Page 399 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Mahotin? Yes, he’s my most serious rival,’ said
Vronsky.
‘If you were riding him,’ said the Englishman, ‘I’d bet
on you.’

‘Frou-Frou’s more nervous; he’s stronger,’ said
Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.
‘In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on
pluck,’ said the Englishman.
Of pluck—that is, energy and courage—Vronsky did
not merely feel that he had enough; what was of far more
importance, he was firmly convinced that no one in the
world could have more of this ‘pluck’ than he had.
‘Don’t you think I want more thinning down?’
‘Oh, no,’ answered the Englishman. ‘Please, don’t
speak loud. The mare’s fidgety,’ he added, nodding
towards the horse-box, before which they were standing,
and from which came the sound of restless stamping in the
straw.
He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse-
box, dimly lighted by one little window. In the horse-box
stood a dark bay mare, with a muzzle on, picking at the
fresh straw with her hoofs. Looking round him in the
twilight of the horse-box, Vronsky unconsciously took in
once more in a comprehensive glance all the points of his

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