"About a month yet. Shall we have a little lunch? What say you? Fritz, is every thing ready?" They went back to the dining-room. There, under a hanging lamp, stood the table loaded with candles and very extraordinary things: siphons, and bottles with fancy stoppers, extraordinary wine in decanters, extraordinary liqueurs and vodka. They drank, sat down, drank again, sat down, and tried to talk. Sierpukhovskoï grew flushed, and began to speak unreservedly. They talked about women: who kept such and such an one; the gypsy, the ballet-girl, the _soubrette._[19] "Why, you left Mathieu, didn't you?" asked the host. This was the mistress who had caused Sierpukhovskoï such pain. "No, she left me. O my friend,[20] how one remembers what one has squandered in life! Now I am glad, fact, when I get a thousand rubles; glad, fact, when I get out of everybody's way. I cannot in Moscow. Ah! what's to be said!" The host was bored to listen to Sierpukhovskoï. He wanted to talk about himself,--to brag. But Sierpukhovskoï also wanted to talk about himself,--about his glittering past. The host poured out some more wine, and waited till he had finished, so as to tell him about his affairs,--how he was going to arrange his stud as no one ever had before; and how Marie loved him, not for his money, but for himself. "I was going to tell you that in my stud" ... he began. But Sierpukhovskoï interrupted him. "There was a time, I may say," he began, "when I loved, and knew how to live. You were talking just now about racing; please tell me what is your best racer." The host was glad of the chance to tell some more about his stud, but Sierpukhovskoï again interrupted him. "Yes, yes," said he. "But the trouble with you breeders is, that you do it only for ostentation, and not for pleasure, for life. It wasn't so with me. I was telling you this very day that I used to have a piebald racer, with just such spots as I saw among your colts. _Okh!_ what a horse he was! You can't imagine it: this was in '42. I had just come to Moscow. I went to a dealer, and saw a piebald gelding. All in best form. He pleased me. Price? Thousand rubles. He pleased me. I took him, and began to ride him. I never had, and you never had and never will have, such a horse. I never knew a better horse, either for gait, or strength, or beauty. You were a lad then. You could not have known, but you may have heard, I suppose. All Moscow knew him." "Yes, I heard about him," said the host reluctantly; "but I was going to tell you about my" ...