There were seventeen officers in all riding in this race. The race
course was a large three-mile ring of the form of an ellipse in front
of the pavilion. On this course nine obstacles had been arranged: the
stream, a big and solid barrier five feet high, just before the
pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous slope, an
Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a
mound fenced with brushwood, beyond which was a ditch out of sight for
the horses, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or might be
killed); then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and
the end of the race was just facing the pavilion. But the race began
not in the ring, but two hundred yards away from it, and in that part
of the course was the first obstacle, a dammed-up stream, seven feet in
breadth, which the racers could leap or wade through as they preferred.
Three times they were ranged ready to start, but each time some horse
thrust itself out of line, and they had to begin again. The umpire who
was starting them, Colonel Sestrin, was beginning to lose his temper,
when at last for the fourth time he shouted “Away!” and the racers
started.
Every eye, every opera-glass, was turned on the brightly colored group
of riders at the moment they were in line to start.
“They’re off! They’re starting!” was heard on all sides after the hush
of expectation.
And little groups and solitary figures among the public began running
from place to place to get a better view. In the very first minute the
close group of horsemen drew out, and it could be seen that they were
approaching the stream in twos and threes and one behind another. To
the spectators it seemed as though they had all started simultaneously,
but to the racers there were seconds of difference that had great value
to them.
Frou-Frou, excited and over-nervous, had lost the first moment, and
several horses had started before her, but before reaching the stream,
Vronsky, who was holding in the mare with all his force as she tugged
at the bridle, easily overtook three, and there were left in front of
him Mahotin’s chestnut Gladiator, whose hind-quarters were moving
lightly and rhythmically up and down exactly in front of Vronsky, and
in front of all, the dainty mare Diana bearing Kuzovlev more dead than
alive.
For the first instant Vronsky was not master either of himself or his
mare. Up to the first obstacle, the stream, he could not guide the
motions of his mare.
Gladiator and Diana came up to it together and almost at the same
instant; simultaneously they rose above the stream and flew across to
the other side; Frou-Frou darted after them, as if flying; but at the
very moment when Vronsky felt himself in the air, he suddenly saw
almost under his mare’s hoofs Kuzovlev, who was floundering with Diana
on the further side of the stream. (Kuzovlev had let go the reins as he
took the leap, and the mare had sent him flying over her head.) Those
details Vronsky learned later; at the moment all he saw was that just
under him, where Frou-Frou must alight, Diana’s legs or head might be
in the way. But Frou-Frou drew up her legs and back in the very act of
leaping, like a falling cat, and, clearing the other mare, alighted
beyond her.
“O the darling!” thought Vronsky.
After crossing the stream Vronsky had complete control of his mare, and
began holding her in, intending to cross the great barrier behind
Mahotin, and to try to overtake him in the clear ground of about five
hundred yards that followed it.
The great barrier stood just in front of the imperial pavilion. The
Tsar and the whole court and crowds of people were all gazing at
them—at him, and Mahotin a length ahead of him, as they drew near the
“devil,” as the solid barrier was called. Vronsky was aware of those
eyes fastened upon him from all sides, but he saw nothing except the
ears and neck of his own mare, the ground racing to meet him, and the
back and white legs of Gladiator beating time swiftly before him, and
keeping always the same distance ahead. Gladiator rose, with no sound
of knocking against anything. With a wave of his short tail he
disappeared from Vronsky’s sight.
“Bravo!” cried a voice.
At the same instant, under Vronsky’s eyes, right before him flashed the
palings of the barrier. Without the slightest change in her action his
mare flew over it; the palings vanished, and he heard only a crash
behind him. The mare, excited by Gladiator’s keeping ahead, had risen
too soon before the barrier, and grazed it with her hind hoofs. But her
pace never changed, and Vronsky, feeling a spatter of mud in his face,
realized that he was once more the same distance from Gladiator. Once
more he perceived in front of him the same back and short tail, and
again the same swiftly moving white legs that got no further away.
