As soon as the horses were driven in, they once more gathered around
the piebald.
"In the month of August," continued the horse, u I was separated from
my mother, and I did not experience any unusual grief. I saw that she
was already suckling a small brother,--the famous Usan,--and I was not
what I had been before. I was not jealous, but I felt that I had become
more than ever cool toward her. Besides, I knew that in leaving my
mother I should be transferred to the general division of young horses,
where we were stalled in twos and threes, and every day all went out to
exercise.
I was in one stall with Milui. Milui was a saddle-horse, and afterwards
belonged to the emperor himself, and was put into pictures and
statuary. At that time he was a mere colt, with a shiny soft coat,
a swan-like neck, and slender straight legs. He was always lively,
good-natured, and lovable; was always ready to frisk, and be caressed,
and sport with either horse or man. He and I could not help being good
friends, living together as we did; and our friendship lasted till we
grew up. He was gay, and inclined to be wanton. Even then he began to
feel the tender passion to disport with the fillies, and he used to
make sport of my guilelessness. To my unhappiness I myself, out of
egotism, tried to follow his example, and very soon was in love. And
this early inclination of mine was the cause, in great measure, of my
fate.
"But I am not going to relate all the story of my unhappy first love;
she herself remembers my stupid passion, which ended for me in the most
important change in my life.
"The drovers came along, drove her away, and pounded me. In the evening
they led me into a special stall. I whinnied the whole night long, as
though with a presentiment of what was coming on the morrow.
"In the morning the general, the equerry, the under grooms, and the
hostlers came into the corridor where my stall was, and set up a
terrible screaming. The general screamed to the head groom; the groom
justified himself, saying that he had not given orders to send me
away, but that the under grooms had done it of their own free will.
The general said that it had spoiled every thing, but that it was
impossible to keep young stallions. The head groom replied that he
would have it attended to. They calmed down and went out, I did not
understand it at all,--except that something concerning me was under
consideration.
.. .. .. .. .. .
.. .. .. .. .. .
"On the next day I had ceased forever to whinny; I became what I am
now. All the light of my eyes was quenched. Nothing seemed sweet to
me; I became self-absorbed, and began to be pensive. At first I felt
indifferent to every thing. I ceased even to eat, to drink, and to run;
and all thought of sprightly sport was gone. Then it nevermore came
into my mind to kick up my heels, to roll over, to whinny, without
bringing up the terrible question,--Why? for what purpose?' And my
vigor died away.
"Once they led me out at eventide, at the time when they were driving
the stud home from the field. From afar I saw already the cloud of dust
in which could be barely distinguished the familiar lineaments of all
of our mothers. I heard the cheerful snorting, and the trampling of
hoofs. I stopped short, though the halter-rope by which the groom held
me cut my neck; and I gazed at the approaching drove as one gazes at
happiness that is lost forever and will ne'er return again. They drew
near, and my eyes fell upon forms so well known to me,--beautiful,
grand, plump, full of life every one. Who among them all deigned to
glance at me? I did not feel the pain that the groom in pulling the
rope inflicted. I forgot myself, and involuntarily tried to whinny
as of yore, and to gallop off; but my whinnying sounded melancholy,
ridiculous, and unbecoming. There was no ribaldry among the stud, but I
noticed that many of them from politeness turned away from me.
"It was evident that in their eyes I was despicable and pitiable, and
worst of all ridiculous. My slender, weakly neck, my big head (I had
become thin), my long, thick legs, and the awkward gait that I struck
up, in my old fashion, around the groom, all must have seemed absurd to
them. No one heeded my whinnying, all turned away from me.
"Suddenly I comprehended it all, comprehended how I was forever
sundered from them, every one; and I know not how I stumbled home
behind the groom.
"I had already shown a tendency toward gravity and thoughtfulness;
but now a decided change came over me. My variegated coat, which
occasioned such a strange prejudice in men, my terrible and unexpected
unhappiness, and, moreover, my peculiarly isolated position in the
stud--which I felt, but could never explain to myself--compelled me to
turn my thoughts inward upon myself. I pondered on the disgust that
people showed when they berated me for being a piebald; I pondered on
the inconstancy of maternal and especially of female affection, and its
dependence upon physical conditions; and, above all, I pondered on the
characteristics of that strange race of mortals with whom we are so
closely bound, and whom we call men,--those characteristics which were
the source of the peculiarity of my position in the stud, felt by me
but incomprehensible.
"The significance of this, peculiarity, and of the human
characteristics on which it was based, was discovered to me by the
following incident:--
"It was winter, at Christmas-tide. All day long no fodder had been
given to me, nor had I been led out to water. I afterwards learned that
this arose from our groom being drunk. On this day the equerry came to
me, saw that I had no food, and began to use hard language about the
missing groom, and went %way.
"On the next day, the groom with his mates came out to our stalls to
give us some hay. I noticed that he was especially pale and glum, and
in the expression of his long back there was a something significant
and demanding sympathy.
"He austerely flung the hay behind the grating. I laid my head over his
shoulder; but he struck me such a hard blow with his fist on the nose,
that I started back. Then he kicked me in the belly with his boot.
"'If it hadn't been for this scurvy beast,' said he, 'there wouldn't
have been any trouble.'
"'Why?' asked another groom.
"'He doesn't come to inquire about the count's you bet! But twice a day
he comes out to look after his own.'
