The coachman pulled up his four horses
and looked round to the right, to a field of rye,
where some peasants were sitting on a cart. 
The counting house clerk was just going to jump down,
but on second thoughts he shouted peremptorily to
the peasants instead, and beckoned to them to come
up.  The wind, that seemed to blow as they drove,
dropped when the carriage stood still; gadflies settled
on the steaming horses that angrily shook them off. 
The metallic clank of a whetstone against a scythe,
that came to them from the cart, ceased.  One
of the peasants got up and came towards the carriage.

“Well, you are slow!”
the counting house clerk shouted angrily to the peasant
who was stepping slowly with his bare feet over the
ruts of the rough dry road.  “Come along,
do!”

A curly-headed old man with a bit
of bast tied round his hair, and his bent back dark
with perspiration, came towards the carriage, quickening
his steps, and took hold of the mud-guard with his
sunburnt hand.

“Vozdvizhenskoe, the manor house?
the count’s?” he repeated; “go on
to the end of this track.  Then turn to the left. 
Straight along the avenue and you’ll come right
upon it.  But whom do you want?  The count
himself?”

“Well, are they at home, my
good man?” Darya Alexandrovna said vaguely,
not knowing how to ask about Anna, even of this peasant.

“At home for sure,” said
the peasant, shifting from one bare foot to the other,
and leaving a distinct print of five toes and a heel
in the dust.  “Sure to be at home,”
he repeated, evidently eager to talk.  “Only
yesterday visitors arrived.  There’s a
sight of visitors come.  What do you want?”
He turned round and called to a lad, who was shouting
something to him from the cart.  “Oh! 
They all rode by here not long since, to look at a
reaping machine.  They’ll be home by now. 
And who will you be belonging to?…”

“We’ve come a long way,”
said the coachman, climbing onto the box.  “So
it’s not far?”

“I tell you, it’s just
here.  As soon as you get out…” he said,
keeping hold all the while of the carriage.

A healthy-looking, broad-shouldered
young fellow came up too.

“What, is it laborers they want
for the harvest?” he asked.

“I don’t know, my boy.”

“So you keep to the left, and
you’ll come right on it,” said the peasant,
unmistakably loth to let the travelers go, and eager
to converse.

The coachman started the horses, but
they were only just turning off when the peasant shouted: 
“Stop!  Hi, friend!  Stop!” called
the two voices.  The coachman stopped.

“They’re coming! 
They’re yonder!” shouted the peasant. 
“See what a turn-out!” he said, pointing
to four persons on horseback, and two in a char-a-banc,
coming along the road.

They were Vronsky with a jockey, Veslovsky
and Anna on horseback, and Princess Varvara and Sviazhsky
in the char-a-banc.  They had gone out
to look at the working of a new reaping machine.

When the carriage stopped, the party
on horseback were coming at a walking pace. 
Anna was in front beside Veslovsky.  Anna, quietly
walking her horse, a sturdy English cob with cropped
mane and short tail, her beautiful head with her black
hair straying loose under her high hat, her full shoulders,
her slender waist in her black riding habit, and all
the ease and grace of her deportment, impressed Dolly.

For the first minute it seemed to
her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. 
The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was,
in Darya Alexandrovna’s mind, associated with
ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which,
in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna’s position. 
But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer,
she was at once reconciled to her riding.  In
spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet,
and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements
of Anna, that nothing could have been more natural.

Beside Anna, on a hot-looking gray
cavalry horse, was Vassenka Veslovsky in his Scotch
cap with floating ribbons, his stout legs stretched
out in front, obviously pleased with his own appearance. 
Darya Alexandrovna could not suppress a good-humored
smile as she recognized him.  Behind rode Vronsky
on a dark bay mare, obviously heated from galloping. 
He was holding her in, pulling at the reins.

After him rode a little man in the
dress of a jockey.  Sviazhsky and Princess Varvara
in a new char-a-banc with a big, raven-black
trotting horse, overtook the party on horseback.

Anna’s face suddenly beamed
with a joyful smile at the instant when, in the little
figure huddled in a corner of the old carriage, she
recognized Dolly.  She uttered a cry, started
in the saddle, and set her horse into a gallop. 
On reaching the carriage she jumped off without assistance,
and holding up her riding habit, she ran up to greet
Dolly.

