The Mirror of Present Events

by Brian Stableford

“He’s already finished. He’s not getting any further ahead.”

  “Look, the others are getting on top.”

  “All the same, he’s falsified the race with his damned impetuosity,” added a third arbiter, with the utmost seriousness.

  These judgments of last resort did not prevent Peau-de-Balle, who was still taking the bends with a generous margin, from entering the straight on his own. Then Gustave Louffe, remembering Griffith’s recommendation, started waving his whip desperately.

  Behind him, there was a frantic thrashing; the likes of Lane, Dodge and Barleu, who made it a principle not to massacre their horses when they were beaten, could not believe that that was going to happen. They were convinced that Peau-de-Balle was going to blow up, that they would have a contest, and that, finally, the god of racing would not permit such a sacrilege.

  All the same, Peau-de-Balle passed the post first, winning by a hundred meters under the nose of the bewildered judge, who looked at his program twice before putting up the number, even though he knew Madame Tafoireau’s colors perfectly well.

  As soon as he had taken account of his victory, Gustave Louffe applied the stop lever a trifle abruptly, with the result that he lurched over the automaton’s head; then he brought him back at a walk.

  For the record, Pruneau II was place second and Gazomètre third. Agamemnon, naturally, came last.

  Numerous sportsmen raced to the weighing-room enclosure to watch Peau-de-Balle come in, but the horse was swiftly taken away by Griffoth, who wrapped him up carefully and immediately loaded him into a van, into which indiscreet gazes could not penetrate.

  As soon as he had weighed in, Gustave Louffe rejoined him, without waiting for the owner’s congratulations. He had understood, once and for all, that he ought never to leave the automaton by day or night.

  In the crowd, meanwhile, the surprise had affected a form both mocking and admiring.

  “Well, well! Would you believe that he’s put one over on us? They put Louffe up to get the odds, you understand? What’s that going to do on the Mutuel? No one’s bet on it at the little windows.”

  But the surprise reached its peak when the Mutuel return was announced: fourteen francs fifty (a packet of tobacco!) for a hundred sous.

  “Oh la la! It’s La Tafoireau! It’s Jules Thomas’ son who’s played that, and how! They’ll have a feast, the brethren! They could be sure of their coup! When I think that my hairdresser gave me the tip this morning and I didn’t back it!”

  The gossips were mistaken about the reason for that derisory return. Tod and Fred, the constructors of the automaton, had come to take a little stroll round the lawn, and as, out of courtesy, Griffith had invited them to come that morning in order to make the first payment on account of the sale, they had found themselves in a position to risk something on their thoroughbred. They had done so squarely. It isn’t every day, Messieurs, that one has the opportunity to bet on a veritable certainty, a race in the bag, a father of a family’s placement.

  VIII. The Sport and the Papers.

  The day after the Biennal, Griffith and Gustave Louffe made themselves a good pint of blood as they savored the accounts rendered in the specialist newspapers. They were installed in the trainer’s little pavilion. Griffith was reading aloud, with his slight English accent, which gave a particular flavor to the prose of the sporting reporters. Gustave Louffe, lying in a rocking chair, was smoking a cigarette and underlining the interesting passages by waving his feet frenetically above his head as a sign of delight. As for Peau-de-Balle, he was calmly—very calmly—playing the role of a mute but attentive character.

  First the trainer unfolded Le Sport Légitime, in which Brobdignac waxed lyrical, within the rules of syntax, with his accustomed competence and his usual stylistic elegance. Under his signature, the following lines could be read, word for word:

  “The result of the Biennial has certainly been falsified, if not by lack of skill, at least by a tactical error that would have been, all things considered, excusable on the part of apprentices, but which becomes incomprehensible on the part of the fine whips grown old in harness who rode in the great test, which renders the result particularly subject to caution. They allowed an unraced horse to escape completely, which bore the name of Peau-de-Balle and the colors, which one has grown used to seeing over a period of time, of Madame Tafoireau. The unfortunate Bowen, naturally, was particular uninspired in only giving Gibelin his head after having lost his own, along with the battle. There was no chance, at that point of catching the leader, who had taken an unassailable lead at the start, with the result that Peau-de-Balle, although visibly on his last legs, and in spite of having lost an incalculable number of lengths on the bends, passed the winning post with ridiculous ease.

