At last the bargain was clinched for twenty-eight roubles. The major was informed and the purchase was completed. Of course they brought out bread and salt and led the new Sorrel into the prison with all due ceremony. I don’t think there was a convict who did not, on this occasion, pat the horse on the neck or stroke its nose. On the same day Sorrel was harnessed to bring in the water, and everyone looked with curiosity to see the new Sorrel drawing his barrel. Our water-carrier, Roman, looked at the new horse with extraordinary self-satisfaction. He was a peasant of fifty, of a silent and stolid character. And all Russian coachmen are of a very sedate and even taciturn character, as though it were really the case that constant association with horses gave a man a special sedateness and even dignity. Roman was quiet, friendly to everyone, not talkative; he used to take pinches from a horn of tobacco and had always from time immemorial looked after the prison Sorrels. The one that had just been bought was the third of that name. The convicts were all convinced that a horse of sorrel colour was suited to the prison, that it would be, so to speak, better for the house. Roman, too, maintained this idea. Nothing would have induced them to buy a piebald horse, for instance.