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to give some direction, when the competitors were summoned to the
pavilion to receive their numbers and places in the row at starting.
Seventeen officers, looking serious and severe, many with pale faces,
met together in the pavilion and drew the numbers. Vronsky drew the
number seven. The cry was heard: “Mount!”
Feeling that with the others riding in the race, he was the center
upon which all eyes were fastened, Vronsky walked up to his mare in
that state of nervous tension in which he usually became deliberate
and composed in his movements. Cord, in honor of the races, had put
on his best clothes, a black coat buttoned up, a stiffly starched collar,
which propped up his cheeks, a round black hat, and top boots. He was
calm and dignified as ever, and was with his own hands holding Frou-
Frou by both reins, standing straight in front of her. Frou-Frou was still
trembling as though in a fever. Her eye, full of fire, glanced sideways at
Vronsky. Vronsky slipped his finger under the saddle-girth. The mare
glanced aslant at him, drew up her lip, and twitched her ear. The
Englishman puckered up his lips, intending to indicate a smile that
anyone should verify his saddling.
“Get up; you won’t feel so excited.”
Vronsky looked round for the last time at his rivals. He knew that
he would not see them during the race. Two were already riding for-
ward to the point from which they were to start. Galtsin, a friend of
Vronsky’s and one of his more formidable rivals, was moving round a
bay horse that would not let him mount. A little light hussar in tight
riding breeches rode off at a gallop, crouched up like a cat on the
saddle, in imitation of English jockeys. Prince Kuzovlev sat with a
white face on his thoroughbred mare from the Grabovsky stud, while
an English groom led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades
knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of “weak nerves” and terrible van-
ity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, afraid of riding a
spirited horse. But now, just because it was terrible, because people
broke their necks, and there was a doctor standing at each obstacle,
and an ambulance with a cross on it, and a sister of mercy, he had made
up his mind to take part in the race. Their eyes met, and Vronsky gave
him a friendly and encouraging nod. Only one he did not see, his chief
rival, Mahotin on Gladiator.
“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Cord to Vronsky, “and remember one
thing: don’t hold her in at the fences, and don’t urge her on; let her go as
she likes.”
“All right, all right,” said Vronsky, taking the reins.
“If you can, lead the race; but don’t lose heart till the last minute,
even if you’re behind.”
Before the mare had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile,
vigorous movement into the steel-toothed stirrup, and lightly and firmly
seated himself on the creaking leather of the saddle. Getting his right
foot in the stirrup, he smoothed the double reins, as he always did,
between his fingers, and Cord let go.
As though she did not know which foot to put first, Frou-Frou
started, dragging at the reins with her long neck, and as though she
were on springs, shaking her rider from side to side. Cord quickened
his step, following him. The excited mare, trying to shake off her rider
first on one side and then the other, pulled at the reins, and Vronsky
tried in vain with voice and hand to soothe her.
They were just reaching the dammed-up stream on their way to
the starting point. Several of the riders were in front and several be-
hind, when suddenly Vronsky heard the sound of a horse galloping in
the mud behind him, and he was overtaken by Mahotin on his white-
legged, lop-eared Gladiator. Mahotin smiled, showing his long teeth,