“This,” she began with a deep blissful sigh, “this now is the only thing worth living for. When you succeed in doing what you want to, what seemed impossible—come, enjoy it, heart and soul, to the last drop!” She passed her hand across her throat. “And how good and kind one feels oneself then! I now, at this moment … how good I feel! I feel as if I could embrace the whole world! No, not the whole world…. That man now I couldn’t.” She pointed with her whip at a poorly dressed old man who was stealing along on one side. “But I am ready to make him happy. Here, take this,” she shouted loudly in German, and she flung a net purse at his feet. The heavy little bag (leather purses were not thought of at that time) fell with a ring on to the road. The old man was astounded, stood still, while Maria Nikolaevna chuckled, and put her mare into a gallop. “Do you enjoy riding so much?” Sanin asked, as he overtook her. Maria Nikolaevna reined her mare in once more: only in this way could she bring her to a stop. “I only wanted to get away from thanks. If any one thanks me, he spoils my pleasure. You see I didn’t do that for his sake, but for my own. How dare he thank me? I didn’t hear what you asked me.” “I asked … I wanted to know what makes you so happy to-day.” “Do you know what,” said Maria Nikolaevna; either she had again not heard Sanin’s question, or she did not consider it necessary to answer it. “I’m awfully sick of that groom, who sticks up there behind us, and most likely does nothing but wonder when we gentlefolks are going home again. How shall we get rid of him?” She hastily pulled a little pocket-book out of her pocket. “Send him back to the town with a note? No … that won’t do. Ah! I have it! What’s that in front of us? Isn’t it an inn?” Sanin looked in the direction she pointed. “Yes, I believe it is an inn.” “Well, that’s first-rate. I’ll tell him to stop at that inn and drink beer till we come back.” “But what will he think?” “What does it matter to us? Besides, he won’t think at all; he’ll drink beer—that’s all. Come, Sanin (it was the first time she had used his surname alone), on, gallop!” When they reached the inn, Maria Nikolaevna called the groom up and told him what she wished of him. The groom, a man of English extraction and English temperament, raised his hand to the beak of his cap without a word, jumped off his horse, and took him by the bridle. “Well, now we are free as the birds of the air!” cried Maria Nikolaevna. “Where shall we go. North, south, east, or west? Look—I’m like the Hungarian king at his coronation (she pointed her whip in each direction in turn). All is ours! No, do you know what: see, those glorious mountains—and that forest! Let’s go there, to the mountains, to the mountains!” “_In die Berge wo die Freiheit thront!_” She turned off the high-road and galloped along a narrow untrodden track, which certainly seemed to lead straight to the hills. Sanin galloped after her. XLII