The next morning Giorgio was back at work in Siena, happier and more content there. And for the first time he felt encouraged that Dorina and Imperiale might be ready for the July Palio. As he schooled the well-bred gelding, teaching him to make smaller and ever smaller turns, his mind flew back to the cart horse of Casalino. Clear as a vignette he saw her jibbing her head against the sky.
"It would be a miracle from God," he thought to himself, "to harness that wildness, to calm the frightened soul."
CHAPTER X
A Buyer of Ox Skins
It was on the day Giorgio returned to Siena that Farfalla was sold again. A buyer of ox skins, Signor Busisi by name, was making one of his regular trips to the Maremma. He was a big-framed, bushy-browed man with a shock of white hair. As he drove along in his shiny new Fiat, he was sorting skins in his mind—all sizes, all qualities. He was not even thinking about horses. And he was trying very hard not to notice his nagging indigestion.
Signor Busisi was from Siena, and therefore he was first of all a strong contrada man with a passion for the Palio. Besides, he was a canny judge of horseflesh. In years past his horses had won no less than five Palio banners, a record few owners could match! And when he had no entry for the Palio, he sat as a judge of the trials, helping to choose the ten horses that would run, out of the twenty or more presented. His fellow judges held him in great respect, often waiting for him to nod the decisive "yes" or "no."
Of course, being an honest man and a realistic one, Signor Busisi admitted to himself that over the years he had purchased some weedy horses with faults too numerous and embarrassing to think about. And so he did not think about them. Besides, he was getting on in years, trying to ignore the pains around his heart and the frequent attacks of indigestion. "I've got a lot of age on me," he told himself. "No time for regrets; for me the spring flowers will bloom only a few times more. Better it is to look ahead." And so in the years remaining he was determined to live each day as if it were the last to shine upon him.