Florian (18 page)

Then it happened that the usually mute Anton exclaimed, inanely proud: “Yes, there has never been a horse like Florian.”

Under the astonished expression on Count Bertingen's face he turned scarlet and laughed in doltish embarrassment.

The old official who had supervised the matching up of the team whispered to Bertingen: “Excuse it, your Excellency; the lad is good and not at all impudent. He simply loves Florian so much. . . .”

“Why, Councilor,” Bertingen smiled, “he wasn't impudent . . . just anxious . . . and I rather like that.” Louder, he said: “Now it's just a question of how Florian behaves.” With these words he climbed aboard the chaise, took hold of the reins and said while unscrewing the brakes: “We'll see whether he understands at once, or whether we'll have to work with him.”

Bosco began to bark and sprang to Florian's nose. Anton wanted to catch him but Bertingen waved him back: “Leave the dog be.” He clucked with his tongue and the two horses pulled.

Florian had poised his ears backward to catch every sign of the driver. He held the bit between his teeth, and trotted as smoothly as Capitano. In his way of lifting his feet and setting them down one close to the other, he gave evidence of his training in the cadenced gait of the Spanish School.

The equerry drove around and around through the spacious yards. Florian could scarcely feel the whip on his back, on his flanks. He who had mastered every pace in the Spanish Riding School did not dread the whip; to him it was a subtle sign language in which the driver spoke his wishes.

Florian and Capitano exchanged quick glances. The latter's eye held an appreciative light: “I like you. Bravo. You know your business.”

And Florian's good humor grew. He liked trotting gaily beside a comrade, competing in pace and posture. It was fun. And how pleasant out here in the open, bathing in ever-changing sunlight and shadow. You breathed easier. You felt the earth under your hooves more intimately than in the Riding School.

Bosco soon had enough and ran toward the group among whom Anton waited. There he lay on his forepaws and let his tongue loll.

At a smart clip the equerry drove up. A tiny movement of his wrist and the two horses stood riveted to the ground, snorting loudly, their heads nodding and foam flying. Not another step did they take. Quiveringly self-controlled, they knew they had to stand, stand like iron.

Fastening the reins, to the step and tightening the brakes, the equerry waited another moment and jumped down. He walked forward to Florian, patted his neck, and gave him full praise. “It really went well. Like an experienced carriage horse. Soft-mouthed. Very attentive and very willing.”

Councilor Stepanek stroked Capitano. “But this one, your Excellency, does help him a bit.”

“Certainly. And yet—I didn't notice any particular sign of help. . . . It's a rare accomplishment.” Bertingen looked around. “Is Gruber here?”

“At your service, your Excellency!” spoke up a well-built man who looked elegant even in his drab-colored every-day livery.

Konrad Gruber was Franz Joseph's personal coachman. For more than a quarter of a century he had sat on the driver's seat when the Emperor rode in the carriage. Twenty-three years before Konrad Gruber had happened to be driving the Emperor all alone in a closed carriage. No
chasseur,
no adjutant . . . alone . . . somewhere. . . . And in a deserted, unguarded street a man had run toward the carriage, his hand raised threateningly. It could not be ascertained whether he brandished a pistol or a bomb. A stroke from Gruber's whip had lashed across the man's eyes and blinded him. A second stroke had driven the horses off at a mad pace. Nobody ever knew of this incident. Only Franz Joseph, Gruber and the secret police who saw to it that the man disappeared forever. A few months later Konrad Gruber had been awarded the golden cross of merit by the Emperor himself, over the heads of all the Court officials. He was in the Emperor's grace, unshakable in his position, had seen his second first chamberlain and third equerry, no one of whom dared oppose him. Konrad Gruber knew his power and its limitations. He was shrewd, tight-lipped and unaggressive. When it came to the State coach and the horses for Franz Joseph, however, he brooked no interference. That was his own personal jurisdiction, and there he exercised absolute authority, without changing his mien or saying an extra word. Equerries and other excellencies, counts and princes might come and go as often as God wished—that disrupted nothing in the vast, complex, well-organized Court life and did not affect the well-being and the security of the Emperor. Only the two firm steely hands and the watchful eyes of the State coachman could not be replaced. Konrad Gruber felt superior to all courtiers.

