For the first few minutes Vronsky was not yet master either of himself or of his horse. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he was unable to guide his horse’s movements.
Gladiator and Diana came to it together and almost at one and the same moment: one-two, they rose above the river and flew across to the other side; effortlessly, as if flying, Frou-Frou soared after them, but just as Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw, almost under his horse’s feet, Kuzovlev floundering with Diana on the other side of the stream (Kuzovlev had let go of the reins after the leap, and the horse, along with him, had gone flying head over heels). These details Vronsky learned afterwards; now all he saw was that Diana’s leg or head might be right on the spot where Frou-Frou had to land. But Frou-Frou, like a falling cat, strained her legs and back during the leap and, missing the horse, raced on.
‘Oh, you sweetheart!’ thought Vronsky.
After the stream, Vronsky fully mastered the horse and began holding her back, intending to go over the big barrier behind Makhotin and then, in the next unobstructed stretch of some five hundred yards, to try to get ahead of him.
The big barrier stood right in front of the tsar’s pavilion. The emperor, and the entire court, and throngs of people - all were looking at them, at him and at Makhotin, who kept one length ahead of him, as they approached the devil (as the solid barrier was called). Vronsky felt those eyes directed at him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the ears and neck of his horse, the earth racing towards him, and Gladiator’s croup and white legs beating out a quick rhythm ahead of him and maintaining the same distance. Gladiator rose, not knocking against anything, swung his short tail and disappeared from Vronsky’s sight.
‘Bravo!’ said some single voice.
That instant, just in front of him, the boards of the barrier flashed before Vronsky’s eyes. Without the least change of movement the horse soared under him; the boards vanished, and he only heard something knock behind him. Excited by Gladiator going ahead of her, the horse had risen too early before the barrier and knocked against it with a back hoof. But her pace did not change, and Vronsky, receiving a lump of mud in the face, realized that he was again the same distance from Gladiator. In front of him he again saw his croup, his short tail, and again the same swiftly moving white legs not getting any further away.
That same instant, as Vronsky was thinking that they now had to get ahead of Makhotin, Frou-Frou herself, already knowing his thought, speeded up noticeably without any urging and started to approach Makhotin from the most advantageous side - the side of the rope. Makhotin would not let her have the rope. Vronsky had just thought that they could also get round him on the outside, when Frou-Frou switched step and started to go ahead precisely that way. Frou-Frou’s shoulder, already beginning to darken with sweat, drew even with Gladiator’s croup. They took several strides together. But, before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky, to avoid making the larger circle, began working the reins and, on the slope itself, quickly got ahead of Makhotin. He saw his mud-spattered face flash by. It even seemed to him that he smiled. Vronsky got ahead of Makhotin, but he could feel him right behind him and constantly heard just at his back the steady tread and the short, still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator’s nostrils.
The next two obstacles, a ditch and a barrier, were passed easily, but Vronsky began to hear Gladiator’s tread and snort coming closer. He urged his horse on and felt with joy that she easily increased her pace, and the sound of Gladiator’s hoofs began to be heard again from the former distance.
Vronsky was leading the race - the very thing he had wanted and that Cord had advised him to do - and was now certain of success. His excitement, his joy and tenderness for Frou-Frou kept increasing. He would have liked to look back but did not dare to, and tried to calm himself down and not urge his horse on, so as to save a reserve in her equal to what he felt was still left in Gladiator. There remained one obstacle, the most difficult; if he got over it ahead of the others, he would come in first. He was riding towards the Irish bank. Together with Frou-Frou he could already see this bank in the distance, and the two together, he and his horse, had a moment’s doubt. He noticed some indecision in the horse’s ears and raised his whip, but felt at once that his doubt was groundless: the horse knew what was needed. She increased her speed and measuredly, exactly as he had supposed, soared up, pushing off from the ground and giving herself to the force of inertia, which carried her far beyond the ditch; and in the same rhythm, effortlessly, in the same step, Frou-Frou continued the race.
