Strider - The Story of a Horse
By Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
First published in 1885
Written mostly in 1864
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Distributed by the Tolstoy Library
I
Higher and higher receded the sky, wider and wider spread the streak of
dawn, whiter grew the pallid silver of the dew, more lifeless the
sickle of the moon, and more vocal the forest. People began to get up,
and in the owner's stable-yard the sounds of snorting, the rustling of
litter, and even the shrill angry neighing of horses crowded together
and at variance about something, grew more and more frequent.
"Hold on! Plenty of time! Hungry?" said the old huntsman, quickly
opening the creaking gate. "Where are you going?" he shouted,
threateningly raising his arm at a mare that was pushing through the
gate.
The keeper, Nester, wore a short Cossack coat with an ornamental
leather girdle, had a whip slung over his shoulder, and a hunk of bread
wrapped in a cloth stuck in his girdle. He carried a saddle and bridle
in his arms.
The horses were not at all frightened or offended at the horseman's
sarcastic tone: they pretended that it was all the same to them and
moved leisurely away from the gate; only one old brown mare, with a
thick mane, laid back an ear and quickly turned her back on him. A
small filly standing behind her and not at all concerned in the matter
took this opportunity to whinny and kick out at a horse that happened
to be near.
"Now then!" shouted the keeper still louder and more sternly, and he
went to the opposite corner of the yard.
Of all the horses in the enclosure (there were about a hundred of
them), a piebald gelding, standing by himself in a corner under the
penthouse and licking an oak post with half-closed eyes, displayed
least impatience.
It is impossible to say what flavour the piebald gelding found in the
post, but his expression was serious and thoughtful while he licked.
"Stop that!" shouted the groom, drawing nearer to him and putting the
saddle and a glossy saddle-cloth on the manure heap beside him.
The piebald gelding stopped licking and without moving gave Nester a
long look. The gelding did not laugh, nor grow angry, nor frown, but
his whole belly heaved with a profound sigh and he turned away. The
horseman put his arm round the gelding's neck and placed the bridle on
him.
"What are you sighing for?" said Nester.
The gelding switched his tail as if to say, "Nothing in particular,
Nester!" Nester put the saddle-cloth and saddle on him, and this
caused the gelding to lay back his ears, probably to express
dissatisfaction, but he was only called a "good-for-nothing" for it and
his saddle-girths were tightened.
At this the gelding blew himself out, but a finger was thrust into his
mouth and a knee hit him in the stomach, so that he had to let out his
breath. In spite of this, when the saddle-cloth was being buckled on
he again laid back his ears and even looked round. Though he knew it
would do no good he considered it necessary to show that it was
disagreeable to him and that he would always express his
dissatisfaction with it. When he was saddled he thrust forward his
swollen off foot and began champing his bit, this too for some reason
of his own, for he ought to have known by that time that a bit cannot
have any flavour at all.
Nester mounted the gelding by the short stirrup, unwound his long whip,
straightened his coat out from under his knee, seated himself in the
manner peculiar to coachmen, huntsmen, and horsemen, and jerked the
reins. The gelding lifted his head to show his readiness to go where
ordered but did not move. He knew that before starting there would be
much shouting and that Nester, from the seat on his back, would give
many orders to Vaska, the other groom, and to the horses. And Nester
did shout: "Vaska! Hullo, Vaska. Have you let out the brood mares?
Where are you going, you devil? Now then! Are you asleep? ... Open
the gate! Let the brood mares get out first!" and so on.
The gate creaked. Vaska, cross and sleepy, stood at the gate-post
holding his horse by the bridle and letting the other horses pass out.
The horses followed one another and stepped carefully over the straw,
smelling at it: fillies, yearling colts with their manes and tails
cut, suckling foals, and mares in foal carrying their burden heedfully
passed one by one through the gateway. The fillies sometimes crowded
together in twos and threes, throwing their heads across one another's
backs and hitting their hoofs against the gate, for which they received
a rebuke from the grooms every time. The foals sometimes darted under
the legs of the wrong mares and neighed loudly in response to the short
whinny of their own mothers.
A playful filly, directly she had got out at the gate, bent her head
sideways, kicked up her hind legs, and squealed, but all the same she
did not dare to run ahead of old dappled Zhuldyba who at a slow and
heavy pace, swinging her belly from side to side, marched as usual
ahead of all the other horses.
In a few minutes the enclosure that had been so animated became
deserted, the posts stood gloomily under the empty penthouse, and only
trampled straw mixed with manure was to be seen. Used as he was to
that desolate sight it probably depressed the piebald gelding. As if
making a bow he slowly lowered his head and raised it again, sighed as
deeply as the tightly drawn girth would allow, and hobbling along on
his stiff and crooked legs shambled after the herd, bearing old Nester
on his bony back.
"I know that as soon as we get out on the road he will begin to strike
a light and smoke his wooden pipe with its brass mountings and little
chain," thought the gelding. "I am glad of it because early in the
morning when it is dewy I like that smell, it reminds me of much that
was pleasant; but it's annoying that when his pipe is between his teeth
the old man always begins to swagger and thinks himself somebody and
sits sideways, always sideways - and that side hurts. However, it
can't be helped! Suffering for the pleasure of others is nothing new
to me. I have even begun to find a certain equine pleasure in it. Let
him swagger, poor fellow! Of course he can only do that when he is
alone and no one sees him - let him sit sideways!" thought the gelding,
and stepping carefully on his crooked legs he went along the middle of
the road.
II
Having driven the horses to the riverside where they were to graze,
Nester dismounted and unsaddled. Meanwhile the herd had begun
gradually to spread over the untrampled meadow, covered with dew and by
the mist that rose from it and the encircling river.
When he had taken the bridle off the piebald gelding, Nester scratched
him under the neck, in response to which the gelding expressed his
gratitude and satisfaction by closing his eyes. "He likes it, the old
dog!" muttered Nester. The gelding however did not really care for the
scratching at all and pretended that it was agreeable merely out of
courtesy. He nodded his head in assent to Nester's words, but suddenly
Nester, quite unexpectedly and without any reason, perhaps imagining
that too much familiarity might give the gelding a wrong idea of his
importance, pushed the gelding's head away from himself without any
warning and, swinging the bridle, struck him painfully with the buckle
on his lean leg, and then without saying a word went up the hillock to
a tree-stump beside which he generally seated himself.
Though this action grieved the piebald gelding he gave no indication of
it, but leisurely switching his scanty tail sniffed at something and,
biting off some wisps of grass merely to divert his mind, walked to the
river. He took no notice whatever of the antics of the young mares,
colts, and foals around him, who were filled with the joy of the
morning; and knowing that, especially at his age, it is healthier to
have a good drink on an empty stomach and to eat afterwards, he chose a
spot where the bank was widest and least steep, and wetting his hoofs
and fetlocks, dipped his muzzle in the water and began to suck it up
through his torn lips, to expand his filling sides, and from pleasure
to switch his scanty tail with its half bald stump.
An aggressive chestnut filly, who always teased the old fellow and did
all kinds of unpleasant things to him, now came up to him in the water
as if attending to some business of her own but in reality merely to
foul the water before his nose. But the piebald gelding, who had
already had his fill, as though not noticing the filly's intention
quietly drew one foot after the other out of the mud in which they had
sunk, jerked his head, and stepping aside from the youthful crowd
started grazing. Sprawling his feet apart in different ways and not
trampling the grass needlessly, he went on eating without unbending
himself for exactly three hours. Having eaten till his belly hung down
from his steep skinny ribs like a sack, he balanced himself equally on
his four sore legs so as to have as little pain as possible, especially
in his off foreleg which was the weakest, and fell asleep.
Old age is sometimes majestic, sometimes ugly, and sometimes pathetic.
But old age can be both ugly and majestic, and the gelding's old age
was just of that kind.
He was tall, rather over fifteen hands high. His spots were black, or
rather they had been black, but had now turned a dirty brown. He had
three spots, one on his head, starting from a crooked bald patch on the
side of his nose and reaching half-way down his neck. His long mane,
filled with burrs, was white in some places and brownish in others.
Another spot extended down his off side to the middle of his belly; the
third, on his croup, touched part of his tail and went half-way down
his quarters. The rest of the tail was whitish and speckled. The big
bony head, with deep hollows over the eyes and a black hanging lip that
had been torn at some time, hung low and heavily on his neck, which was
so lean that it looked as though it were carved of wood. The pendant
lip revealed a blackish bitten tongue and the yellow stumps of the worn
lower teeth. The ears, one of which was slip, hung low on either side,
and only occasionally moved lazily to drive away the pestering flies.