"'Have they given him the piebald?' inquired another.
"'Whether they've given it to him or sold it to him, the dog only
knows! The count's might die o' starvation--it wouldn't make any
difference; but see how it upset him when I didn't give _his_ horse
his fodder! 'Go to bed,' says he, 'and then you'll get a basting.' No
Christianity in it. More pity on the cattle than on a man. I don't
believe he's ever been christened, he himself counted the blows, the
barbarian! The general did not use the whip so. He made my back all
welts. There's no soul of a Christian in him!'
"Now, what they said about whips and Christianity, I understood well
enough; but it was perfectly dark to me as to the meaning of the words,
_my horse, his horse,_ by which I perceived that men understood some
sort of bond between me and the groom. Wherein consisted this bond, I
could not then understand at all. Only long after, when I was separated
from the other horses, I came to learn what it meant. At that time I
could not understand at all that it meant that they considered _me_ the
property of a man. To say _my horse_ in reference to me, a live horse,
seemed to me as strange as to say, _my earth, my atmosphere, my water._
"But these words had a monstrous influence upon me. I pondered upon
them ceaselessly; and only after long and varied relations with men
did I come at last to comprehend the meaning that men find in these
strange words.
"The meaning is this: Men rule in life, not by deeds, but by words.
They love not so much the possibility of doing or not doing any thing,
as the possibility of talking about different objects in words agreed
upon between them. Such words, considered very important among them,
are the words, _my, mine, ours,_ which they employ for various things,
beings, and objects; even for the earth, people, and horses. In regard
to any particular thing, they agree that only one person shall say 'It
is _mine._' And he who in this play, which they engage in, can say
_mine_ in regard to the greatest number of things, is considered the
most fortunate among them. Why this is so, I know not; but it is so.
Long before, I had tried to explain this to my satisfaction, by some
direct advantage; but it seemed that I was wrong.
"Many of the men who, for instance, called me their horse, did not ride
on me, but entirely different men rode on me. They themselves did not
feed me, but entirely different people fed me. Again, it was not those
who called me their horse who treated me kindly, but the coachman, the
veterinary, and, as a general thing, outside men.
"Afterwards, as I widened the sphere of my experiences, I became
convinced that the concept _my,_ as applied not only to us horses,
but to other things, has no other foundation than a low and animal, a
human instinct, which they call the sentiment or right of property.
Man says, _my house,_ and never lives in it, but is only cumbered with
the building and maintenance of it. The merchant says, _my shop_,--my
clothing-shop, for example,--and he does not even wear clothes made of
the best cloth in the shop.
"There are people who call land theirs, and have never seen their land,
and have never been on it. There are men who call other people theirs,
but have never seen these people; and the whole relationship of these
owners, to these people, consists in doing them harm.
"There are men who call women theirs,--their wives or mistresses; but
these women live with other men. And men struggle in life not to do
what they consider good, but to be possessors of what they call their
own.
"I am convinced now that herein lies the substantial difference between
men and us. And, therefore, not speaking of other things, where we are
superior to men, we are able boldly to say that in this one respect at
least, we stand, in the scale of living beings, higher than men. The
activity of men--at all events, of those with whom I have had to do--is
guided by words; ours, by deeds.
"And here the head groom obtained this right to say about me, _my
horse;_ and hence he lashed the hostler. This discovery deeply
disturbed me; and those thoughts and opinions which my variegated coat
aroused in men, and the thoughtfulness aroused in me by the change
in my mother, together subserved to make me into that solemn and
contemplative gelding that I am.
"I was threefold unhappy: I was piebald; I was a gelding; and men
imagined that I did not belong to God and myself, as is the prerogative
of every living thing, but that I belonged to the equerry.
"The consequences of their imagining this about me were many. The first
was, that they kept me apart from the others, fed me better, led me
more often, and harnessed me up earlier. They harnessed me first when
I was in my third year. I remember the first time, the equerry himself,
who imagined that I was his, began, with a crowd of grooms, to harness
me, expecting from me some ebullition of temper or contrariness. They
put leather straps on me, and conducted me into the stalls. They laid
on my back a wide leather cross, and attached it to the thills, so that
I should not kick; but I was only waiting an opportunity to show my
gait, and my love for work.
"They marvelled because I went like an old horse. They began to drive
me, and I began to practise trotting. Every day I made greater and
greater improvement, so that in three months the general himself,
and many others, praised my gait. But this was a strange thing: for
the very reason that they imagined that I was the equerry's, and not
theirs, my gait had for them an entirely different significance.
"The stallions, my brothers, were put through their paces; their time
was reckoned; people came to see them; they were driven in gilded
drozhkies. Costly saddles were put upon them. But I was driven in the
equerry's simple drozhkies, when he had business at Chesmenka and other
manor-houses. All this resulted from the fact that I was piebald, but
more than all from the fact that I was, according to their idea, not
the property of the count, but of the equerry.
"To-morrow, if we are alive, I will tell you what a serious influence
upon me was exercised by this right of proprietorship which the equerry
arrogated to himself."
All that day the horses treated Kholstomír with great consideration;
but Nester, from old custom, rode him into the field. But Nester's
ways were so rough! The muzhík's gray stallion, coming toward the
drove, whinnied: and again the chestnut filly coquettishly replied to
him.