Part 38

“I told you I would lead you to the forest, to the mountains…. Here they are, the mountains!” The mountains, covered with tall forest, rose about two hundred feet from the place they had reached in their wild ride. “Look, here is the road; let us turn into it—and forwards. Only at a walk. We must let our horses get their breath.”

They rode on. With one vigorous sweep of her arm Maria Nikolaevna flung back her hair. Then she looked at her gloves and took them off. “My hands will smell of leather,” she said, “you won’t mind that, eh?” … Maria Nikolaevna smiled, and Sanin smiled too. Their mad gallop together seemed to have finally brought them together and made them friends.

“How old are you?” she asked suddenly.

“Twenty-two.”

“Really? I’m twenty-two too. A nice age. Add both together and you’re still far off old age. It’s hot, though. Am I very red, eh?”

“Like a poppy!”

Maria Nikolaevna rubbed her face with her handkerchief. “We’ve only to get to the forest and there it will be cool. Such an old forest is like an old friend. Have you any friends?”

Sanin thought a little. “Yes … only few. No real ones.”

“I have; real ones—but not old ones. This is a friend too—a horse. How carefully it carries one! Ah, but it’s splendid here! Is it possible I am going to Paris the day after to-morrow?”

“Yes … is it possible?” Sanin chimed in.

“And you to Frankfort?”

“I am certainly going to Frankfort.”

“Well, what of it? Good luck go with you! Anyway, to-day’s ours … ours … ours!”

The horses reached the forest’s edge and pushed on into the forest. The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.

“Oh, but this is paradise!” cried Maria Nikolaevna. “Further, deeper into the shade, Sanin!”

The horses moved slowly on, “deeper into the shade,” slightly swaying and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.

“Stop!” cried Maria Nikolaevna, “I want to sit down and rest on this velvet. Help me to get off.”

Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses’ bridles in his hand.

She lifted her eyes to him…. “Sanin, are you able to forget?”

Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday … in the carriage. “What is that—a question … or a reproach?”

“I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you believe in magic?”

“What?”

“In magic?—you know what is sung of in our ballads—our Russian peasant ballads?”

“Ah! That’s what you’re speaking of,” Sanin said slowly.

“Yes, that’s it. I believe in it … and you will believe in it.”

“Magic is sorcery …” Sanin repeated, “Anything in the world is possible. I used not to believe in it—but I do now. I don’t know myself.”

Maria Nikolaevna thought a moment and looked about her. “I fancy this place seems familiar to me. Look, Sanin, behind that bushy oak—is there a red wooden cross, or not?”

Sanin moved a few steps to one side. “Yes, there is.” Maria Nikolaevna smiled. “Ah, that’s good! I know where we are. We haven’t got lost as yet. What’s that tapping? A wood-cutter?”