Lives and Deaths Page 10

  Vyazopurikha was one year my senior. She and I were especially good friends. But at the end of the autumn I noticed that she began to shy away from me… No, I won’t give you the whole disastrous story of my first love… She herself remembers my mad passion, which brought about the most important change in my life. The herdsmen rushed to chase her away and to give me a thrashing. In the evening they drove me into a special stall where I neighed all night long, as if I sensed what was to happen the next day.

  In the morning the count, the stable master, the grooms and the herdsmen gathered in the corridor outside my stall and raised a terrible racket. The count shouted at the stable master, who tried to defend himself, saying that the grooms had let me out without his permission. The count said that he’d give them all a proper whipping and that you can’t keep colts around. The stable master promised that he’d see to everything. Then they quietened down and left. I didn’t understand a thing, but I could tell they were plotting something—something about me.

  The day after that I stopped neighing forever—I became what I am now. The whole world was transformed in my eyes. Nothing could please me. I withdrew into myself, giving way to dark thoughts. At first, everything repelled me. I wouldn’t even drink, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t walk, let alone play. From time to time I’d feel the urge to buck, gallop or neigh, but then I’d ask myself that terrible question: Why? What for? And then I’d lose all strength.

  One evening I was taken out for a walk just when the herd was being driven back from pasture. They were still far away when I first spotted them—that cloud of dust enveloping the faint but familiar outlines of all our brood mares. I heard the cheerful neighing, the trampling. And I stopped, although the halter and lead rope by which the groom was pulling me cut into the back of my neck. I stopped and gazed at the approaching herd, as one gazes at happiness that is lost forever, never to return. As they came closer I began to make them out, one by one—all those familiar figures, beautiful and stately, healthy and fit. Some of them also looked back at me. I felt no pain from the rope the groom was jerking. I forgot myself, lost control, and by force of old habit neighed and took off at a trot—but my neighing sounded sad, ridiculous, absurd. The herd did not laugh at me—but I noticed that many of them turned away, politely. I imagine they felt disgust and pity and shame; above all, they must have found me ridiculous. Yes, ridiculous—with my thin, inexpressive neck, my big head (I had lost weight by then), my long, clumsy legs and my foolish gait as I trotted, out of habit, round the groom. No one responded to my neighing. They all turned away from me. And suddenly I understood everything—I understood how far removed I was from them, forever—and I don’t remember how I made it home with the groom.

  I had already shown an inclination to seriousness and deep thinking, but now my character took a decided turn. My spots, which had aroused such incomprehensible contempt in people, my unexpected, unthinkable misfortune, as well as my peculiar position at the stud farm, which I felt but could not yet explain, caused me to withdraw further into myself. I pondered the injustice of humans, who condemned me for being born piebald. I pondered the inconstancy of a mother’s love, of woman’s love in general, and of its dependence on physical conditions. And, most importantly, I pondered the characteristics of that strange breed of animal with whom we are so closely bound and whom we call humans—the very characteristics that determined my peculiar position at the farm, which I felt but could not understand. The significance of my peculiarity, and of the human characteristics that gave rise to it, was revealed to me by the following events.

  It happened in winter, during the holidays. I hadn’t been fed or watered all day. The groom, I learnt later, had got drunk. At some point the stable master visited my stall, saw that I had no food and began to curse the missing groom in the foulest of terms. Then he left. The next day that groom came to feed us, together with another one, and I noticed that he looked especially pale and sad; there was, in particular, something striking about the way he moved his long back. It made me feel for him. He was angrily throwing hay over the lattice and I tried to lay my head across his shoulder—but he punched me on the nose. The blow was so painful that I jumped back. And then he kicked me in the belly with his boot.

  “If it hadna been for this mangy bastard,” he said, “none of it woulda happened.”

  “Whatcha mean?” the other groom asked.

  “He don’t go checkin’ on the count’s horses, but he sure as hell checks on his own colt, least twice a day.”

  “What, they gave ’im the piebald?” the other one asked.

  “Sold, gave, who the hell knows?… All’s I know is I coulda starved the count’s horses for all he cares, but if his colt should go without food… ‘Lie down,’ he says, ‘and I’ll give you a whippin’ you’ll never forget.’ I tell ya, there’s no Christianity in ’im. That heathen cares more for a beast than he does for a man… Counted the lashes ’imself! I bet he ain’t got a cross on ’im. The count never whipped me like that—striped my whole back. He ain’t got a Christian soul, I tell ya.”

  What they said about flogging and Christianity was easy enough to grasp, but I was completely in the dark as to the meaning of “his colt”—“his own”. These words indicated that people saw some sort of connection between myself and the stable master. At that time I simply could not understand what this connection might be. Only much later, when I was separated from other horses, did I finally realize what it was. But back then I just couldn’t comprehend what it meant to say that I was the personal property of a human. The words “my horse” in reference to me, a living horse, seemed as strange as the words “my land” “my air” or “my water”.

