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hush of expectation.
And little groups and solitary figures among the public began run-
ning from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute
the close group of horsemen drew out, and it could be seen that they
were approaching the stream in two’s and three’s and one behind an-
other. To the spectators it seemed as though they had all started
simultaneously, but to the racers there were seconds of difference that
had great value to them.
Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous, had lost the first moment,
and several horses had started before her, but before reaching the
stream, Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she
tugged at the bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front
of him Mahotin’s chestnut Gladiator, whose hind-quarters were mov-
ing lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky,
and in front of all, the dainty mare Diana bearing Kuzovlev more dead
than alive.
For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his
mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not guide the
motions of his mare.
Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same
instant; simultaneously they rose above the stream and flew across to
the other side; Frou-Frou darted after them, as if flying; but at the very
moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost
under his mare’s hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering with Diana on
the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he took
the leap, and the mare had sent him flying over her head.) Those
details Vronsky learned later; at the moment all he saw was that just
under him, where Frou-Frou must alight, Diana’s legs or head might
be in the way. But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back in the very act
of leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare, alighted be-
yond her.
“O the darling!” thought Vronsky.
After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare,
and began holding her in, intending to cross the great barrier behind
Mahotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about five
hundred yards that followed it.
The great barrier stood just in front of the imperial pavilion. The
Tsar and the whole court and crowds of people were all gazing at
them—at him, and Mahotin a length ahead of him, as they drew near
the “devil,” as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those
eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the
ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the
back and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and
keeping always the same distance ahead. Gladiator rose, with no
sound of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he
disappeared from Vronsky’s sight.
“Bravo!” cried a voice.
At the same instant, under Vronsky’s eyes, right before him flashed
the palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change in her action
his mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash
behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator’s keeping ahead, had risen
too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with her hind hoofs. But her
pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face,
realized that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator.
Once more he perceived in front of him the same back and short tail,
and again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away.
At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time
to overtake Mahotin, Frou-Frou herself, understanding his thoughts,