“Then put off feeding them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Five minutes later Danílo and Uvárka were standing in Nikoláy’s big study. Though Danílo was not a big man, to see him in a room was like seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and surroundings of human life. Danílo himself felt this, and as usual stood just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of breaking something in the master’s apartment, and he hastened to say all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the open under the sky once more.

Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Danílo an opinion that the hounds were fit (Danílo himself wished to go hunting), Nikoláy ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Danílo was about to go Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or finished dressing and with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped round her. Pétya ran in at the same time.