Of the forelock, one tuft which was still long hung back behind an ear;
the uncovered forehead was dented and rough, and the skin hung down
like bags on his broad jaw-bones. The veins of his neck had grown
knotty and twitched and shuddered at every touch of a fly. The
expression of his face was one of stern patience, thoughtfulness, and
suffering.
His forelegs were crooked to a bow at the knees, there were swellings
over both hoofs, and on one leg, on which the piebald spot reached
half-way down, there was a swelling at the knee as big as a fist. The
hind legs were in better condition, but apparently long ago his
haunches had been so rubbed that in places the hair would not grow
again. The leanness of his body made all four legs look
disproportionately long. The ribs, though straight, were so exposed
and the skin so tightly drawn over them, that it seemed to have dried
fast to the spaces between. His back and withers were covered with
marks of old lashings, and there was a fresh sore behind, still swollen
and festering; the black dock of his tail, which showed the vertebrae,
hung down long and almost bare. On his dark-brown croup - near the
tail - was a scar, as though of a bite, the size of a man's hand and
covered with white hair. Another scarred sore was visible on one of
his shoulders. His tail and hocks were dirty because of chronic bowel
troubles. The hair on the whole body, though short, stood out
straight. Yet in spite of the hideous old age of this horse one
involuntarily paused to reflect when one saw him, and an expert would
have said at once that he had been a remarkably fine horse in his day.
The expert would even have said that there was only one breed in Russia
that could furnish such breadth of bone, such immense knees, such
hoofs, such slender cannons, such a well-shaped neck, and above all
such a skull, such eyes - large, black, and clear - and such a
thoroughbred network of veins on head and neck, and such delicate skin
and hair.
There was really something majestic in that horse's figure and in the
terrible union in him of repulsive indications of decrepitude,
emphasized by the motley colour of his hair, and his manner which
expressed the self-confidence and calm assurance that go with beauty
and strength. Like a living ruin he stood alone in the midst of the
dewy meadow, while not far from him could be heard the tramping,
snorting and youthful neighing and whinnying of the scattered herd.
III
The sun had risen above the forest and now shone brightly on the grass
and the winding river. The dew was drying up and condensing into
drops, the last of the morning mist was dispersing like tiny smoke-
clouds. The cloudlets were becoming curly but there was as yet no
wind. Beyond the river the verdant rye stood bristling, its ears
curling into little horns, and there was an odour of fresh verdure and
blossom. A cuckoo called rather hoarsely from the forest, and Nester,
lying on his back in the grass, was counting the calls to ascertain how
many years he still had to live. The larks were rising over the rye
and the meadow. A belated hare, finding himself among the horses,
leaped into the open, sat down by a bush, and pricked his ears to
listen. Vaska fell asleep with his head in the grass; the fillies,
making a still wider circle about him, scattered over the field below.
The old mares went about snorting and made a shiny track across the
dewy grass, always choosing a place where no one would disturb them.
They no longer grazed but only nibbled at choice tufts of grass. The
whole herd was moving imperceptibly in one direction.
And again it was old Zhuldyba who, stepping sedately in front of the
others, showed the possibility of going farther. Black Mushka, a young
mare who had foaled for the first time, with uplifted tail kept
whinnying and snorting at her bluish foal; the young filly Satin, sleek
and brilliant, bending her head till her black silky forelock hid her
forehead and eyes, played with the grass, nipping off a little and
tossing it and stamping her leg with its shaggy fetlock all wet with
dew. One of the older foals, probably imagining he was playing some
kind of game, with his curly tail raised like a plume, ran for the
twenty-sixth time round his mother, who quietly went on grazing, having
grown accustomed to her son's ways, and only occasionally glanced
askance at him with one of her large black eyes.
One of the very youngest foals, black, with a big head, a tuft sticking
upin astonishment between his ears, and a little tail still twisted to
one side as it had been in his mother's womb, stood motionless, his
ears pricked and his dull eyes fixed, gazing at the frisking and
prancing foal - whether admiring or condemning him it is hard to say.
Some of the foals were sucking and butting with their noses, some -
heaven knows why - despite their mother's call were running at an
awkward little trot in quite the opposite direction as if searching for
something and then, for no apparent reason, stopping and neighing with
desperate shrillness. Some lay on their sides in a row, some were
learning to eat grass, some again were scratching themselves behind
their ears with their hind legs. Two mares still in foal were walking
apart from the rest and while slowly moving their legs continued to
graze. The others evidently respected their condition, and none of the
young ones ventured to come near to disturb them. If any saucy
youngsters thought of approaching them, the mere movement of an ear or
tail sufficed to show them all how improper such behaviour was.
The colts and yearling fillies, pretending to be grownup and sedate,
rarely jumped or joined the merry company. They grazed in a dignified
manner, curving their close-cropped swan-like necks, and flourished
their little broom-like tails as if they also had long ones. Just like
the grown-ups they lay down, rolled over, or rubbed one another. The
merriest group was composed of the two- and three-year-old fillies and
mares not yet in foal. They almost always walked about together like a
separate merry virgin crowd. Among them you could hear sounds of
tramping, whinnying, neighing, and snorting. They drew close together,
put their heads over one another's necks, sniffed at one another,
jumped, and sometimes at a semi-trot, semi-amble, with tails lifted
like an oriflamme, raced proudly and coquettishly past their
companions. The most beautiful and spirited of them was the
mischievous chestnut filly. What she devised the others did; wherever
she went the whole crowd of beauties followed. That morning the naughty
one was in a specially playful mood. She was seized with a joyous fit,
just as human beings sometimes are. Already at the riverside she had
played a trick on the old gelding, and after that she ran along through
the water pretending to be frightened by something, gave a hoarse
squeal, and raced full speed into the field so that Vaska had to gallop
after her and the others who followed her. Then after grazing a little
she began rolling, then teasing the old mares by dashing in front of
them, then she drove away a small foal from the dam and chased it as if
meaning to bite it. Its mother was frightened and stopped grazing,
while the little foal cried in a piteous tone, but the mischievous one
did not touch him at all, she only wanted to frighten him and give a
performance for the benefit of her companions, who watched her escapade
approvingly. Then she set out to turn the head of a little roan horse
with which a peasant was ploughing in a rye-field far beyond the river.
She stopped, proudly lifted her head somewhat to one side, shook
herself, and neighed in a sweet, tender, long-drawn voice. Mischief,
feeling, and a certain sadness were expressed in that call. There was
in it the desire for and the promise of love, and a pining for it.
"There in the thick reeds is a corn-crake running backwards and
forwards and calling passionately to his mate; there is the cuckoo, and
the quails are singing of love, and the flowers are sending their
fragrant dust to each other by the wind. And I too am young and
beautiful and strong." The mischievous one's voice said, "but it has
not yet been allowed me to know the sweetness of that feeling, and not
only to experience it, but no lover - not a single one - has ever seen
me!"
And this neighing, sad and youthful and fraught with feeling, was borne
over the lowland and the field to the roan horse far away. He pricked
up his ears and stopped. The peasant kicked him with his bast shoe,
but the little horse was so enchanted by the silvery sound of the
distant neighing that he neighed too. The peasant grew angry, pulled
at the reins, and kicked the little roan so painfully in the stomach
with his bast shoes that he could not finish his neigh and walked on.
But the little roan felt a sense of sweetness and sadness, and for a
long time the sounds of unfinished and passionate neighing, and of the
peasant's angry voice, were carried from the distant rye-field over to
the herd.
If the sound of her voice alone so overpowered the little roan that he
forgot his duty, what would have happened had he seen the naughty
beauty as she stood pricking her ears, breathing in the air with
dilated nostrils, ready to run, trembling with her whole beautiful
body, and calling to him?
But the mischievous one did not brood long over her impressions. When
the neighing of the roan died away she gave another scornful neigh,
lowered her head, and began pawing the ground, and then she went to
wake and to tease the piebald gelding. The piebald gelding was the
constant martyr and butt of those happy youngsters. He suffered more
from them than at the hands of men. He did no harm to either. People
needed him, but why should these young horses torment him?
IV
He was old, they were young; he was lean, they were sleek; he was
miserable, they were gay; and so he was quite alien to them, an
outsider, an utterly different creature whom it was impossible for them
to pity. Horses only have pity on themselves and very occasionally on
those in whose skins they can easily imagine themselves to be. But was
it the old gelding's fault that he was old, poor, and ugly?
