Florian: The Lipizzaner

by Felix Salten

  “I suffer,” he complained, “hellish torment.”

  “And that hellish torment you would hand down to your son?” Her voice betrayed nervous excitement. “With the boy it isn’t a question of loyalty or disloyalty. He must be spared any conflict with this day. Another, a different world is being born. We don’t know it, we don’t even guess what’s coming. You and I—we submit, or we protest futilely. That’s our affair. But my son is young. He can and he must grow into this new world without prejudice, without taking sides. Sides! An inexperienced, unripe youngster. What knowledge, what rectitude, what superiority it takes to judge in such vital things, to side, to find clarity in this chaos!”

  “Today,” he retorted, “every schoolboy has his political convictions.”

  “Really?” She took that up. “Really? Suddenly you point out today’s attitude—which you condemn! Well, I don’t condemn it at all, today’s attitude. I understand it. I even feel admiration for today. And as a mother I love youth. I want to give it all the freedom possible, every right, every demand which it has by nature. But is this thoroughly political-minded youth responsible for itself? Right? Is it possible that these schoolboys, these twenty-year-old boys, if you will, who know nothing of life, who know nothing of the interrelations, of the development, of the fate of humanity, who have experienced nothing, who have suffered nothing—is it possible that these children represent a firmly grounded conviction? We have watched the bloom and the decay of an empire. We have gone through the débâcle and stand practically helpless in the face of it. And suddenly youth is supposed to know everything better and is supposed to arrive at its own decisions! Instinct? There is no instinct for things of that sort. Not in such a general way. It’s the sickness of today and the temptation of those who are easily led into temptation. I do not want my son to grow sick, I do not want him to be led into temptation.”

  Neustift changed the subject. “Do you know where I could find Buchowsky?”

  “At the Spanish Riding School. There everything is as it was before.” Elizabeth smiled.

  “Yes,” he declared, “I heard about that. Lipizza is lost. But they have saved a number of horses, and in Piver, which I believe is somewhere near Graz, they have started a new stud-farm. I wonder whether it will last.”

  “Certainly it will,” Elizabeth said confidently. “The Riding School was always crowded. And the Lipizzan stallions were adored!”

  “Thank God for that!” Neustift sighed devoutly. “Even if we have gone to the dogs, I am glad something is left of the old magnificence, that something of the old splendor shines in this darkness. They will carry on their beauty, the brave Lipizzans; carry on the fine art of riding, the secrets of pure breeding. There is something good in that. Something good for a time which will never be able to produce anything as perfect.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  LORENZ SCHLEINZER HAD LEARNED to drive an automobile and passed the test. Horse teams had become so scarce that people on the street stopped in their tracks and stared at them. Schleinzer drove his car through the streets and was satisfied. Now he was able to take people places faster than ever before. Just step on the gas, and the car flew!

  “This is better business,” he observed to himself when hardly a half hour passed before he had another fare.

  Florian stood alone in the stable and starved.

  The flayer had called for the iron-gray, and Lovely had gone to the butcher.

  But Florian somehow still looked impressive and Schleinzer felt an irresistible reluctance to send the Imperial animal to such a horrible end.

  “By thunder!” he complained as often as he filled Florian’s manger with food. “What the devil am I going to do with this damned nag? Couldn’t even get anything for him these days. Not a stinking copper.”

  A timely coincidence brought about a solution, brought salvation for Florian.

  Schleinzer drove a pair of lovers into the Wienerwald. They didn’t want to drive too far out, merely wanted to walk by themselves a bit among the trees, and later to eat together at the Kobenzl. At Sievering Schleinzer passed the last inn, and continued up toward the Hermannskogel. Where the street to Weidling branched off, he took the direction toward Scheinblingstein. He drove and drove.

  The pair in the taxi could not make love while riding. The man was a shrewd grafter who had got rich during the inflation. He owned his own car but decided not to use it today, lest his chauffeur talk of this excursion to the servant girl or his valet, and in that fashion relay it to his wife. The girl was a young, rather pretty dancer in a cabaret. She wasn’t as yet in the habit of giving herself for money; a meretricious comedy of affection had to be played first.

