He was old, they were young; he was lean, they were fat; he was sad,
they were happy. So he was thoroughly strange, alien, an absolutely
different creature; and it was impossible for them to have compassion
on him. Horses have pity only on themselves, and rarely on those whose
places they may easily come themselves to fill. But, indeed, was not
the piebald gelding himself to blame, that he was old and gaunt and
crippled?...
One would think that he was not to blame. But in equine ethics he was,
and only those were right who were strong, young, and happy; those
who had all life before them; those whose every muscle was tense with
superfluous energy, and curled their tails into a wheel.
Maybe the piebald gelding himself understood this, and in tranquil
moments was agreed that he was to blame because he had lived out all
his life, that he must pay for his life; but he was after all only
a horse, and he could not restrain himself often from feeling hurt,
melancholy, and discontented, when he looked on all these young horses
who tormented him for the very thing to which they would be subjected
when they came to the end of their lives.
The reason for the heartlessness of these horses was a peculiarly
aristocratic feeling. Every one of them was related, either on the side
of father or mother, to the celebrated Smetanka; but it was not known
from what stock the piebald gelding sprang. The gelding was a chance
comer, bought at market three years before for eighty paper rubles.
The young chestnut mare, as though accidentally wandering about, came
up to the piebald gelding's very nose, and brushed against him. He knew
before-hand what it meant, and did not open his eyes, but laid back his
ears and showed his teeth. The mare wheeled around, and made believe
that she was going to let fly at him with her heels. He opened his
eyes, and wandered off to another part. He had no desire to sleep, and
began to crop the grass. Again the wanton young mare, accompanied by
her confederates, went to the gelding. A two-year-old mare with a star
on her forehead, very stupid, always in mischief, and always ready to
imitate the chestnut mare, trotted along with her, and, as imitators
always do, began to: play the same trick that the instigator had done.
The brown mare marched along at an ordinary gait, as though bent on her
own affairs, and passed by the gelding's very nose, not looking at him,
so that he really did not know whether to be angry or not; and this was
the very fun of the thing.
This was what she did; but the starred mare following in her steps, and
feeling very gay, hit the gelding on the chest. He showed his teeth
once more, whinnied, and, with a quickness of motion unexpected on his
part, sprang at the mare, and bit her on the flank. The young mare with
the star flew out with her bind legs, and kicked the old horse heavily
on his thin bare ribs. The old horse uttered a hoarse noise, and was
about to make another lunge, but thought better of it, and sighing
deeply turned away.
It must have been that all the young horses of the drove regarded as
a personal insult the boldness which the piebald gelding permitted
himself to show toward the starred mare; for all the rest of the day
they gave him no chance to graze, and left him not a moment of peace,
so that the drover several times rebuked them, and could not comprehend
what they were doing.
The gelding was so abused that he himself walked up to Nester when it
was time for the old man to drive back the drove, and he showed greater
happiness and content when Nester saddled him and mounted him.
God knows what the old gelding's thoughts were as he bore on his back
the old man Nester. Did he think with bitterness of these importunate
and merciless youngsters? or, with a scornful and silent pride peculiar
to old age, did he pardon his persecutors? At all events, he did not
make manifest any of his thoughts till he reached home.
That evening some cronies had come to see Nester; and as the horses
were driven by the huts of the domestics, he noticed a horse and
telyéga standing at his doorstep. After he had driven in the horses, he
was in such a hurry that he did not take the saddle off: he left the
gelding at the yard,[5] and shouted to Vaska to unsaddle the animal,
then shut the gate, and hurried to his friends.
Perhaps owing to the affront put upon the starred mare, the descendant
of Smetanka, by that "low trash" bought for a horse, and not knowing
father or mother, and therefore offending the aristocratic sentiment
of the whole community; or because the gelding with the high saddle
without a rider presented a strangely fantastic spectacle for the
horses,--at all events, that night something extraordinary took place
in the paddock. All the horses, young and old, showing their teeth,
tagged after the gelding, and drove him from one part of the yard to
the other; the trampling of their hoofs echoed around him as he sighed
and drew in his thin sides.
The gelding could not longer endure this, could not longer avoid their
kicks. He halted in the middle of the field: his face expressed the
repulsive, weak anger of helpless old age, and despair besides. He laid
back his ears, and suddenly[6] something happened that caused all the
horses suddenly to become quiet. A very old mare, Viazopúrikha, came up
and sniffed the gelding, and sighed. The gelding also sighed.
.. .. .. .. .. .
[Footnote 5: _dvor_.]
[Footnote 6: So in the original.]