THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 163 



ails you, Bela ; are you fretting ? " she would answer, 

 " No." " Is there anything you wish for ?" " No." 

 " Are you grieving for your brother and sister ?" " I 

 have no brother and sister." It often happened that 

 for whole days together you could not get a word out 

 of her, bnt yes and no. 



* * # * 



Kasbitch did not show himself again ; only I could 

 not get it out of my head, that he had not come to the 

 fort for nothing, and that he had some mischief in view. 



One day it chanced that Petchorin prevailed on me 

 to accompany him to hunt the boar. I had refused for 

 a long while ; the sport, indeed, was anything but new 

 to me, and offered me no temptation. He forced me, 

 however, to go with him, so we set out early in the 

 morning, taking with us an escort of five soldiers. 

 We beat about the bushes and the grass, till ten 

 o'clock, but started no game. " I think we had better 

 go home," said I ; " what is the good of stopping here ? 

 This is plainly no lucky day." But in spite of heat 

 and fatigue, Gregorii Alexandrovitch would not go 

 back empty-handed. That was just his way : what- 

 ever he took into his head, must be : it was easy to see 

 his mother had made a spoiled pet of him in his child- 

 hood. At last about noon we discovered a boar 

 bang ! bang ! but it would not do ; the boar made for 

 the bulrushes, and escaped ; the day was decidedly an 





