e _char-a-banc_ was only good for
_promenade_, and wouldn't do thirty miles straight off in the heat.

The peasants had all got up from the cart and were inquisitively
and mirthfully staring at the meeting of the friends, making
their comments on it.

"They're pleased, too; haven't seen each other for a long while,"
said the curly-headed old man with the bast round his hair.

"I say, Uncle Gerasim, if we could take that raven horse now, to
cart the corn, that 'ud be quick work!"

"Look-ee! Is that a woman in breeches?" said one of them,
pointing to Vassenka Veslovsky sitting in a side saddle.

"Nay, a man! See how smartly he's going it!"

"Eh, lads! seems we're not going to sleep, then?"

"What chance of sleep today!" said the old man, with a sidelong
look at the sun. "Midday's past, look-ee! Get your hooks, and
come along!"

Chapter 18

Anna looked at Dolly's thin, care-worn face, with its wrinkles
filled with dust from the road, and she was on the point of
saying what she was thinking, that is, that Dolly had got
thinner. But, conscious that she herself had grown handsomer,
and that Dolly's eyes were telling her so, she sighed and began
to speak about herself.

"You are looking at me," she said, "and wondering how I can be
happy in my position? Well! it's shameful to confess, but I...
I'm inexcusably happy. Something magical has happened to me,
like a dream, when you're frightened, panic-stricken, and all of
a sudden you wake up and all the horrors are no more. I have
waked up. I have lived through the misery, the dread, and now
for a long while past, especially since we've been here, I've
been so happy!..." she said, with a timid smile of inquiry
looking at Dolly.

"How glad I am!" said Dolly smiling, involuntarily speaking more
coldly than she wanted to. "I'm very glad for you. Why haven't
you written to me?"

"Why?... Because I hadn't the courage.... You forget my
position..."

"To me? Hadn't the courage? If you knew how I...I look at..."

Darya Alexandrovna wanted to express her thoughts of the morning,
but for some reason it seemed to her now out of place to do so.

"But of that we'll talk later. What's this, what are all these
buildings?" she asked, wanting to change the conversation and
pointing to the red and green roofs that came into view behind
the green hedges of acacia and lilac. "Quite a little town."

But Anna did not answer.

"No, no! How do you look at m