One might think not, but in equine ethics it was, and only those were
right who were strong, young, and happy - those who had life still
before them, whose every muscle quivered with superfluous energy, and
whose tails stood erect. Maybe the piebald gelding himself understood
this and in his quiet moments was ready to agree that it was his fault
that he had already lived his life, and that he had to pay for that
life, but after all he was a horse and often could not suppress a sense
of resentment, sadness, and indignation when he looked at those
youngsters who tormented him for what would befall them all at the end
of their lives. Another cause of the horses' lack of pity was their
aristocratic pride. Every one of them traced back its pedigree,
through father or mother, to the famous Creamy, while the piebald was
of unknown parentage. He was a chance comer, purchased three years
before at a fair for eighty assignat rubles.
The chestnut filly, as if taking a stroll, passed close by the piebald
gelding's nose and pushed him. He knew at once what it was, and
without opening his eyes laid back his ears and showed his teeth. The
filly wheeled round as if to kick him. The gelding opened his eyes and
stepped aside. He did not want to sleep any more and began to graze.
The mischief-maker, followed by her companions, again approached the
gelding. A very stupid two-year-old white-spotted filly who always
imitated the chestnut in everything went up with her and, as imitators
always do, went to greater lengths than the instigator. The chestnut
always went up as if intent on business of her own and passed by the
gelding's nose without looking at him, so that he really did not know
whether to be angry or not, and that was really funny.
She did the same now, but the white-spotted one, who followed her and
had grown particularly lively, bumped right against the gelding with
her chest. He again showed his teeth, whinnied, and with an agility
one could not have expected of him, rushed after her and bit her flank.
The white-spotted one kicked out with all her strength and dealt the
old horse a heavy blow on his thin bare ribs. He snorted heavily and
was going to rush at her again but bethought himself and drawing a deep
sigh stepped aside. The whole crowd of young ones must have taken as a
personal affront the impertinence the piebald gelding had permitted
himself to offer to the white-spotted one and for the rest of the day
did not let him graze in peace for a moment, so that the keeper had to
quieten them several times and could not understand what had come over
them.
The gelding felt so offended that he went up himself to Nester when the
old man was getting ready to drive the horses home and felt happier and
quieter when he was saddled and the old man had mounted him.
God knows what the gelding was thinking as he carried old Nester on his
back: whether he thought bitterly of the pertinacious and merciless
youngsters or forgave his tormenters with the contemptuous and silent
pride suited old age. At all events he did not betray his thoughts
till he reached home.
That evening as Nester drove the horses past the huts of the domestic
serfs, he noticed a peasant horse and cart tethered to his porch: some
friends had come to see him. When driving the horses in he was in such
a hurry that he let the gelding in without unsaddling him and, shouting
to Vaska to do it, shut the gate and went to his friends. Whether
because of the affront to the white-spotted filly - Creamy's great-
grand-daughter - by that "mangy trash" bought at the horse fair, who
did not know his father or mother, and the consequent outrage to the
aristocratic sentiment of the whole herd, or because the gelding with
his high saddle and without a rider presented a strangely fantastic
spectacle to the horses, at any rate something quite unusual occurred
that night in the paddock. All the horses, young and old, ran after
the gelding, showing their teeth and driving him all round the yard;
one heard the sound of hoofs striking against his bare ribs, and his
deep moaning. He could no longer endure this, nor could he avoid the
blows. He stopped in the middle of the paddock, his face expressing
first the repulsive weak malevolence of helpless old age, and then
despair: he dropped his ears, and then something happened that caused
all the horses to quiet down. The oldest of the mares, Vyazapurikha,
went up to the gelding, sniffed at him, and sighed. The gelding sighed
to. . . .
V
In the middle of the moonlit paddock stood the tall gaunt figure of the
gelding, still wearing the high saddle with its prominent peak at the
bow. The horses stood motionless and in deep silence around him as if
they were learning something new and unexpected.
This is what they learnt from him . . .
*First Night*
Yes, I am the son of Affable I and of Baba. My pedigree name is
Muzhik, and I was nicknamed Strider by the crowd because of my long and
sweeping strides, the like of which was nowhere to be found in all
Russia. There is no more thoroughbred horse in the world. I should
never have told you this. What good would it have done? You would
never have recognized me: even Vyazapurikha, who was with me in
Khrenovo, did not recognize me till now. You would not have believed
me if Vyazapurikha were not here to be my witness, and I should never
have told you this. I don't need equine sympathy. But you wished it.
Yes, I am that Strider whom connoisseurs are looking for and cannot
find - that Strider whom the count himself knew and got rid of from his
stud because I outran Swan, his favourite.
When I was born I did not know what *piebald* meant - I thought I was
just a horse. I remember that the first remark we heard about my
colour struck my mother and me deeply.
I suppose I was born in the night; by the morning, having been licked
over by my mother, I already stood on my feet. I remember I kept
wanting something and that everything seemed very surprising and yet
very simple. Our stalls opened into a long war passage and had
latticed doors through which everything could be seen.
My mother offered me her teats but I was still so innocent that I poked
my nose now between her forelegs and now under her udder. Suddenly she
glanced at the latticed door and lifting her leg over me stepped aside.
The groom on duty was looking into our stall through the lattice.
"Why, Baba has foaled!" he said, and began to draw the bolt. He came
in over the fresh bedding and put his arms round me. "Just look,
Taras!" he shouted, "what a piebald he is - a regular magpie!"
I darted away from him and fell on my knees.
"Look at him - the little devil!"
My mother became disquieted but did not take my part; she only stepped
a little to one side with a very deep sigh. Other grooms came to look
at me, and one of them ran to tell the stud groom.
Everybody laughed when they looked at my spots, and they gave me all
kinds of strange names, but neither I nor my mother understood those
words. Till then there had been no piebalds among all my relatives.
We did not think there was anything bad in it. Everybody even praised
my strength and my form.
"See what a frisky fellow!" said the groom. "There's no holding him."
Before long the stud groom came and began to express astonishment at my
colour; he even seemed aggrieved.
"And who does the little monster take after?" he said. "The general
won't keep him in the stud. Oh, Baba, you have played me a trick!" he
addressed my mother. "You might at least have dropped one with just a
star - but this one is all piebald!"
My mother did not reply but as usual on such occasions drew a sigh.
"And what devil does he take after - he's just like a peasant-horse!"
he continued. "He can't be left in the stud - he'd shame us. But he's
well built - very well!" said he, and so did everyone who saw me.
A few days later the general himself came and looked at me, and again
everyone seemed horrified at something, and abused me and my mother for
the colour of my hair. "But he's a fine colt - very fine!" said all
who saw me.
Until spring we all lived separately in the brood mares' stable, each
with our mother, and only occasionally when the snow on the stable
roofs began to melt in the sun were we let out with our mothers into
the large paddock strewn with fresh straw. There I first came to know
all my near and my distant relations. Here I saw all the famous mares
of the day coming out from different doors with their little foals.
There was the old mare Dutch, Fly (Creamy's daughter), Ruddy the
riding-horse, Wellwisher - all celebrities at that time. They all
gathered together with their foals, walking about in the sunshine,
rolling on the fresh straw and sniffing at one another like ordinary
horses. I have never forgotten the sight of that paddock full of the
beauties of that day. It seems strange to you to think, and hard to
believe, that I was ever young and frisky, but it was so. This same
Vyazapurikha was then a yearling filly whose mane had just been cut; a
dear, merry, lively little thing, but - and I do not say it to offend
her - although among you she is now considered a remarkable
thoroughbred she was then among the poorest horses in the stud. She
will herself confirm this.
My mottled appearance, which men so disliked, was very attractive to
all the horses; they all came round me, admired me, and frisked about
with me. I began to forget what men said about my mottled appearance
and felt happy. But I soon experienced the first sorrow of my life and
the cause of it was my mother. When the thaw had set in, the sparrows
twittered under the eaves, spring was felt more strongly in the air,
and my mother's treatment of me changed.
Her whole disposition changed: she would frisk about without any
reason and run round the yard, which did not at all accord with her
dignified age; then she would consider and begin to neigh, and would
bite and kick her sister mares, and then begin to sniff at me and snort
discontentedly; then on going out into the sun she would lay her head
across the shoulder of her cousin, Lady Merchant, dreamily rub her
back, and push me away from her teats.
One day the stud groom came and had a halter put on her and she was led
out of the stall. She neighed and I answered and rushed after her, but
she did not even look back at me. The strapper, Taras, seized me in
his arms while they were closing the door after my mother had been led
out.
