The sun was now risen above the forest, and shone brightly on the grass
and the winding river. The dew dried away and fell off in drops. Like
smoke the last of the morning mist rolled up. Curly clouds made their
appearance, but as yet there was no wind. On the other side of the
gleaming river stood the rye, bending on its stalks, and the air was
fragrant with bright verdure and the flowers. The cuckoo cooed from
the forest with echoing voice; and Nester, lying flat on his back, was
reckoning up how many years of life lay before him. The larks arose
from the rye and the field. The belated hare stood up among the horses
and leaped without restraint, and sat down by the copse and pricked up
his ears to listen.
Vaska went to sleep, burying his head in the grass; the mares, making
wide circuits around him, scattered themselves on the field below.
The older ones, neighing, picked out a shining track across the dewy
grass, and constantly tried to find some place where they might be
undisturbed. They no longer grazed, but only nibbled on the sweet
grass-blades. The whole herd was imperceptibly moving in one direction.
And again the old Zhuldiba, stately stepping before the others, showed
how far it was possible to go. The young Mushka, who had cast her
first foal, constantly hinnying, and lifting her tail, was scolding
her violet-colored colt. The young Atlásnaya, with smooth and shining
skin, dropping her head so that her black and silken forelock hid her
forehead and eyes, was gambolling in the grass, nipping and tossing
and stamping her leg, with its hairy fetlock. One of the older little
colts,--he must have been imagining, some kind of game,--lifting, for
the twenty-sixth time, his rather short and tangled tail, like a plume,
gambolled around his dam, who calmly picked at the herbage, having
evidently had time to sum up her son's character, and only occasionally
stopping to look askance at him out of her big black eye.
One of these same young colts,--black as a coal, with a large head
with a marvellous top-knot rising above his ears, and his tail
still inclining to the side on which he had laid in his mother's
belly--pricking up his ears, and opening his stupid eyes, as he
stood motionless in his place, looked steadily at the colt jumping
and dancing, not at all understanding why he did it, whether out of
jealousy or indignation.
Some suckle, butting with their noses; others, for some unknown reason,
notwithstanding their mothers' invitation, move along in a short,
awkward trot, in a diametrically opposite direction, as though seeking
something, and then, no one knows why, stop short and hinny in a
desperately penetrating voice. Some lie on their sides in a row; some
take lessons in grazing; some try to scratch themselves with their hind
legs behind the ear.
Two mares, still with young, go off by themselves, and slowly moving
their legs continue to graze. Evidently their condition is respected by
the others, and none of the young colts ventures to go near or disturb
them. If any saucy young steed takes it into his head to approach too
near to them, then merely a motion of an ear or tail is sufficient to
show him all the impropriety of his behavior.
The yearlings and the young fillies pretend to be full-grown and
dignified, and rarely indulge in pranks, or join their gay companions.
They ceremoniously nibble at the blades of grass, bending their
swan-like, short-shorn necks, and, as though they also were blessed
with tails, switch their little brushes. Just like the big horses, some
of them lie down, roll over, and scratch each others' backs.
A very jolly band consists of the two-year-old and the three-year-old
mares who have never foaled. They almost all wander off by themselves,
and make a specially jolly virgin throng. Among them is heard a
great tramping and stamping, hinnying and whinnying. They gather
together, lay their heads over each others' shoulders, snuff the air,
leap; and sometimes, lifting the tail like an oriflamme, proudly and
coquettishly, in a half-trot, half-gallop, caracole in front of their
companions.
Conspicuous for beauty and sprightly dashing ways, among all this young
throng, was the wanton bay mare. Whatever she set on foot, the others
also did; wherever she went, there in her track followed also the whole
throng of beauties.
The wanton was in a specially playful frame of mind this morning. The
spirit of mischief was in her, just as it sometimes comes upon men.
Even at the river-side, playing her pranks upon the old gelding, she
had galloped along in the water, pretending that something had scared
her, snorting, and then dashed off at full speed across the field;
so that Vaska was constrained to gallop after her, and after the
others who were at her heels. Then, after grazing a little while, she
began to roll, then to tease the old mares, by dashing in front of
them. Then she separated a suckling colt from its dam, and began to
chase after it, pretending that she wanted to bite it. The mother was
frightened, and ceased to graze; the little colt squealed in piteous
tones. But the wanton young mare did not touch it, but only scared it,
and made a spectacle for her comrades, who looked with sympathy on her
antics.
Then she set out to turn the head of the roan horse, which a muzhík,
far away on the other side of the river, was driving with a plough in
the rye-field. She stood proudly, somewhat on one side, lifting her
head high, shook herself, and neighed in a sweet, significant, and
alluring voice.
'Tis the time when the rail-bird, running from place to place among the
thick reeds, passionately calls his mate; when also the cuckoo and the
quail sing of love; and the flowers send to each other, on the breeze,
their aromatic dust.
"And I am young and kind and strong," said the jolly wanton's neighing,
"and till now it has not been given to me to experience the sweetness
of this feeling, never yet to feel it; and no lover, no, not one, has
yet come to woo me."
And the significant neighing rang with youthful melancholy over lowland
and field, and it came to the ears of the roan horse far away. He
pricked up his ears, and stopped. The muzhík kicked him with his wooden
shoe; but the roan was bewitched by the silver sound of the distant
neighing, and whinnied in reply. The muzhík grew angry, twitched him
with the reins, and again kicked him in the belly with his bast shoe,
so that he did not have a chance to complete all that he had to say
in his neighing, but was forced to go on his way. And the roan horse
felt a sweet sadness in his heart; and the sounds from the far-off
rye-field, of that unfinished and passionate neigh, and the angry voice
of the muzhík, long echoed in the ears of the herd.
If through one sound of her voice the roan horse could become so
captivated as to forget his duty, what would have become of him if he
had had full view of the beautiful wanton, as she stood pricking up her
ears, inflating her nostrils, breathing in the air, and filled with
longing, while her young and beauteous body trembled as she called to
him?
But the wanton did not long ponder over her novel sensations. When the
voice of the roan was still, she whinnied scornfully, and, sinking her
head, began to paw the ground; and then she trotted off to wake up and
tease the piebald gelding. The piebald gelding was a long-suffering
butt for the amusement of this happy young wanton. She made him suffer
more than men did. But in neither case did he give way to wrath. He was
indispensable to men, but why should these young horses torment him?