  By the fence of a farmhouse they stopped.

  “Wait here,” the gentleman ordered, and helped the girl to alight. “We’ll take a little walk and will be back soon.”

  Left alone, Schleinzer proceeded to grow bored. He climbed out of the car, stepped across to the gate in the fence, and shouted: “Hallo!” He had to repeat that a few times before a man appeared and asked him what the matter was.

  “Can I get something to drink?” Schleinzer asked.

  The man replied that he had no license; a glass of milk which he offered was rejected with shudders. The man laughed good-naturedly and invited Schleinzer to come in; he would be glad to give him a glass of schnapps.

  They sat together in front of the wide, comfortably squatting farmhouse, and the man, who apparently liked having company, waxed eloquent.

  He had been in the war. From the first to the last day. And nothing had happened to him. No wounds. No gas. No sickness. The four years’ struggle had had a happy ending for him. For on his return home he had told the woman who lived here about the death of her husband, and had stayed on ever after. First he had helped with the work, and after a few months he had married the widow. He, a poor stableman. He, Karl Wessely, with no hope of being taken back into the Imperial service, since there was no Emperor any longer. What luck.

  Now this beautiful farm here belonged to him, Karl Wessely. At least it was as good as his. For, damnation, he was master in the house!

  He pointed all around.

  Encircling the house was a meadow. Then came a narrow strip of wood, and a second meadow, which sank and rose again like a green wave. From here, the top of the mountain, one had a wonderful view. Far down, swimming in a blue haze, lay the city of Vienna. But Wessely didn’t speak of that. And Schleinzer paid no attention to it.

  Six cows stood in the barn. Many chickens ran around. Geese were on their way to a narrow rivulet that ran through the fields.

  Wessely delivered milk to the city; butter, eggs, and now and then fowl.

  Shrewdly Schleinzer asked how these deliveries were made.

  Well, by God, Wessely confessed, before the war there had been a horse on the place. They still had the cart. But now the innkeeper next door undertook to deliver to market. Not regularly, though.

  Schleinzer began: “I’ve got a horse I can’t use no more. A hell of a fine horse. A Lipizzan. Cheap, I’ll tell you, a real bargain.”

  Wessely looked baffled. “A Lipizzan?”

  “And a genuine one, too,” Schleinzer emphasized. “A stallion. You know, it once pulled the carriage of Emperor Franz Joseph!”

  Wessely sprang to his feet and shouted into the house: “Mali! Mali! Come quick!”

  A thin wizened woman, prematurely old, appeared and stared suspiciously at Schleinzer. When she had heard the offer she insisted on seeing the horse first.

  Wessely described the Lipizzans, told many tales, pointed out the advantages that would accrue from driving daily down to the market in Vienna.

  Frau Mali admitted that a horse was desirable. “But it’s got to be healthy.”

  “The horse is all right,” Schleinzer said dryly.

  “Well, then,” said Mali, who seemed to be in love with her husband and doted on him, “all right. You know something about horses, go and look the beas
t over.”

  Thus Florian became the property of the couple, Karl and Amalia Wessely.

  When Wessely brought him home he knew, of course, that it was Florian, the admired, the renowned Florian, once the pride of the Spanish Riding School. Wessely exhibited Florian to his wife as one does an impoverished prince or a genius gone to the dogs—a prince, even though impoverished; and, though gone to the dogs, a genius.

  Florian stood on the grass and inhaled the smell of the verdure, the scent of the wood. Again he was offered kind words, was gently stroked again . . . after a long, long time.

  A feeling of happiness stirred timidly in his heart. His head rose, his beautiful neck regained a bit, a wee bit, of the proud stiff curve of yore. The bottomless pools of his eyes, which had been full of despair and fear, once more shone with a joyous light.