  “What I like about Brobdignac,” Griffith remarked, “is that his articles are both documented and well-written—but you need plenty of breath to get to the end of his sentences.”

  Then he started on the appreciations of Beni-Mora, who, in La Cravache, displayed both the most brilliant hippic science and an extraordinary nerve.

  “At the examination in the paddock the most pleasing of the lot was incontrovertibly the one that was to furnish the winner: Peau-de-Balle, a superb product of Toenia, solidly built on the paternal model, with quite remarkable points of strength, an emergence on to the course of striking distinction, and a stride like a greyhound; perhaps he might be reproached for an excessive saddle, but that fault will pass with age. Griffith had brought him, for the great test, to a marvelous state of preparation, and his calmness, his supple and graceful walk on the track and his satiny coat contrasted with the dancing allure of Agamemnon, the enervation of Montargis and the languid gait of Pruneau II.

  “In any case, he won like a good horse, regulating his pace himself and responding courageously to the solicitations of his jockey when one might have thought that he was finished. Let us hope that this success of sympathetic and too long unlucky colors is only the prelude to numerous and important victories.”

  “Now you’re talking!” remarked Gustave Louffe. “And what does Le Tuyau say, now?”

  For Le Tuyau, Peau-de-Balle owed his victory exclusively to the coolness and energy of which his jockey had given proof.

  “G. Louffe will certainly generate talk. He rode the course very adroitly, immediately allowing his horse to settle into its action at the start, but without bustling him, effortlessly taking the lead, while the favorite fought against his jockey’s hands. At the top of the hill, he wisely took hold of Peau-de-Balle, allowing him to take a breather for a hundred meters...”

  Griffith, in a fit of jubilation, interrupted himself to slap his thigh, laughing until the tears flowed.

  “Do you hear that, Gustave? You took hold of the horse on the hill, and you let him take a breather. That’s very good, that, my lad. Le Tuyau congratulates you, and your trainer is proud of you. I’ll go on...

  “…for a hundred meters, and then, without waiting to be caught up, abruptly set off again, and put himself definitively out of reach on the last bend, in order to reach the winning post in the most common of canters. The superiority of the beaten horses—I will even say their intrinsic superiority—was incontestable, particularly that of Agamemnon, the favorite, who finished like a horse caught for speed but not broken down. In sum, the race was stolen by surprise, thanks to Gustave Louffe’s savant policy of waiting in front.

  “A waiting ride—I don’t think so,” said Griffith. “But as for front-running, that was front-running. I’m sure that the bouquet will be found in the Winning Post. Listen to this:

  “The running of our favorite Agamemnon in the Biennal was too bad to be true. The prize was claimed by Peau-de-Balle, a reject from the Pauwels stable. We would be astonished if the result was true, even though heavy betting on the mutuel by the victor’s entourage lowered the price, and if the latter surpasses, in class and quality, the average of claiming races. In any case, if his victory is disputable, his bad ch
aracter appears certain; he has, indisputably, the same fault as his mother Polaire VII, who was the most peevish mare we have ever seen on the Turf.

  “Did you know Polaire VII, Gustave? Personally, I didn’t have the honor. These sporting reporters have a marvelous memory. I’ll go on...

  “The horse sketched an attempt at running out, and finished like an animal completely exhausted. He will certainly conserve a bad memory of this first and excessively lucky attempt...

  “At any rate, if he doesn’t say very much, he doesn’t give the impression of thinking anymore,” Griffith concluded, darting a glance at the automaton.

  IX. Peau-de-Balle receives a few visits.

  At that moment, the voice of a lad hailed Griffith from the courtyard.

  Madame Tafoireau had come to visit her trainer; she had even brought Comte Jérôme Thomas, who allowed himself to be taken everywhere with an exemplary docility.

  “Oh, Monsieur Griffith, we don’t often come to Chantilly, but it’s our duty to bring you our congratulations. At the same time, I’d like to say a little bonjour to my Peau-de-Balle. I’ve even instructed Jérôme to bring the poor dada a sugar-lump—he’s certainly earned it.”

