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" ...
So you heard about him. I bought him just as he was, without pedigree, without proof; but then I knew Voyéïkof, and I traced him. He was sired by Liubeznuï I. He was called Kholstomír.[21] He'd measure linen for you! On account of his spotting, he was given to the equerry at the Khrenovski stud; and he had him gelded, and sold him to the dealer. Aren't any horses like him anymore, friend! Akh! "What a time that was! Akh! vanished youth!" he said, quoting the words of a gypsy song. He began to get wild. "Ekh! that was a golden time! I was twenty-five. I had eighty thousand a year income; then I hadn't a gray hair; all my teeth like pearls.... Whatever I undertook prospered. And yet all came to an end." ...
"Well, you didn't have such lively times then," said the host, taking advantage of the interruption. "I tell you that my first horses began to run without" ...
"Your horses! Horses were more mettlesome then" ...
"How more mettlesome?"
"Yes, more mettlesome. I remember how one time I was at Moscow at the races. None of my horses were in it. I did not care for racing; but I had blooded horses, General Chaulet, Mahomet. I had my piebald with me. My coachman was a splendid young fellow. I liked him. But he was rather given to drink, so I drove.—'Sierpukhovskoï,' said they, 'when are you going to get some trotters?'—'I don't care for your low-bred beasts,[22] the devil take 'em! I have a hackdriver's piebald that's worth all of yours.'—Yes, but he doesn't race.'—'Bet you a thousand rubles.' They took me up. He went round in five seconds, won the wager of a thousand rubles. But that was nothing. With my blooded horses I went in a troïka a hundred versts in three hours. All Moscow knew about it."
And Sierpukhovskoï began to brag so fluently and steadily that the host could not get in a word, and sat facing him with dejected countenance. Only, by way of diversion, he would fill up his glass and that of his companion.