Florian (17 page)

Now Bosco stripped off his enforced laziness in a trice. The wide meadows, the free roaming horses, Florian who acted increasingly impetuous, Bosco's own resurgent memories demanding reacquaintance with earthy things soon whipped him into shape again. The more fat he sweated away, the slenderer he appeared, the more wind and verve he regained.

Florian's meeting with Nausicaa, the companion of his youth, the elemental force with which his love broke forth, was as grandiose as a thunderstorm, as unsuppressible as a broad high, consuming flame; it was a mighty spectacle of Nature. Florian was hardly to be recognized. His whole body trembled, his veins swelled and traced bluish serpents along his white skin. Foam fell from his lips, his nostrils distended, his eyes became bloodshot and blazed with a wild luster. He snorted incessantly, bucked, and pawed the sod with his hooves so that great clods of earth and bunches of grass flew. His neighing sounded like metallic thunder and rang over Lipizza so imperiously that all the horses stopped in their tracks. The stallions and the mares listened to this masterful, seeking voice and were thrown into a turmoil of lust and impotent jealousy.

Florian was the supreme lord of Lipizza. He was obediently unfaithful and tyranically insatiable. Not Nausicaa, any longer, nor any other one possessed his love. He bestowed it upon any and all whom they brought to him. He enjoyed the female as such, the other sex as the other sex. And he reveled in his own malehood, squandered the vast stored-up force of his loins and did not grow tired of it. Afterward he would go rushing in his gliding gallop across the green carpet of the grass, challenging Bosco to race.

He teased Anton as he had never done before, came obediently at his call or when Bosco fetched him, suddenly to jump sidewise like a foal and pound off again, raising clouds of dust under his feet. Or he went sneaking up behind his friend, shoved him unexpectedly, then stood there innocently, almost laughing at Anton's surprise, and would circle him in a mad gallop. Sometimes he threw himself to the turf, started rolling around, and struggled with his four legs lifted to the sky, enjoying it most when Bosco imitated him like mad or barked in rage at this “Land of Cockaigne” existence.

Time passed. Florian had to return to Vienna. But this time it was different from his first arrival at the Spanish Riding School.

Anton accustomed himself readily to the routine of the service. He was a man. He knew the purpose and goal of vacation, the purpose and goal of the resumption of work.

Bosco soon rehabilitated himself in the narrowed sphere of activity. He was a dog and therefore ever ready to endure all the adored master of his fate inflicted or bestowed.

Only Florian, now grown mature, prouder, healthier, more eager for physical activity than ever, felt uncomfortable. He was as docile as ever, and as ever he obeyed the inner submission to the rider on his back; but it had ceased to be a labor of love. Of course, he could not clearly comprehend the state he was in. But his sojourn in the open, the joy of freedom under the heavenly tent, were unforgotten. That was now in his blood and fiber. He hated dozing in the stable. He hated seeing nothing but the arena. Hated having always to run in the oblong square, never getting any farther than from the stable into the dark narrow corridors of the Riding School, and from there across the yard, under the archway, back to the stable. . . .

Florian became morose.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, Ennsbauer advised the equerry: “Florian is done.”

Count Bertingen wanted details. How? Why? Sick? Completely finished? Only with the High School? How did he know?

“One just knows,” Ennsbauer said. “He used to be different. He guessed, knew everything instinctively. Now he hesitates. All of a sudden he's lost his uncanny instinct. He refuses to respond. I've got to help him as much as I do a beginner. He doesn't enjoy his work anymore. Nor do I enjoy riding him.”

“Since when?”

“Well—since he returned from Lipizza.”

“Give him time,” Count Bertingen suggested. “Maybe he needs rest.”

The riding master frowned darkly. “I know the usual rest periods. I gave Florian a longer one, even though he doesn't need it. He needs a different mode of life.”

“Well, then . . . to the carriage. Send him over to the Imperial Stables,” Bertingen decided.

Ennsbauer nodded.

Count Bertingen's face showed a trace of a smile. “Then we are both right. First you. Now I. After all, he has accomplished enough here, this Florian. Now he shall pull his Majesty's carriage.”

When the equerry had left, Ennsbauer stepped into the front yard of the Riding School and looked around to make sure he was alone. In a gust of rage he broke his crop in two. Bent and tore the leather-covered bamboo so that splinters and tatters hung down from it. “God damn it!” he muttered between his teeth.

Gabriele Menzinger found him in miserable humor.

“What's the matter with you?” she asked him lovingly.

Acidly he barked at her: “Stupid question! I haven't got Florian anymore.”

She was helpless and could only sigh: “Dead? The poor thing.”

He mimicked her: “The poor thing. . . . Dead. . . . You are a silly goose, my dear. I haven't got him any longer. Does that mean he's got to be dead?”

Gabriele laughed. “Well, if he is alive, then it isn't so terrible.”

Ennsbauer's rage increased. “Not so terrible! You talk as you are . . . utterly stupid.”

“Don't be so uncouth,” she said sharply. “I am not your stableboy.”

“My very lowest stableboy,” he shouted, “the stupidest, would understand what it means for a horse like Florian to become a—a cab horse! An ordinary common, cab horse!” He took a deep breath. “If you had a partner, with whom you've shared triumph after triumph, and he joined another theater or left Vienna, you would feel like the devil, too.”

“I? I?” Gabriele Menzinger shook with laughter. “Beside myself? Why would I be? You are precious! My partners don't mean a thing to me. Nothing! If my partner shared my success I couldn't endure it. I'd be glad to get rid of him.”

“Then I don't know.” Ennsbauer growled. “Is it just you who is a louse, or are all actors vermin?”

They were both in the stable now.

“You don't see,” Gabriele said softly. “We come from different worlds.”

