White Stallion of Lipizza

by Marguerite Henry

  The rewarding words were so unexpected that Hans went tense. His arms, legs, back grew rigid as rods.

  Herr Wittek halted Borina in mid-stride. His eyes darkened with sudden intensity. “Alas!” he sighed heavily. “We must now go back to first lessons. Make windmills of your arms, Hans. And whistle to relax more.”

  Red-faced, Hans rotated his arms and began to whistle, and the tune he chose burst out of him without thinking. It was the song of Ramerrez, and he whistled with all the passion of the outlaw, “Oh, let her believe I have fled to freedom.”

  The stallion’s ears pricked sharply. Hans could feel the hindquarters ready to crouch. For a wild instant he hoped Borina would spring into the air . . . ten times!

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Bereiter Wittek stilled the impulse at once.

  Sedately Borina fell back into a walk, head low. But his ears were still lively, as if to say, “We almost played a joke on the Bereiter, eh, boy?”

  • • •

  The days slid one into another while Hans grew in wisdom and in suppleness. He learned to let gravity pull him deep down into the center of the saddle, and to let gravity take care of his legs too, so that while they were hinged loosely to his body, they hung straight down just behind the girth strap. Meanwhile, his hands lay motionless and relaxed on his thighs.

  Nights meant work, too. He and Kurt did suppling exercises in their room. Under the friendly direction of Herr Braun, they straddled chairs and kicked their legs out sideways to lengthen their inner thigh muscles.

  “This is important,” he explained to the boys. “Lipizzaners, you see, are bigger-barreled than other horses; so you must stretch your muscles to compensate.”

  They exercised wrists and fingers, flexing them as if they were a Mozart playing scales. And to develop control of their back muscles they lay flat on the stone floor, bent their knees and raised their seats while their shoulders remained firmly fixed on the floor. After thirty minutes of competing with each other, the boys fell laughing and exhausted into bed and slept soundly until morning bell.

  With all the rigorous training, still it was many months before Hans could sit the walk, trot, and canter to satisfy Bereiter Wittek. All this time he was passenger only. When finally he was allowed to take the reins, he had almost forgotten how to hold them! Bereiter Wittek had to position his hands, evenly and together.

  “Even hands mean even pressure on both reins,” he explained. “Now then, is Borina well up on the bit?”

  Hans nodded in ecstasy. For the first time he knew what this meant. It was almost as if his hands were the warm, living bit, and there was no cold steel in Borina’s mouth at all. He and Borina were in contact! He shifted forward in his saddle ever so slightly. The response was instantaneous. On a straight line Borina started to walk. Hans counted the strides like the beats of marching music: One-two . . . one-two . . . one-two . . . They were uniform in length. They were regular as a metronome. Hans wanted to shout for joy. Riding Borina was like thought transference! It was like blowing a whisper into the air and turning on stars. At last, at last, he had passed the first milestone.

  • • •

  To celebrate, Hans rushed home after stablework was done. It was warm for March. The sun swam across the sky, melting the last patches of snow, and crocuses in the parks were a medley of color.

  “Let’s all go for a picnic!” he cried as he burst into the kitchen. “I’m riding with reins now!”

  Jacques made a flying tackle and kissed Hans boisterously, first on one cheek, then the other. “I’m ready!” he shouted. “I want to go to the Prater and ride the roller coaster and the giant wheel in the sky.”

  “But the cost . . .” Mamma and Anna exclaimed in the same breath. “And who is doing your work at the Reitschule?” Mamma added.

  “Kurt is feeding for me.” Laughing, Hans spilled two silver schilling and a handful of groschen out of his pocket onto the kitchen table. “See? I am rich!”

  Henri hooted. “Let the grand cavalier pay! High time he learned ze value of money.” And he slapped his thigh to punctuate his remark.

  Mamma began slicing ham and getting out the sweet-sour pickles. She sent Hans and Jacques off to the amusement park by themselves with a bulging box of lunch. There they bought pink soda pop and ate at once so they would have nothing to carry. Then they not only rode the roller coaster and the giant wheel, but they tried their skill at the shooting gallery, and paddled a rowboat on a little lake. Afterward, Hans taught Jacques how to exercise for suppleness and strength the way he and Kurt did every evening.