  Gratefully he accepted the large chunks of bread which Frau Mali gave him, kissed each piece daintily out of her calloused hand. He was hungry. He didn’t think of sugar. It was so long since anyone had given him sugar. And Frau Mali didn’t even think of offering him sugar.

  Karl Wessely couldn’t say enough in Florian’s praise.

  “Mali,” he cried, time and again, “that’s Florian! And he belongs to us now. You don’t know what that means. . . . Florian! Understand? Florian!”

  But then he put Florian in the cowshed. He didn’t have any other place for him.

  Now Florian trotted down to the city every morning. Not into the elegant sections, nor through the magnificent streets he knew; he reached only their periphery. To Ottakring or Hernals. There the milk, the butter and the eggs found their purchasers. Florian pulled the cart on which the tin cans clanked. The high, stout, iron-rimmed wheels rattled deafeningly on the cobblestones. Harnessed to a shaft meant for two horses, the harness itself shabby, Florian and the cart made an incongruous sight.

  Nor did Florian have the noble bearing of long ago, when Ennsbauer had ridden him or Konrad Gruber driven him. The privations of the war years, of the years following the war, the heavy work and the evil treatment he had endured at the brutal hands of the cabman Schleinzer, had slackened his resilient nature, had blunted his sensitive instincts.

  Wessely was nevertheless inordinately proud to have a horse of Florian’s rank. He would never have dared to dream of possessing such aristocratic property, he who belonged to those people favored by the upheaval. But in spite of his satisfaction and in spite of his innate respect for Florian, he beat the noble animal now and then, without rhyme or reason, simply because he held a whip in his hand. That Florian had to live in the cowshed was not Wessely’s fault; he had no better quarters to offer him.

  Florian accepted everything, even the whippings. As first he protested, meekly, without tantrums. But even this he gave up. He trotted to the market-place and patiently stood around in the midst of many other carts and horses for hours. The company was really what tormented him most. They were more unpleasant to him than the cows. The cows remained strangers, and in their doltish fashion were even companionable. These horses, however, were relatives. And he who was accustomed to the very best-mannered relatives and comrades, he who had been reared in an atmosphere of luxury and noble refinement, suffered because of the hatred, the coarseness and the low attitude of his present companions. They were all hard-worked, badly nourished, constantly irritated by torments of the most horrendous kind. They gave their utmost without thanks or recognition. They were in a state of embitterment brought on by misery and envy. They who had never been shown pity, constantly held Florian’s noble past up to him, cursed his lineage, mocked him because he was as low as they. Florian had no answer for them and remained aloof and unresponsive. His unhappy suffering silence was interpreted as conceit. With every movement of their heads and their ears, with all the pawing of their hooves and the mute vulgarity of their language, they hurled abuse at him.

  On the way home Florian always breathed more freely. He was rid of his persecutors and defamers, and soon forgot the unearned taunts and offenses. He was no longer nauseated by the hundredfold noisome smells of the market. When the road led up-hill through the woods, he was permitted to walk, and then he imbibed the scent of the meadows, of the foliage, and a zephyr of hope always blew refreshingly through his soul.

  The rest of the day and all night long he stood with the cows. He suffocated from their smell, and hated to inhale the steam that rose from their dung. He accustomed himself only slowly to the green fodder, to the sour hay that was put before him.

  There was a big, black, hairy dog of indeterminate breed on the farm. His name was Nero. During the day he lay on his chain. During the night he roamed around the house and kept watch.

  Florian made a bid for his friendship. He thought of Bosco, and the poignant memory conjured up a picture of Anton. But Nero took no interest in horses, and kept his distance.

  In his loneliness, Florian never ceased to ruminate over the past. Where had Bosco gone? And why had Anton disappeared? What had become of his staunch comrades, of the magnificent stables, of the luxurious existence he had once known? How had he got here among cows? What had he done to have to lead such an ugly dreary existence? These thoughts did not etch themselves clearly in his mind. They floated like clouds, like vaporous pictures, foggily by.

