CHAPTER I
HEE! heesta [gee]!” shouted Poldik to his horses; he was driving with his wagon into Podskali [Undercliff], be it understood, and from there distributed throughout the city sand in summer and ice in winter.
Through summer, all through winter, and for many a long year it was the same monotonous journey to and fro. In summer he carted sand for the builders. When one house was completed, he carted for other builders perhaps in quite a different quarter of the city—that change occurred in summer. In winter when he had stocked the cellar of one brewer, he led ice to the neighbouring brewery, which was perhaps some streets distant—that change occurred in winter. Otherwise, provided the order was for the produce of the Moldau, ice and sand, he carted anywhere, his pilgrimage to the Moldau always finishing with Myslikoff Street, thence diverging to the Zitne Gasse, and finally passing the Sipkoff mills until at last it was brought to a termination at Naplavka [the Quay].
As soon as his vehicle had entered these streets, Poldik might have sat in his cart and gone to sleep; his horses would have found their way as we say “blindfold”. They knew hardly any other road. They were like the bucket of a well: we let it down one way and draw it up the same without a span-breadth of difference, but always the same; and if they had awoke some morning in any of the streets, Poldik need never have opened his lips; they would have gone on of their own accord like automata through that portion of their circuit which was yet before them, be it to Naplavka or from Naplavka to the building steads. So perfectly familiar to them was this road that they knew instinctively where the ale-house was, where was the blacksmith’s forge, where the fruit stall, and where Poldik bought his tobacco.
Very frequently they stopped at the ale-house without Poldik’s bidding: and only again jogged on with the vehicle when their master tugged at the reins and said “gee up” or swore at them. But it also very frequently happened that their master did not tug the reins or say “gee up” or swear at them, but let the reins hang loose by the cart and with heavy steps slouched into the ale-