  As twilight fell they returned home, tired and content. Hans’s mother was busy at the stove, and when she was not looking Hans slipped one schilling and the remaining groschen into her apron pocket.

  The supper was his favorite—wiener schnitzel, and for dessert thin pancakes stuffed with strawberry jam. Then in the chill of evening he went whistling back to his room above the stable and slept the sleep of the happy.

  Chapter 21

  BORINA PLAYS A TRICK

  As the months of training went on, Hans returned home less and less often. He could not bear to hear Henri’s familiar taunt: “Well . . . boy? When you going to get off ze ground?” The question stung. The more so because Hans himself wondered, and he had no answer.

  His whole world now was the Hofburg—the stables on one side of the Josefsplatz, the Reitschule on the other. Lessons and work intensified. A string of young, iron-gray stallions arrived from Piber. Stable duties doubled. Added to his own work on the more advanced gaits, this left little time for observing the Senior Riding Masters at practice from ten until noon each day. How was he ever going to learn the mysteries of the courbette if he couldn’t watch how it was done? He envied the visitors who dropped in on daily rehearsals. He would gladly have given half his wages for the privilege.

  Everything was different on Sunday. Then Hans tiptoed up to a corner of the gallery and watched Borina ridden by Herr Wittek during the regular public performance. Hungrily he studied their courbette. It was always magnificent perfection, full of animation and joy. But it puzzled Hans that both man and stallion seemed content with two leaps. As he watched, a dream grew in him, a resolve to inspire Borina to lift that thousand pounds again and again, to make him a champion once more. The ambition deepened as the weeks went by, but Hans was still working on the ground with no promise of when aerial work would begin.

  On the anniversary of their second year, Colonel Podhajsky addressed the apprentices as they stood in a line underneath the Imperial Box.

  “Congratulations,” he greeted them warmly, “on surviving your rigorous early training! Thus far only one of your fellow-apprentices is missing.” His face grew serious. “I urge all of you to believe that it is no disgrace to be dismissed. I can think of no other art—painting, sculpture, music, poetry—that demands more iron self-discipline than the life here. If you should be told you have not the stamina nor the talent to continue, be comforted by the knowledge that there are many less exacting professions.”

  Hans was aghast. Failure had never occurred to him.

  “How soon you are ready for work über der Erde,” the Colonel was explaining, “depends upon individual progress. Another year for some of you. Even longer for others.”

  The silence that followed on his words was awesome.

  “Come, come,” the Colonel smiled. “The time will fly like that!” And he snapped his fingers to show how fast it would go. “To develop a good seat—pliant, upright, deep—is a subtle and difficult art. Unless your balance is perfect, you will disturb the balance of your horse. In short, you must achieve a perfect unison on the ground before you are ready to fly.”

  He started to say more, but there was a shuffling of feet overhead as the balconies began filling with the ten o’clock visitors. At the same moment a stableboy entered the hall, leading a bright bay Lipizzaner. He handed over the reins to Colonel Podhajsky.

  The Colonel eyed the dark fellow in affectio
n. Then with obvious eagerness to get into the saddle, he mounted in one easy motion and rode off. To Hans’s joy he could recognize the “collected walk,” the horse’s head almost vertical, the hind legs well under the body, the action elevated.

  Almost as if the Colonel’s words had been a warning, a second apprentice was dropped the following week. This did not make Hans work harder, for he was already working the sun up and down. Some nights before undressing he fell onto his bed intending to read a technical book of instruction. But he was so tired that after a page or two he fell asleep in the glare of the light bulb. And if Kurt did not waken him, he slept through the night, with his clothes on. Yet with all his work he was happy, like a journeyman who knows he is on the right road, with the right horse under him.

  In the beginning Borina had readily accepted Hans as a green pupil and had taken him through the elementary paces with little guidance. But as time went on, Hans began to see that it was not Bereiter Wittek who was the stern taskmaster. It was Borina!