I bolted and upset the strapper on the straw, but the door was shut and
I could only hear the receding sound of my mother's neighing; and that
neigh did not sound like a call to me but had another expression. Her
voice was answered from afar by a powerful voice - that of Dobry I, as
I learned later, who was being led by two grooms, one on each side, to
meet my mother.
I don't remember how Taras got out of my stall: I felt too sad, for I
knew that I had lost my mother's love for ever. "And it's all because
I am piebald!" I thought, remembering what people said about my colour,
and such passionate anger overcame me that I began to beat my head and
knees against the walls of the stall and continued till I was sweating
all over and quite exhausted.
After a while my mother came back to me. I heard her run up the
passage at a trot and with an unusual gait. They opened the door for
her and I hardly knew her - she had grown so much younger and more
beautiful. She sniffed at me, snorted, and began to whinny. Her whole
demeanour showed that she no longer loved me.
She told me of Dobry's beauty and her love of him. Those meetings
continued and the relations between my mother and me grew colder and
colder.
Soon after that we were let out to pasture. I now discovered new joys
which made up to me for the loss of my mother's love. I had friends
and companions. Together we learnt to eat grass, to neigh like the
grown-ups, and to gallop round our mothers with lifted tails. That was
a happy time. Everything was forgiven me, everybody loved me, admired
me, and looked indulgently at anything I did. But that did not last
long.
Soon afterwards something dreadful happened to me. . . .
The gelding heaved a deep sigh and walked away from the other horses.
The dawn had broken long before. The gates creaked. Nester came in,
and the horses separated. The keeper straightened the saddle on the
gelding's back and drove the horses out.
VI
*Second Night*
As soon as the horses had been driven in they again gathered round the
piebald, who continued:
In August they separated me from my mother and I did not feel
particularly grieved. I saw that she was again heavy (with my brother,
the famous Usan) and that I could no longer be to her what I had been.
I was not jealous but felt that I had become indifferent to her.
Besides, I knew that having left my mother I should be put in the
general division of foals, where we were kept two or three together and
were every day let out in a crowd into the open. I was in the same
stall with Darling. Darling was a saddle-horse, who was subsequently
ridden by the Emperor and portrayed in pictures and sculpture. At that
time he was a mere foal, with a soft glossy coat, a swanlike neck, and
straight slender legs taut as the strings of an instrument. He was
always lively, good-tempered, and amiable, always ready to gambol,
exchange licks, and lay tricks on horse or man. Living together as we
did we involuntarily made friends, and our friendship lasted the whole
of our youth. He was merry and giddy. Even then he began to make
love, courted the fillies, and laughed at my guilelessness. To my
misfortune vanity led me to imitate him, and I was soon carried away
and fell in love. And this early tendency of mine was the cause of the
greatest change in my fate. It happened that I was carried away. . . .
Vyazapurikha was a year older than I, and we were special friends, but
towards the autumn I noticed that she began to be shy with me. . . .
But I will not speak of that unfortunate period of my first love; she
herself remembers my mad passion, which ended for me in the most
important change of my life.
The strappers rushed to drive her away and to beat me. That evening I
was shut up in a special stall where I neighed all night as if
foreseeing what was to happen next.
In the morning the General, the stud groom, the stablemen and the
strappers came into the passage where my stall was, and there was a
terrible hubbub. The General said that he would have everybody
flogged, and that it would not do to keep young stallions. The stud
groom promised that he would have everything attended to. They grew
quiet and went away. I did not understand anything, but could see that
they were planning something concerning me.
The day after that I ceased neighing for ever. I became what I am now.
The whole world was changed in my eyes. Nothing mattered any more; I
became self-absorbed and began to brood. At first everything seemed
repulsive to me. I even ceased to eat, drink, or walk, and there was
no idea of playing. Now and then it occurred to me to give a kick, to
gallop, or to start neighing, but immediately came the question: Why?
What for? and all my energy died away.
One evening I was being exercised just when the horses were driven back
from pasture. I saw in the distance a cloud of dust enveloping the
indistinct but familiar outlines of all our brood mares. I heard their
cheerful snorting and the trampling of their feet. I stopped, though
the cord of the halter by which the groom was leading me cut the nape
of my neck, and I gazed at the approaching drove as one gazes at
happiness that is lost for ever and cannot return. They approached,
and I could distinguish one after another all the familiar, beautiful,
stately, healthy, sleek figures. Some of them also turned to look at
me. I was unconscious of the pain the groom's jerking at my halter
inflicted. I forgot myself and from old habit involuntarily neighed
and began to trot, but my neighing sounded sad, ridiculous, and
meaningless. No one in the drove made sport of me, but I noticed that
out of decorum many of them turned away from me. They evidently felt
it repugnant, pitiable, indelicate, and above all ridiculous, to look
at my thin expressionless neck, my large head (I had grown lean in the
meantime), my long, awkward legs, and the silly awkward gait with which
by force of habit I trotted round the groom. No one answered my
neighing - they all looked away. Suddenly I understood it all,
understood how far I was for ever removed from them, and I do not
remember how I got home with the groom.
Already before that I had shown a tendency towards gravity and
thoughtfulness, but now a decided change came over me. My being
piebald, which aroused such curious contempt in men, my terrible and
unexpected misfortune, and also my peculiar position in the stud farm
which I felt but was unable to explain made me retire into myself. I
pondered over the injustice of men, who blamed me for being piebald; I
pondered on the inconstancy of mother-love and feminine love in general
and on its dependence on physical conditions; and above all I pondered
on the characteristics of that strange race of animals with whom we are
so closely connected, and whom we call men - those characteristics
which were the source of my own peculiar position in the stud farm,
which I felt but could not understand.
The meaning of this peculiarity in people and the characteristic on
which it is based was shown me by the following occurrence.
It was in winter at holiday time. I had not been fed or watered all
day. As I learnt later this happened because the lad who fed us was
drunk. That day the stud groom came in, saw that I had no food, began
to use bad language about the missing lad, and then went away.
Next day the lad came into our stable with another groom to give us
hay. I noticed that he was particularly pale and sad and that in the
expression of his long back especially there was something significant
which evoked compassion.
He threw the hay angrily over the grating. I made a move to put my
head over his shoulder, but he struck me such a painful blow on the
nose with his fist that I started back. Then he kicked me in the belly
with his boot.
"If it hadn't been for this scurvy beast," he said, "nothing would have
happened!"
"How's that?" inquired the other groom.
"You see, he doesn't go to look after the count's horses but visits his
own twice a day."
"What, have they given him the piebald?" asked the other.
"Given it, or sold it - the devil only knows! The count's horses might
all starve - he wouldn't care - but just dare to leave *his* colt
without food! 'Lie down!' he says, and they begin walloping me! No
Christianity in it. He has more pity on a beast than on a man. He
must be an infidel - he counted the strokes himself, the barbarian!
The general never flogged like that! My whole back is covered with
wales. There's no Christian soul in him!"
What they said about flogging and Christianity I understood well
enough, but I was quite in the dark as to what they meant by the words
"*his* cold," from which I perceived that people considered that there
was some connexion between me and the head groom. What the connexion
was I could not at all understand then. Only much later when they
separated me from the other horses did I learn what it meant. At that
time I could not at all understand what they meant by speaking of *me*
as being a man's property. The words "*my* horse" applied to me, a
live horse, seemed to me as strange as to say "my land," "my air," or
"my water."
But those words had an enormous effect on me. I thought of them
constantly and only after long and varied relations with men did I at
last understand the meaning they attach to these strange words, which
indicate that men are guided in life not by deeds but by words. They
like not so much to do or abstain from doing anything, as to be able to
apply conventional words to different objects. Such words, considered
very important among them, are *my* and *mine*, which they apply to
various things, creatures or objects: even to land, people, and
horses. They have agreed that of any given thing only one person may
use the word *mine*, and he who in this game of theirs may use that
conventional word about the greatest number of things is considered the
happiest. Why this is so I do not know, but it is so. For a long time
I tried to explain it by some direct advantage they derive from it, but
this proved wrong.
For instance, many of those who called me *their* horse did not ride
me, quite other people rode me; nor did they feed me - quite other
people did that. Again it was not those who called me *their* horse
who treated me kindly, but coachmen, veterinaries, and in general quite
other people. Later on, having widened my field of observation, I
became convinced that not only as applied to us horses, but in regard
to other things, the idea of *mine* has no other basis than a low,
mercenary instinct in men, which they call the feeling or right of
property. A man who never lives in it says "my house" but only
concerns himself with its building and maintenance; and a tradesman
talks of "my cloth business" but has none of his clothes made of the
best cloth that is in his shop.
