Chapter 18

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 Sviiazhsky'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 countinghouse clerk were experiencing the same sensation. The countinghouse 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 charabanc was only good for promenade, and wouldn't do forty verstas straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the telega 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 Gherasim, 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 sidesaddle.

`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!'

Anna looked at Dolly's thin, careworn face, with its wrinkles filled with dust from the road, and she was on the point of saying what she was thinking - that is, that Dolly had grown thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer, and that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began to speak about herself.

`You are looking at me,' she said, `and wondering how I can be happy in my position? Well! It's shameful to confess, but I... I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me, like a dream, when you're frightened, panic-stricken, and all of a sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have waked up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now for a long while past, especially since we've been here, I've been so happy!...' she said, with a timid smile of inquiry looking at Dolly.