Part 37

She seemed so happy that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have when they are very … very much pleased.

They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls, but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.

Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace; Sanin followed her example.

“This,” she began with a deep blissful sigh, “this now is the only thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to, what seemed impossible—come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last drop!” She passed her hand across her throat. “And how good and kind one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment … how good I feel! I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole world…. That man now I couldn’t.” She pointed with her whip at a poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. “But I am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,” she shouted loudly in German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag (leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop.

“Do you enjoy riding so much?” Sanin asked, as he overtook her.

Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could she bring her to a stop.

“I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he spoils my pleasure. You see I didn’t do that for his sake, but for my own. How dare he thank me? I didn’t hear what you asked me.”

“I asked … I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.”

“Do you know what,” said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not heard Sanin’s question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer it. “I’m awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us, and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going home again. How shall we get rid of him?” She hastily pulled a little pocket-book out of her pocket. “Send him back to the town with a note? No … that won’t do. Ah! I have it! What’s that in front of us? Isn’t it an inn?”

Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. “Yes, I believe it is an inn.”

“Well, that’s first-rate. I’ll tell him to stop at that inn and drink beer till we come back.”

“But what will he think?”

“What does it matter to us? Besides, he won’t think at all; he’ll drink beer—that’s all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had used his surname alone), on, gallop!”

When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle.

“Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!” cried Maria Nikolaevna. “Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look—I’m like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those glorious mountains—and that forest! Let’s go there, to the mountains, to the mountains!”

“In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!”

She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin galloped after her.

XLII

This track soon changed into a tiny footpath, and at last disappeared altogether, and was crossed by a stream. Sanin counselled turning back, but Maria Nikolaevna said, “No! I want to get to the mountains! Let’s go straight, as the birds fly,” and she made her mare leap the stream. Sanin leaped it too. Beyond the stream began a wide meadow, at first dry, then wet, and at last quite boggy; the water oozed up everywhere, and stood in pools in some places. Maria Nikolaevna rode her mare straight through these pools on purpose, laughed, and said, “Let’s be naughty children.”

“Do you know,” she asked Sanin, “what is meant by pool-hunting?”

“Yes,” answered Sanin.

“I had an uncle a huntsman,” she went on.

“I used to go out hunting with him—in the spring. It was delicious! Here we are now, on the pools with you. Only, I see, you’re a Russian, and yet mean to marry an Italian. Well, that’s your sorrow. What’s that? A stream again! Gee up!”

The horse took the leap, but Maria Nikolaevna’s hat fell off her head, and her curls tumbled loose over her shoulders. Sanin was just going to get off his horse to pick up the hat, but she shouted to him, “Don’t touch it, I’ll get it myself,” bent low down from the saddle, hooked the handle of her whip into the veil, and actually did get the hat. She put it on her head, but did not fasten up her hair, and again darted off, positively holloaing. Sanin dashed along beside her, by her side leaped trenches, fences, brooks, fell in and scrambled out, flew down hill, flew up hill, and kept watching her face. What a face it was! It was all, as it were, wide open: wide-open eyes, eager, bright, and wild; lips, nostrils, open too, and breathing eagerly; she looked straight before her, and it seemed as though that soul longed to master everything it saw, the earth, the sky, the sun, the air itself; and would complain of one thing only—that dangers were so few, and all she could overcome. “Sanin!” she cried, “why, this is like Bürger’s Lenore! Only you’re not dead—eh? Not dead … I am alive!” She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed, half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!

Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she was staggering under her, and Sanin’s powerful but heavy horse was gasping for breath.

“Well, do you like it?” Maria Nikolaevna asked in a sort of exquisite whisper.

“I like it!” Sanin echoed back ecstatically. And his blood was on fire.

“This isn’t all, wait a bit.” She held out her hand. Her glove was torn across.