There are people who call land theirs, though they have never seen that
land and never walked on it. There are people who call other people
theirs but have never seen those others, and the whole relationship of
the owners to the owned is that they do them harm.
There are men who call women their women or their wives; yet these
women live with other men. And men strive in life not to do what they
think right but to call as many things as possible *their own*.
I am now convinced that in this lies the essential difference between
men and us. Therefore, not to speak of other things in which we are
superior to men, on this ground alone we may boldly say that in the
scale of living creatures we stand higher than man. The activity of
men, at any rate of those I have had to do with, is guided by words,
while ours is guided by deeds.
It was this right to speak of me as *my horse* that the stud groom had
obtained, and that was why he had the stable lad flogged. This
discovery much astonished me and, together with the thoughts and
opinions aroused in men by my piebald colour, and the thoughtfulness
produced in me by my mother's betrayal, caused me to become the serious
and thoughtful gelding that I am.
I was thrice unfortunate: I was piebald, I was a gelding, and people
considered that I did not belong to God and to myself, as is natural to
all living creatures, but that I belonged to the stud groom.
Their thinking this about me had many consequences. The first was that
I was kept apart from the other horses, was better fed, oftener taken
out on the line, and was broken in at an earlier age. I was first
harnessed in my third year. I remember how the stud groom, who
imagined I was his, himself began to harness me with a crowd of other
grooms, expecting me to prove unruly or to resist. They put ropes
round me to lead me into the shafts, put a cross of broad straps on my
back and fastened it to the shafts so that I could not kick, while I
was only awaiting an opportunity to show my readiness and love of work.
They were surprised that I started like an old horse. They began to
brake me and I began to practise trotting. Every day I made greater
and greater progress, so that after three months the general himself
and many others approved of my pace. But strange to say, just because
they considered me not as their own, but as belonging to the head
groom, they regarded my paces quite differently.
The stallions who were my brothers were raced, their records were kept,
people went to look at them, drove them in gilt sulkies, and expensive
horse-cloths were thrown over them. I was driven in a common sulky to
Chesmenka and other farms on the head groom's business. All this was
the result of my being piebald, and especially of my being in their
opinion, not the count's, but the head groom's property.
Tomorrow, if we are alive, I will tell you the chief consequence for me
of this right of property the head groom considered himself to have.
All that day the horses treated Strider respectfully, but Nester's
treatment of him was as rough as ever. The peasant's little roan horse
neighed again on coming up to the herd, and the chestnut filly again
coquettishly replied to him.
VII
Third Night
The new moon had risen and its narrow crescent lit up Strider's figure
as he once again stood in the middle of the stable yard. The other
horses crowded round him:
The gelding continued:
For me the most surprising consequence of my not being the count's, nor
God's, but the head groom's, was that the very thing that constitutes
our chief merit - a fast pace - was the cause of my banishment. They
were driving Swan round the track, and the head groom, returning from
Chemenka, drove me up and stopped there. Swan went past. He went well,
but all the same he was showing off and had not the exactitude I had
developed in myself - so that directly one foot touched the ground
another instantaneously lifted and not the lightest effort was lost but
every atom of exertion carried me forward. Swan went by us. I pulled
towards the ring and the head groom did not check me. "Here, shall I
try my piebald?" he shouted, and when next Swan came abreast of us he
let me go. Swan was already going fast, and so I was left behind
during the first round, but in the second I began to gain on him, drew
near to his sulky, drew level - and passed him. They tried us again -
it was the same thing. I was the faster. And this dismayed everybody.
The general asked that I should be sold at once to some distant place,
so that nothing more should be heard of me: "Or else the count will
get to know of it and there will be trouble!" So they sold me to a
horse-dealer as a shaft-horse. I did not remain with him long. An
hussar who came to buy remounts bought me. All this was so unfair, so
cruel, that I was glad when they took me away from Khrenovo and parted
me for ever from all that had been familiar and dear to me. It was too
painful for me among them. They had love, honour, freedom, before
them! I had labour, humiliation; humiliation, labour, to the end of my
life. And why? Because I was piebald, and because of that had to
become somebody's horse. . . .
Strider could not continue that evening. An event occurred in the
enclosure that upset all the horses. Kupchikha, a mare big with foal,
who had stood listening to the story, suddenly turned away and walked
slowly into the shed, and there began to groan so that it drew the
attention of all the horses. Then she lay down, then got up again, and
again lay down. The old mares understood what was happening to her,
but the young ones became excited and, leaving the gelding, surrounded
the invalid. Towards morning there was a new foal standing unsteadily
on its little legs. Nester shouted to the groom, and the mare and foal
were taken into a stall and the other horses driven to the pasture
without them.
VIII
Fourth Night
In the evening when the gate was closed and all had quieted down, the
piebald continued:
I have had the opportunity to make many observations both of men and
horses during the time I passed from hand to hand.
I stayed longest of all with two masters: a prince (an officer of
hussars), and later with an old lady who lived near the church of St.
Nicholas the Wonder Worker.
The happiest years of my life I spent with the officer of hussars.
Though he was the cause of my ruin, and though he never loved anything
or anyone, I loved and still love him for that very reason.
What I liked about him was that he was handsome, happy, rich, and
therefore never loved anybody.
You understand that lofty equine feeling of ours. His coldness and my
dependence on him gave special strength to my love for him. "Kill me,
drive me till my wind is broken!" I used to think in our good days,
"and I shall be all the happier."
He bought me from an agent to whom the head groom had sold me for eight
hundred rubles, and he did so just because no one else had piebald
horses. That was my best time. He had a mistress. I knew this
because I gook him to her every day and sometimes took them both out.
His mistress was a handsome woman, and he was handsome, and his
coachman was handsome, and I loved them all because they were. Life
was worth living then. This was how our time was spent: in the
morning the groom came to rub me down - not the coachman himself but
the groom. The groom was a lad from among the peasants. He would open
the door, let out the steam from the horses, throw out the droppings,
take off our rugs, and begin to fidget over our bodies with a brush,
and lay whitish streaks of dandruff from a curry-comb on the boards of
the floor that was dented by our rough horseshoes. I would playfully
nip his sleeve and paw the ground. Then we were led out one after
another to the tough filled with cold water, and the lad would admire
the smoothness of my spotted coat which he had polished, my foot with
its broad hoof, my legs straight as an arrow, my glossy quarters, and
my back wide enough to sleep on. Hay was piled onto the high racks,
and the oak cribs were filled with oats. Then Feofan, the head
coachman, would come in.
Master and coachman resembled one another. Neither of them was afraid
of anything or cared for anyone but himself, and for that reason
everybody liked them. Feofan wore a red shirt, black velveteen
knickerbockers, and a sleeveless coat. I liked it on a holiday when he
would come into the stable, his hair pomaded, and wearing his
sleeveless coat, and would shout, "Now then, beastie, have you
forgotten?" and push me with the handle of the stable fork, never so as
to hurt me but just as a joke. I immediately knew that it was a joke
and laid back an ear, making my teeth click.
We had a black stallion, who drove in a pair. At night they used to
put me in harness with him. That Polkan, as he was called, did not
understand a joke but was simply vicious as the devil. I was in the
stall next to his and sometimes we bit one another seriously. Feofan
was not afraid of him. He would come up and give a shout: it looked
as if Polkan would kill him, but no, he'd miss, and Feofan would put
the harness on him.
Once he and I bolted down Smiths Bridge Street. Neither my master nor
the coachman was frightened; they laughed, shouted at the people,
checked us, and turned so that no one was run over.
In their service I lost my best qualities and half my life. They
ruined me by watering me wrongly, and they foundered me. . . . Still,
for all that, it was the best time of my life. At twelve o'clock they
would come to harness me, black my hoofs, moisten my forelock and mane,
and put me in the shafts.
The sledge was of plaited cane upholstered with velvet; the reins were
of silk, the harness had silver buckles, sometimes there was a cover of
silken fly-net, and altogether it was such that when all the traces and
straps were fastened it was difficult to say where the harness ended
and the horse began. We were harnessed at ease in the stable. Feofan
would come, broader at his hips than at the shoulders, his red belt up
under his arms: he would examine the harness, take his seat, wrap his
coat round him, put his foot into the sledge stirrup, let off some
joke, and for appearance sake always hang a whip over his arm though he
hardly ever hit me, and would say, "Let go!" and playfully stepping
from foot to foot I would move out of the gate, and the cook who had
come out to empty the slops would stop on the threshold and the peasant
who had brought wood into the yard would open his eyes wide. We would
come out, go a little way, and stop. Footmen would come out and other
coachmen, and a chatter would begin. Everybody would wait: sometimes
we had to stand for three hours at the entrance, moving a little way,
turning back, and standing again.
