After the rehearsal I went up to her to speak about her horses. She was very fond of them, and would not allow them to be scolded. They were her friends.
“Moscou is so gentlemanly!” she said, showing me the [p172] horse, which an attendant was leading away covered with foam. “He has such good manners!”
And in a low tone she owned to me that she preferred him to Regent, a grey of classic beauty, much more reliable than his comrade—loyal, vigorous, and brave; but he replaced coaxing by a military deportment, the correct stiffness of an officer.
“No doubt I am unjust,” said Mdlle. Dudlay, “but how can I help it? Moscou and I love each other.”
That is the secret of the haute école as well as of everything else. Habit and skill are insufficient—love is necessary too. It is through love of the little hands which caress their necks that these great horses throw all their energies into leaps which exhaust them; it is through love that they humiliate themselves, that they kneel down. For my own part, I know no grander spectacle, no more spiritual combination, no triumph more admirable of mental over physical force.
It is almost unnecessary to add that these instances of perfect harmony are the exception, not the rule. The little “mashers” in white ties and dress-coats who encumber the entrance to the ring, and surround the equestrian as she mounts her saddle, crying “Bravo!” and “Très chic!” at every movement she makes, hope by their eagerness, by these exclamations, to pose as horsey men in the eyes of the crowd; but they never imagine the duplicity of which they are the victims nineteen times out of twenty.
HAUTE ÉCOLE.