They entered the little yard in front of the shed. The dashing, smartly dressed lad on duty, in a clean jacket, with a broom in his hand, met them as they came in and followed after them. In the shed five horses stood in stalls, and Vronsky knew that his main rival, Makhotin’s sixteen-hand chestnut, Gladiator, was to have been brought that day and should be standing there. Even more than his own horse, Vronsky wanted to have a look at Gladiator, whom he had never seen; but Vronsky knew that by the rules of horse-fanciers’ etiquette, he not only should not see him, but could not even decently ask questions about him. As he went down the corridor, the lad opened the door to the second stall on the left, and Vronsky saw a big chestnut horse with white legs. He knew it was Gladiator, but, with the feeling of a man turning away from a temptingly open letter, he turned away and went to Frou-Frou’s stall.
‘Here’s the horse that belongs to Mak ... Mak ... I never can say the name,’ the Englishman said over his shoulder, pointing with his dirty-nailed thumb to Gladiator’s stall.
‘Makhotin? Yes, that’s my one serious rival,’ said Vronsky.
‘If you were riding him,’ said the Englishman, ‘I’d place my bet on you.’
‘He’s stronger, Frou-Frou’s more high-strung,’ said Vronsky, smiling at the compliment to his riding.
‘In a steeplechase everything depends on riding and pluck,’ said the Englishman.
Vronsky not only felt that he had enough ‘pluck’ - that is, energy and boldness - but, what was much more important, he was firmly convinced that no one in the world could have more of this ‘pluck’ than he had.
‘And you’re sure there was no need for a longer work-out?’
‘No need,’ the Englishman replied. ‘Please don’t talk loudly. The horse is excited,’ he added, nodding towards the closed stall they were standing in front of, from which they heard a stirring of hoofs on straw.
He opened the door, and Vronsky went into the stall, faintly lit by one little window. In the stall stood a dark bay horse, shifting her feet on the fresh straw. Looking around the half-lit stall, Vronsky again inadvertently took in at a glance all the qualities of his beloved horse. Frou-Frou was of average height and not irreproachable. She was narrow-boned all over; though her breast-bone protruded sharply, her chest was narrow. Her rump drooped slightly, and her front legs, and more especially her hind legs, were noticeably bowed inwards. The muscles of her hind and front legs were not particularly big; on the other hand, the horse was of unusually wide girth, which was especially striking now, with her trained shape and lean belly. Her leg bones below the knee seemed no thicker than a finger, seen from the front, but were unusually wide seen from the side. Except for her ribs, she looked as if she was all squeezed from the sides and drawn out in depth. But she possessed in the highest degreea quality that made one forget all shortcomings; this quality was
To Vronsky at least it seemed that she understood everything he was feeling now as he looked at her.
As soon as he came in, she drew a deep breath and, rolling back her prominent eye so that the white was shot with blood, looked at the people coming in from the opposite side, tossing her muzzle and shifting lithely from one foot to the other.
‘Well, there you see how excited she is,’ said the Englishman.
‘Oh, you sweetheart!’ said Vronsky, approaching the horse and coaxing her.
But the closer he came, the more excited she grew. Only when he came to her head did she suddenly quiet down, her muscles quivering under her thin, tender skin. Vronsky stroked her firm neck, straightened a strand of her mane that had fallen on the wrong side of her sharp withers, and put his face to her nostrils, taut and thin as a bat’s wing. She noisily breathed in and out with her strained nostrils, gave a start, lay her sharp ear back, and stretched out her firm black lip to Vronsky, as if she wanted to nibble his sleeve. Then, remembering the muzzle, she tossed it and again began shifting from one sculpted leg to the other.
‘Calm down, sweetheart, calm down!’ he said, patting her on the rump again; and with a joyful awareness that the horse was in the best condition, he left the stall.
The horse’s excitement had communicated itself to Vronsky; he felt the blood rushing to his heart and, like the horse, he wanted to move, to bite; it was both terrifying and joyful.