At last there would be a stir in the hall: old Tikhon with his paunch
would rush out in his dress coat and cry, "Drive up!" (In those days
there was not that stupid way of saying, "Forward!" as if one did not
know that we moved forward and not back.) Feofan would cluck, drive
up, and the prince would hurry out carelessly, as though there were
nothing remarkable about the sledge, or the horse, or Feofan - who bent
his back and stretched out his arms so that it seemed it would be
impossible for him to keep them long in that position. The prince
would have a shako on his head and wear a fur coat with a grey beaver
collar hiding his rosy, black-browed, handsome face, that should never
have been concealed. He would come out clattering his sabre, his spurs,
and the brass backs of the heels of his overshoes, stepping over the
carpet as if in a hurry and taking no notice of me or Feofan whom
everybody but he looked at and admired. Feofan would cluck, I would
tug at the reins, and respectably, at a foot pace, we would draw up to
the entrance and stop. I would turn my eyes on the prince and jerk my
thoroughbred head with its delicate forelock. . . . The prince would be
in good spirits and would sometimes jest with Feofan. Feofan would
reply, half turning his handsome head, and without lowering his arms
would make a scarcely perceptible movement with the reins which I
understand: and then one, two, three . . . with ever wider and wider
strides, every muscle quivering, and sending the muddy snow against the
front of the sledge, I would go. In those days, too, there was none of
the present-day stupid habit of crying "Oh!" as if the coachman were in
pain, instead of the sensible "Be off! Take care!" Feofan would shout,
"Be off! Look out there!" and the people would step aside and stand
craning their necks to see the handsome gelding, the handsome coachman,
and the handsome gentleman. . . .
I was particularly fond of passing a trotter. When Feofan and I saw at
a distance a turn-out worthy of the effort, we would fly like a
whirlwind and gradually gain on it. Now, throwing the dirt right to
the back of the sledge, I would draw level with the occupant of the
vehicle and snort above his head: then I would reach the horse's
harness and the arch of his troyka, and then would no longer see it but
only hear its sounds in the distance behind. And the prince, Feofan,
and I, would all be silent, and pretend to be merely going on our own
business and not even to notice those with slow horses whom we happened
to meet on our way. I liked to pass another horse but also liked to
meet a good trotter. An instant, a sound, a glance, and we had passed
each other and were flying in opposite directions.
The gate creaked and the voices of Nester and Vaska were heard.
Fifth Night
The weather began to break up. It had been dull since morning and
there was no dew, but it was warm and the mosquitoes were troublesome.
As soon as the horses were driven in they collected round the piebald,
and he finished his story as follows:
The happy period of my life was soon over. I lived in that way only
two years. Towards the end of the second winter the happiest event of
my life occurred, and following it came my greatest misfortune. It was
during carnival week. I took the prince to the races. Glossy and Bull
were running. I don't know what people were doing in the pavilion, but
I know the prince came out and ordered Feofan to drive onto the track.
I remember how they took me in and placed me beside Glossy. He was
harnessed to a racing sulky and I, just as I was, to a town sledge. I
outstripped him at the turn. Roars of laughter and howls of delight
greeted me.
When I was led in, a crowd followed me and five or six people offered
the prince thousands for me. He only laughed, showing his white teeth.
"No," he said, "this isn't a horse, but a friend. I wouldn't sell him
for mountains of gold. *Au revoir*, gentlemen!"
He unfastened the sledge apron and got in.
"To Ostozenka Street!"
That was where his mistress lived, and off we flew. . . .
That was our last happy day. We reached her home. He spoke of her as
*his*, but she loved someone wlse and had run away with him. The
prince learnt this at her lodgings. It was five o'clock, and without
unharnessing me he started in pursuit of her. They did what had never
been done to me before - struck me with the whip and made me gallop.
For the first time I fell out of step and felt ashamed and wished to
correct it, but suddenly I heard the prince shout in an unnatural
voice: "Get on!" The whip whistled through the air and cut me, and I
galloped, striking my foot against the iron front of the sledge. We
overtook her after going sixteen miles. I got him there but trembled
all night long and could not eat anything. In the morning they gave me
water. I drank it and after that was never again the horse that I had
been. I was ill, and they tormented me and maimed me - doctoring me,
as people call it. My hoofs came off, I had swellings and my legs grew
bent; my chest sank in and I became altogether limp and weak. I was
sold to a horse-dealer who fed me on carrots and something else and
made something of me quite unlike myself, though good enough to deceive
one who did not know. My strength and my pace were gone.
When purchasers came the dealer also tormented me by coming into my
stall and beating me with a heavy whip to frighten and madden me. Then
he would rub down the stripes on my coat and lead me out.
An old woman bought me of him. She always drove to the Church of St.
Nicholas the Wonder Worker, and she used to have her coachman flogged.
He used to weep in my stall and I learnt that tears have a pleasant,
salty taste. Then the old woman died. Her steward took me to the
country and sold me to a hawker. Then I overate myself with wheat and
grew still worse. They sold me to a peasant. There I ploughed, and
had hardly anything to eat, my foot got cut by a ploughshare, and I
again became ill. Then a gipsy took me in exchange for something. He
tormented me terribly and finally sold me to the steward here. And
here I am.
All were silent. A sprinkling of rain began to fall.
IX
The Evening After
As the herd returned home the following evening they encountered their
master with a visitor. Zhuldyba when nearing the house looked askance
at the two male figures: one was the young master in his straw hat,
the other a tall, stout, bloated military man. The old mare gave the
man a side-glance and, swerving, went near him; the others, the young
ones, were flustered and hesitated, especially when the master and his
visitor purposely stepped among them, pointing something out to one
another and talking.
"That one, the dapple grey, I bought of Voekov," said the master.
"And where did you get that young black mare with the white legs?
She's a fine one!" said the visitor. They looked over many of the
horses going forward and stopping them. They noticed the chestnut
filly too.
"That is one I kept of Khrenov's saddle-horse breed," said the master.
They could not see all the horses as they walked past, and the master
called to Nester, and the old man, tapping the sides of the piebald
with his heels, trotted forward. The piebald limped on one leg but
moved in a way that showed that as long as his strength lasted he would
not murmur on any account, even if they wanted him to run in that way
to the end of the world. He was even ready to gallop and tried to do
so with his right leg.
"There, I can say for certain there is o better horse in Russia than
this one," said the master, pointing to one of the mares. The visitor
admired it. The master walked about excitedly, ran forward, and showed
his visitor all the horses, mentioning the origin and pedigree of each.
The visitor evidently found the master's talk dull but devised some
questions to show interest.
"Yes, yes," he said absent-mindedly.
"Just look," said the master, not answering a question. "Look at her
legs. . . . She cost me a lot but has a third foal already in harness."
"And trots well?" asked the guest.
So they went past all the horses till there were no more to show. Then
they were silent.
"Well, shall we go now?"
"Yes, let's go."
They went through the gate. The visitor was glad the exhibition was
over and that he could now go to the house where they could eat and
drink and smoke, and he grew perceptibly brighter. As he went past
Nester, who sat on the piebald waiting for orders, the visitor slapped
the piebald's crupper with his big fat hand.
"What an ornamented one!" he said. "I once had a piebald like him; do
you remember my telling you of him?"
The master, finding that it was not his horse that was being spoken
about, paid no attention but kept looking round at his own herd.
Suddenly above his ear he heard a dull, weak, senile neigh. It was the
piebald that had begun to neigh and had broken off as if ashamed.
Neither the visitor nor the master paid any attention to this neighing,
but went into the house.
In the flabby old man Strider had recognized his beloved master, the
once brilliant, handsome, and wealthy Serpukhovskoy.
X
It kept on drizzling. In the stable yard it was gloomy, but in the
master's house it was very different. The table was laid in a
luxurious drawing-room for a luxurious evening tea, and at it sat the
host, the hostess, and their guest.
The hostess, her pregnancy made very noticeable by her figure, her
strained convex pose, her plumpness, and especially by her large eyes
with their mild inward look, sat by the samovar.
The host held in his hand a box of special, ten-year-old cigars, such
as he said no one else had, and he was preparing to boast about them to
his guest. The host was a handsome man of about twenty-five, fresh-
looking, well cared for, and well groomed. In the house he was wearing
a new loose thick suit made in London. Large expensive pendants hung
from his watch-chain. His gold-mounted turquoise shirt studs were also
large and massive. He had a beard a la Napoleon III, and the tips of
his moustache stuck out in a way that could only have been learned in
Paris.