  Yet this left a lasting impression on me. I kept thinking and thinking, and only after long and varied relations with people did I finally grasp the meaning they attributed to these strange words. You see, in life, people are guided not by deeds but by words. They take less pleasure in the opportunity to do or not to do something than they do in the opportunity to apply certain words on which they’ve agreed to this or that object. These words, which they deem to be very important, are “my” and “mine”, and they apply them to all sorts of objects and creatures, and even to land, other people, horses. They agree among themselves that only one person has the right to call any single object “mine”. And the person, in this game of theirs, who calls the greatest number of objects “mine” is considered the happiest. Why this is so I cannot say—but it is so. For a long time I tried to explain it to myself, thinking they might derive some direct advantage from all this. It turns out they don’t.

  For example, many of the people who claimed that I was “their own” horse never rode me. Other people did that. Nor did these so-called owners of mine ever feed me. That too was done by other people. Again, the people who treated me kindly were never my owners: they were coachmen, farriers, total strangers. And the more I observed, the more convinced I became that this went beyond us horses—that the concept of “mine” in general had no other basis than the low, beastly human instinct they call the sense or right of property. A man calls it “my house” but he never lives in it, only busies himself with its construction and upkeep. A merchant calls it “my shop”—say, “my cloth shop”—but he doesn’t wear clothes made from the best cloth in the shop. There are people who call land “their own”, when they have neither seen that land nor set foot on it. There are people who call other people “their own”, when they have never laid eyes on these people—and when their whole relationship to these people consists in doing them harm. There are men who call women “their” women or “their” wives, when these women live with other men. Yes, in life, people aspire not to do what they think good and right, but to label as many objects as possible “their own”. I am now convinced that this is the essential difference between people and us. Setting aside all our other superior traits, this alone places us above humans on the ladder of living beings. People—at least those I have known—are guide
d by words, while we are guided by deeds. Yes, the stable master received the right to call me “his” horse, and this is why he flogged the groom. This realization struck me deeply, and along with the ideas and judgements that my piebald colour aroused in people and the pensiveness into which I was plunged by Mother’s betrayal, it made me the serious, deep-thinking gelding that I am.

  I was unlucky thrice over: I was piebald, I was a gelding and people imagined that I did not belong to God and to myself, as is natural to all living beings, but that I belonged to the stable master.

  And these imaginings of theirs had many consequences. First of all, I was kept apart from the herd, was better fed, was lunged more frequently and was harnessed earlier than the others—in my third year. I remember how the stable master, who imagined that I belonged to him, came to harness me with a crowd of grooms, expecting me to buck and resist. They pulled back my upper lip with one rope and wound more ropes all around me to lead me into the shafts. Then they put a cross of wide belts on my back and tied them to the shafts, to keep me from kicking—when all I had wanted, the whole time, was an opportunity to demonstrate my eagerness and love of work.

  They were surprised that I took to all this like a seasoned horse. They began to exercise me and I practised trotting. I got better and better by the day, so that after three months the count himself, and many others besides, were praising my pace. But it’s a strange thing—precisely because they imagined that I was not their own, but belonged instead to the stable master, my pace took on a different meaning for them.

  The stallions—my brothers—were raced, measured, timed. People went out to look at them, hitched them to gilded carts, covered them with expensive horse cloths. I was hitched to a plain cart and took the stable master on his rounds to visit Chesmenka and other farms. All this was due to my being piebald—and above all to my being the property, in human opinion, not of the count but of the stable master.

  Tomorrow, if we live that long, I will tell you of the most important consequence that the stable master’s supposed right of property had for me.

  —

  That whole day the horses treated Pace-setter with great respect, while Nester was as rude as usual. At one point the peasant’s little roan horse came close to the herd and resumed his neighing, and the chestnut filly resumed her flirting.

  VII

  Third Night

  A new moon arose. Its slender crescent illuminated the figure of Pace-setter standing in the middle of the yard. The other horses crowded around him.

  —

  THE MOST IMPORTANT, most surprising consequence of the fact that I belonged not to the count, not to God, but to the stable master, was that the very thing that constitutes our chief merit—a quick pace—became the cause of my exile. They were racing Swan in circles, and the stable master, returning from Chesmenka, pulled me up to the track and stopped. Swan went past. He ran well enough but I knew he was showing off—he didn’t have the kind of efficiency I had developed, so that as soon as one of my hooves touched the ground another would be lifted, not a single exertion going to waste, every movement pushing forward. Swan went past. I pulled towards the track and the stable master didn’t hold me back. “Hell, why not give my pinto a try?” he shouted, and when Swan came abreast of us again, he let me go. Swan was already at full speed, so I was behind in the first round, but in the second I began to gain on him, then pulled close to his cart, drew level and pulled ahead. They raced us again—same result. I was the faster horse. And this horrified everyone. They decided to sell me off as soon as possible and never mention me again. “If the count finds out about this,” they said, “there’ll be hell to pay!” And so they sold me to a horse-trader in Korennaya. I didn’t stay with the horse-trader long. He sold me to a hussar who came to buy remounts. It was all so unfair, so cruel, that I was glad when I was taken away from Khrenovoye, separated forever from everything that had been near and dear to me. Life among the other horses had been too painful for me. They could look forward to love, honour, freedom, while I—all I could expect was work and humiliation, humiliation and work, until the end of my days… And why was that? Because I had been born piebald—and on account of my colour I was forced to become someone’s property.

