Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [117]
‘Ah, there’s Karenin,’ the acquaintance with whom he was talking said to him. ‘Looking for his wife, and she’s in the central pavilion. You haven’t seen her?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Vronsky replied and, not even glancing at the pavilion in which he had been told Anna was, he went over to his horse.
Vronsky had just managed to inspect the saddle, about which he had to give some instructions, when the participants were summoned to the pavilion to draw numbers and start. With serious, stern faces, many of them pale, seventeen officers gathered at the pavilion and each took a number. Vronsky got number seven. The call came: ‘Mount!’
Feeling that he and the other riders were the centre towards which all eyes were turned, Vronsky, in a state of tension, which usually made him slow and calm of movement, approached his horse. In honour of the races, Cord had put on his gala outfit: a black, high-buttoned frock coat, a stiffly starched collar propping up his cheeks, a black Derby hat and top-boots. He was calm and imposing, as always, and held the horse himself by both sides of the bridle, standing in front of her. Frou-Frou continued to tremble as in a fever. Her fire-filled eye looked askance at the approaching Vronsky. Vronsky slipped a finger under the girth. The horse looked still more askance, bared her teeth, and flattened one ear. The Englishman puckered his lips, wishing to show a smile at his saddling being checked.
‘Mount up, you’ll be less excited.’
Vronsky gave his rivals a last look. He knew that during the race he would no longer see them. Two were already riding ahead to the starting place. Galtsyn, one of the dangerous rivals and Vronsky’s friend, was fussing around a bay stallion that would not let him mount. A little life-hussar in tight breeches rode by at a gallop, hunched on the croup like a cat, trying to imitate the English. Prince Kuzovlev sat pale on his thoroughbred mare from Grabov’s stud, while an Englishman led her by the bridle. Vronsky and all his comrades knew Kuzovlev and his peculiarity of ‘weak’ nerves and terrible vanity. They knew that he was afraid of everything, afraid of riding an army horse; but now, precisely because it was scary, because people broke their necks, and because by each obstacle there was a doctor, an ambulance wagon with a cross sewn on it and a sister of mercy, he had decided to ride. Their eyes met, and Vronsky winked at him gently and approvingly. There was only one man he did not see - his chief rival, Makhotin on Gladiator.
‘Don’t rush,’ Cord said to Vronsky, ‘and remember one thing: don’t hold her back at the obstacles and don’t send her over, let her choose as she likes.’
‘Very well, very well,’ said Vronsky, taking the reins.
‘Lead the race, if you can; but don’t despair till the last moment, even if you’re behind.’
Before the horse had time to move, Vronsky, with a supple and strong movement, stood in the serrated steel stirrup and lightly, firmly placed his compact body on the creaking leather saddle. Putting his right foot into the stirrup, he evened up the double reins between his fingers with an accustomed gesture, and Cord loosed his grip. As if not knowing which foot to put first, Frou-Frou, pulling at the reins with her long neck, started off as if on springs, rocking her rider on her supple back. Cord, increasing his pace, walked after them. The excited horse, trying to trick her rider, pulled the reins now to one side, now to the other, and Vronsky tried in vain to calm her with his voice and hand.
They were already nearing the dammed-up stream, heading for the place where they were to start. Many of the riders were in front of him, many behind, when Vronsky suddenly heard the sound of galloping in the mud of the road behind him and was overtaken