  When she was being childish, Madame Tafoireau was rather touching—but less so than Comte Jérôme, who plunged his gloved hands into his jacket pockets and pulled out two handfuls of sugar-lumps, laughing stupidly.

  Good—that’s all we need, thought Griffith.

  Gustave Louffe came to his aid.

  “No, no—no sugar! It’s very bad for his stomach. You must never give horses sugar between races.”

  “I’ll go caress him in his box, then,” said Madame Tafoireau.

  “If you wish, Madame,” said Griffith, who had got a grip on himself, “but be very prudent—the horse isn’t in a good mood. This morning, he demolished two lads, one with a bite and the other with a kick.”

  “There! What did I say! cried Madame Tafoireau, furiously, turning on her unfortunate lover, who had not opened his mouth. “You always have ideas like that. So, you were going to make me go into the stall of an enraged horse? You’d be well advanced when I’d had an accident! You won’t find another one like me! Perhaps you want to get rid of me?”

  These grievances did not accord well with one another, let alone with logic, but Comte Jérôme was incapable of perceiving that.

  Griffith then had the idea of occupying his owners by steering them toward the box of the placid Salsifis. The Comte was able to liquidate his sugar-lumps by paying homage to the trainer’s cob.

  It was at that precise moment that John Blight, passably lit up, irrupted into Griffith’s yard. He did not salute either Jérôme Thomas, who did not exist for anyone, or Madame Tafoireau, toward whom he might have believed that he was liberated from any duty of politeness. In order to be understood by everyone, however, he started talking in French, and very loudly.68

  “Monsieur Griffith, I have something to say to you. Monsieur Griffith, I am, yes or no, the first jockey of these Messieurs-Dames? I ask Monsieur le Comte Thomas, who is here, and Madame Tafoireau, who is here presently?”

  “But no one is telling you anything different. What are you complaining about?”

  “Why, then, was it not me that I mounted Peau-de-Balle on Sunday? If the horse was not to win, I understand, but a horse that is going to win sure, one lets the first jockey of the stable set foot.... It’s stupid, that’s all.”

  “Don’t get upset, Blight, I’ll explain it to you. Peau-de-Balle is a horse of a rather difficult character, a bit of a lunatic. He undoubtedly wouldn’t accommodate an energetic rider, but he has a good understanding with the apprentice.”

  “Then, the apprentice, he rides him well, and me, I couldn’t? It’s silly, that! I’d like to see, if Madame Tafoireau permits. Do you want me to try for the Cup?”

  “Well, damn it, try right away!” cried Griffith, whom these pretentions were beginning to irritate, and who saw that he would be obliged to go all in. “Listen, Blight: we’ll bring you Peau-de-Balle ready saddled. If you succeed in making him circle the yard, at a walk, a trot or a gallop, no one but you will ever ride him, and I’ll immediately have two bottles of champagne brought up from the cellar for you, into the bargain.”

  He made a sign to Gustave Louffe, who immediately disappeared, and came back almost immediately with the automaton.

  “But...you said he was bad-tempered?” remarked Madame Tafoireau.

  “Come with Monsieur le Comte. I’ll put you at a first floor window. You’ll have nothing to fear, and you’ll witness a jolly session of dressage.”

  Gustave Louffe had stopped the automaton. With an ironic smile, Blight leapt into the saddle.

  “Let go now!”

  But Peau-de-Balle did not obey either a light tap of the heels, nor an appeal of the arms, nor even a click of the tongue. Blight, surprised to the highest degree, but not wanting to appear so, turned to the trainer.

  “If I had a crop, you’d see something!”

  Griffith held out his own, which he had picked up in anticipation of that request. They then had the strange spectacle of an agitated ride on a motionless horse. But it was in vain that Blight belabored Peau-de-Balle, in vain that he called him an accursed pig, while daring furious glances at Gustave Louffe, who was writhing with laughter.

  “Now,” said Griffith, when his first jockey was out of breath, “take a rest for a moment. Oh, how hot you are! I’ll make you another bet. The young man here present will make the horse depart at a walk, very gently. If you succeed in stopping him by the means you have to hand, I’ll have four bottles of champagne brought up for you”

  Gustave Louffe passed his hand over Peau-de-Bale’s neck, who started to walk. Blight, tipped backwards, applied a violent traction to the reins.