  One morning in full view of Colonel Podhajsky he gave Hans a sharp lesson. Bereiter Wittek had asked for the passage, or Spanish Step, which Hans already knew as a swinging trot with high action. He had ridden it several times, and always he had the heady sensation of scudding on a cloud, so high and suspended were Borina’s steps.

  Always before, Borina had performed the passage with measured cadence. Yet today Hans sensed a change in him. Was it skittishness? Boredom? Hans couldn’t help asking himself, “Will I give the aids strong enough; or too strong so that he might break into an extended trot?” Carefully he positioned his hands, reassuring himself, “Why, Borina collects easily. Already he gives the forward impulse. Now! Drive him forward with your legs! Hold him back with your hands! Keep his head almost vertical!”

  Hans’s spirits soared. He felt himself into the trot, thought himself in full control. Borina was stepping forward with great liveliness. But Hans was blissfully unaware that the stallion was playing a trick on him. He was indeed stepping forward with high front action, but he was not following up with his hindquarters; he was shuffling along, swinging his hind legs in a lazy, dragging motion.

  Nothing escaped Colonel Podhajsky. He was fascinated by the cunning of Borina. Bereiter Wittek too was struck dumb.

  The silence grew as the false trot went on. The only sound was made by Borina, a kind of snort with each stride.

  “What a swindle Borina pulls!” the Colonel chuckled as he rode alongside Herr Wittek. “The teacher-horse gives an unforgettable lesson, eh? It’s clever how he decides to be lazy when the aids come too little and too late!”

  Hans never knew how he managed to finish the lesson. It was horrible, this failure in front of the Colonel.

  That night his dreams were dark and mysterious. He was in the Riding Hall, and Borina was the only living thing in the dark, and his feet had four toes like prehistoric horses—only they were long, like fingers, and very white. With those creepy front toes he was pointing around to his hocks, and his snorting laughter was so real that Hans awoke drenched in sweat.

  All the rest of the night he lay worrying, wondering if Borina would ever have confidence in him again; wondering if he would be the next apprentice to be sent home.

  Chapter 22

  BETWEEN THE PILLARS

  To Hans’s great joy and relief, he was not sent home.

  Instead, everyone seemed kinder to him. Bereiter Wittek’s “Good mornings” had a warmer ring. Kurt offered to teach him how to play chess. The stablemaster paid him a rare compliment. “Hans,” he said, “you give your horses prideful care. I like that.”

  Even Borina seemed more affectionate. Under his mask of dignity, a lurking gaiety expressed itself in playful nudges and loud whinnies of recognition.

  And so the blunder was soon forgotten, and the training went on. For Hans the next year was filled with anguish and ecstasy. He had reached the crucial point in his career. He must solve the mystery of the courbette, or he might as well be condemned to a lifetime of drudgery in the bakery. His one idea was to merge his identity so completely with Borina’s that when he himself graduated to aerial movements, he could will Borina to leap more than two times. One or two leaps seemed like a withholding of his power. Hans remembered the Colonel’s words: “Borina pulls a swindle, eh?” Was it possible that Borina was swindling Bereiter Wittek each Sunday? Sometime he would find out.

  Meanwhile, there were days when Hans didn’t know whether he was making progress or not. In the quiet sunlit hall Bereiter Wittek would bark his commands:

  “Tempo one!

  “Tempo two!

  “Tempo three!”

  Hans obeyed, carrying on his inward dialog, interpreting swiftly for himself. Tempo one at the canter: change lead every stride. Tempo two: change lead every second stride. Tempo three, every third.

  “Left lead!”

  With trigger control Hans brought back the calf of his right leg, but just a fraction. He flexed Borina’s head left, but only a hairbreadth. He shifted his weight onto his right seat bone. He brought back his left shoulder. In perfect union he and Borina executed the flying change of lead at the canter. With every lesson Hans tried to refine his signals until communication became so secret that only Borina was the wiser.

