V

The bell rang several times at the course. Now and again racing trotters would flash past the open gate at lightning speed, and the people on the stands would suddenly start shouting and clapping. In line with other trotters, Emerald walked briskly beside Nazar, waving his bowed head and moving his ears encased in linen. The exercise had sent the blood surging through his veins in a gay, warm stream, and his breathing grew deeper and easier as his body relaxed and cooled; now his every muscle craved for another run.

Half an hour or so went by. The bell rang again. This time the jockey mounted the sulky without putting on his gloves. He had white, broad, magic hands that inspired Emerald with affection and awe.

The Englishman drove at a leisurely pace to the course, from which the horses that had finished their exercise were turning one after another into the paddock. The only horses left on the track were Emerald and the huge black stallion whom he had met during the trial run. The stands were packed with people from top to bottom, a black mass with a bright, uneven sprinkling of faces and’ hands, mottled with parasols and ladies’ bonnets, and fluttering with the little white sheets of the programmes. As he quickened his pace and ran past the grand stand Emerald felt thousands of eyes riveted on him, and he fully realized that those eyes expected him to move fast, putting out every ounce of his strength, every powerful beat of his heart – and this lent a happy ease and coquettish compactness to his muscles. The familiar white stallion, with a boy on his back, was racing alongside him on the right at a clipped gallop.

Going at a smooth, steady trot, his body tilted slightly to the left, Emerald rounded a steep curve. As he drew near the post with the red circle, the bell rang briefly at the course. The Englishman shifted just a little in his seat, and suddenly his hands hardened. “Now go, but save your strength. It’s early yet.” That was what his hands told Emerald, and for a second, to show that he had understood, Emerald laid back his thin, sensitive ears, and pricked them up again. The white stallion was galloping steadily beside him, lagging a little behind. Emerald could feel near his withers the other’s even breathing.

The red post dropped behind, there was another steep curve, the track straightened out, and here was the second stand, black and mottled with the buzzing crowd, and growing bigger with every stride. “Faster,” the jockey permitted him, “faster, faster!” A little worked up, Emerald felt an urge to strain at once all his strength. “May I?” he thought. “No, it’s too early – don’t get excited,” the magic hands answered him, soothingly.

“Later.”

Both stallions passed the prize posts at the same second, except that they did so at opposite ends. The slight resistance of the taut cord and its swift snapping made Emerald move his ears for an instant, but he at once forgot about it, being intent on the wonderful hands. “A bit faster! Don’t get excited! Steady!” the jockey commanded. The black swaying stand floated past. A few score yards more, and all the four of them – Emerald, the little white stallion, the Englishman and the stable boy, who stood in the short stirrups, hugging his pacer’s neck, merged happily into one compact racing unit, inspired with one will, one beauty of powerful motion, one musical rhythm. “Ta-ta-ta-ta!” came the steady, cadenced clatter of Emerald’s hooves. “Tra-ta, tra-ta!” the boy’s horse echoed sharply. Another curve, and the other stand rushed to meet them. “Shall I go faster?” asked Emerald. “Yes,” the hands told him, “but don’t lose your head.”

The stand swept past. The people were shouting, and that diverted Emerald. He got excited, lost the feel of the reins and, falling for a second out of the common, well-timed rhythm, made four freakish bounds, falling out of step. But the reins instantly stiffened and, tearing his mouth, twisted his neck down and turned his head to the right. Now it was hard to gallop the way he wanted. He got angry and refused to change step, but the jockey pounced on the moment and with a calm, compelling movement broke the horse into a trot. The stand was already far behind. Emerald fell into step again, and again the hands became soft and friendly. Aware of his guilt, Emerald would have liked to double his trot. “No, not just yet,” the jockey remarked good-humouredly. “We’ll have a chance to make up for that. It’s all right.”

Thus, without any more slips, they made another lap and a half in compete harmony. But the black stallion was also in excellent shape that day. While Emerald was blundering he had managed to beat him by six lengths, but now Emerald was gaining on him, and as they reached the last post but one he found himself three and a quarter seconds ahead. “Now you may. Go!” commanded the jockey. Emerald laid his ears and flashed just one glance back. The Englishman’s face was ablaze with keen resolution, and his clean-shaven lips were parted in a grimace of impatience, baring the large clenched yellow teeth. “Put all you can into it!” commanded the reins in the upraised hands. “More, more!” And suddenly the Englishman shouted in a vibrating voice that climbed up the scale like the sound of a siren, “O-e-e-e-ey!”

“Yes! yes! yes! yes!” the boy sang out, in time with the race.

Now the tension was at its height and held by a thin hair threatening to snap any moment. “Tra-ta-ta-ta!” Emerald’s feet rapped evenly on the ground. “Trra-trra-trra!” came from ahead the gallop of the white stallion, who was drawing Emerald after him. The pliant shafts swung in time with the race, and the boy, who was all but lying on the horse’s neck, bobbed up and down with the gallop.

