Once in
his life the reindeer must taste of the sea in one long, satisfying
draught, and if he is hindered he perishes. Neither man nor beast dare
stand between him and the ocean in the hundred miles of his arrow-like
path.
Something of this longing came upon the Cossack, as he suddenly remembered
the sour taste of the kvass, to the recollection of which he had been
somehow led by a train of thought which had begun with Vjera's love for
the Count, to end abruptly in a camp kettle. For the heart of man is much
the same everywhere, and there is nothing to show that the step from the
sublime to the ridiculous is any longer in the Don country than in any
other part of the world. But between poor Johann Schmidt and his draught
of kvass there lay obstacles not encountered by the reindeer in his race
for the Arctic Ocean. There was the wife, and there were the children, and
there was the vast distance, so vast that it might have discouraged even
the fleet-footed scourer of the northern snows. Johann Schmidt might long
for his kvass, and draw in his thin, wan lips at the thought of the taste
of it, and bend his black brows and close his sharp eyes as in a dream--it
was all of no use, there was no change in store for him. He had cast his
lot in the land of beer and sausages, and he must work out his salvation
and the support of his family without a ladleful of the old familiar brew
to satisfy his unreasonable caprices.
So, last of all those concerned in the events of the evening, Johann
Schmidt went home to bed and to rest.
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