  • • •

  Week by week the work stepped up in pace. Alone, and in groups. With music, without music. From the walk, trot, canter he graduated to the intricacies of the pirouette. Borina played no tricks here; he threw himself into the movement with such gaiety and precision that Hans couldn’t help catching the rhythm. Pivoting on his haunches, forelegs stepping high, Borina danced around his hind feet as if they were nailed to one spot. In a flash of remembering Hans saw the porcelain statues in the shop windows next to the tobacconist. He and Borina were molded together . . . just like that. Except he and Borina were alive! Waltzing!

  The days flowed together. The pirouette and the passage became habit. Muscles were doing the memory work. By daily repetition they acted intuitively, faster than thought. Less and less Hans carried on his dialog with his inner self. Yet the more proficient he became, the more impatient he was to go on. He had come to the Riding School to learn the mighty leaps above the ground.

  Every night he studied them in the book of instruction which Fräulein Morgen had loaned him for the tenth time. There was no falling asleep now; he was too near his goal. He studied the pen-and-ink drawings of the aerial maneuvers. Just by blinking Hans could bring them alive! In color! Then he closed the book and did the courbette in his mind. He was glad that this was Borina’s specialty. The capriole with its movement of horizontal flight was spectacular, breathtaking; the horse appeared to do the splits in midair. But to a horseman like himself, the courbette was greater. Any powerfully built stallion who could do a succession of forward jumps, holding himself erect on his hind legs, and carrying a rider besides—well, that was. . . . He sighed deeply, unable to think of a word big enough.

  One night when Herr Braun was putting the chessmen back into their box, Hans dropped his book, walked over and confronted him. “Sir!” he asked in exasperation. “When will I ever begin the airs above the ground?”

  The Rider-Candidate showed surprise. “The work you are doing on the ground,” he said, “is perhaps more difficult than the work above the ground. One leads to the other—but slowly. If you are so impatient,” he added almost brusquely, “you should return to your bakery.”

  Hans stood as though someone had struck him hard across the face. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Becoming a full-fledged Riding Master was the only way he could see how he could live. Like a puppy who had been booted, he went over to his end of the room. In silence he put his book away in his wardrobe. In silence he undressed and crawled between the covers. He stared fixedly at an invisible spot on the ceiling. For a moment he blamed the naked electric light bulb for the moisture in his eyes. He knuckled a tear away.

  “Ach, Hans,” the voice of Herr Braun was
more gentle now, “all good growth is slow growth. Like a tree. You still have much work ahead on the piaffe between the pillars.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. “You see, Hans, the piaffe is the first stage for all aerial work. It is like a base from which the rocket flies! Only a horse and rider who do it well can work together above the ground.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Hans sighed, resigned to the truth. Always there seemed another year, another month, another movement, another step, another something before he got his chance.

  The very next day Bereiter Wittek ordered Borina readied for the piaffe, wearing the padded noseband with rings attached. Had Herr Braun confided last evening’s conversation? Hans was too breathless to care, almost afraid to believe he was getting so near his goal.

  “At last, Hans, we try you on the piaffe,” the Bereiter said. There was a hint of pleasure in his voice as he tied Borina between the posts. “This for you is a big step forward. Now then, Hans, do you know what the piaffe is?”

  “Yes, sir. It is a prancing in place, with very short steps. It is a sort of . . .” Hans hesitated.

  “Of what?”

  “A sort of . . .” Hans was afraid to put it into words.

  Herr Wittek clapped his hands in impatience.

  “. . . a getting ready for the courbette,” Hans blurted out.

  “Exactly! Now let’s see if you can do it.”

  At first, sitting there proudly on Borina’s back, Hans’s heart flooded with energy, with the promise of the future. Borina lifted his legs like pistons and put them down again in the selfsame spot. Through every fiber of his being Hans could feel the lofty upward thrust. Up and up, never advancing, never backing.

  Then, startled, Hans suddenly felt a strange lateral movement. He was bewildered. “Something’s wrong,” he told Bereiter Wittek.

  Quickly the man untied Borina. “Trot him away. Very extended. Then come back to me.”