Kholstomír (Tolstoy)
Short summary
Russia, 19th century. An old piebald gelding named Kholstomír lived in a manor's stable, mistreated by younger horses.
Over several nights, Kholstomír told his life story to the other horses. He was born with unusual piebald coloring, which made humans consider him worthless despite his noble bloodline from the famous Smetanka. Because of his spots, he was gelded and sold away from the count's stud farm. He pondered the strange human concept of ownership, observing that men claimed to 'own' things they never used.
Kholstomír's happiest days were spent serving a hussar officer named Sierpukhovskoï. The prince was handsome, wealthy, and cold-hearted, but Kholstomír loved him. Together they won races and outran other horses in Moscow. However, one day the prince discovered his mistress had left him for another man. He forced Kholstomír to gallop twenty-five versts in pursuit, ruining the horse's health permanently.
After being sold multiple times, Kholstomír ended up at the manor where he now lived. One day, Sierpukhovskoï visited as a guest, now old, bald, and ruined by debt. Kholstomír recognized his former master and neighed, but Sierpukhovskoï didn't notice him. Soon after, the veterinary declared Kholstomír had mange and ordered him killed. A scavenger led him behind the barn and cut his throat.
Everything was so new. He was astonished; he tried to run ahead, up the hill... but instead of this, his legs, moving where he stood, interfered.
Detailed summary by chapters
Chapter titles are editorial.
Chapter 1. Morning routine and introduction to the piebald gelding
At dawn, the sky lifted higher and the morning spread wider as the horses stirred in the stables belonging to the master. The whinnying of horses and stamping of hoofs on straw grew more frequent as the animals gathered and disputed among themselves. The old drover arrived to open the creaking gates, shouting at a mare that tried to run through.
He carried a saddle and halter in his arms. The horses showed no resentment at his sarcastic tone and leisurely moved back from the gate, except for one old dark-bay mare who laid back her ears and turned around quickly. Among nearly a hundred horses moving toward breakfast, none showed less impatience than a piebald gelding standing alone in one corner under the shed, gazing with half-shut eyes and biting the wooden lining.
Chapter 2. At the river; the geldings philosophical nature
After driving the herd to the river where the horses were to graze, the drover dismounted and removed the saddle. The herd began to scatter over the untrodden field covered with dew and rising vapor from the damp meadow and encircling river. When the blanket was removed from the piebald gelding, he expressed satisfaction by shutting his eyes as the drover scratched his neck.
Suddenly, without warning, the drover pushed away the horse's head and struck him severely with the bridle buckle on his bare leg before walking away as though nothing had happened. Though this angered the gelding, he did not show it and leisurely wandered toward the river, switching his thin tail and sniffing. He knew that health required drinking water on an empty stomach before eating, so he went to where the bank was less steep and began to drink.
Chapter 3. Description of the old piebald gelding
After grazing for nearly three hours, the horse stood solidly on his four weak legs to minimize strain, especially on his right foreleg which was weaker than the others, and went to sleep.
There is an honorable old age, there is a miserable old age, there is a pitiable old age; there is also an old age that is both honorable and miserable.
The piebald gelding had reached this latter kind of old age. He was of great size, more than seventeen hands high, with a color that used to be white spotted with black but had changed to dirty brown. His huge, corrugated head with deep hollows under the eyes and pendent black lips sat heavily on his lean neck. His ears fell over sideways, and only occasionally did he twitch them to scare away flies. The expression of his face was sternly patient, deeply thoughtful, and expressive of pain.
His forelegs were crooked at the knees with swellings on both hoofs, and his hind legs bore old bruises where hair no longer grew. Despite his filthy old age, anyone looking at him would involuntarily think that he must have been remarkably fine in his day, with the noble form and terrible union of repulsive signs of decrepitude that marked his breeding.
