White Stallion of Lipizza

by Marguerite Henry

  Hans did as he was told.

  “Always after the piaffe,” the Bereiter explained, “a stallion must have a relief from the muscle tension of the short, sustained steps.”

  “Yes, sir; I understand, sir. But what happened? I felt a change in Borina’s action. He suddenly seemed to go sideways instead of up. What happened?”

  The Riding Master’s head nodded. He was smiling, like a father whose boy has earned his first merit badge. “Borina ignored your signals at the beginning,” he said. “He did the piaffe without any real guidance. Then, he expected some help from you. You must have been giving strong aid on one side and weak on the other. Now, see if you can give even pressure with both legs.”

  After the third try, followed by the free-moving trot, Herr Wittek ordered Hans to dismount and reward Borina. “I must reward you, too, Hans. You quickly sensed the ugly lateral movement and corrected your error. To me this shows promise for your future.”

  Hans was too happy to reply.

  Glowing with pride, he took the small leather pouch from his pocket and poured a mound of sugar onto the palm of his hand. Borina lipped it in slobberly fashion. As he ground and swallowed the juicy sweetness, he eyed Hans familiarly, as much as to say, “It’s been quite a session, eh, boy?”

  Chapter 23

  A RASCAL IN THE GALLERY

  The following Saturday, like a flash of lightning Colonel Podhajsky announced the news, looking directly at Hans: “One of our Riding Masters is taken seriously ill. Bereiter Wittek will ride his stallion in Sunday’s performance, and we’ll need you, Hans, to ride Borina.”

  “Me?” Hans asked with a quick catch of his breath. He looked into the dark eyes questioningly. Why, this was like skipping a year in school, almost like graduation!

  The eyes smiled back. “You will take part in the last event only, the quadrille. Now then, at ten o’clock this morning we rehearse—to music. There will be the usual tourists and visitors in the galleries; so it will be like a regular performance. Be saddled and ready for your entrance at eleven.”

  Hans was terrified and thrilled all at the same time. He had never worked before an audience. The galleries had always been empty. Besides, the quadrille was the grand climax of the entire ballet. Next to the aerial leaps, he thought it the most beautiful of all. For a year now he and the other young riders had been practicing the precise figures—the turns and movements on two tracks, the flying change of leg on the canter, half pirouettes, full pirouettes, the passage and, last of all, the piaffe. He knew them! He was ready!

  He put on the cinnamon-brown frock coat and the bicorn hat belonging to some previous rider. “You’ll have your own someday,” the tailor told him. “That is,” he added, clapping Hans on the back, “if you have better luck than the last fellow who wore this.”

  Eleven o’clock came. In the anteroom of the hall the eight riders silently mounted their snow-white stallions, and silently lined up. Then to the airy music of the Polonaise they entered the great hall as at a performance. Colonel Podhajsky led the procession, followed by Bereiter Wittek, then Hans on Borina, then Herr Braun. Hans felt tremulous yet somehow secure between these two men who wanted him to succeed. Borina was serenity itself, his ears busy with the music, pulling in the familiar melody.

  The music heightened the pleasure for Hans, too, as they paraded in stately fashion between the red-white-and-red flags that crowned the training pillars. Keeping his body erect, his shoulders parallel to Borina’s, he felt in perfect harmony, felt himself ready for tomorrow’s performance! Ready for anything! Even in the entrance-walk, the joy of rhythm, the pride in Borina filled him with such a fullness that he wondered if the buttons on his uniform might spew into the air. Of all the stallions Borina seemed most buoyant, most obedient.

  Up in the galleries the morning visitors were on hand. Hans had been carefully schooled to be oblivious of them. He tried to remember this as he sensed a movement in the first gallery. He was turning in a platoon of four when his attention was caught by a blue beret waving wildly. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the figure of Jacques leaning far out over the railing. And sitting behind him, the boy’s father, grinning.

  In that hairbreadth of divided attention Hans unconsciously tightened his reins. Instantly Borina sank back on his haunches, raised up his body in the beginning of a courbette and dumped Hans onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. There was a soft thump as he hit.

