saddled, and instead of going to bed he put on his gay uniform, a

pair of tight-fitting riding breeches and his overcoat, and got

on the old over-fed and heavy horse, which neighed continually

all the way as he rode in the dark through the puddles and snow

For Nekhludoff this early mass remained for ever after one of the

brightest and most vivid memories of his life. When he rode out

of the darkness, broken only here and there by patches of white

snow, into the churchyard illuminated by a row of lamps around