Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/243

 mented—they had unlearned the habit of halting and were only thankful when they had got through the day with a whole skin.

Hence, once more the connoisseur and the tyro in horse-flesh might count their ribs and could say from their coat of hair how far the straps were to blame and how far the collar was at fault. Perhaps Poldik did not in the least perceive whither his horses were fast hastening, and that he might have driven them off any day to the knacker’s yard.

Once, however, an acquaintance gave him a hint about the matter. Going past Poldik he halted and said with slow precision, “They are no longer what they were!”

Poldik himself looked at them and almost started aghast. “They are no longer what they were”, said he to himself and here he began to pity the horses from his heart.

If Poldik had not been Poldik he would have led them home to his own stable, but now he began to consider whether he might not as well take them to the knacker’s. And yet to do so seemed to him like smiting his own self and his own existence.

In the end, he led them to his own stable, ceased to be a scavenger and began business as a stableman. As soon as the news spread that Poldik had again taken to converting unsound horses into sound ones he had visitors from morning to evening, bringing him patients from all quarters, and Poldik received them so long as he had any stall-room left. At that time, if he had thrown himself energetically into his business, he might have made quite a fortune, and yet Poldik did not feel himself a happy man. It was a business which so completely ran counter to all his previous habits and so changed his step, his gait, and all his modes of life that he was long in doubt whether he would not again quit it and once more throw in his lot with the the scavengers.

But after all he remained constant to his new profession; for having after no long time converted his own screws into decent horses he happened to sell them speedily and well and it was just as if he had bartered his own soul. Rather than accustom himself to a new pair of horses and teach them to learn his habits, he would have quitted this tedious life below; and to think, too, that he would have to drive down to the Quay and among the wherrymen, and that Francis with Malka perhaps by his side would be there, and that he would see the sneer upon their faces. When he thought of a all this he was glad that he need go no longer to the