  “He’s got a mouth as hard as the devil’s horns!” he cried.

  “No, no,” said Griffith, mildly. “The young man will stop you without any effort.”

  Peau-de-Balle was still walking. Gustave Louffe who was accompanying him, appeared to caress him again. The automaton stopped dead.

  “You can see that he’s a funny beast,” Griffith concluded. “He doesn’t obey everyone.”

  He called his domestic, who was passing by. “Joe, bring us up six bottles of champagne. In truth, Master Blight, you’ve earned them anyway!”

  X. Baron Isaac’s little schemes.

  Among the notable competitors that Peau-de-Balle was due to met in the Cup, where this time he was announced as a certain starter with Gustave Louffe aboard, we ought to mention especially Huit-Pour-Cent, a four-year-old trained by Ely Pauwels and belonging to Baron Isaac de l’Échelle-Jacob.

  Baron Isaac de l’Échelle-Jacob was one of our most popular owners, one of our most eminent financiers, one of our most well-known clubmen, and one of our most generous Maecenases, who had shares in great and small theaters.

  And along with all that, an utter scoundrel.

  If the good God saw everything, as certain parties interested in putting that rumor about contend, the place of Baron Isaac would have been clearly marked in some central house for the fabrication of cheap footwear.

  Physically, he had the appearance of a beast of prey, or more exactly, a captive carnivorous bird; one wondered in what cage in the Jardin d’Acclimation one had seen him before. Sem69 would have designed his silhouette in a few stokes: a arched back, a neckless head trying in vain to retreat completely into the shoulders, a gray beard made with poor-quality horsehair from which a hooked beak emerged, and then, under bushy eyebrows, two little black eyes, mobile and anxious, studying an adversary or on the lookout for prey.

  Baron Isaac claimed descent from the patriarch Jacob, of Jacob’s ladder fame. Without going back so far, everyone had known his father, who sold opera-glasses at the Hippodrome de la Marche. Personally, he had made a vast fortune on the Bourse, in a very short time, by launching a magnificent industrial and colonial affair. It was a matter of a co
mpany exploiting the sugar plantations of Puerto Rico, shares in which he had sold at truly remunerative prices, all the more remunerative because they only cost him the price of the paper and printing. It had been perceived subsequently that the sugar plantations did not exist and that the island of Puerto Rico was a geographical expression of no great significance, except to the Bureau of Longitudes.

  Baron Isaac de l’Échelle-Jacob had then been much admired, and he had continued his strolls under the colonnades of the Bourse, with his hands in pockets-other people’s pockets, of course. Siegmund Wolf, one of the kings of finance, had conceived a particular esteem for him, which went as far as letting him marry his mistress. Around the following fourteenth of July, his buttonhole had suddenly sprouted a red ribbon; the “Setting Sun” lodge, of which he was one of the principal dignitaries, had certified his titles—at that moment well above par—with regard to the Minister of the Colonies; the Croix des Braves had recognized services rendered to the national expansion in the Antilles and French savings in the metropolis.

  Baron Isaac, whose activity was devouring in the broadest sense of the word, had then sought a new field of action—no longer a matter of those in Puerto Rico70—for his financial capabilities. He had discovered that racecourses lend themselves marvelously to intelligent and reasoned speculation. There was no need to know anything about horses; it was sufficient, as on the Bourse, to be well-informed and to depreciate the item that one wants to buy and boost that of the item of which one wants to rid oneself. Isaac had therefore bought a few thoroughbreds and had confided them to Ely Pauwels. The latter was just the man he needed, and the two sly rogues had understood one another immediately.

  It was not a matter of winning many races. Two conditions were necessary and sufficient: firstly, to know when one will win; and secondly, to be the only ones who know it.

  That is why the victories of the Échelle-Jacob stable were often unexpected and always coolly welcomed. Thus, after the Biennal, it had been observed with amusement that the winner, Peau-de-Balle, was a reject of that unpopular establishment, and that the wily speculator had let him go for a few louis.