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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 cart. “Oh! They all rode by here not long
since, to look at a reaping machine. They’ll be home by now. And who
will you be belonging 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 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 loth to let the travelers go, and eager to con-
verse.
The coachman started the horses, but they were only just turning
off when the peasant shouted: “Stop! Hi, friend! Stop!” called the two
voices. The coachman stopped.
“They’re coming! They’re yonder!” shouted the peasant. “See
what a turn-out!” he said, pointing to four persons on horseback, and
two in a char-a-banc, coming along the road.
They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky and Anna on horse-
back, and Princess Varvara and Sviazhsky in the char-a-banc. 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, quietly
walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped mane and short
tail, her beautiful head with 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
Darya Alexandrovna’s mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirta-
tion 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.
Beside 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 recog-
nized 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. Sviazhsky and
Princess Varvara in a new char-a-banc 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