The temporary stable, a wooden shed, had been put up close to the race course, and there his mare1 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 positively2 did not know in what condition his mare had arrived yesterday and was today. He had scarcely got out of his carriage when his groom3, 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 uncouth4 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, touching5 his hat. "I've put a muzzle6 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.
They went into the little yard in front of the shed. A stable boy, spruce and smart in his holiday attire7, met them with a broom in his hand, and followed them. In the shed there were five horses in their separate stalls, and Vronsky knew that his chief rival, Gladiator, a very tall chestnut8 horse, had been brought there, and must be standing9 among them. Even more than his mare, Vronsky longed to see Gladiator, whom he had never seen. But he knew that by the etiquette10 of the race course it was not merely impossible for him to see the horse, but improper12 even to ask questions about him. Just as he was passing along the passage, the boy opened the door into the second horse-box on the left, and Vronsky caught a glimpse of a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew that this was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a man turning away from the sight of another man's open letter, he turned round and went into Frou-Frou's stall.
"The horse is here belonging to Mak...Mak...I never can say the name," said the Englishman, over his shoulder, pointing his big finger and dirty nail towards Gladiator's stall.
"Mahotin? Yes, he's my most serious rival," said Vronsky.
"If you were riding him," said the Englishman, "I'd bet on you."
"Frou-Frou's more nervous; he's stronger," said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.
"In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on pluck," said the Englishman.
Of pluck--that is, energy and courage--Vronsky did not merely feel that he had enough; what was of far more importance, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this "pluck" than he had.
"Don't you think I want more thinning down?"
"Oh, no," answered the Englishman. "Please, don't speak loud. The mare's fidgety," he added, nodding towards the horse-box, before which they were standing, and from which came the sound of restless stamping in the straw.
He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse-box, dimly lighted by one little window. In the horse-box stood a dark bay mare, with a muzzle on, picking at the fresh straw with her hoofs13. Looking round him in the twilight14 of the horse-box, Vronsky unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance all the points of his favorite mare. Frou-Frou was a beast of medium size, not altogether free from reproach, from a breeder's point of view. She was small-boned all over; though her chest was extremely prominent in front, it was narrow. Her hind-quarters were a little drooping15, and in her fore-legs, and still more in her hind-legs, there was a noticeable curvature. The muscles of both hind- and fore-legs were not very thick; but across her shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a peculiarity16 specially17 striking now that she was lean from training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily18 thick seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across the shoulders, as it were, pinched in at the sides and pressed out in depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that makes all defects forgotten: that quality was blood, the blood that tells, as the English expression has it. The muscles stood up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with this delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they were hard a bone. Her clean-cut head with prominent, bright, spirited eyes, broadened out at the open nostrils19, that showed the red blood in the cartilage within. About all her figure, and especially her head, there was a certain expression of energy, and, at the same time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which seem only not to speak because the mechanism20 of their mouth does not allow them to.
To Vronsky, at any rate, it seemed that she understood all he felt at that moment, looking at her.
Directly Vronsky went towards her, she drew in a deep breath, and, turning back her prominent eye till the white looked bloodshot, she started at the approaching figures from the opposite side, shaking her muzzle, and shifting lightly from one leg to the other.
"There, you see how fidgety she is," said the Englishman.
"There, darling! There!" said Vronsky, going up to the mare and speaking soothingly21 to her.
But the nearer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he stood by her head, she was suddenly quieter, while the muscles quivered under her soft, delicate coat. Vronsky patted her strong neck, straightened over her sharp withers22 a stray lock of her mane that had fallen on the other side, and moved his face near her dilated23 nostrils, transparent24 as a bat's wing. She drew a loud breath and snorted out through her tense nostrils, started, pricked25 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 throbbing26, 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 amazement27 raised his head, and stared, as he knew how to stare, not into the Englishman's eyes, but at his forehead, astounded28 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 solitude29 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 interfere30 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 does everybody feel called upon to concern himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see that this is something they can't understand. If it were a common, vulgar, worldly intrigue31, they would have left me alone. They feel that this is something different, that this is not a mere11 pastime, that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is incomprehensible, and that's why it annoys them. Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not complain of it," he said, in the word we linking himself with Anna. "No, they must needs teach us how to live. They haven't an idea of what happiness is; they don't know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappiness--no life at all," he thought.
He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right. He felt that the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary32 impulse, which would pass, as worldly intrigues33 do pass, leaving no other traces in the life of either but pleasant or unpleasant memories. He felt all the torture of his own and her position, all the difficulty there was for them, conspicuous34 as they were in the eye of all the world, in concealing35 their love, in lying and deceiving; and in lying, deceiving, feigning36, and continually thinking of others, when the passion that united them was so intense that they were both oblivious37 of everything else but their love.
He vividly38 recalled all the constantly recurring39 instances of inevitable40 necessity for lying and deceit, which were so against his natural bent41. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more than once detected in her at this necessity for lying and deceit. And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come upon him since his secret love for Anna. This was a feeling of loathing42 for something--whether for Alexey Alexandrovitch, or for himself, or for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove away this strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the thread of his thoughts.
"Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she cannot be at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it," he decided43.
And for the first time the idea clearly presented itself that it was essential to put an end to this false position, and the sooner the better. "Throw up everything, she and I, and hide ourselves somewhere alone with our love," he said to himself.
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1
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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withers
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| 马肩隆 | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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