  A long time passed.

  One day Wessely asked his wife: “Now that we’ve got the truck, what are we to do with Florian?”

  Mali replied dryly: “He’ll go to the butcher, or to the flayer.”

  Wessely voiced his dismay. “To the butcher! But he’s still quite all right. Why, Mali! A horse that has belonged to the Emperor. . . .” He looked at her helplessly.

  “I don’t care,” Mali decided. “Keep him. He doesn’t cost much. What he eats does not mean much.”

  Wessely laughed. “You’re right. That little food doesn’t matter at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  A LATE SUMMER EVENING. FROM the mountaintop through the green wood comes a man. He reaches the road at the foot of the ascent, the road that stretches down toward Sievering and thence on to the capital.

  Here on the road between the trees there still lingers a trace of the dying day.

  The man walks erect. His slenderness is somewhat gnarled, shriveled. He has grown old too soon, though he is no longer young. But if his appearance is that of an old man his carriage and his firm gait disaffirm it. He wears clothes of faded elegance; they are visibly worn and betray the attentive care that people grown poor devote to their wearing apparel.

  Wessely stands before the latticed door of his farm, his eyes fixed on the solitary wanderer. As the man comes close, Wessely cries out:

  “Oh, Herr General! My compliments!”

  The man stops in his tracks. “You know me?” he asks sternly.

  “Why, of course!” Wessely is glad-faced and full of excitement. “Oh, of course, I know General von Neustift.”

  “From war days?” Neustift asks.

  “From war days, too,” says Wessely stiffening to attention. “And from long before. At that time you were Major, and adjutant to his Majesty.”

  Neustift’s stern face relaxes. The expression, “his Majesty,” has placated him. “And now you have a job here?” he inquires.

  “A job?” Wessely laughs happily. “I am the owner.”

  “Really?” Neustift is disinterested. “Well, good evening,” and starts to go on.

  Wessely steps into his path. “May I take the liberty . . . Excuse me, your Excellency, I would like to have the honor to have the General as my guest. . . .”

  “Thank you,” Neustift declines. “I’ve got to get home.”

  But Wessely detects the indecision in his answer. “Herr General,” he pleads, “a coincidence like this . . . after these many years. . . . I am so happy. . . . You would do that to me—just walk by?”

  “It’s almost night,” the older man protests.

  “Not by a long shot,” Wessely insists, his voice overflowing w
ith veneration. He is anxious to show his home. “Back of the house I have a nice little spot, really very nice . . . on the grass. . . . If the General would do me the honor . . .” The words tumble over one another. “The General will surely like it . . . and it will do him good . . . to rest . . . and a glass of fresh milk. . . .”

  Neustift admits to himself that he is tempted to rest a while and quaff a refreshing drink.

  Before long he is actually seated on the rustic bench before a rough table, has his milk, and even a mouthful of bread. Wessely and old Mali soon notice that he wants to be alone, and they slip away.

  Around him is the pulsating quiescence of the dusk. Crickets chirp shrilly. Bats wing noiselessly under the wide sky which has gradually turned gray.

  Neustift closes his eyes. He is tired. Tired of the journey, tired of worries, and tired of his unsoftened bitterness. His head nods.

  Suddenly he straightens up, for a warm breath has blown upon his neck. By him stands a white horse.

  Neustift is startled. He hasn’t heard the horse approach and hasn’t had a glimpse of the animal till now. Yet there the white horse stands, close by him, stretches his neck and sniffs at Neustift’s face and hands, confidently, sweetly.

  “What is it you want?” Neustift murmurs. “Oh, the bread. . . . Yes, yes. . . . That you shall have. Gladly.”

  He breaks off a piece and holds it out on his palm. As the white horse takes the proffered bread with, careful lips, a phrase rushes through Neustift’s mind: “Just like a kiss.”

  He holds out another piece of bread, and as the soft velvety lips again kiss his palms, he suddenly says: “Florian.”

  The ears of the white horse come forward, small, delicate ears.