"Mahotin? Yes, he's my most serious rival," said Vronsky.

"If you were riding him," said the Englishman, "I'd bet on you."

"Frou-Frou's more nervous; he's stronger," said Vronsky, smiling

at the compliment to his riding.

"In a steeplechase it all depends on riding and on pluck," said

the Englishman.

Of pluck--that is, energy and courage--Vronsky did not merely

feel that he had enough; what was of far more importance, he was

firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this

"pluck" than he had.

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"Don't you think I want more thinning down?"

"Oh, no," answered the Englishman. "Please, don't speak loud.

The mare's fidgety," he added, nodding towards the horse-box,

before which they were standing, and from which came the sound of

restless stamping in the straw.

He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the horse-box, dimly

lighted by one little window. In the horse-box stood a dark bay

mare, with a muzzle on, picking at the fresh straw with her

hoofs. Looking round him in the twilight of the horse-box,

Vronsky unconsciously took in once more in a comprehensive glance

all the points of his favorite mare. Frou-Frou was a beast of

medium size, not altogether free from reproach, from a

breeder's point of view. She was small-boned all over; though

her chest was extremely prominent in front, it was narrow. Her

hind-quarters were a little drooping, and in her fore-legs, and

still more in her hind-legs, there was a noticeable curvature.

The muscles of both hind- and fore-legs were not very thick; but

across her shoulders the mare was exceptionally broad, a

peculiarity specially striking now that she was lean from

training. The bones of her legs below the knees looked no

thicker than a finger from in front, but were extraordinarily

thick seen from the side. She looked altogether, except across

the shoulders, as it were, pinched in at the sides and pressed

out in depth. But she had in the highest degree the quality that

makes all defects forgotten: that quality was _blood_, the blood

_that tells_, as the English expression has it. The muscles stood

up sharply under the network of sinews, covered with the

delicate, mobile skin, soft as satin, and they were hard as bone.

Her clean-cut head, with prominent, bright, spirited eyes,

broadened out at the open nostrils, that showed the red blood in

the cartilage within. About all her figure, and especially her

head, there was a certain expression of energy, and, at the same

time, of softness. She was one of those creatures which seem

only not to speak because the mechanism of their mouth does not

allow them to.




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