“Well, my dear Gruber,” Count Bertingen suggested, “you try the new pair.”

Across Gruber's lantern-jawed face, because of its fine modeling and intelligent expression looking more like a prelate's than a coachman's, flitted a covert smile.

“At your service,” he murmured in a low tone.

Slowly he approached the two horses, examined their harness, took them by their heads and peered gravely into their eyes; just as if he were alone with them. He looked imposing as he stroked Florian over forehead and nose. He was a big man, had stemmed his tendency toward fatness by exercise and massaging. Ever since he had first driven his Emperor's carriage he had abstained from alcohol, and had remained unmarried in order to devote all of himself, with all the fanaticism of his nature, to the Imperial service. He did love good food, and plenty of it. He made gourmandizing the only pastime of his solitude; for he even spurned the friendship of men.

Despite his size he swung lightly onto the driver's seat. In the same motion he grabbed the reins and whip, released the brake and drove off at a brisk pace. So sudden had been the start that the horses had bent their hindlegs slightly and heaved upward in front—a gesture at once wild and solemn.

Florian ran fluidly.

Konrad Gruber diminished and then accelerated the pace. Florian didn't dream of galloping. In one of the smaller courts a sheet of white paper lay on the ground. Gruber had prearranged that. In the sunlight it lay there and fairly shrieked, fairly exploded with a cruel glare. As Gruber drove toward it, a breath of wind stirred it. It moved like a living thing. Florian snorted with fright, reared and wanted to run away but could only shove sidewise, held by Gruber's iron wrists.

A lash of the whip stung his neck and back. Sharp, like a cutting knife, it burned like hellfire.

It was the first punishment he had ever known in his life. His stunned surprise banished his fright about the paper. The searing, maddening pain concentrated all his nerves on his neck and back.

Gruber guided the carriage in a sharp circle, and drove toward the sheet of paper once more. Just as he hadn't given Florian time to rear and plunge, so now he did not give the mincing animal the slightest chance to revolt against the whiplash.

The whip tickled Florian's thigh. He understood instantly; now he knew the power of that whip, and, encouraged by Capitano, he fell into a quick trot. Without a hint of hesitation he made for the fluttering sheet of paper. He snorted briefly only as the driver egged him on. That was all.

Gruber would have liked to say “bravo” or “good horse” or something like that. Instead he compressed his lips so that his mouth formed a narrow line in his smooth copper-hued face. He drove into the other large court, gave the horses their heads, made them describe a turnabout, and came back to the small court. Two sheets of paper were lying there dancing in the soft breeze. The horses neared them. Florian knew what threatened him if he should try again to avoid the white terror. His quick perceptions told him that he had far less to fear from the two white dancing sheets than the man he served. He controlled himself, and only let out one irrepressible snort. In an unbroken trot he reached the sheets and thundered on, trampling them under.

Three and four times the animals circled the courtyard and came at the white rustling sheets of paper. Capitano remained unruffled; he seemed to notice nothing. Florian kept nodding his head, moving his ears, rolling his eyes; but he kept step. With a turn of his head Capitano tried to quiet his companion. There was no second streak of whip-fire, no danger underfoot. Florian grasped the truth and finally passed over the white terror as calmly as Capitano.

Satisfied, Gruber drove toward the stable, hopped off the board and ordered: “Unhitch.”

“Well?” Count Bertingen asked, seeing the coachman was loath to say anything. “What do you think?”

Gruber replied: “They'll do, your Excellency.” Then he saluted, doffing his top hat with an air, and disappeared.

The equerry went over to Florian. “Wringing wet,” he remarked.

Anton had noticed the welt running from Florian's neck along his back. Horror-stricken, he looked at the count. Bertingen turned silently away.

But Anton soon had cause to think better of Konrad Gruber.

Whenever the Emperor returned from Schönbrunn to the Imperial Palace, or if they telephoned to the Mews to say he remained at Schönbrunn and would not need a carriage, then Herr Konrad Gruber would order Florian and Capitano harnessed to a phaeton. And he would drive out through the city or along the Ringstrasse into the Prater, down the main driveway, around the Lusthaus, and back again.