“I thought it was you and dared
not think it.  How delightful!  You can’t
fancy how glad I am!” she said, at one moment
pressing her face against Dolly and kissing her, and
at the next holding her off and examining her with
a smile.

“Here’s a delightful surprise,
Alexey!” she said, looking round at Vronsky,
who had dismounted, and was walking towards them.

Vronsky, taking off his tall gray
hat, went up to Dolly.

“You wouldn’t believe
how glad we are to see you,” he said, giving
peculiar significance to the words, and showing his
strong white teeth in a smile.

Vassenka Veslovsky, without getting
off his horse, took off his cap and greeted the visitor
by gleefully waving the ribbons over his head.

“That’s Princess Varvara,”
Anna said in reply to a glance of inquiry from Dolly
as the char-a-banc drove up.

“Ah!” said Darya Alexandrovna,
and unconsciously her face betrayed her dissatisfaction.

Princess Varvara was her husband’s
aunt, and she had long known her, and did not respect
her.  She knew that Princess Varvara had passed
her whole life toadying on her rich relations, but
that she should now be sponging on Vronsky, a man
who was nothing to her, mortified Dolly on account
of her kinship with her husband.  Anna noticed
Dolly’s expression, and was disconcerted by it. 
She blushed, dropped her riding habit, and stumbled
over it.

Darya Alexandrovna went up to the
char-a-banc and coldly greeted Princess Varvara. 
Sviazhsky too she knew.  He inquired how his
queer friend with the young wife was, and running his
eyes over the ill-matched horses and the carriage
with its patched mud-guards, proposed to the ladies
that they should get into the char-a-banc.

“And I’ll get into this
vehicle,” he said.  “The horse is
quiet, and the princess drives capitally.”

“No, stay as you were,”
said Anna, coming up, “and we’ll go in
the carriage,” and taking Dolly’s arm,
she drew her away.

Darya Alexandrovna’s eyes were
fairly dazzled by the elegant carriage of a pattern
she had never seen before, the splendid horses, and
the elegant and gorgeous people surrounding her. 
But what struck her most of all was the change that
had taken place in Anna, whom she knew so well and
loved.  Any other woman, a less close observer,
not knowing Anna before, or not having thought as
Darya Alexandrovna had been thinking on the road,
would not have noticed anything special in Anna. 
But now Dolly was struck by that temporary beauty,
which is only found in women during the moments of
love, and which she saw now in Anna’s face. 
Everything in her face, the clearly marked dimples
in her cheeks and chin, the line of her lips, the
smile which, as it were, fluttered about her face,
the brilliance of her eyes, the grace and rapidity
of her movements, the fulness of the notes of her
voice, even the manner in which, with a sort of angry
friendliness, she answered Veslovsky when he asked
permission to get on her cob, so as to teach it to
gallop with the right leg foremost ­it was
all peculiarly fascinating, and it seemed as if she
were herself aware of it, and rejoicing in it.

When both the women were seated in
the carriage, a sudden embarrassment came over both
of them.  Anna was disconcerted by the intent
look of inquiry Dolly fixed upon her.  Dolly was
embarrassed because after Sviazhsky’s phrase
about “this vehicle,” she could not help
feeling ashamed of the dirty old carriage in which
Anna was sitting with her.  The coachman Philip
and the counting house clerk were experiencing the
same sensation.  The counting house clerk, to
conceal his confusion, busied himself settling the
ladies, but Philip the coachman became sullen, and
was bracing himself not to be overawed in future by
this external superiority.  He smiled ironically,
looking at the raven horse, and was already deciding
in his own mind that this smart trotter in the char-a-banc
was only good for promenade, and wouldn’t
do thirty miles straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the
cart and were inquisitively and mirthfully staring
at the meeting of the friends, making their comments
on it.

“They’re pleased, too;
haven’t seen each other for a long while,”
said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his
hair.

“I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we
could take that raven horse now, to cart the corn,
that ’ud be quick work!”

“Look-ee!  Is that a woman
in breeches?” said one of them, pointing to
Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side saddle.

“Nay, a man!  See how smartly he’s
going it!”

“Eh, lads! seems we’re not going to sleep,
then?”

“What chance of sleep today!”
said the old man, with a sidelong look at the sun. 
“Midday’s past, look-ee!  Get your
hooks, and come along!”