“How—don’t want it?” Lukáshka said, laughing. “Why should you make me a present? We’ll get on by ourselves by God’s help.”
“No, really! Or don’t you want to be a drabánt?” said Olénin, glad that it had entered his head to give a horse to Lukáshka, though, without knowing why, he felt uncomfortable and confused and did not know what to say when he tried to speak.
Lukáshka was the first to break the silence.
“Have you a house of your own in Russia?” he asked.
Olénin could not refrain from replying that he had not only one, but several houses.
“A good house? Bigger than ours?” asked Lukáshka good-naturedly.
“Much bigger; ten times as big and three storeys high,” replied Olénin.
“And have you horses such as ours?”
“I have a hundred horses, worth three or four hundred rubles each, but they are not like yours. They are trotters, you know.... But still, I like the horses here best.”
“Well, and did you come here of your own free will, or were you sent?” said Lukáshka, laughing at him. “Look! that’s where you lost your way,” he added, “you should have turned to the right.”