At the very moment when Vronsky thought that now was the time to
overtake Mahotin, Frou-Frou herself, understanding his thoughts,
without any incitement on his part, gained ground considerably, and
began getting alongside of Mahotin on the most favorable side, close to
the inner cord. Mahotin would not let her pass that side. Vronsky had
hardly formed the thought that he could perhaps pass on the outer side,
when Frou-Frou shifted her pace and began overtaking him on the other
side. Frou-Frou’s shoulder, beginning by now to be dark with sweat, was
even with Gladiator’s back. For a few lengths they moved evenly. But
before the obstacle they were approaching, Vronsky began working at the
reins, anxious to avoid having to take the outer circle, and swiftly
passed Mahotin just upon the declivity. He caught a glimpse of his
mud-stained face as he flashed by. He even fancied that he smiled.
Vronsky passed Mahotin, but he was immediately aware of him close upon
him, and he never ceased hearing the even-thudding hoofs and the rapid
and still quite fresh breathing of Gladiator.
The next two obstacles, the water course and the barrier, were easily
crossed, but Vronsky began to hear the snorting and thud of Gladiator
closer upon him. He urged on his mare, and to his delight felt that she
easily quickened her pace, and the thud of Gladiator’s hoofs was again
heard at the same distance away.
Vronsky was at the head of the race, just as he wanted to be and as
Cord had advised, and now he felt sure of being the winner. His
excitement, his delight, and his tenderness for Frou-Frou grew keener
and keener. He longed to look round again, but he did not dare do this,
and tried to be cool and not to urge on his mare so to keep the same
reserve of force in her as he felt that Gladiator still kept. There
remained only one obstacle, the most difficult; if he could cross it
ahead of the others he would come in first. He was flying towards the
Irish barricade, Frou-Frou and he both together saw the barricade in
the distance, and both the man and the mare had a moment’s hesitation.
He saw the uncertainty in the mare’s ears and lifted the whip, but at
the same time felt that his fears were groundless; the mare knew what
was wanted. She quickened her pace and rose smoothly, just as he had
fancied she would, and as she left the ground gave herself up to the
force of her rush, which carried her far beyond the ditch; and with the
same rhythm, without effort, with the same leg forward, Frou-Frou fell
back into her pace again.
“Bravo, Vronsky!” he heard shouts from a knot of men—he knew they were
his friends in the regiment—who were standing at the obstacle. He could
not fail to recognize Yashvin’s voice though he did not see him.
“O my sweet!” he said inwardly to Frou-Frou, as he listened for what
was happening behind. “He’s cleared it!” he thought, catching the thud
of Gladiator’s hoofs behind him. There remained only the last ditch,
filled with water and five feet wide. Vronsky did not even look at it,
but anxious to get in a long way first began sawing away at the reins,
lifting the mare’s head and letting it go in time with her paces. He
felt that the mare was at her very last reserve of strength; not her
neck and shoulders merely were wet, but the sweat was standing in drops
on her mane, her head, her sharp ears, and her breath came in short,
sharp gasps. But he knew that she had strength left more than enough
for the remaining five hundred yards. It was only from feeling himself
nearer the ground and from the peculiar smoothness of his motion that
Vronsky knew how greatly the mare had quickened her pace. She flew over
the ditch as though not noticing it. She flew over it like a bird; but
at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that he had failed to
keep up with the mare’s pace, that he had, he did not know how, made a
fearful, unpardonable mistake, in recovering his seat in the saddle.
All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful
had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the
white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Mahotin
passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one
foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free
his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain
efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the
ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by
Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that
moment he knew only that Mahotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood
staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay
gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her
exquisite eyes. Still unable to realize what had happened, Vronsky
tugged at his mare’s reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish,
and her shoulders setting the saddle heaving, she rose on her front
legs but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell
on her side. With a face hideous with passion, his lower jaw trembling,
and his cheeks white, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach
and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting
her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her
speaking eyes.
“A—a—a!” groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. “Ah! what have I
done!” he cried. “The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable!
And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah! what have I done!”
A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his
regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and
unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her.
Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He
turned, and without picking up his cap that had fallen off, walked away
from the race course, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly
wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of
misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.
Yashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour
later Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that
race remained for long in his heart, the cruelest and bitterest memory
of his life.