Chapter 4. The horses persecution and Viazopúrikhas recognition
The young horses tormented the piebald gelding throughout the day, giving him no chance to graze and leaving him no moment of peace. A chestnut mare had been particularly mischievous, always causing him manifold unpleasantnesses.
That evening, something extraordinary happened in the paddock. All the horses, young and old, showing their teeth, chased the gelding from one part of the yard to another until he could no longer endure their persecution. Suddenly, a very old mare approached and sniffed the gelding, then sighed. The gelding also sighed, and all the horses became quiet.
Chapter 5. The geldings story begins: his noble origins
In the moonlit yard, the tall, gaunt figure of the gelding stood wearing his high saddle, surrounded by motionless horses in deep silence. They learned something new and extraordinary from him that night.
He revealed that he was sired by Liubeznuï I, with Baba as his dam. According to his pedigree, his name was Muzhik I, but he was generally known as Kholstomír because of a long and glorious gallop unmatched in Russia. He would never have told them this, but the old mare had recognized him from their youth at Khrénova stud. He was that famous Kholstomír whom amateurs sought but could not find, whom the count himself had named and released from his stud because the piebald had outrun his favorite Lebedi.
When he was born, he did not understand what they meant by calling him piebald. The first remarks about his hide deeply surprised him and his mother.
He remembered being born at night, licked clean by his mother's tongue, and standing on his legs by morning. Everything seemed perfectly wonderful and simple until the grooms came to look at him, laughing at his spotting and giving him various odd names. The equerry and general both seemed disgusted by his coloring, calling him a nasty beast and saying the general would not keep him in the stud.
Chapter 6. The consequences of castration and human ownership
Until spring, the young colts lived in separate cells with their dams, occasionally being let out into the wide yard spread with fresh straw. There he became acquainted with all the famous mares of that time with their colts. Though his coat displeased the men, it was exceedingly attractive to all the horses, and he felt happy until he experienced his first sorrow caused by his dam's changing behavior toward him.
As spring arrived, his mother's whole character transformed. She began to frisk and gallop around the yard, then would neigh and push him away from nursing. One day they led her out of the paddock, and though he struggled and threw the groom on the straw, the door was closed. He heard his mother's whinnying growing fainter, and in it he perceived that she called not for him but expressed something very different. When she returned, he did not recognize her - she had grown so much younger and handsomer, but she no longer loved him.
In August, he was separated from his mother and transferred to the general division of young horses. He shared a stall with Milui, a saddle-horse who later belonged to the emperor. They became good friends, but his early inclination toward love led to the most important change in his life. After the incident with a filly, the drovers came and beat him, and he was led into a special stall.
The next day brought a terrible change. He ceased forever to whinny and became what he was now. All the light in his eyes was quenched, nothing seemed sweet to him, and he became self-absorbed and pensive. When they led him out at evening and he saw the approaching drove of familiar horses, none deigned to glance at him. His whinnying sounded melancholy, ridiculous, and unbecoming.
I was threefold unhappy: I was piebald; I was a gelding; and men imagined that I did not belong to God and myself... but that I belonged to the equerry.
His peculiar position in the stud, which he felt but could never explain, compelled him to turn his thoughts inward. He pondered on the disgust people showed when they berated him for being piebald, on the inconstancy of maternal love, and above all on the characteristics of that strange race of mortals called men. Through an incident involving his groom being beaten for neglecting him, he discovered the meaning of the words "my horse" and "his horse."
Men rule in life, not by deeds, but by words. They love not so much the possibility of doing or not doing anything, as the possibility of talking about different objects.
I am convinced now that herein lies the substantial difference between men and us... we stand, in the scale of living beings, higher than men.
Chapter 7. His glorious days with the prince
Because the equerry imagined he owned him, the gelding was kept apart from others, fed better, and harnessed earlier. They first harnessed him in his third year, and he showed his love for work and his excellent gait. However, because he was considered the equerry's property rather than the count's, he was driven in simple droshkies instead of gilded ones like his brothers.
