His voice had scarcely ceased before her white skirt flashed in the air, and in a moment she was on the back of the horse. The manager had disappeared, and the horse began to gallop around the ring, occasionally striking the side with its hoofs.
“Hep! Hep!” agitatedly said Jenny to the horse with her childish voice: “Hep! hep!” but this “hep, hep,” was at the same time a sob. The horse increased his speed, clattering with his hoofs as he leaned more and more to the center. The girl, standing on the pad with her feet close together, seemed scarcely to touch it with the ends of her toes; her bare rosy arms rose and fell as she maintained her balance; her hair and light muslin dress floated behind her supple figure, which looked like a bird circling in the air.
“Hep! hep!” she kept exclaiming. Meanwhile her eyes were filled with tears, and to see she had to raise her head; the movement of the horse made her dizzy; the terrace of seats and the ring seemed to revolve around her; she wavered once, twice, and then fell down into the arms of Orso.
“Oh! Orso, poor Orso!” cried the child.
“What’s the matter, Jen? why do you cry? I don’t feel the pain, I don’t feel it.”
Jenny threw both her arms around his neck and began to kiss his cheeks. Her whole body trembled, and she sobbed convulsively.
“Orso, oh, Orso,” she sobbed, for she could not speak, and her arms clung closer to his neck. She could not have cried more if she had been beaten herself. So, in the end, he began to pet and console her. Forgetting his own pain he took her in his arms and pressed her to his heart, and his nerves being excited by the beating, he now felt for the first time that he loved her more than the dog loved his mistress. He breathed heavily, and his lips panted out the words:
“I feel no pain. When you are with me, I am happy, Jenny, Jenny!”
When this was transpiring the manager was walking in the stables, foaming with rage. His heart was filled with jealousy. He saw the girl on her knees before Orso; recently this beautiful child had awakened the lower instincts in him, but as yet undeveloped, and now he fancied that she and Orso loved each other, and he felt revengeful, and had a wild desire to punish her—to whip her soundly. This desire he could not resist. Shortly he called to her.
She at once left Orso, and in a moment had disappeared in the dark entrance to the stables. Orso stood stupefied, and instead of following her he walked with unsteady steps to a bench, and, seating himself, began to breathe heavily.