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
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