Fifty-Two Stories

And either because her Giant was great friends with Count Nulin, or it came about by chance, she rode next to Nikitin all the time, as she had yesterday and the day before. And he looked at her small, shapely body, seated on the proud white animal, at her fine profile, her top hat, which did not suit her and made her look older than she was, looked with joy, with tenderness, with rapture, listened to her, understood little, and thought:

“On my word of honor, I swear to God, I won’t be timid, I’ll propose to her today…”

It was past six in the evening—that time when the scent of white acacia and lilacs is so intense that it seems the air and the trees themselves swoon from it. Music was already playing in the town garden. The horses drummed resoundingly on the pavement; on all sides there was the sound of laughter, talk, the slamming of gates. Passing soldiers saluted the officers, schoolboys greeted Nikitin; and the promenaders, who were hurrying to the garden to listen to the music, were all obviously very pleased to see the cavalcade. And how warm it was, how soft the clouds looked, scattered in disorder across the sky, how meek and homey the shadows of the poplars and acacias—shadows that stretched all the way across the wide street and covered the houses on the other side up to the balconies and second floors!

They rode out of town and went at a trot down the high road. Here there was no scent of acacias and lilacs, no sound of music; instead there was the smell of the fields, the green growth of young rye and wheat, the squealing of gophers, the cawing of rooks. It was green everywhere you looked, with dark melon patches here and there and far to the left, by the cemetery, the white strip of a fading apple orchard.

They rode past the slaughterhouses, then past the brewery, overtook a crowd of military musicians hurrying to a park outside town.

“Polyansky has a very good horse, I don’t dispute it,” Manyusya said to Nikitin, indicating with her eyes the officer who was riding beside Varya. “But it’s flawed. That white blotch on its left leg is totally out of place, and look how it tosses its head. There’s no way to break it now, it will go on tossing its head till it drops dead.”

Manyusya was as passionate about horses as her father. She suffered when she saw someone with a fine horse, and was glad when she found defects in other people’s horses. Nikitin understood nothing about horses, and for him it was decidedly all the same to hold a horse by the reins or by the bit, to ride at a trot or a gallop; he only felt that his posture was unnatural, strained, and therefore officers who knew how to seat a horse must be more pleasing to Manyusya than he was. And he felt jealous of those officers.

As they rode past the park, someone suggested they stop and drink some seltzer water. So they did. The only trees in the park were oaks; they had begun to leaf out only recently, so that for now, through the young foliage, the whole park could be seen, with its bandstand, tables, swings, and with all its crows’ nests, which looked like big hats. The horsemen and their ladies dismounted by one of the tables and ordered seltzer water. Some acquaintances who were strolling in the park came up to them. Among others there was the army doctor in high boots and the choirmaster, who was waiting for his musicians. The doctor must have taken Nikitin for a student, because he asked:

“Are you here on vacation?”

“No, I live here permanently,” Nikitin replied. “I teach in the high school.”

“Really?” the doctor was surprised. “So young and already a teacher?”

“Why young? I’m twenty-six…Thank God.”

“You have a beard and moustache, but all the same you look no more than twenty-two or twenty-three. So youthful!”

“What swinishness!” thought Nikitin. “This one, too, considers me a milksop!”

He disliked it very much when someone turned the conversation to his youth, especially in the presence of women or schoolboys. Since coming to this town and taking up his post, he had begun to hate his youthfulness. The schoolboys were not afraid of him, the old men called him a youngster, women much preferred dancing with him to listening to his long discourses. And he would have given a lot to age by ten years or so.

From the park they rode further on, to the Shelestovs’ farm. There they stopped at the gate, sent for the steward’s wife Praskovya, and asked for some fresh milk. No one tasted the milk; they all looked at each other, laughed, and rode home. On their way back, music was already playing in the park; the sun had hidden behind the cemetery, and half the sky was crimson with sunset.