Excuse me for having been unable to stay.

Gladly would I have stayed, but really I cannot." The brother-in-law repeated his excuses again and again without noticing that he had entered the britchka, that it had passed through the gates, and that he was now in the open country.

Permissibly we may suppose that his wife succeeded in gleaning from him few details of the fair.
"What a fool!" said Nozdrev as, standing by the window, he watched the departing vehicle.

"Yet his off-horse is not such a bad one.

For a long time past I have been wanting to get hold of it.