The air rushing to meet him whistled in his ears and tickled his nostrils, which let out frequent jets of steam. Breathing was harder now, and his skin felt hot. Emerald rounded the last curve, bending inwards with the whole of his body. The approaching stand came alive, and the encouraging roar of thousands of throats frightened, excited and elated him. He could no longer run at a trot and was about to break into gallop, but the wonderful hands behind at once entreated and commanded and soothed him, saying, “Don’t gallop, dear boy! For heaven’s sake don’t! That’s it, that’s it.” And as he sped past the winning-post Emerald snapped the cord without seeing it. A cascade of shouts, laughter and applause came thundering down the grand stand. Parasols, canes, hats, and the white sheets of programmes whirled and flashed among the moving faces and hands. The Englishman gently threw down the reins. “It’s over. Thank you, dear boy!” said that movement to Emerald, and checking himself with an effort, he changed to a walk. The black stallion was only just approaching his post across the course, seven seconds behind.

Lifting his numbed feet with difficulty, the Englishman jumped heavily down from the sulky, took off the velvet seat, and carried it to the scales. Grooms ran up and threw a cloth over Emerald’s steaming back, then led him off into the paddock. They were followed by the tumult of the crowd and a long ring from the judge’s box. A light yellowish froth dripped from the horse’s mouth on to the ground and the grooms’ hands.

A few minutes later Emerald, unharnessed, was led back to the grand stand. A tall man in a long overcoat and a new, shining hat, whom Emerald often saw in his stable, patted his neck and shoved a lump of sugar into the horse’s mouth with his palm. The Englishman was also there, in the crowd, smiling, puckering his face, and baring his long teeth. The cloth was taken off Emerald, and he was placed in front of a three-legged box covered with a black cloth, and a man in grey ducked under it and got busy doing something.

And then people came sweeping down the stands in a black straggling mass. They crowded round the horse, clamouring and waving their arms, bending their flushed, heated faces towards each other, their eyes flashing. They were resentful of something, and poked their fingers at Emerald’s feet and head and flanks, rumpled his coat on the left side of the croup where he bore his brand, and shouted again, all at once. “It’s a counterfeit horse! A fake trotter! It’s all a swindle! Give us our money back!” Emerald heard these words without understanding them, and moved his ears restlessly. “What are they talking about?” he thought in surprise. “Didn’t I run well?” And for a moment this eye fell on the Englishman’s face. That hard, slightly ironical face, always so calm, was now blazing with fury. And suddenly the Englishman shouted in a throaty voice, shot up his arm, and the sound of a slap ripped dryly through the uproar.

VI

Emerald was led home; three hours later they gave him oats, and in the evening, as they watered him at the well, he saw, rising from beyond the fence, a big yellow moon that filled him with vague terror.

Then came dreary days.

He was no longer taken out for exercise or for the races. But every day strangers came – many strangers – who had him led out into the yard, and there examined and felt him all over, thrusting their fingers into his mouth, scraping his coat with pumice, and shouting at each other.

Then he remembered being led, late one evening, out of his stable and along interminable deserted streets, past houses with lighted windows. After that came the railway station, a dark, shaky wagon, weariness, feet trembling from a long journey, locomotive whistles, clanking rails, the stifling reek of smoke, the dismal light of a swinging lantern. Then they took him out of the wagon and led him for a long time down an unfamiliar road, across bare autumn fields, past villages, till they brought him to an unfamiliar stable and locked him up in it apart from the other horses.

At first he kept on recalling the races, the Englishman, Vasily, Nazar and Onegin, and often saw them in his dreams, but as time went on he forgot everything. He was being hidden from somebody, and his young, splendid body languished and pined, degrading with idleness. Every now and again fresh strangers came and jostled round him, felt him over, and wrangled among themselves.

Sometimes Emerald chanced to glimpse through the open door other horses walking or running about in the open; then he would call to them, indignantly and plaintively. But the door would be shut at once, and again time would drag drearily on.

In charge of the stable was a big-headed, sleepy-looking man with small black eyes and a tiny black moustache on a fat face. He hardly took any notice of Emerald, and yet, for some unaccountable reason, the horse dreaded him.

Early one morning, when all the grooms were still sleeping, the man tiptoed noiselessly into Emerald’s stable, poured some oats into the manger, and went out. Emerald was a little surprised, but meekly fell to. The oats were sweet and slightly bitter, and felt acrid to the tongue. “How strange,” thought Emerald, “I never tasted such oats.”

And suddenly he felt a slight colic. It came and went, then came again, stronger than before, growing in intensity from minute to minute. Finally the pain became unbearable. Emerald groaned softly. Fiery circles spun before his eyes, his body turned moist and limp with a sudden weakness, his legs shook and gave, way under him, and he crashed down on the floor. He tried to rise again, but all he could do was to struggle to his forefeet, and then he fell on his side. A droning whirlwind swept through his head; the Englishman floated before his eyes, baring his long horse teeth. Onegin ran past with a loud neigh, his Adam’s apple sticking out. Some unknown force was inexorably dragging Emerald down into a cold, dark pit. He could not move any more.

Cramp suddenly contracted his legs and neck, and crooked his back. Shivers raced across his skin, which gave off a pungent-smelling lather.

The swinging yellow light of the lantern stung his eyes for a moment and went out as his sight failed. His ear caught a rough shout, but he could no longer feel the heel that kicked him in the flank. Then everything was gone – for ever.

1907