dilated nostrils, transparent as a bat's wing. She drew
a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils,
started, pricked up her sharp ear, and put out her strong, black
lip towards Vronsky, as though she would nip hold of his sleeve.
But remembering the muzzle, she shook it and again began
restlessly stamping one after the other her shapely legs.

"Quiet, darling, quiet!" he said, patting her again over her
hind-quarters; and with a glad sense that his mare was in the
best possible condition, he went out of the horse-box.

The mare's excitement had infected Vronsky. He felt that his
heart was throbbing, and that he, too, like the mare, longed to
move, to bite; it was both dreadful and delicious.

"Well, I rely on you, then," he said to the Englishman;
"half-past six on the ground."

"All right," said the Englishman. "Oh, where are you going, my
lord?" he asked suddenly, using the title "my lord," which he had
scarcely ever used before.

Vronsky in amazement raised his head, and stared, as he knew how
to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead,
astounded at the impertinence of his question. But realizing
that in asking this the Englishman had been looking at him not as
an employer, but as a jockey, he answered:

"I've got to go to Bryansky's; I shall be home within an hour."

"How often I'm asked that question today!" he said to himself,
and he blushed, a thing which rarely happened to him. The
Englishman looked gravely at him; and, as though he, too, knew
where Vronsky was going, he added:

"The great thing's to keep quiet before a race," said he; "don't
get out of temper or upset about anything."

"All right," answered Vronsky, smiling; and jumping into his
carriage, he told the man to drive to Peterhof.

Before he had driven many paces away, the dark clouds that had
been threatening rain all day broke, and there was a heavy
downpour of rain.

"What a pity!" thought Vronsky, putting up the roof of the
carriage. "It was muddy before, now it will be a perfect swamp."
As he sat in solitude in the closed carriage, he took out his
mother's letter and his brother's note, and read them through.

Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone, his
mother, his brother, everyone thought fit to interfere in the
affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling
of angry hatred--a feeling he had rarely known before. "What
business is it of theirs? Why