“Well, you did give it to us yesterday,” said one of those who had come in; “you didn’t let us get a wink of sleep all night.”

“Oh, didn’t we make a pretty finish!” said Petritsky.  “Volkov climbed onto the roof and began telling us how sad he was.  I said:  ‘Let’s have music, the funeral march!’ He fairly dropped asleep on the roof over the funeral march.”

“Drink it up; you positively must drink the brandy, and then seltzer water and a lot of lemon,” said Yashvin, standing over Petritsky like a mother making a child take medicine, “and then a little champagne—­just a small bottle.”

“Come, there’s some sense in that.  Stop a bit, Vronsky.  We’ll all have a drink.”

“No; good-bye all of you.  I’m not going to drink today.”

“Why, are you gaining weight?  All right, then we must have it alone.  Give us the seltzer water and lemon.”

“Vronsky!” shouted someone when he was already outside.

“Well?”

“You’d better get your hair cut, it’ll weigh you down, especially at the top.”

Vronsky was in fact beginning, prematurely, to get a little bald.  He laughed gaily, showing his even teeth, and pulling his cap over the thin place, went out and got into his carriage.

“To the stables!” he said, and was just pulling out the letters to read them through, but he thought better of it, and put off reading them so as not to distract his attention before looking at the mare.  “Later!”

Chapter 21

The temporary stable, a wooden shed, had been put up close to the race course, and there his mare was to have been taken the previous day.  He had not yet seen her there.

During the last few days he had not ridden her out for exercise himself, but had put her in the charge of the trainer, and so now he positively did not know in what condition his mare had arrived yesterday and was today.  He had scarcely got out of his carriage when his groom, the so-called “stable boy,” recognizing the carriage some way off, called the trainer.  A dry-looking Englishman, in high boots and a short jacket, clean-shaven, except for a tuft below his chin, came to meet him, walking with the uncouth gait of jockey, turning his elbows out and swaying from side to side.

“Well, how’s Frou-Frou?” Vronsky asked in English.

“All right, sir,” the Englishman’s voice responded somewhere in the inside of his throat.  “Better not go in,” he added, touching his hat.  “I’ve put a muzzle on her, and the mare’s fidgety.  Better not go in, it’ll excite the mare.”

“No, I’m going in.  I want to look at her.”

“Come along, then,” said the Englishman, frowning, and speaking with his mouth shut, and, with swinging elbows, he went on in front with his disjointed gait.