“So he dropped dead?”
“Dropped dead, sir. He was a very proud creature, behaved humbly, but clearly couldn’t subdue his character. But Mr. Rarey, when he heard about it, invited me to work for him.”
“So, then, did you work for him?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“How can I put it to you! First, because I was a conosoor and was more used to that line—to selecting, and not to breaking, and he only needed furious taming—and second, because on his side, as I suppose, it was just a crafty ploy.”
“Of what sort?”
“He wanted to get my secret.”
“Would you have sold it to him?”
“Yes, I would have.”
“So what was the matter?”
“Must be he just got frightened of me.”
“Will you be so kind as to tell us that story as well?”
“There was no special story, only he said: ‘Reveal your secret to me, brother—I’ll pay you a lot and take you to be my conosoor.’ But since I was never able to deceive anybody, I answered: ‘What secret? It’s just foolishness.’ But he looked at everything from his English, learned point of view, and didn’t believe me. He says: ‘Well, if you don’t want to reveal it, have it your way, let’s go and drink rum together.’ After that we drank a lot of rum together, so much that he turned all red and said, as well as he was able: ‘Well, go on and tell me now, what did you do to the horse?’ And I answered: ‘Here’s what …’—and I threw him as scary a look as I could and gnashed my teeth, and since I had no pot of batter around just then, I took a glass, as an example, and swung it, but seeing that, he suddenly ducked his head, got under the table, and then made a dash for the door, and that was it, and there was no going looking for him. We haven’t set eyes on each other since.”
“That’s why you didn’t go to work for him?”
“That’s why, sir. How could I work for him, when from then on he was even afraid to meet me? And I was quite willing to go to him then, because, while we were competing over that rum, I got to like him very much, but, right enough, there’s no sidestepping your path, and I had to follow a different calling.”
“And what do you consider your calling?”
“I really don’t know how to tell you … I’ve done all kinds of things, had occasion to be on horses, and under horses, and was taken prisoner, and made war, and beat people myself, and was made a cripple, such that maybe not everybody could have stood it.”
“And when did you go to the monastery?”
“That wasn’t long ago, sir, just a few years after all my past life.”
“And you also felt a calling for that?”
“Mm … I … I don’t know how to explain it, sir … though it must be assumed I did.”
“How is it that you speak of it as … as if you’re not certain?”
“Because how can I say for certain, when I can’t even embrace all my extensive past living?”
“Why is that?”
“Because much that I did wasn’t even by my own will.”
“And by whose, then?”
“By a parental promise.”
“And what happened to you by this parental promise?”
“I kept dying all my life, and could never die.”
“Really?”
“Precisely so, sir.”
“Then please tell us your life.”
“What I remember, I can tell you if you like, only I can’t do it otherwise than from the very beginning.”
“Do us the favor. That will be all the more interesting.”
“Well, I don’t know if it will be of any interest at all, but listen if you like.”
II
The former connoisseur Ivan Severyanych, Mr. Flyagin, began his story thus:
I was born a serf and come from the household staff of Count K——of Orel province.13 Now, under the young masters, these estates have been broken up, but under the old count they were very sizeable. In the village of G——, where the count himself lived, there was a great, huge mansion, with wings for guests, a theater, a special skittles gallery, a kennel, live bears sitting chained to posts, gardens; his singers gave concerts, his actors performed various scenes; there were his own weavers, and he kept workshops for various crafts; but most attention was paid to the stud farm. Special people were appointed for each thing, but the horse department received still more special attention, and as in military service in the old days cantonists descended from soldiers in order to fight themselves, so with us little coachmen came from coachmen in order to drive themselves, from stablemen came little stablemen to tend the horses, and from the fodder peasant—the fodder boy, to carry fodder from the threshing floor to the cattle yard. My father was the coachman Severyan, and though he wasn’t among the foremost coachmen, because we had a great many, still he drove a coach-and-six, and once, during the tsar’s visit, he came in seventh and was awarded an old-style blue banknote.14 I was left an orphan of my mother at a very young age and I don’t remember her, because I was her prayed-for son, meaning that, having no children for a long time, she kept asking God for me, and when she got what she asked for, having given birth to me, she died at once, because I came into the world with an unusually big head, for which reason I was called not Ivan Flyagin, but simply Golovan.* Living with my father in the coachmen’s yard, I spent my whole life in the stables, and there I comprehended the mystery of animal knowing and, you might say, came to love horses, because as a little boy I crawled on all fours between horses’ legs, and they didn’t hurt me, and once I got a little older, I became quite intimate with them. Our stud farm was one thing, the stables were another, and we stable folk had nothing to do with the farm, but we received horses ready to be taught and trained them. Every coachman and postillion drove a coach-and-six, and of all different breeds: Vyatka, Kazan, Kalmyk, Bitiug, Don—these were all horses bought at fairs and brought to us. There were more of our own from the stud farm, naturally, but they’re not worth talking about, because stud-farm horses are placid and have neither strong character nor lively fantasy, but these wild ones were terrible beasts. The count used to buy up whole shoals of them, entire herds outright, cheap, at eight or ten roubles a head, and once we drove them home, we immediately set about schooling them. They were terribly headstrong. Half of them would even drop dead rather than submit to training: they stand there in the yard—they’re bewildered and even shy away from the walls, and only keep their eyes turned to the sky, like birds. You’d even feel pity looking at them, because you see how the dear heart would like to fly away, save that he has no wings … And from the very start he won’t eat or drink for anything, neither oats nor water from the trough, and so he pines away, until he wears himself out completely and drops dead. Sometimes we lost half of what we spent, especially on Kirghiz horses. They love steppe freedom terribly. And of those who get habituated and stay alive, no small number get crippled during training, because against their wildness there’s only one means—strictness; but then those that survive all this training and learning come out as such choice horses, no stud-farm horse can compare to them in driving quality.