The hostess wore a dress of silk gauze with a large floral pattern of
many colours, and large gold hair-pins of a peculiar pattern held up
her thick, light-brown hair - beautiful though not all her own. On her
arms and hands she wore many bracelets and rings, all of them
expensive.
The tea-service was of delicate china and the samovar of silver. A
footman, resplendent in dress-coat, white waistcoat and necktie, stood
like a statue by the door awaiting orders. The furniture was elegantly
carved and upholstered in bright colours, the wall-paper dark with a
large flowered pattern. Beside the table, tinkling the silver bells on
its collar, was a particularly fine whippet, whose difficult English
name its owners, who neither of them knew English, pronounced.
In the corner, surrounded by plants, stood an inlaid piano. Everything
gave an impression of newness, luxury, and rarity. Everything was
good, but it all bore an imprint of superfluity, wealth, and the
absence of intellectual interests.
The host, a lover of trotting races, was sturdy and full-blooded - one
of that never-dying race which drives about in sable coats, throws
expensive bouquets to actresses, drinks the most expensive wines with
the most fashionable labels at the most expensive restaurants, offers
prizes engraved with the donor's name, and keeps the most expensive
mistresses.
Nikita Serpukhovskoy, their guest, was a man of over forty, tall,
stout, bald-headed, with heavy moustaches and whiskers. He must once
have been very handsome but had now evidently sunk physically, morally,
and financially.
He had such debts that he had been obliged to enter the government
service to avoid imprisonment for debt and was now on his way to a
provincial town to become the head of a stud farm, a post some
important relatives had obtained for him.
He wore a military coat and blue trousers of a kind only a rich man
would have had made for himself. His shirt was of similar quality and
so was his English watch. His boots had wonderful soles as thick as a
man's finger.
Nikita Serpukhovskoy had during his life run through a fortune of two
million rubles, and was now a hundred and twenty thousand in debt. In
cases of that kind there always remains a certain momentum of life
enabling a man to obtain credit and continue living almost luxuriously
for another ten years.
These ten years were however coming to an end, the momentum was
exhausted, and life was growing hard for Nikita. He was already
beginning to drink - that is, to get fuddled with wine, a thing that
used not to happen, though strictly speaking he had never begun or left
off drinking. His decline was most noticeable in the restlessness of
his glance (his eyes had grown shifty) and in the uncertainty of his
voice and movements. This restlessness struck one the more as it had
evidently got hold of him only recently, for one could see that he had
all his life been accustomed not to be afraid of anything or anybody
and had only recently, through heavy suffering, reached this state of
fear so unnatural to him.
His host and hostess noticed this and exchanged glances which showed
that they understood one another and were only postponing till bedtime
a detailed discussion of the subject, putting up meanwhile with poor
Nikita and even showing him attentions.
The sight of his young host's good fortune humiliated Serpukhovskoy,
awakening a painful envy in him as he recalled his own irrecoverable
past.
"Do you mind my smoking a cigar, Marie?" he asked, addressing the lady
in the peculiar tone acquired only by experience - the tone, polite and
friendly but not quite respectful, in which men who know the world
speak to kept women in contradistinction to wives. Not that he wished
to offend her: on the contrary he now wished rather to curry favour
with her and with her keeper, thought he would on no account have
acknowledged the fact to himself. But he was accustomed to speak in
that way to such women. He knew she would herself be surprised and
even offended were he to treat her as a lady. Besides he had to retain
a certain shade of a respectful tone for his friend's real wife. He
always treated his friend's mistresses with respect, not because he
shared the so-called convictions promulgated in periodicals (he never
read trash of that kind) about the respect due to the personality of
every man, about the meaninglessness of marriage, and so forth, but
because all decent men do so and he was a decent, though fallen, man.
He took a cigar. But his host awkwardly picked up a whole handful and
offered them to him.
"Just see how good these are. Take them!"
Serpukhovskoy pushed aside the hand with the cigars, and a gleam of
offence and shame showed itself in his eyes.
"Thank you!" He took out his cigar-case. "Try mine!"
The hostess was sensitive. She noticed his embarrassment and hastened
to talk to him.
"I am very fond of cigars. I should smoke myself if everyone about me
did not smoke."
And she smiled her pretty, kindly smile. He smiled in return, but
irresolutely. Two of his teeth were missing.
"No, take this!" the tactless host continued. "The others are weaker.
Fritz, *bringen Sie noch einen Kasten*," he said; "*dort zwei*."
[Footnote: "Bring another box. There are two there."]
The German footman brought another box.
"Do you prefer big ones? Strong ones? These are very good. Take them
all!" he continued, forcing them on his guest.
He was evidently glad to have someone to boast to of the rare things he
possessed, and he noticed nothing amiss. Serpukhovskoy lit his cigar
and hastened to resume the conversation they had begun.
"So, how much did you pay for Atlasny?" he asked.
"He cost me a great deal, not less than five thousand, but at any rate
I am already safe on him. What colts he gets, I tell you!"
"Do they trot?" asked Serpukhovskoy.
"They trot well! His colt took three prizes this year: in Tula, in
Moscow, and in Petersburg; he raced Voekov's Raven. That rascal, the
driver, let him make four false steps or he'd have left the other
behind the flag."
"He's a bit green. Too much Dutch blood in him, that's what I say,"
remarked Serpukhovskoy.
"Well, but what about the mares? I'll show Goody to you tomorrow. I
gave three thousand for her. For Amiable I gave two thousand."
And the host again began to enumerate his possessions. The hostess saw
that this hurt Serpukhovskoy and that he was only pretending to listen.
"Will you have some more tea?" she asked.
"I won't," replied the host and went on talking. She rose, the host
stopped her, embraced her, and kissed her.
As he looked at them Serpukhovskoy for their sakes tried to force a
smile, but after the host had got up, embraced her, and led her to the
portiere, Serpukhovskoy's face suddenly changed. He sighed heavily,
and a look of despair showed itself on his flabby face. Even
malevolence appeared on it.
The host returned and smilingly sat down opposite him. They were
silent awhile.
XI
"Yes, you were saying you bought him of Voekov," remarked Serpukhovskoy
with assumed carelessness.
"Oh yes, that was of Atlasny, you know. I always meant to buy some
mares of Dubovitzki, but he had nothing but rubbish left."
"He has failed . . . " said Serpukhovskoy, and suddenly stopped and
glanced round. He remembered that he owed that bankrupt twenty
thousand rubles, and if it came to talking of being bankrupt it was
certainly said that he was one. He laughed.
Both again sat silent for a long time. The host considered what he
could brag about to his guest. Serpukhovskoy was thinking what he
could say to show that he did not consider himself bankrupt. But the
minds of both worked with difficulty, in spite of efforts to brace
themselves up with cigars. "When are we going to have a drink?"
thought Serpukhovskoy. I must certainly have a drink or I shall die of
ennui with this fellow," thought the host.
"Will you be remaining here long?" Serpukhovskoy asked.
"Another month. Well, shall we have supper, eh? Fritz, is it ready?"
They went into the dining-room. There under a hanging lamp stood a
table on which were candles and all sorts of extraordinary things:
syphons, and little dolls fastened to corks, rare wine in decanters,
unusual hors-d'oeuvres, and vodka. They had a drink, ate a little,
drank again, ate again, and their conversation got into swing.
Serpukhovskoy was flushed and began to speak without timidity.
They spoke of women and of who kept this one or that, a gipsy, a
ballet-girl, or a Frenchwoman.
"And have you given up Mathieu?" asked the host. (That was the woman
who had ruined Serpukhovskoy.)
"No, she left me. Ah, my dear fellow, when I recall what I have got
through in my life! Now I am really glad when I have a thousand
rubles, and am glad to get away from everybody. I can't stand it in
Moscow. But what's the good of talking!"
The host found it tiresome to listen to Serpukhovskoy. He wanted to
speak about himself - to brag. But Serpukhovskoy also wished to talk
about himself, about his brilliant past. His host filled his glass for
him and waited for him to stop, so that he might tell him about himself
and how his stud was now arranged as no one had ever had a stud
arranged before. And that his Marie loved him with her heart and not
merely for his wealth.
"I wanted to tell you that in my stud . . . " he began, but
Serpukhovskoy interrupted him.
"I may say that there was a time," Serpukhovskoy began, "when I liked
to live well and knew how to do it. Now you talk about trotting - tell
me which is your fastest horse."
The host, glad of an opportunity to tell more about his stud, was
beginning, when Serpukhovskoy again interrupted him.
