"I had him taken out of the stable first. A groom led him to me with a strap. The horse had long teeth, hollows in the chest, lumpy fetlocks—in short, all the signs of respectable age; but he had powerful shoulders, a large breast, a neck which was both strong and supple, head well held, tail well placed, and an irreproachable back. It wasn't, however, all this that attracted most my attention. What I admired above all was the air with which Brutus looked at me, and with what an attentive, intelligent, and curious eye he followed my movements and gestures. Even my words seemed to interest him singularly; he inclined his head to my side as if to hear me, and, as soon as I had finished speaking, he neighed joyously in answer.
"They showed me successively the seven other horses; I examined them rapidly and absent-mindedly. They were horses like all other horses. Brutus certainly had something in particular, and I was anxious to make in his company a short jaunt in the country. He allowed himself to be saddled, bridled, and mounted like a horse who knows his business, and so we both started in the quietest way in the world.
"I had at first ridden him with the snaffle, and Brutus had gone off at a long easy gait, with rather a stiff neck and projected head; but as soon as I let him feel the curb, he changed with extraordinary rapidity and suppleness, drawing his head back to his breast, and champing his bit noisily; then at the same time he took a short gait, which was light and even, lifting well his feet and striking the sod with the regularity of a pendulum.
"Chéri's catalogue had not lied; the horse was a good rider—too good a rider, in fact. I made him trot, then gallop; the horse at the first suggestion gave me an excellent little trot and an excellent little gallop, but always plunging to the ground and pulling my arms when I tried to lift his head. When I wished to quicken his gait, the horse broke at once. He began to rack in great style, trotting with the fore-feet and galloping with the hind ones. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'I see now; I've bought some old horse of the Saumur or Saint-Cyr school, and it's not on this beast that I'll hunt in eight days.'
"I was about to turn and go home, quite edified as to Brutus's qualities, when the report of a gun was heard twenty yards away in the woods. It was one of my keepers who was shooting a rabbit, and who received some time after a handsome present from my wife for that shot.
"I was then in the centre of the cross-roads, which formed a perfect circle of five or six yards in radius; six long green alleys came to an end at this spot. On hearing the report, Brutus had stopped short, planted himself on his four legs, with ears erect and head raised. I was surprised to find the horse so impressionable. I should have thought that after the brilliant education that very certainly he had received in his youth, Brutus must be an artillery horse, used to gun and cannon. I drew in my legs to urge the horse on, but Brutus didn't move; I spurred him sharply twice, but Brutus didn't move; I whipped him soundly, but Brutus didn't move. I tried to back the horse, to push him to the right, to the left, but I couldn't move him in the slightest degree. Brutus seemed glued to the ground, and yet—don't you dare to laugh, and be assured that my tale is absolutely true—each time that I attempted to put the horse in motion he turned his head and looked at me with an expression which could clearly be read as impatience and surprise; then he would again become as immovable as a statue. There was evidently some misunderstanding between the horse and myself. I saw that in his eyes, and Brutus said to me, with all the clearness he could put in his expression, 'I, as a horse, am doing my duty, and it's you, as a rider, who are not doing yours!'
"I was more puzzled than embarrassed. 'What extraordinary kind of a horse have I bought at Chéri's,' I said to myself, 'and why does he look at me so queerly?' I was, however, going to take strong measures—that is to say, I was preparing to whip him smartly—when another report was heard.
"Then the horse gave a jump. I thought I had the best of it, and, profiting by his bound, I tried to carry him forward with hand and knee. But no; he stopped short after his bound, and again planted himself on the ground more energetically and more resolutely than the first time. Ah, then I grew angry, and my whip came into play; I grasped it firmly and began to strike the horse with all my strength to the right and left. But Brutus, he too lost patience, and, instead of the cold and immovable opposition that at first he had shown, I met with furious retaliations, strange springs, bucking, extraordinary rearing, fantastic whirling; and in the midst of this battle, while the infatuated horse bounded and reared, while I, exasperated, struck with vigor the leather pommel with my broken whip, Brutus still found time to give me glances not only of surprise and impatience, but also of anger and indignation. While I was asking the horse for the obedience which he refused me, it is certain that he expected from me something that I was not doing.
"How did it end? To my shame, to my great shame, I was pitifully unhorsed by an incomparable feat! Brutus understood, I think, that he would not get the better of me by violence, and judged it necessary to try cunning; after a pause which was most certainly a moment of reflection, the horse rose up, head down, upright on his fore-feet, with the skill, the calm, and the perfect equilibrium of a clown who walks on his hands. Thus I tumbled into the sand, which, by good-luck, was thick in that spot.
"I tried to get up. I screamed and fell back ridiculously, flat on my stomach, on my nose. At the slightest movement I felt as though a knife ran through my left leg. It's a slight matter, however—the rupture of a slender sinew; but though slight, the injury was none the less painful. I succeeded, nevertheless, in turning over and sitting up; but just when, while rubbing my eyes, filled with sand, I was beginning to ask myself what in the midst of this tumult had become of my miserable dapple-gray, I saw over my head a large horse's hoof descending. Then this large hoof pressed, with a certain gentleness, however, on my chest, and pushed me delicately back on the ground, on my back this time.