"'Say, will you time my piebald?' he cried; and when Lebedi came abreast of us a second time, he let me out. He had the advantage of his momentum, and so I was left behind in the first heat; but in the second I began to gain on him; came up to him in the drozhsky, caught up with him, passed beyond him, and won the race. They tried it a second time--the same thing. I was the swifter. And this filled them all with dismay. The general begged them to send me away as soon as possible, so that I might not be heard of again. 'Otherwise the count will know about it, and there will be trouble,' said he. And they sent me to the horse-dealer. I did not remain there long. A hussar, who came along to get a remount, bought me. All this had been so disagreeable, so cruel, that I was glad when they took me from Khrénova, and forever separated me from all that had been near and dear to me. It was too hard for me among them. Before _them_ stood love, honor, freedom; before me labor, humiliation,--humiliation, labor, to the end of my days. Why? Because I was piebald, and because I was compelled to be somebody's horse." VIII. FOURTH NIGHT. The next evening when the gates were closed, and all was still, the piebald continued thus:-- "I had many experiences, both among men and among my own kind, while changing about from hand to hand. I staid with two masters the longest: with the prince, the officer of the hussars, and then with an old man who lived at Nikola Yavleonoï Church. "I spent the happiest days of my life with the hussar. "Though he was the cause of my destruction, though he loved nothing and nobody, yet I loved him, and still love him, for this very reason. "He pleased me precisely, because he was handsome, fortunate, rich, and therefore loved no one. "You are familiar with this lofty equine sentiment of ours. His coldness, and my dependence upon him, added greatly to the strength of my affection for him. Because he beat me, and drove me to death, I used to think in those happy days, for that very reason I was all the happier. "He bought me of the horse-dealer to whom the equerry had sold me, for eight hundred rubles. He bought me because there was no demand for piebald horses. Those were my happiest days. "He had a mistress. I knew it because every day I took him to her; and I took her out driving, and sometimes took them together. "His mistress was a handsome woman, and he was handsome, and his coachman was handsome; and I loved them all because they were. And life was worth living then.