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.