The weather began to change. The sky was over-cast; and in the morning
there was no dew, but it was warm, and the flies were sticky. As soon
as the herd was driven in, the horses gathered around the piebald, and
thus he finished his story:--
"The happy days of my life were soon over. I lived so only two years.
At the end of the second winter, there happened an event which was most
delightful to me, and immediately after came my deepest sorrow. It was
at Shrove-tide. I took the prince to the races. Atlásnui and Buichók
also ran in the race.
"I don't know what they were doing in the summer-house; but I know that
he came, and ordered Feofán to enter the ring. I remember they drove
me into the ring, stationed me and stationed Atlásnui. Atlásnui was in
racing gear, but I was harnessed in a city sleigh. At the turning stake
I left him behind. A laugh and a cry of victory greeted my achievement.
When they began to lead me round, a crowd followed after, and a man
offered the prince five thousand. He only laughed, showing his white
teeth.
"'No,' said he, 'this isn't a horse, it's a friend. I wouldn't sell him
for a mountain of gold. Good-day, gentlemen!'[12]
"He threw open the fur robes, and got in.
"'To Ostozhenka.'
"That was where his mistress lived. And we flew....
"It was our last happy day. We reached her home. He called her _his._
But she loved some one else, and had gone off with him. The prince
ascertained this at her room. It was five o'clock; and, not letting
me be unharnessed, he started in pursuit of her, though she had never
really been his. They applied the knout to me, and made me gallop. For
the first time, I began to flag, and I am ashamed to say, I wanted to
rest.
"But suddenly I heard the prince himself shouting in an unnatural
voice, 'Hurry up!'[13] and the knout whistled and cut me; and I dashed
ahead again, my leg hitting against the iron of the dasher. We overtook
her, after going twenty-five versts. I got him there; but I trembled
all night, and could not eat any thing. In the morning they gave me
water. I drank it, and forever ceased to be the horse that I was. I was
sick. They tortured me and maimed me,--treated me as men are accustomed
to do. My hoofs came off. I had abscesses, and my legs grew bent. I
had no strength in my chest. Laziness and weakness were everywhere
apparent. I was sent to the horse-dealer. He fed me on carrots and
other things, and made me something quite unlike my old self, but yet
capable of deceiving one who did not know. But there was no strength
and no swiftness in me.
"Moreover, the horse-dealer tormented me, by coming to my stall when
customers were on hand, and beginning to stir me up, and torture me
with the knout, so that it drove me to madness. Then he would wipe the
bloody foam off the whip, and lead me out.
"An old lady bought me of the dealer. She used to keep coming to Nikola
Yavlennoï, and she used to whip the coachman. The coachman would come
and weep in my stall. And I knew that his tears had an agreeable salt
taste. Then the old woman chid her overseer,[14] took me into the
country, and sold me to a peddler; then I was fed on wheat, and grew
sicker still. I was sold to a muzhík. There I had to plough, had almost
nothing to eat, and I cut my leg with a ploughshare. I became sick
again. A gypsy got possession of me. He tortured me horribly, and at
last I was sold to the overseer here. And here I am." ... All were
silent. The rain began to fall.
[Footnote 12: _do svidánya = au revoir._]
[Footnote 13: _valyaï._]
[Footnote 14: _priskashchik._]