o'clock in the evening--the time when the scent of
white acacia and lilac is so strong that the air and the very trees
seem heavy with the fragrance. The band was already playing in the
town gardens. The horses made a resounding thud on the pavement,
on all sides there were sounds of laughter, talk, and the banging
of gates. The soldiers they met saluted the officers, the schoolboys
bowed to Nikitin, and all the people who were hurrying to the gardens
to hear the band were pleased at the sight of the party. And how
warm it was! How soft-looking were the clouds scattered carelessly
about the sky, how kindly and comforting the shadows of the poplars
and the acacias, which stretched across the street and reached as
far as the balconies and second stories of the houses on the other
side.

They rode on out of the town and set off at a trot along the highroad.
Here there was no scent of lilac and acacia, no music of the band,
but there was the fragrance of the fields, there was the green of
young rye and wheat, the marmots were squeaking, the rooks were
cawing. Wherever one looked it was green, with only here and there
black patches of bare ground, and far away to the left in the
cemetery a white streak of apple-blossom.

They passed the slaughter-houses, then the brewery, and overtook a
military band hastening to the suburban gardens.

"Polyansky has a very fine horse, I don't deny that," Masha said
to Nikitin, with a glance towards the officer who was riding beside
Varya. "But it has blemishes. That white patch on its left leg ought
not to be there, and, look, it tosses its head. You can't train it
not to now; it will toss its head till the end of its days."

Masha was as passionate a lover of horses as her father. She felt
a pang when she saw other people with fine horses, and was pleased
when she saw defects in them. Nikitin knew nothing about horses;
it made absolutely no difference to him whether he held his horse
on the bridle or on the curb, whether he trotted or galloped; he
only felt that his position was strained and unnatural, and that
consequently the officers who knew how to sit in their saddles must
please Masha more than he could. And he was jealous of the officers.

As they rode by the suburban gardens some one suggested their going
in and getting some seltzer-water. They went in. There were no trees
but oaks in the gardens; they had only just come into leaf, so that
through the young foliage the whole