“This much I see,” he grated: “you
are
a louse!”

She looked around. “Where is Florian? Let's visit him, shall we?”

She said that very quietly.

“Leave Florian alone!”

He grabbed her all of a sudden, pressed her to the wall. His hot face close to hers, he panted: “I want you.”

And she, with an enigmatic smile: “Why not?”

His grip on her tightened. “Now? Right away?”

She lifted her face so that her breath warmed his cheek. “Yes. The carriage is waiting.”

“Let's go.”

He fairly dragged her.

T
WO DAYS AFTER FLORIAN WAS led to the Imperial Stables.

Ennsbauer was not even there. The leave-taking occurred without much ado. From the Mews came a stableboy. Anton fastened a blanket over Florian, called Bosco, and they were on their way.

The years had flown. . . .

Anton passed them just as Florian did. Not so dully as the other stablemen imagined, for his days were full. He had enough in Florian and Bosco. His simple nature did not require more. While the weeks slipped into months, the months into years, without his noticing, he had never a desire for anything beyond the stable, beyond Florian.

An unheard-of event happened, this early morning, as Anton led Florian across the outer square of the Palace for the first time. The inner court, with its towering statue of Emperor Franz, he had penetrated a few times in the past, and had casually peered through the three open low arches into the distance. He had never had the impulse to explore. To the contrary, a timid feeling that it wasn't befitting a mere stableman to be so venturesome had always held him back.

Now he was profoundly moved by the vast space. Broad grass plots spread before him. Rows of trees crossed and intersected. Mighty cupolas, turrets and roofs glistened from afar. The wide street that lead straight toward the arches enclosing the court was flanked by two monuments of bronze horsemen about to gallop on their bronze horses right down into the street. Alluringly scented lilac bushes blossomed about the statues and lent them a paradisiacal note.

Overcome by this sight, Anton decided to address the stableboy who had come for Florian. “You . . . what is your name?”

“Wenzel,” the boy replied. “Wenzel Kralick is my name. And yours?”

Anton gave his name, pointed to the monument at the left and inquired who that was.

In his Czech accent Wenzel gave the desired information. “That's Prince Eugen.”

Anton recollected. “I see . . .
Prinz Eugenius, der edle Ritter.”
He thought of the age-old soldier's song. Nor did he know much more about the conqueror of the Turks.

He pointed to the other monument. “And this one?”

Wenzel hiked his shoulders. His erudition was no more profound than Anton's. “Don't know. I think his name is Karl. He was prince, too, or something.”

They reached the Ringstrasse. Anton stopped uncertainly and Wenzel instructed him: “Straight out.”

With Florian they crossed the street making toward the park, in the center of which, between the two museum palaces, Maria Theresia gazed down from her throne.

Anton tugged at his new comrade's sleeve. “And she . . . ?”

“Say, you never been here?” Wenzel asked, astonished.

“Never,” Anton confirmed vehemently, as though to protest his innocence of a crime.

“Well, then”—Wenzel, more astonished than before, now felt very superior—“so that you know . . . Empress she is, name Maria Theresia.”

“Oh,” Anton muttered reverently, “I've heard of her all right.”

Of Maria Theresia, too, he knew only the shining glory of her name. In silence he trudged through the gardens, observed with disapproval how Bosco dared to scamper around. Anton could not suppress a twinge of embarrassment at having to walk here. He felt like a vagabond who accidentally finds himself in a royal palace. With abashed eyes he looked around, gaining only blurred impressions of what he saw. The idea of asking Wenzel what purpose the two colossal palaces really served, he quickly gave up. He considered Florian the only one worthy of walking here, and felt half excused by reason of Florian's presence. For Bosco's impudence he had no excuse whatsoever.

Having traversed the Lastenstrasse and reached the Imperial Stables, Anton sighed and breathed more freely again. An incredible fairyland presented itself to him, a place of fabulous sumptuousness and awe-inspiring grandeur; yet Anton knew at once that he belonged to this world and that he would readily feel at home.

Hundreds of horses stood here in endless rows of magnificent stalls. Lipizzans whom Anton greeted like friends, Irish palfreys, Kladrubers, Arabs, hunters, Hungarian, English and Russian carriage horses. Roan, fallow, mottled, jet black. Heavy and light horses. Ponies with tousled manes. High-limbed brown mules, white and pearl-gray asses carrying the dark cross on their backs. What was the Spanish stable with its thirty Lipizzan stallions against this multitude?

“Forty little saints!” The devout oath escaped Anton, who was in seventh heaven and forgot all about the noble art of the stallions.

Bosco simply arrogated to himself a place beside Florian. They tried to chase him, but he didn't bother to move. Tired after the long walk, he sank into the straw at Florian's feet. There he remained. He did not know that Anton had somewhat helplessly explained the friendship between horse and dog, nor that Florian's fame was great enough to make everyone respect his love for the terrier. He was with Florian and stayed with Florian.

The equerry arrived just as Florian was being harnessed.

The other horse, also a Lipizzan, was called Capitano and was three years older. He sniffed curiously at Florian's face and showed him sympathy, which Florian accepted in all friendliness. Now the two, Capitano and Florian, stood side by side at the shaft of the carriage and nodded solemnly with their heads; with all the beautiful reticence of their temperament they pawed the ground and waited for the signal to go.

The equerry gave the order to fasten the ropes. Anton worked on Florian and Wenzel on Capitano; they were speedily done. The reins were adjusted and the loose loop was placed on the dashboard pole.

Count Bertingen waited until the horses had completely calmed down and stood at rest, head by head, back by back, croup by croup. Then he compared their points with great care.

“They match,” he decided, “just as I thought. They will make an excellent team. Exactly the same height and length. Capitano's gray croup and cannons don't matter.”