook's husband, who had come for the holiday. By that time Nikita had put the collar and brass-studded belly-band on Mukhorty and, carrying a light, painted shaft-bow in one hand, was leading the horse with the other up to two sledges that stood in the shed.

Tolstoy: Father Sergius & Other Short Stories Audiobook

When everything was nearly ready and only the reins had to be adjusted, Nikita sent the other man to the shed for some straw and to the barn for a drugget. Now, now, don't bristle up! There, like that it will be comfortable sitting,' he went on, suiting the action to the words and tucking the drugget all round over the straw to make a seat.

Things always go quicker with two working at it! And gathering up the leather reins fastened together by a brass ring, Nikita took the driver's seat and started the impatient horse over the frozen manure which lay in the yard, towards the gate. I say, Uncle, Uncle! It was past two o'clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold, with more than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost.

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Half the sky was hidden by a lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was quiet, but in the street the wind was felt more keenly. The snow swept down from a neighbouring shed and whirled about in the corner near the bath-house. Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse's head to the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the high porch in front of the house with a cigarette in his mouth and wearing a cloth-covered sheep-skin coat tightly girdled low at his waist, and stepped onto the hard-trodden snow which squeaked under the leather soles of his felt boots, and stopped.

Taking a last whiff of his cigarette he threw it down, stepped on it, and letting the smoke escape through his moustache and looking askance at the horse that was coming up, began to tuck in his sheepskin collar on both sides of his ruddy face, clean-shaven except for the moustache, so that his breath should not moisten the collar. The young scamp is there already!

Master and Man | Leo Tolstoy's Master and Man

Vasili Andreevich was excited by the vodka he had drunk with his visitors, and so he was even more pleased than usual with everything that was his and all that he did. The sight of his son, whom he always thought of as his heir, now gave him great satisfaction. He looked at him, screwing up his eyes and showing his long teeth. His wife--pregnant, thin and pale, with her head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl so that nothing of her face could be seen but her eyes--stood behind him in the vestibule to see him off. Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed him and he frowned angrily and spat.

Do take him, for goodness' sake!


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Don't I know the road that I must needs take a guide? I beg you in God's name!


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Where am I to take him? I'll tell Simon,' replied the mistress. But if you're coming you'd better put on a warmer cloak,' said Vasili Andreevich, smiling again as he winked at Nikita's short sheepskin coat, which was torn under the arms and at the back, was greasy and out of shape, frayed to a fringe round the skirt, and had endured many things in its lifetime.