Chapter 8. Life of luxury and devotion to his master
A hussar officer bought him from the horse-dealer, and these became the happiest days of his life.
He pleased me precisely, because he was handsome, fortunate, rich, and therefore loved no one... His coldness... added greatly to the strength of my affection.
The prince had a mistress, and the gelding took him to her daily, sometimes taking them both out driving together. His life followed a pleasant routine: mornings brought grooming by a young lad from among the peasants, then came the coachman.
The master and coachman were alike - neither feared anyone or loved anyone except themselves, and therefore everybody loved them. The gelding enjoyed their confidence and skill, especially when they would race against other teams, gradually overtaking them and flying along each on their own side of the road.
Chapter 9. The final race and physical destruction
The happy days ended after two years. At Shrovetide, the prince took him to the races where he competed against Atlásnui and Buichók. At the turning stake, he left Atlásnui behind, and a crowd greeted his victory with laughter and cries. When someone offered the prince five thousand for him, the prince refused, saying the horse was a friend he wouldn't sell for a mountain of gold. That was their last happy day.
Chapter 10. Meeting with former master Sierpukhovskoï
Years later, as the herd returned home one evening, they met the master and a guest examining the horses. The guest was a tall, stout, military man with a wrinkled face.
As they passed by the piebald gelding, the guest struck his big fat hand on the horse's side, remarking on his good blood. Suddenly, a dull, weak, senile neigh was heard - the piebald horse had begun to neigh but could not finish it. He had recognized in the wrinkled old man his beloved former master, the once brilliant, handsome, and wealthy prince.
Chapter 11. The dinner party and contrasting fates
While rain continued to fall in the paddock, at the manor house the luxurious evening meal was spread in the dining room. The master was a handsome young man of twenty-five, fresh and neatly dressed in London-made clothes.
The newcomer had squandered a fortune of two millions and was still in debt for one hundred and twenty thousand rubles. He had come to the government city as chief of the imperial stud, a position his influential relations had obtained for him. The sight of the young master's happiness humiliated him and compelled him to painful envy as he remembered his own irrevocable past. The host tried to force expensive cigars upon his guest, not noticing how this affected the impoverished man.
Chapter 12. Sierpukhovskoïs drunken reminiscences
Under the hanging lamp, they sat at a table loaded with extraordinary wines and liqueurs. As they drank, the guest grew flushed and began to speak unreservedly about his past glories, including his famous piebald racer. He boasted about the golden time when he was twenty-five with eighty thousand a year income, when he had the magnificent Kholstomír who could outrun any horse in Moscow. The host grew bored listening to these tales of past grandeur, wanting instead to talk about his own horses and achievements.
Chapter 13. The geldings death and final disposal
Five days later, a veterinary declared that the gelding had mange and should be disposed of. The next morning, a thin, dark, dirty scavenger came and led the horse away by the halter. They proceeded to a depression behind the brick barn where the scavenger produced a knife and whetstone.
The piebald gelding closed his eyes and began to drowse, lulled by the sound of the knife on stone. When they cut his throat, liquid poured down his neck and breast.
The whole burden of his life was taken from him. He closed his eyes, and began to droop his head—no one held it.
His legs quivered, his whole body swayed, and he fell forward on his left side. The scavenger waited until the death-struggle was over, then began to remove the hide. That evening, the herd passed by the hill and saw a red object below with dogs romping around it and crows and hawks flying overhead. A wolf family fed their young with pieces of the horse's flesh.
The dead body of Sierpukhovskoï... had been a great burden to others for twenty years, so the disposal of this body became only an additional charge upon men.
While the horse's remains served to nourish the wolves, the human who had squandered fortunes was buried with great ceremony in fine uniform and polished boots, placed in expensive coffins, and laid in the earth after digging up the bones of people long buried - his malodorous body becoming only an additional burden upon men.