“Oh, I’ll stand, Fyodor Ivanovitch.”

“Sit down; nonsense! have a drink,” said Anatole, and he poured him out a big glass of madeira. The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. Refusing it at first for manners’ sake, he tossed it off, and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief that lay in his cap.

“Well, and when are we to start, your excellency?”

“Oh…” Anatole looked at his watch. “We must set off at once. Now mind, Balaga. Eh? You’ll get there in time?”

“To be sure, if we’ve luck in getting off. Why shouldn’t we do it in the time?” said Balaga. “We got you to Tver, and got there in seven hours. You remember, I bet, your excellency!”

“Do you know, I once drove from Tver at Christmas time,” said Anatole, with a smile at the recollection, addressing Makarin, who was gazing admiringly at him. “Would you believe it, Makarka, one could hardly breathe we flew so fast. We drove into a train of wagons and rode right over two of them! Eh?”

“They were horses, too,” Balaga went on. “I’d put two young horses in the traces with the bay in the shafts”—he turned to Dolohov—“and, would you believe me, Fyodor Ivanovitch, sixty versts those beasts galloped. There was no holding them, for my hands were numb; it was a frost. I flung down the reins. “You hold them yourself, your excellency,” said I, and I rolled up inside the sledge. No need of driving them. Why, we couldn’t hold them in when we got there. In three hours the devils brought us. Only the left one died of it.”