u.'

'Every one...' and Luke swayed his head.

'Is it true you are getting married?' asked Olenin.

'Mother wants me to marry. But I have not got a horse yet.'

'Aren't you in the regular service?'

'Oh dear no! I've only just joined, and have not got a horse yet, and
don't know how to get one. That's why the marriage does not come off.'

'And what would a horse cost?'

'We were bargaining for one beyond the river the other day and they
would not take sixty rubles for it, though it is a Nogay horse.'

'Will you come and be my drabant?' (A drabant was a kind of orderly
attached to an officer when campaigning.) 'I'll get it arranged and
will give you a horse,' said Olenin suddenly. 'Really now, I have two
and I don't want both.'

'How--don't want it?' Lukashka said, laughing. 'Why should you make me
a present? We'll get on by ourselves by God's help.'

'No, really! Or don't you want to be a drabant?' said Olenin, glad that
it had entered his head to give a horse to Lukashka, though, without
knowing why, he felt uncomfortable and confused and did not know what
to say when he tried to speak.

Lukashka was the first to break the silence.

'Have you a house of your own in Russia?' he asked.

Olenin could not refrain from replying that he had not only one, but
several houses.

'A good house? Bigger than ours?' asked Lukashka good-naturedly.

'Much bigger; ten times as big and three storeys high,' replied Olenin.

'And have you horses such as ours?'

'I have a hundred horses, worth three or four hundred rubles each, but
they are not like yours. They are trotters, you know.... But still, I
like the horses here best.'

'Well, and did you come here of your own free will, or were you sent?'
said Lukashka, laughing at him. 'Look! that's where you lost your way,'
he added, 'you should have turned to the right.'

'I came by my own wish,' replied Olenin. 'I wanted to see your parts
and to join some expeditions.'

'I would go on an expedition any day,' said Lukashka. 'D'you hear the
jackals howling?' he added, listening.

'I say, don't you feel any horror at having killed a man?' asked Olenin.

'What's there to be frightened about? But I should like to join an
expedition,' Lukashka repeated. 'How I want to! How I want to!'

'Perhaps we may be going together. Our company is going before the
holidays, and your "hundred" too.'

'And what did you want to come here for? You've a house and horses and
serfs. In yo