XVII.

The coachman pulled up his four horses and looked round to the right, to a field of rye, where some peasants were sitting near a telega. The countinghouse clerk was just going to jump down, but on second thought he shouted peremptorily to the peasants instead, and beckoned to them to come up. The wind, that seemed to blow as they drove, dropped when the carriage stood still; gadflies settled on the steaming horses that angrily shook them off. The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe, that came to them from the telega, ceased. One of the peasants got up and came toward the carriage.

“Well, you are slow!” the countinghouse clerk shouted angrily to the peasant who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the ruts of the unbeaten, sun-baked road. “Come along, do!”

A curly-headed old man with a bit of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark with perspiration, came toward the carriage, quickening his steps, and took hold of the mudguard with his sunburned hand.

“Vozdvizhenskoe — the manor house? The Count’s?” he repeated. “Go on to the end of this slope. Then turn to the left. Straight along the avenue, and you’ll come right upon it. But whom do you want? The Count himself?”

“Well, are they at home, my good man?” Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely, not knowing how to ask about Anna, even of this peasant.

“At home for sure,” said the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other, and leaving a distinct print of five toes and a heel in the dust. “Sure to be at home,” he repeated, evidently eager to talk. “Only yesterday visitors arrived. There’s a sight of visitors come. What do you want?” He turned round and called to a lad, who was shouting something to him from the telega. “Oh! They all rode by here not long since, to look at a reaping machine. They’ll be home by now. And who may you belong to? . . .”

“We’ve come a long way,” said the coachman, climbing onto the box. “So it’s not far?”

“I tell you, it’s just here. As soon as you get out . . .” he said, keeping hold all the while of the mudguard of the carriage.

A healthy-looking, broad-shouldered young fellow came up too.

“What, is it laborers they want for the harvest?” he asked.

“I don’t know, my boy.”

“So you keep to the left, and you’ll come right on it,” said the peasant, unmistakably loath to let the travelers go, and eager to converse.

The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted: “Stop! Hi, friend! Stop!” The coachman stopped.

“They’re coming! They’re yonder!” shouted the peasant. “See what a turnout!” he said, pointing to four persons on horseback, and two in a charabanc, coming along the road.

They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky, and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviiazhsky in the charabanc. They had gone out to look at the working of a new reaping machine.

When the carriage stopped, the party on horseback were coming at a walking pace. Anna was in front beside Veslovsky. Anna was quietly walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short tail; Anna, with her beautiful head, her black hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders, her slender waist in her black riding habit, and all the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly.

For the first minute it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darva Alexandrovna’s mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna’s position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of Anna, that nothing could have been more natural.

By the side of Anna, on a hot-looking gray cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a good-humored smile as she recognized him. Behind rode Vronsky on a dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. He was holding her in, pulling at the reins.

After him rode a little man in the dress of a jockey. Sviiazhsky and Princess Varvara in a new charabanc with a big, raven-black trotting horse, overtook the party on horseback.

Anna’s face suddenly beamed with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she recognized Dolly. She uttered a cry, started in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance, and, holding up her riding habit, she ran up to greet Dolly.

“I thought it was you and dared not think it. How delightful! You can’t fancy how glad I am!” she said, at one moment pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and at the next holding her off and examining her with a smile. “Here’s a delightful surprise, Alexei!” she said, looking round at Vronsky, who had dismounted, and was walking toward them.

Vronsky, taking off his tall gray hat, went up to Dolly.

“You wouldn’t believe how glad we are to see you,” he said, giving peculiar significance to the words, and showing his strong white teeth in a smile.

Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head.

“That’s Princess Varvara,” Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly as the charabanc drove up.

“Ah!” said Darya Alexandrovna, and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband’s aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect her. She knew that Princess Varvara had passed her whole life toadying to her rich relations, but that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account of her kinship with her husband. Anna noticed Dolly’s expression, and was disconcerted by it. She blushed, dropped her riding habit, and stumbled over it.

Darya Alexandrovna went up to the charabanc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. Sviiazhsky, too, she knew. He inquired how his queer friend with the young wife was, and running his eyes over the ill-matched horses and the carriage with its patched mudguards, proposed to the ladies that they should get into the charabanc.

“And I’ll get in this vehicle,” he said. “The horse is quiet, and the Princess drives capitally.”

“No, stay as you were,” said Anna, coming up, “and we’ll go in the carriage,” and, taking Dolly’s arm, she drew her away.

Darya Alexandrovna’s eyes were fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. But what struck her most of all was the change that had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and loved. Any other woman, a less close observer, not knowing Anna before, and particularly not having thought as Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road, would not have noticed anything special in Anna. But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty, which is only found in women during the moments of love, and which she saw now in Anna’s face. Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips, the smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face, the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity of her movements, the fullness of the notes of her voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to gallop with the right leg foremost — it was all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if Anna herself were aware of it, and rejoicing in it.

When both the women were seated in the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both of them. Anna was disconcerted by the intent look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her. Dolly was embarrassed because after Sviiazhsky’s phrase about “this vehicle,” she could not help feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which Anna was sitting with her. The coachman Philip and the countinghouse clerk were experiencing the same sensation. The countinghouse clerk, to conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and was bracing himself not to be overawed in future by this external superiority. He smiled ironically, looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding in his own mind that this smart trotter in the charabanc was only good for promenade, and wouldn’t do forty verstas straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the telega and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making their comments on it.

“They’re pleased, too; haven’t seen each other for a long while,” said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his hair.

“I say, Uncle Gherasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn, that ‘ud be quick work!”

“Look-ee! Is that a woman in breeches?” said one of them, pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a sidesaddle.

“Nay, a man! See how smartly he’s going it!”

“Eh, lads! Seems we’re not going to sleep, then?”

“What chance of sleep today!” said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun. “Midday’s past, look-ee! Get your hooks, and come along!”