Page 433 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of
himself or his mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he
could not guide the motions of his mare.
Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost

at the same instant; simultaneously they rose above the
stream and flew across to the other side; Frou-Frou darted
after them, as if flying; but at the very moment when
Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw almost
under his mare’s hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering
with Diana on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev
had let go the reins as he took the leap, and the mare had
sent him flying over her head.) Those details Vronsky
learned later; at the moment all he saw was that just under
him, where Frou-Frou must alight, Diana’s legs or head
might be in the way. But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and
back in the very act of leaping, like a falling cat, and,
clearing the other mare, alighted beyond her.
‘O the darling!’ thought Vronsky.
After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control
of his mare, and began holding her in, intending to cross
the great barrier behind Mahotin, and to try to overtake
him in the clear ground of about five hundred yards that
followed it.

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