Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don Steppes. He kept praising him enthusiastically. “How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn’t it?” he said. He had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort. But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his society.
After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocketbook, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocketbook there were thirty-seven pounds, and so the matter could not be left in uncertainty.
“Do you know what, Levin, I’ll gallop home on that left trace-horse. That will be splendid. Eh?” he said, preparing to get out.
“No, why should you?” answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than seventeen stone. “I’ll send the coachman.”
The coachman rode back on the trace-horse, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair.