When a story that includes freezing to death in a Russian blizzard is the most uplifiting in a book of short stories, you know you're reading Russian literature. ( )

The fourth story that George Saunders explores in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is Master and Man, by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), first published in 1895. It’s a superb story.

The Russian Winter is a force to be reckoned with, but when there’s business to be done, Vasili Andreevich—who prides himself on being a self-made man—lets nothing stand in his way. He’s done his duty as a church elder in respect of the fête on the day after St Nicholas’s Day, and he’s impatient to be off. There’s a parcel of land in Goryachkin that he wants, and he’s been driving a hard bargain but now there are rivals for the grove and he needs to beat them to it.

So as soon as the feast was over, he took seven hundred rubles from his strong box, added to them two thousand three hundred rubles of church money he had in his keeping, so as to make the sum up to three thousand; carefully counted the notes, and having put them into his pocket-book, made haste to start. (p.165)

So we know from the third paragraph that he’s not exactly an honest man, and before long we also learn that he cheats his labourers and they can’t do anything about it.

His companion for the journey is the peasant Nikita. Vasili’s wife timidly insists on it despite Vasili’s derisive, snappish, patronising response. Maybe she knows he’s had a vodka or two, and perhaps she thinks Nikita, remorsefully sober now for two months and the only labourer not drunk that day, will be a deterrent to would-be thieves. But Tolstoy spares us no detail in the contrast between the two men: Vasili has two fur-lined coats one over the other, sturdy boots and gloves, while Nikita has a miserable worn out cloth-coat over a frayed and torn short sheepskin leather gloves and patched felt boots. This abysmal state of affairs is because on the last day before the fast, he had drunk his coat and leather boots, a disaster which is helping him to keep his vow to stay off the drink.

Still, he gets the sleigh ready and saddles the horse Mukhorty, a good-tempered, medium-sized bay stallion, with whom Nikita keeps up a cheerful chatter, speaking to the horse just as to someone who understood the words he was using. Nikita has flaws, but his affection for this animal establishes the contrast further. Nikita is a good-natured, easy-going patient man not given to complaining.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/06/19/master-and-man-by-leo-tolstoy-translated-by-... ( )

The story of an occurrence on a snowy, freezing New Year's Day. The rich, monied man insists on going to collect the deed to a property. He forces his man-servant to accompany him. They become stuck in a blizzard and the best and worst of humanity is exposed. I much preferred War and Peace! ( )

Do you know that there are only 5 reviews of this story on goodreads? That is pathetic, this is fantastic, and some of you need to get off your bums and read it! It isn't long...go on, you know you wanna!

This is by far my favorite Tolstoy work! It is a beautiful story of sacrifice and the value of life... regardless of station. ( )

An enjoyable and thought provoking story. ( )