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“Well, listen, Balag! Drive all three to death but get me there in three hours. Eh?”
“When they are dead, what shall I drive?” said Balag with a wink.
“Mind, I’ll smash your face in! Don’t make jokes!” cried Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.
“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d grudge my gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we’ll go!”
“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”
“Yes, sit down!” said Dlokhov.
“I’ll stand, Theodore Ivnych.”
“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large glass of Madeira for him.
The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief he took out of his cap.
“And when are we to start, your excellency?”
“Well...” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once. Mind, Balag! You’ll get there in time? Eh?”
“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be there in time?” replied Balag. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”
“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole, smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makrin who gazed rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it, Makrka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?”
“Those were horses!” Balag continued the tale. “That time I’d harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went on, turning to Dlokhov. “Will you believe it, Theodore Ivnych, those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—‘Catch hold yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on, there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.”
Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror, and standing before Dlokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it, he lifted a glass of wine.
“Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!” said Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends...” he considered for a moment “... of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makrin and the others.
Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed one leg.
“All take glasses; you too, Balag. Well, comrades and friends of my youth, we’ve had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—now farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!...” he cried, and emptying his glass flung it on the floor.
“To your health!” said Balag who also emptied his glass, and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief.
Makrin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!
“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole.
Balag was about to leave the room.
“No, stop!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have first to sit down. That’s the way.”
They shut the door and all sat down.
“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, rising.
Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all went out into the vestibule.
“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dlokhov. “Hey, Igntka! Go to Matrna Matrvna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what elopements are like,” continued Dlokhov with a wink. “Why, she’ll rush out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay at all there’ll be tears and ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’s frozen in a minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing and carry her to the sleigh.”
The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak.
“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrna, the sable!” he shouted so that his voice rang far through the rooms.
A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable mantle on her arm.
“Here, I don’t grudge it—take it!” she said, evidently afraid of her master and yet regretful of her cloak.
Dlokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrna, and wrapped her up in it.
“That’s the way,” said Dlokhov, “and then so!” and he turned the collar up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. “And then so, do you see?” and he pushed Anatole’s head forward to meet the gap left by the collar, through which Matrna’s brilliant smile was seen.
“Well, good-by, Matrna,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my revels here are over. Remember me to Stshka. There, good-by! Good-by, Matrna, wish me luck!”
“Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!” said Matrna in her gypsy accent.
Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were holding the horses. Balag took his seat in the front one and holding his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dlokhov got in with him. Makrin, Khvstikov, and a valet seated themselves in the other sleigh.
“Well, are you ready?” asked Balag.
“Go!” he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore down the Niktski Boulevard.
“Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!...” The shouting of Balag and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be heard. On the Arbt Square the troyka caught against a carriage; something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the Arbt Street.
