Florian by Felix Salten

smith rejoined. Anton did not quite catch the meaning of his words but didn’t bother to think about them.
    â€œLet’s go,” he addressed Florian and walked ahead.
    With Bosco in his wake, Florian followed Anton, picking his way right through the crowd of foals waiting around. When he passed Nausicaa he threw up his head and whinnied longingly.
    Nausicaa answered. She was a young mare, well built, with a beautiful white head and rosy nostrils. But her body was white only at the neck, loins and middle. The rest of her was a cloudy gray that grew darker down her legs; just as if she wore pearl-gray leggings.
    â€œCome, Florian, come,” Anton adjured. And Florian did not tarry.
    The turf sounded different under his hooves. He noticed this, and sensing an added importance in himself, moved about in something of a trance.
    He was habitually self-controlled. That was in his blood. And so now he did not run wild, nor did he neigh indecorously again. He enjoyed his exalted mood quietly, for himself. Only in the springiness of his gait, in the lofty poise of his head, in the fire that flashed from his eyes, was it noticeable.
    With no other filly was he on such friendly terms as with Nausicaa. He had romped and rolled around in the grass with her while their mothers stood by. He had raced with her, with her alone, among all the fillies. They understood each other perfectly, had become inseparable and in all innocence agreed never to part. When Florian greeted Nausicaa in the smithy he had no idea that there was such a thing as leave-taking, as separation.
    Anton walked on before him. Bosco was as frolicsome and diverting as ever. But they did not go back to where his mother, Sibyl, was. Unaware, Florian had forever left the home of his childhood. He joined the young stallions, separated from the mothers, parted from the young mares. He entered a strange stable and received a stall of his own. Bosco stayed with him. So did Anton, who had managed to have himself transferred.
    The new home, too, wore a holiday air. His longing for his mother Florian felt only dimly, although the longing for Nausicaa—that was sharper. He did not know what was behind his desire, and what beyond. . . . However, there was but scant time left to brood.
    One day the stud-master came and forced a cold iron chain between Florian’s teeth. Anton put the traces on his head, thin leather strips that lay flush against forehead and cheeks. Florian suffered it, there being no instinct of protest within him. Down through countless ancestors had come his willingness to subject himself to the will of Man. His instinct knew that his days of service had begun. And so, on this hallowed occasion, he stood pawing the ground with one hoof, champing to accustom himself to the bit which rested on his tongue. Bubbles of foam formed at the mouth-corners. He scattered them around in big white blobs when he shook his head. A slight pressure in his mouth, at the corners . . . Florian understood the order and obeyed.
    Anton threw a light harness across his back. Like a belt the broad leather encircled his chest. Next he was carefully shoved backward a few steps and found himself between two poles, the thill of a light carriage. He waited impatiently. It did not take long, but each second dropped deliberately, heavily into eternity. He pawed the ground more vigorously, the foam fell in larger specks from his lips, and his ears moved incessantly.
    Anton patted his neck, talked soothingly. Florian felt nothing, heard nothing. Everything in him, each nerve and fiber, waited for a sign. He was held fast, that much he knew definitely because of the bit between his teeth and the belt on his chest by which the cart was hitched to him. In his mounting impatience he attempted a step.
    â€œPsst,” he heard from behind and felt a gentle tug at his mouth.
    Florian stood motionless.
    â€œTssk!” The bit grew lax in his mouth.
    Florian rushed