The daughter of Sans Souci was already foaled when the farmer and the horse doctor arrived in Magliano Toscano. She was already dropped on the bed of straw, and there she lay, flat and wet, like a rug left out in the rain. Her eyes were closed and her nostrils not even fluttering.
The doctor, a sharp-eyed, determined little man, hastily pulled out his stethoscope, and falling to his knees in the straw, held it to the foal's side, listening. The farmer stood looking on, pale and helpless. No less a person than Sans Souci's owner, the Prince of Lombardy, wanted to buy the foal, but only if it were sound and sturdy. He had even agreed to pay the horse doctor's fee. Would he, if she died? She must not die!
"The heart?" the farmer whispered anxiously. "It beats? No?"
"Only faint," the doctor replied, "like butterfly wings." Straightening up, he snapped out his orders. "You got to help. Lift her up! No! No! Not like that. By her hind legs, hang her upside down. The blood, it's got to flow to the brain."
Frightened into submission, the farmer did as he was told while the doctor began furiously rubbing the foal's sides. The perfect little head was thrust back, mouth agape. The doctor stopped a moment, placed his hands against her chest, but there were still no signs of breathing. He pulled an old towel from his satchel, doused it in the watering trough, and slapped the colt. "Wake up!" he cried. "Get courage, little one! Breathe! Ahead lies the world!"
Still no response. The gray lump hung from the farmer's hands like a carcass in a butcher shop.
"What we do now?" the farmer asked.
"Lay her down!" the doctor shouted, unwilling to give up. "Fetch the wheelbarrow."
Puzzled, the farmer hurried out to the lean-to beside the barn.
The doctor crouched on his knees and with slow, forceful motions pressed the tiny squeeze-box of the colt's ribs. "Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!" he panted as he tried to pump air into her lungs.