  —

  Pace-setter could say no more that evening. Something occurred to alarm the horses. Merchant’s Wife, a mare due to foal, who had at first been listening to the story, suddenly turned away and slowly hobbled into a shed, where she began to groan so loudly that the others could not ignore her. She lay down, then got up again, then lay back down. The old brood mares understood right away what was happening to her, but the younger horses grew agitated, left the gelding and surrounded the sufferer. By morning there was a new foal, unsteady on its legs. Nester shouted to the groom, the mare and foal were led into a stall, and the herd was driven out without them.

  VIII

  Fourth Night

  In the evening, after the gate was closed and everything grew quiet, the piebald went on with his story.

  —

  I HAVE MANAGED to make many observations of people and horses as I passed from hand to hand, again and again. I stayed the longest with two masters: the prince—that hussar officer I’d mentioned—and an old woman who lived by the Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker.

  The time I spent with the hussar officer was the happiest of my life.

  Although he brought about my ruin, although he never loved anything or anyone, I myself loved him and continue to love him for that very reason. Yes, that is precisely what I liked in him—that he was handsome, happy and rich, and for this reason did not love anyone. You know that exalted equine feeling… His coldness, his cruelty and my complete dependence on him lent a special intensity to my love. Kill me, I thought when the times were good, ride me till I break down—and I will be all the happier.

  He bought me from the horse-trader to whom the stable master had sold me for eight hundred roubles. He bought me because no one else had a piebald horse. This was the best time of my life. He had a mistress. I knew this because I took him to see her every day, and took her to see him, and sometimes took them both out. His mistress was beautiful, he was beautiful, even his coachman was beautiful—and I loved them all for their beauty. Yes, life was a pleasure then. In the morning the groom would come to brush me—not the coachman himself, but the groom. He was a young fellow, this groom, one of the peasants. He’d open the door, let out the steam we’d built up in the night, pitch out the manure, take off our horse cloths and begin to fuss over our bodies with his brush, laying whitish strips of dandruff from his curry comb on the battered floorboards. I’d playfully nip at his sleeve and tap my foot. Then we’d be led, one by one, to a trough of cold water, and the young fellow would gaze admiringly at my smooth spotted coat—the work of his hands—my legs straight as arrows, my large hooves, my glossy croup and my back, broad enough to sleep on. Tall racks would be stuffed with hay, oak mangers filled with oats. And then Feofan, the coachman, would come in.

  Coachman and master had much in common. Neither of them feared a thing and neither loved anyone, and for this they were both beloved. Feofan went about in a red shirt, plush trousers and a long coat. I liked it when, on a holiday, he’d strut into the stable in his long coat, his hair all pomaded, and shout, “Whatsamatter, ya dumb nag? Forgot, eh?” And then he’d prod me in the thigh with the handle of the pitchfork—never so hard that it hurt, just as a joke. And I’d get the joke right away, pin back an ear and snap my teeth.

  We had a black stallion, one of a pair. I’d be harnessed with him at night. Centaur was his name—never could take a joke, always angry as the devil. We were put in neighbouring stalls and there were times when we took serious bites at each other. But Feofan was never afraid of him. He’d come right up and shout—and Centaur, he’d be ready to kill—but no: Feofan would slip on the halter. One time Centaur and I took off down Kuznetsky Bridge Street. Neither the master nor the coachman took fright—both just
laughed and shouted at people, reined us back and turned so that we didn’t run anyone over.

  In their service I lost my finest attributes and half my life. They let me drink too much water, spoilt my legs. And yet these were the best years of my life. At noon they would come and harness me, black my hooves, moisten my forelock and mane, and lead me into the shafts.

  The sledge was made of wicker and draped in velvet, the harness had little silver buckles, the reins were of silk, and for a time I wore fine blue netting. Yes, when all the belts and straps were fitted and fastened, it was impossible to tell where the harness ended and the horse began. I was harnessed in the stable, on a tether. Then Feofan would strut in, his backside wider than his shoulders, a crimson sash as high up as his armpits. He’d examine the harness, take his seat in the sledge, straighten his coat, put his foot in the stirrup, crack a joke, hang his whip over his shoulder—just for the sake of appearances, mind you, as he almost never hit me—and say: “Walk!” And I’d move through the gate, relishing each step, and the cook who’d come out to dump the slops would stop on the threshold, and the peasants carting firewood back to the yard would stare at us, eyes bulging. We’d ride out a little way, then stop. Then the footmen would come, coachmen would drive up and they’d all start talking with Feofan. And everyone would wait. There were days when we’d stand at the entrance for three hours or more—moving forward a bit, then turning back and stopping again.