and the morning,
and I could bring you back by three o'clock tomorrow. Will you come?"

"With pleasure," Nejdanov replied. Ever since Markelov's appearance he
had been in a state of great excitement and embarrassment. This sudden
intimacy made him feel ill at ease, but he was nevertheless drawn to
him. He felt certain that the man before him was of a sufficiently blunt
nature, but for all that honest and full of strength. Moreover, the
strange meeting in the wood, Mariana's unexpected explanation...

"Very well!" Markelov exclaimed. "You can get ready while I order the
carriage to be brought out. By the way, I hope you won't have to ask
permission of our host and hostess."

"I must tell them. I don't think it would be wise to go away without
doing so."

"I'll tell them," Markelov said. "They are engrossed in their cards just
now and will not notice your absence. My brother-in-law aims only at
governmental folk, and the only thing he can do well is to play at
cards. However, it is said that many succeed in getting what they
want through such means. You'll get ready, won't you? I'll make all
arrangements immediately."

Markelov withdrew, and an hour later Nejdanov sat by his side on the
broad leather-cushioned seat of his comfortable old carriage. The little
coachman on the box kept on whistling in wonderfully pleasant bird-like
notes; three piebald horses, with plaited manes and tails, flew like
the wind over the smooth even road; and already enveloped in the first
shadows of the night (it was exactly ten o'clock when they started),
trees, bushes, fields, meadows, and ditches, some in the foreground,
others in the background, sailed swiftly towards them.

Markelov's tiny little village, Borsionkov, consisting of about two
hundred acres in all, and bringing him in an income of seven hundred
roubles a year, was situated about three miles away from the provincial
town, seven miles off from Sipiagin's village. To get to Borsionkov from
Sipiagin's, one had to go through the town. Our new friends had scarcely
time to exchange a hundred words when glimpses of the mean little
dwellings of shopkeepers on the outskirts of the town flashed past them,
little dwellings with shabby wooden roofs, from which faint patches
of light could be seen through crooked little windows; the wheels soon
rattled over the town bridge, paved with cobble stones; the carriage
gave a jerk, rocked from side to side, and swaying with every jolt,
ro