  The music did not stop. Nor did the complex pattern of the dance. Only Hans’s heart stopped, then it bumped against his chest. He could feel the Colonel’s glance like an icy finger. Overcome with misery Hans scrambled to his feet and caught up to Borina, who was setting one leg carefully across the other in cadenced movement with the other horses. Remounting, he closed the space which Herr Braun had kept open. Over and above the violins, he could hear guffaws and giggles from the galleries, and the sound of a slapped thigh.

  Later, back in the stables, Hans worked in a trance. He took off the handsome coat that didn’t belong to him anyway. He rubbed Borina dry—under his saddle, along his chest, down his legs. The stallion submitted with pleasure, scratching his head against Hans’s shoulder to relieve the itchy places where the bridle leathers had been. He still felt playful, and he nipped a piece of Hans’s shirt without touching the flesh beneath.

  In spite of his torn heart Hans neglected none of the routine. He took more pains, if anything, as if this were their last time together. “I don’t blame you,” he said, feeling the stallion’s breath brushing against his cheek. “But what will I do now? How else can I live?” he asked, beseeching.

  The limpid eyes held no answer. Only the boy’s reflection in their purple-brown depths.

  His grooming done, Hans closed the stall door behind him. He walked past the stablemaster, moved down the corridor, and up the worn stone steps to his room. It was empty. Carefully he hung his borrowed uniform in the wardrobe. He brushed the sawdust from the beautiful wine-brown serge and he buttoned up the silver buttons. Even third-hand, the uniform would still be almost as good as new. He put on an old shirt and a pair of work trousers, and pulled out his father’s old brown satchel from under the bed. He packed in it the few clothes he had brought with him. They were too small now, but they would fit Jacques. As he snapped the lock, he heard a violent cough behind him and turned to see Kurt. With red-faced kindness the boy said, “Colonel Podhajsky is talking below with Bereiter Wittek. They want to see you.”

  “I know.” Hans picked up his satchel. For a long while he stood in the doorway, glancing around the room in good-bye. He shook hands with Kurt. Then he squared his shoulders and went down the stairs.

  The stable seemed deathly quiet. Herr Stallmeister, his assistant, the feed master, grooms, and stableboys all were going about their duties, silent and remote, like figures in a dream. Staring straight ahead, Hans took one heavy step forward, then another. He heard Colonel Podhajsky and Bereiter Wittek in low-voiced conference near Borina’s stall. He moved toward them, toward what was going to happen to him. When he was within earshot, the talk ceased.

  Time stood still. The Colonel’s face was immobile. His hands were intertwined. Hans noticed their size and strength. They were clearly made to arouse a horse, to calm a horse, to lead a horse.

  The man’s eyes were fixed on the boy standing there, setting down the brown satchel as if it were full of stone.

  “Hans Haupt! Whose fault was it?” The voice was an arrow.

  Hans choked out the word. “Mine.”

  Again that probing gaze, that arrowlike voice. “You do not blame Borina?”

  “Oh, no, sir. He was teaching me.”

  “And what about that rascal in the gallery? Was he to blame?”

  “No, sir. He’s no rascal; he’s my nephew.”

  The Colonel paused. The merest wisp of a smile crossed his face. His attention seemed to wander down the aisle of stalls with the white faces and white ears listening. At last he said, “You have given t
he answer of a true horseman, Hans.” He turned to Bereiter Wittek. “No art ever remains at the same level; rise and fall follow each other in eternal alternation. Eh, Wittek?”

  The Riding Master nodded, and his eyes were the mildest blue.

  Hans felt a floodtide of relief. He wanted to cry, to laugh. He wanted to do pushups, handsprings.

  Before he could think what to say, Colonel Podhajsky laid a hand on his shoulder. “Here is one apprentice,” he said, speaking to Bereiter Wittek, “whose eye will never stray again, no matter if forty elephants wave their trunks over the gallery.” With that he made a grenadier turn and was gone.

  Later that day a stableboy brought Hans a letter written on a square of lined school paper, In neatest penmanship the message read:

  Dear Oncle Hans,

  I’m sorry I made you fall off. I did not laugh.

  Your neveu,

  Jacques

  P.S. Rosy died today also. Mon pere will now buy automobil.