Anton was outfitted in simple drab livery, given a top hat with a gold border and a gold cockade, and permitted to come along. In this garb he thought he looked as grand as any prince.

Gruber began to like the quiet unobtrusive lad. Reticent himself, he esteemed Anton's silence. Himself fanatically loyal to the service, he appreciated the ardent self-effacement with which Anton worked. Konrad Gruber loved horses, and horses only, and therefore he was touched by Anton's love for Florian. Gruber knew men thoroughly, particularly the stable personnel, and was held in fear by all. Only Anton never showed any fear. He had no equal for diligence, obedience, trustworthiness and unselfishness. Gruber held these qualities in the highest regard. He also fathomed Anton's simplicity. And when, to top everything, it was established that Anton was a Styrian—a countryman of his—then Gruber gave him his complete trust. Anton never heard a kind word out of Gruber, so he did not suspect how close he was to this important man; nor did he sit in judgment on the man inasmuch as he always accepted everything, good or bad, stoically and without any meditation.

Every time Florian and Capitano drove off, and Anton in the phaeton shooed him back, Bosco fell into a state of melancholy. As often as Anton got into his livery and donned the top hat, Bosco's desperation mounted. For he knew he would suffer hours of dreary loneliness. So whenever preparations began he sat in front of the stable door and whimpered softly until his two friends disappeared.

One day Gruber pointed his whip at Bosco and said: “Take the dog along.”

Completely baffled, Anton hesitated and then lifted the still more baffled Bosco into the carriage. The terrier uttered one brief yelp, then scrambled up on the small seat in the back where he squatted contentedly and watched out of his intelligent eyes, now Florian, and again the passing stream of carriages and pedestrians in the streets. From that time on he went along regularly.

That day Anton began to admire and love the forbidding, mighty Konrad Gruber from the bottom of his devout heart. He never had the courage to address him, though. And when he crouched, much lower down, next him on the dickey, he would actually have considered it impertinent to speak one word to Gruber.

Gruber drove the two beautiful horses through the clamor and chaos of the city as carefully and skilfully as if evading deathly perils. Florian and Capitano were responsive instruments in his hands, obeyed his slightest wish so quickly and so reliably that it became one of Anton's greatest joys to watch them.

Sometimes Gruber drove the carriage by the Maria Theresia monument directly toward the Imperial Palace. Then again he passed the Parliament, the municipal building and along the Schottenring. Anton observed these monumental edifices without the slightest conception of their purpose. On the Parliament he liked the horsemen and the quadrigas which seemed to drive straight into heaven from the gables. The winged horses of the Opera ridden by harp-playing figures struck him as comical. He smiled wryly every time he passed them. He did not know that this building housed the Opera, any more than he could have said what an opera was. When they took the route across the city in a straight line from the Kaertnerstrasse toward the quay, Anton gazed with pious wonder up at the church on the Stephansplatz, at the tower wrought out of earthly heaviness into delicate grace, rising to the clouds. He needed no one to name this church and this tower. They spoke their own impressive language and Anton knew at first sight: St. Stephan's.

He noticed that the policemen, and even the Palace gendarmes in their proud uniforms and their helmets crested by black horsehair plumes, knew and saluted the state coachman. Gruber acknowledged these greetings either by a slight nod or by lowering his whip. Anton liked the orderliness of this procedure. It deepened that comforting feeling of security. He also noticed how the policemen at the street crossings attempted to clear the way for Gruber's phaeton. The rhythmical, undiminished clip at which the horses crossed intersections he esteemed and appreciated for what it actually was: special privilege.

Anton's particular pleasure was when they passed the railroad crossing behind the Praterstern and the wide, straight, main thoroughfare lay before them . . . the green shadowy crowns of the old chestnut trees, the smooth, gray, endless ribbon of the street. Here Gruber held the carriage to the middle of the road and dictated a mad pace to the horses. No longer were their steps short and minced. The thin legs were thrust far forward and ate up the ground in big chunks. Florian and Capitano tore along, clearly enjoying their speed. The fastest fiacre, the fleetest Hungarian
Jucker,
the best Russian team were all left behind. That was Gruber's purpose; that was Florian's and Capitano's passion. They never failed. And Anton rejoiced.