Nester mounted the gelding by the short stirrup, unwound his long whip, shortened 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 Vaská, the other groom, and to the horses. And Nester did shout: “Vaská! Hullo, Vaská! 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. Vaská, 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.
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.
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 15 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 in 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 the 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 slit, hung low on either side, and only occasionally moved lazily to drive away the pestering flies.
The expression on 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 dispassionately long.
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.
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 had let the gelding in without unsaddling him and, shouting to Vaská to do it, shut the gate and went to his friends. Whether because the gelding with his high saddle and without a rider presented a strangely fantastic spectacle to the horses, or for some other reason, 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 groaning. 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 despaired: he dropped his ears, and then something happened that caused all the horses to quiet down. The oldest of the mares, Vyazapurikh, went up to the gelding, sniffed at him and sighed. The gelding sighed too …
First Night
Yes, I am the son of Affable I and of Bába. 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 recognised me: even 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 who 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 warm 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 inside. 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, Tarás!” 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 then 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 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’ stables, 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. 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 to 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 began 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.
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.
Second Night
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 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 play 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 forseeing 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 shouted at the stud-groom, who tried to justify himself by saying that he had not told them to let me out but that the grooms had done it of their own accord. The general said 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 anymore; 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 …
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 inconsistency of mother-love and feminine love in general and on its dependence on physical condition; 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 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 later.
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 in charge of 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 that evoked compassion.
He threw the hay angrily over the grating. I made a move to put my head on his shoulder, but he struck such a painful blow on my 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 weals. 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 colt”, from which I perceived that people considered that there was some connection between me and the head groom. What that connection 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” …
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.
For their thinking this about me had may consequences. The first was that I 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 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 break 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 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.
Third Night
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 Chesmenka, 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 slightest 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 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 shafthorse. 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, labour, to the end of my life. And why? Because I was piebald, and because of that had to become somebody’s horse …
Fourth Night
I have had opportunity to make may 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 him 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 roubles, 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 took 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-come on the boards of the floor that was dented by our rough horse-shoes. I would playfully nip his sleeve and paw the ground. Then we were led out one after another to the trough 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, 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 Pokan 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 the 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’s sake always whip over his arm, although he hardly ever hit me, and would say “Let’s 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 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, over 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 understood: 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 troika, 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 grandest 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 Ostozhenka Street!”
This 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 else 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 felt 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, 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 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 wipe down the stripes on my coat and lead me out.
An old woman bought me off 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 over-ate myself with wheat and grew still worse. They sold me to a peasant. There I ploughed, 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 fell silent. A sprinkling of rain began to fall.
THE END