  Hans read the letter twice. Then he re-folded it and tucked it away in his father’s old satchel, in the pocket, very gently, as if it were a circlet of hairs from Rosy’s tail.

  It was like putting away the young years of his life.

  Chapter 24

  I WILLED IT TO HAPPEN!

  The next day, during the Sunday performance, Hans went through the quadrille in complete command of himself and Borina. Watching only Colonel Podhajsky, as a musician watches the concertmaster, he cued Borina so skillfully that a regular spectator might not have noticed that a boy, instead of Bereiter Wittek, was the rider.

  At the finale when he sat erect and immobile, doffing his hat in thanksgiving to Charles VI, Hans suddenly saw a vision of himself as a small boy in his nightshirt, praying in his little cubicle of a room: “Thank you, Lord, for my daily bread, and God bless Mamma and Papa and Anna . . .” And now in the few seconds while the musicians were thrumming their last flurry of notes, and while he held his hat at arm’s length, he felt like that little boy again. His thanksgiving did not stop with Charles VI. It included Xenophon and Colonel Podhajsky and Guérinière and de Pluvinel and Papa and Prince Eugene and Bereiter Wittek and, most of all, Maestoso Borina.

  It had been a long journey to this moment; yet even as Hans rode out of the hall to the pleasant sound of applause, his sense of triumph was tinged with a nagging worry. Time was slipping away. He’d be an old man before he did the courbette. Time was running out for Borina, too. If they didn’t work together on this movement soon, how would he ever make Borina a champion again? He had to do it, he must do it, or else all of his years at the Riding School would be like clawing and clambering up a steep mountain, without ever reaching the summit.

  That noon, as he sat in the cafeteria with Kurt and the other apprentices, the food lumped in his throat and brought on an attack of hiccups. He alone of the four apprentices was still working on the ground. If only he hadn’t fallen off when Borina reared; if only he hadn’t looked up at the waving beret; if only Jacques had stayed at home!

  A week later all of the ifs were washed away when Bereiter Wittek said quite calmly, “The time has come for your work above the ground.”

  The quiet words were a bombshell. Hans was standing in the center of the arena and it was very early in the morning, just past seven. Two other apprentices were working with their Riding Masters at either end of the hall. They seemed wholly unaware that today at this moment he, Hans Haupt, was about to learn the mysteries of the courbette. They were in a world of their own, unconscious of any other world. He too would be like that.

  Bereiter Wittek read his thoughts. “Whatever happens now, Hans, no one will notice. To think you are being observed is self-conceit. The other riders and trainers are so busy sweating out their own problems that what happens to you is no matter; you could fall off a dozen times without their noticing. The truth is,” he said, taking another notch in Borina’s girth strap, “a fall or two is to be expected. I too have had my share.”

  He stopped as if his lecture were over, but it had only begun. “Remember, Hans, you must create a living work of art. The courbette must express sublime beauty. Instead of paintbrush and canvas, or chisel and stone, you work with living, responsive tools—muscle and sinew, and heart.”

  Hans nodded. He supposed there had to be all this preliminary talk, but he could hardly bear the delay.

  The Bereiter now pointed to the special deerskin saddle. “Note there are no stirrups. Even in practice you will have no stirrups.”

  Hans nodded impatiently. He knew the courbette was ridden without stirrups. He knew that long ago from the pictures he’d pasted on his mirror, and from the time he had watched in rapture from the Imperial Box.

  “So now you understand why, in the beginning, I wouldn’t let you even think stirrups,” the Bereiter was saying. “Balance is everything. Now I demonstrate!”

  Hans felt as if every nerve in his body were quivering like the feelers of a butterfly. Straining to detect the aids, he watched the Riding Master mount Borina, ready him, walk him head on toward Hans. Suddenly Borina showed excitement. Nostrils distended, eyes fiery, muscles bulging, he knew what was expected of him. Then with pure animal grace he sank back on his haunches, lifted his body to a 45 degree angle, bearing his whole weight on his hindquarters. For the barest instant he seemed to freeze. Then he made a mighty leap forward on his hind legs before touching his forefeet to earth.

