The horses reached the forest’s edge and pushed on into the forest. The broad soft shade of the forest wrapt them round on all sides.
“Oh, but this is paradise!” cried Maria Nikolaevna. “Further, deeper into the shade, Sanin!”
The horses moved slowly on, “deeper into the shade,” slightly swaying and snorting. The path, by which they had come in, suddenly turned off and plunged into a rather narrow gorge. The smell of heather and bracken, of the resin of the pines, and the decaying leaves of last year, seemed to hang, close and drowsy, about it. Through the clefts of the big brown rocks came strong currents of fresh air. On both sides of the path rose round hillocks covered with green moss.
“Stop!” cried Maria Nikolaevna, “I want to sit down and rest on this velvet. Help me to get off.”
Sanin leaped off his horse and ran up to her. She leaned on both his shoulders, sprang instantly to the ground, and seated herself on one of the mossy mounds. He stood before her, holding both the horses’ bridles in his hand.
She lifted her eyes to him…. “Sanin, are you able to forget?”
Sanin recollected what had happened yesterday … in the carriage. “What is that—a question … or a reproach?”
“I have never in my life reproached any one for anything. Do you believe in magic?”
“What?”
“In magic?—you know what is sung of in our ballads—our Russian peasant ballads?”