"Yes, yes," he said, "but you breeders do it just out of vanity and not
for pleasure, not for the joy of life. It was different with me. You
know I told you I had a driving-horse, a piebald with just the same
kind of spots as the one your keeper was riding. Oh, what a horse that
was! You can't possibly know: it was in 1842, when I had just come to
Moscow; I went to a horse-dealer and there I saw a well-bred piebald
gelding. I liked him. The price? One thousand rubles. I liked him,
so I took him and began to drive with him. I never had, and you have
not and never will have, such a horse. I never knew one like him for
speed and for strength. You were a boy then and couldn't have known,
but you may have heard of him. All Moscow was talking about him."
"Yes, I heard of him," the host unwillingly replied. "But what I wished
to say about mine . . . "
"Ah, then you did hear! I bought him just as he was, without pedigree
and without a certificate; it was only afterwards that I got to know
Voekov and found out. He was a colt by Affable I. Strider - because
of his long strides. On account of his piebald spots he was removed
from the Khrenov stud and given to the head keeper, who had him
castrated and sold him to a horse-dealer. There are no such horses
now, my dear chap. Ah, those were the days! Ah, vanished youth!" -
and he sang the words of the gipsy song. He was getting tipsy. "Ah,
those were good times. I was twenty-five and had eighty thousand
rubles a year, not a single grey hair, and all my teeth like pearls. .
. . Whatever I touched succeeded, and now it is all ended. . . . "
"But there was not the same mettlesomeness then," said the host,
availing himself of the pause. "Let me tell you that my first horses
began to trot without. . . "
"Your horses! But they used to be more mettlesome . . . "
"How - more mettlesome?"
"Yes, more mettlesome! I remember as if it were today how I drove him
once to the trotting races in Moscow. No horse of mine was running. I
did not care for trotters, mine were thoroughbreds: General Chaulet,
Mahomet. I drove up with my piebald. My driver was a fine fellow, I
was fond of him, but he also took to drink. . . . Well, so I got
there.
"'Serpukhovskoy,' I was asked, 'When are you going to keep trotters?'
'The devil take your lubbers!' I replied. 'I have a piebald hack that
can outpace all your trotters!' 'Oh no, he won't!' 'I'll bet a
thousand rubles!' Agreed, and they started. He came in five seconds
ahead and I won the thousand rubles. But what of it? I did a hundred
versts [Footnote: A little over sixty-six miles.] in three hours with
a troyka of thoroughbreds. All Moscow knows it."
And Serpukhovskoy began to brag so glibly and continuously that his
host could not get a single word in and sat opposite him with a
dejected countenance, filling up his own and his guest's glass every
now and then by way of distraction.
The dawn was breaking and still they sat there. It became intolerably
dull for the host. He got up.
"If we are to go to bed, let's go!" said Serpukhovskoy rising, and
reeling and puffing he went to the room prepared for him.
The host was lying beside his mistress.
"No, he is unendurable," he said. "He gets drunk and swaggers
incessantly."
"And makes up to me."
"I'm afraid he'll be asking for money."
Serpukhovskoy was lying on the bed in his clothes, breathing heavily.
"I must have been lying a lot," he thought. Well, no matter! The wine
was good, but he is an awful swine. There's something cheap about him.
And I'm an awful swine," he said to himself and laughed aloud. "First
I used to keep women, and now I'm kept. Yes, the Winkler girl will
support me. I take money of her. Serves him right. Still, I must
undress. Can't get my boots off. Hullo! Hullo!" he called out, but
the man who had been told off to wait on him had long since gone to
bed.
He sat down, took off his coat and waistcoat and somehow managed to
kick off his trousers, but for a long time could not get his boots off
- his soft stomach being in the way. Hee got one off at last, and
struggled for a long time with the other, panting and becoming
exhausted. And so with his foot in the boot-top he rolled over and
began to snore, filling the room with a smell of tobacco, wine, and
disagreeable old age.
XII
If Strider recalled anything that night, he was distracted by Vaska,
who threw a rug over him, galloped off on him, and kept him standing
till morning at the door of a tavern, near a peasant horse. They
licked one another. In the morning when Strider returned to the herd
he kept rubbing himself.
Five days passed. They called in a veterinary, who said cheerfully:
"It's the itch; let me sell him to the gipsies."
"What's the use? Cut his throat, and get it done today."
The morning was calm and clear. The herd went to pasture, but Strider
was left behind. A strange man came - thin, dark, and dirty, in a coat
splashed with something black. It was the knacker. Without looking at
Strider he took him by the halter they had put on him and led him away.
Strider went quietly without looking round, dragging along as usual and
catching his hind feet in the straw.
When they were out of the gate he strained towards the well, but the
knacker jerked his halter, saying: "Not worth while."
The knacker and Vaska, who followed behind, went to a hollow behind the
brick barn and stopped as if there were something peculiar about this
very ordinary place. The knacker, handing the halter to Vaska, took
off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and produced a knife and a
whetstone from his boot-leg. The gelding stretched towards the halter
meaning to chew it a little from dullness, but he could not reach it.
He sighed and closed his eyes. His nether lip hung down, disclosing
his worn yellow teeth, and he began to drowse to the sound of the
sharpening of the knife. Only his swollen, aching, outstretched leg
kept jerking. Suddenly he felt himself being taken by the lower jaw
and his head lifted. He opened his eyes. There were two dogs in front
of him; one was sniffing at the knacker, the other was sitting and
watching the gelding as if expecting something from him. The gelding
looked at them and began to rub his jaw against the arm that was
holding him.
"Want to doctor me probably - well, let them!" he thought.
And in fact he felt that something had been done to his throat. It
hurt, and he shuddered and gave a kick with one foot, but restrained
himself and waited for what would follow. . . . Then he felt something
liquid streaming down his neck and chest. He heaved a profound sigh
and felt much better.
The whole burden of his life was eased.
He closed his eyes and began to droop his head. No one was holding it.
Then his legs quivered and his whole body swayed. He was not so much
frightened as surprised.
Everything was so new to him. He was surprised and started forward and
upward, but instead of this, in moving from the spot his legs got
entangled, he began to fall sideways, and trying to take a step fell
forward and down on his left side.
The knacker waited till the convulsions had ceased, drove away the dogs
that had crept nearer, took the gelding by the legs, turned him on his
back, told Vaska to hold a leg, and began to skin the horse.
"It was a horse, too," remarked Vaska.
"If he had been better fed the skin would have been fine," said the
knacker.
The herd returned down hill in the evening, and those on the left saw
down below something red, round which dogs were busy and above which
hawks and crows were flying. One of the dogs, pressing its paws
against the carcass and swinging his head, with a crackling sound tore
off what it had seized hold of. The chestnut filly stopped, stretched
out her head and neck, and sniffed the air for a long time. They could
hardly drive her away.
At dawn, in a ravine of the old forest, down in an overgrown glade,
big-headed wolf cubs were howling joyfully. There were five of them:
four almost alike and one with a head bigger than his body. A lean old
wolf who was shedding her coat, dragging her full belly with its
hanging dugs along the ground, came out of the bushes and sat down in
front of the cubs. The cubs came and stood round her in a semi-circle.
She went up to the smallest, and bending her knee and holding her
muzzle down, made some convulsive movements, and opening her large
sharp-toothed jaws disgorged a large piece of horseflesh. The bigger
cubs rushed towards her, but she moved threateningly at them and let
the little one have it all. The little one, growling as if in anger,
pulled the horseflesh under him and began to gorge. In the same way
the mother wolf coughed up a piece for the second, the third, and all
five of them, and then lay down in front of them to rest.
A week later only a large skull and two shoulder-blades lay behind the
barn; the rest had all been taken away. In summer a peasant,
collecting bones, carried away these shoulder-blades and skull and put
them to use.
The dead body of Serpukhovskoy, which had walked about the earth eating
and drinking, was put under ground much later. Neither his skin, nor
his flesh, nor his bones, were of any use.
Just as for the last twenty years his body that had walked the earth
had been a great burden to everybody, so the putting away of that body
was again an additional trouble to people. He had not been wanted by
anybody for a long time and had only been a burden, yet the dead who
bury their dead found it necessary to clothe that swollen body, which
at once began to decompose, in a good uniform and good boots and put it
into a new and expensive coffin with new tassels at its four corners,
and then to place that coffin in another coffin of led, to take it to
Moscow and there dig up some long buried human bones, and to hide in
that particular spot this decomposing maggotty body in its new uniform
and polished boots, and cover it all up with earth.
(
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