troubled times followed for panteley eremyitch. peace was just the last thing he enjoyed. he had some happy days, it is true; the doubt stirring within him would seem to him all nonsense; he would drive away the ridiculous idea, like a persistent fly, and even laugh at himself; but he had bad days too: the importunate thought began again stealthily gnawing and tearing at his heart, like a mouse under the floor, and he existed in secret torture. on the memorable day when he found malek-adel, tchertop-hanov had felt nothing but rapturous bliss... but the next morning, when, in a low-pitched shed of the inn, he began saddling his recovered joy, beside whom he had spent the whole night, he felt for the first time a certain secret pang.... he only shook his head, but the seed was sown. during the homeward journey (it lasted a whole week) doubts seldom arose in him; they grew stronger and more distinct directly he was back at bezsonovo, directly he was home again in the place where the old authentic malek-adel had lived.... on the road home he had ridden at a quiet, swinging pace, looking in all directions, smoking a short pipe, and not reflecting at all, except at times the thought struck him: 'when the tchertop-hanovs want a thing, they get it, you bet!' and he smiled to himself; but on his return home it was a very different state of things. all this, however, he kept to himself; vanity alone would have prevented him from giving utterance to his inner dread. he would have torn anyone to pieces who had dropped the most distant hint that the new malek-adel was possibly not the old one; he accepted congratulations on his 'successful recovery of his horse,' from the few persons whom he happened to meet; but he did not seek such congratulations; he avoided all contact with people more than ever--a bad sign! he was almost always putting malek-adel through examinations, if one may use the expression; he would ride him out to some point at a little distance in the open country, and put him to the proof, or would go stealthily into the stable, lock the door after him, and standing right before the horse's head, look into his eyes, and ask him in a whisper, 'is it you? is it you? you?'... or else stare at him silently and intently for hours together, and then mutter, brightening up: 'yes! it's he! of course it's he!' or else go out with a puzzled, even confused look on his face. tchertop-hanov was not so much confused by the physical differences between this malek-adel and that one... though there were a few such differences: that one's tail and mane were a little thinner, and his ears more pointed, and his pasterns shorter, and his eyes brighter--but all that might be only fancy; what confounded tchertop-hanov most were, so to say, the moral differences. the habits of that one had been different: all his ways were not the same. for instance, that malek-adel had looked round and given a faint neigh every time tchertop-hanov went into the stable; while this one went on munching hay as though nothing had happened, or dozed with his head bent. both of them stood still when their master leaped out of the saddle; but that one came at once at his voice when he was called, while this one stood stock still. that one galloped as fast, but with higher and longer bounds; this one went with a freer step and at a more jolting trot, and at times 'wriggled' with his shoes--that is, knocked the back one against the front one; that one had never done anything so disgraceful--god forbid! this one, it struck tchertop-hanov, kept twitching his ears in such a stupid way, while with that one it was quite the contrary; he used to lay one ear back, and hold it so, as though on the alert for his master! that one, directly he saw that it was dirty about him, would at once knock on the partition of his box with his hind-leg, but this one did not care if the dung was heaped up to his belly. that one if, for instance, he were set facing the wind, would take deep breaths and shake himself, this one simply snorted; that one was put out by the rain, this one cared nothing for it.... this was a coarser beast--coarser! and there wasn't the gentleness in it, and hard in the mouth it was--no denying it! that horse was a darling, but this....

this was what tchertop-hanov sometimes thought, and very bitter were such thoughts to him. at other times he would set his horse at full gallop over some newly ploughed field, or would make him leap down to the very bottom of a hollow ravine, and leap out again at the very steepest point, and his heart would throb with rapture, a loud whoop would break from his lips, and he would know, would know for certain, that it was the real, authentic malek-adel he had under him; for what other horse could do what this one was doing?

however, there were sometimes shortcomings and misfortunes even here. the prolonged search for malek-adel had cost tchertop-hanov a great deal of money; he did not even dream of kostroma hounds now, and rode about the neighbourhood in solitude as before. so one morning, four miles from bezsonovo, tchertop-hanov chanced to come upon the same prince's hunting party before whom he had cut such a triumphant figure a year and a half before. and, as fate would have it, just as on that day a hare must go leaping out from the hedge before the dogs, down the hillside! tally-ho! tally-ho! all the hunt fairly flew after it, and tchertop-hanov flew along too, but not with the rest of the party, but two hundred paces to one side of it, just as he had done the time before. a huge watercourse ran zigzagging across the hillside, and as it rose higher and higher got gradually narrower, cutting off tchertop-hanov's path. at the point where he had to jump it, and where, eighteen months before, he actually had jumped it, it was eight feet wide and fourteen feet deep. in anticipation of a triumph--a triumph repeated in such a delightful way--tchertop-hanov chuckled exultantly, cracked his riding-whip; the hunting party were galloping too, their eyes fixed on the daring rider; his horse whizzed along like a bullet, and now the watercourse was just under his nose--now, now, at one leap, as then!... but malek-adel pulled up sharply, wheeled to the left, and in spite of tchertop-hanov's tugging him to the edge, to the watercourse, he galloped along beside the ravine.

he was afraid, then; did not trust himself!

then tchertop-hanov, burning with shame and wrath, almost in tears, dropped the reins, and set the horse going straight forward, down the hill, away, away from the hunting party, if only not to hear them jeering at him, to escape as soon as might be from their damnable eyes!

covered with foam, his sides lashed unmercifully, malek-adel galloped home, and tchertop-hanov at once locked himself into his room.

'no, it's not he; it's not my darling! he would have broken his neck before he would have betrayed me!'