Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/218

 house. Much the same occurred at the blacksmith’s shop; here they generally stopped of their own accord for certain, because whenever they lost a shoe Poldik swore at them then and there, and that was a sign that they would get a fresh shoe at the blacksmith’s. As for the fruit stall Poldik only occasionally recollected this halting-place, turned aside to the little booth and shouted at the door, “Two”. This had divers meanings according to the season of the year; either two kreuzer’s worth of cherries or pears, of plums or apples—or when there were none of these delicacies to be found at the stall—two kreuzer’s worth of brandy. Here perhaps, for the sake of completeness, I ought to detail what happened at the tobacconist’s. But Poldik frequently filled his pipe at the fruit stall and struck a light, and then it appeared to him that the world was better by a whole pipe of tobacco.

I do not pretend to enter into the sentiments of horses, but even Poldik’s horses saw the world in a better light after these halts, because they had a moment’s rest and quiet. They knew these modest stations well, and perhaps said to themselves, “There, if all be well, we shall enjoy another rest.”

I paint these horses for you, though you have seen them a hundred times; but they are indispensable for a proper understanding of my hero; although you have seen him also a hundred times. I do not know their life-history: they may have formed part of some grand turn-out: perhaps they had once served in a campaign, perhaps they were victorious with the heroes who rode them, perhaps with the same they beat an ignominious retreat. Now, they were horses because the Lord God had created them horses. Otherwise, they were mere skeletons, with just a strip of horse’s hide stretched across them for the sake of appearances, and if animals, like men, were in the habit of divesting themselves of their outer garments at night, a pair of bony frameworks would have been seen taking their rest in the stables, and might have served for a sciolist to demonstrate anatomy on. Nor did the aforementioned horses’ hides by any means interfere with any one who wished to compute the number of their ribs. You could do it to a hair, and see where the ribs began and where they ended, where the stomach was or rather ought to have been, where the hip-bones were and similar portions, which even a painter tries to endue with a certain amount of flesh.

They were, then, bones and leather, only that even this comparison is not quite correct. Their leather was rent in many a place, particularly in the region of the ribs and hip-bones where