In very few words Nikoláy bought seventeen picked stallions for six thousand rubles⁠—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nikoláy⁠—having exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the friendliest terms⁠—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for the governor’s party.

When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself, Nikoláy arrived at the governor’s rather late, but with the phrase “better late than never” on his lips.

It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew that Katerína Petróvna would play valses and the écossaise on the clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as to a ball.