When they had passed the town gates the troikas stopped, and all began bidding the Count farewell.
Ilyín, who had had plenty to drink at the leave-taking and who had been driving the sledge all the way, suddenly became very sad, begged the Count to stay another day, and when he found this was impossible, rushed quite unexpectedly at his new friend, kissed him, and promised with tears to try, as soon as he got back, to exchange into the hussar regiment the Count was serving in. The Count was particularly gay; he tumbled the cavalryman, who had become very familiar in the morning, into a snow-heap; set Blücher at the Captain of Police, took Styóshka in his arms and wanted to carry her off to Moscow, and at last, jumping into his sledge, made Blücher, who wished to stand up in the middle, sit down by his side. Sáshka jumped on to the box, after having again asked the cavalryman to get back the Count’s cloak from them , and to send it on. The Count cried, “Drive on!” took off his cap, waved it over his head, and whistled postboy-like to the horses. The troikas drove off their different ways.
A monotonous, snowy plain stretched far ahead, with a dirty, yellow road winding through it. The bright sunshine—playfully sparkling on the thawing snow, which was coated with a transparent icy crust—pleasantly warmed one’s face and back. The steam rose thick from the sweating horses. The bell tinkled. A peasant with a loaded sledge that kept gliding to the side of the road, got hurriedly out of the way, jerking his rope-reins and splashing with his wet bast-shoes as he ran along the thawing road. A fat, red-faced peasant woman, holding a baby wrapped in the bosom of her sheepskin cloak, sat in another laden sledge, and whipped a thin-tailed, jaded, white horse with the ends of the reins. The Count suddenly remembered Anna Fyódorovna.
“Drive back!” cried he.
The driver did not at once understand.