Albína's heart swelled with hope and elation. Wishing to impart her feelings to someone, she occasionally, smiling slightly, drew Ludwíka's attention by a movement of her head -- first to the Cossack's broad back, and then to the bottom of the tarantass. Ludwíka sat looking before her fixedly, with a significant expression, and only slightly twitched her lips.
The day was bright. All around spread the boundless desert steppe, its silvery feather-grass glittering in the slanting rays of the morning sun. First on one and then on the other side of the hard road -- on which the brisk unshod hoofs of the Bashkir horses resounded as on asphalt -- appeared little mounds of earth thrown up by Siberian marmots, with one of the little creatures sitting up erect and keeping watch. At the approach of danger it would raise the alarm by a shrill whistle, and disappear down its burrow. They met but few travellers: only a Cossack train of carts laden with wheat, or a mounted Bashkir with whom their Cossack briskly bandied Tartar words. At each post-station they got fresh and well-fed horses, and the half-roubles Albína gave to the drivers made them gallop full speed all the way -- "State-messenger style," as they expressed it.
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