  With all his looking, Hans had detected nothing—not a flicker of the Bereiter’s hands, not a trace of movement of his legs.

  In obvious pride Herr Wittek dismounted lightly as a boy, and rewarded Borina.

  Now it was Hans’s turn. And now came the spate of directions:

  “Your hands—keep them quiet yet flexible.

  “Your seat—steady and still.

  “Your back—erect, slightly forward.

  “Let your calves do the urging. But lightly.

  “Restrain him with the reins.

  “Time your hands and calves together. Promptly. Nimbly.

  “Don’t help too strongly!

  “Don’t hurry him!

  “Don’t pull up!”

  His head spinning with do’s and don’ts, Hans swung aboard. He collected Borina until he felt the stallion’s readiness. Then trying to remember everything at once, he gave the urging aid with his legs, and in his eagerness to help, he lifted up with the reins so vigorously that Borina almost keeled over backward. And before Hans could blink, he was sitting deep in the sawdust. It was his second spill in a week!

  Quick as a jack-in-a-box, he was on his feet, expecting the sharp criticism he knew he deserved. Instead, the Bereiter seemed to take the fall for granted. His voice was even and his smile kindly as he remarked, “That was a quick lesson, Hans.”

  Before the session was over, Hans tried once more. It was a near failure again. This time he leaned too far backward, and if the Riding Master had not barked, “Go with Borina!” Hans might have fallen off again.

  Why was it so hard to think of the right things at the right time?

  In the next few weeks Hans began to appreciate the subtleties of the courbette. He knew now why it had required so much preparation. It had taken days just to understand what the Bereiter meant when he said, “Brace your back to form a supple connection with Borina’s back.” And it had taken many more days to do it!

  Colonel Podhajsky studied Hans’s progress with interest. As he stopped to exchange horses one morning, he rode over and spoke to Bereiter Wittek. “It is beautiful how he . . .” Hans waited for the rare compliment to himself, but the Colonel finished his sentence, “. . . how he sinks back on his haunches, hocks well bent, before he leaps. A superb test of balance!”

  Then he turned to Hans. “I see that your balance improves, but it does not yet equal Borina’s.” His eyes twinkled. “Study the Prince Eugene monument, Hans. When you can sit like the Prince, then you are well on your way.”

  The proud morning came when
Hans sensed strongly for the first time Borina’s eagerness to leap. Quick as thought, Hans responded. He urged him with his legs, spoke to him with his hands. The signals and the readiness were timed. Then it happened . . . the beautiful perpendicular leap! At last Hans experienced the joy of flying.

  “I just willed it to happen,” he said shyly to Kurt and Herr Braun that night, “and it did.”

  Lessons went on. They were necessarily short because of the muscle strain on Borina. But each morning the miracle happened. And now Hans’s resolve deepened. He tried to will a second courbette.

  Bereiter Wittek suspected as much. “Ach, Hans,” he said with warm understanding, “has it never occurred to you that Borina is nearing thirty, and slows down with age? Even he is mortal and destined to die.”

  “I don’t think about it, sir,” Hans replied. “I won’t think about it!”

  Bereiter Wittek’s eyes shot sparks of blue. His voice was brusque. “If you can always influence Borina to do one magnificent jump, you will be a credit to the Reitschule and a surprise to me! Mind you,” he waggled a sharp forefinger, “any stallion, regardless of age, that can leap even once on his hind legs is a great artist.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the small, meek answer.

  Hans had worked hard and long hours before. Now he worked harder, longer. He took up his old habit of evenings at the library. He studied Von Weyrother on the courbette. He studied Von Holbein. With Fräulein Morgen’s help he struggled through the English works of the Duke of Newcastle.

  By day he listened to Bereiter Wittek as if he were God handing down the Ten Commandments.

  And yet, one mighty leap was all Borina would do for Hans.

  “Maybe you should be satisfied with just one leap,” Herr Braun suggested one evening as Hans was pacing up and down the room and around the everlasting chess game.

  The pacing stopped suddenly. Hans wheeled about, not caring if the game was done or not. “I should quit now?” he demanded angrily. Then imploringly, “Please help me, sir.”