e choked and panted. He would calm down a little, then would
murmur through his tears: 'I--thought--what's that splash--and
there--he--went plop.' And with the last word, forced out with
convulsive effort, his whole frame was shaking with another burst of
laughter. Zoya made him worse. 'I saw his legs,' she said, 'kicking in
the air.' 'Yes, yes,' gasped Uvar Ivanovitch, 'his legs, his legs--and
then splash!--there he plopped in!'

'And how did Mr. Insarov manage it? why the German was three times his
size?' said Zoya.

'I'll tell you,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch, rubbing his eyes, 'I saw;
with one arm about his waist, he tripped him up, and he went plop! I
heard--a splash--there he went.'

Long after the carriages had started, long after the castle of
Tsaritsino was out of sight, Uvar Ivanovitch was still unable to regain
his composure. Shubin, who was again with him in the carriage, began to
cry shame on him at last.

Insarov felt ashamed. He sat in the coach facing Elena (Bersenyev had
taken his seat on the box), and he said nothing; she too was silent. He
thought that she was condemning his action; but she did not condemn him.
She had been scared at the first minute; then the expression of his face
had impressed her; afterwards she pondered on it all. It was not quite
clear to her what the nature of her reflections was. The emotion she had
felt during the day had passed away; that she realised; but its
place had been taken by another feeling which she did not yet fully
understand. The _partie de plaisir_ had been prolonged too late;
insensibly evening passed into night. The carriage rolled swiftly along,
now beside ripening cornfields, where the air was heavy and fragrant
with the smell of wheat; now beside wide meadows, from which a sudden
wave of freshness blew lightly in the face. The sky seemed to lie
like smoke over the horizon. At last the moon rose, dark and red. Anna
Vassilyevna was dozing; Zoya had poked her head out of window and was
staring at the road. It occurred to Elena at last that she had not
spoken to Insarov for more than an hour. She turned to him with a
trifling question; he at once answered her, delighted. Dim sounds began
stirring indistinctly in the air, as though thousands of voices were
talking in the distance; Moscow was coming to meet them. Lights twinkled
afar off; they grew more and more frequent; at last there was the
grating of the cobbles under their wheels. Anna Vassilyevna awoke,