Last Love of Snezhana

“Grandpa, tell us about that little pot-bellied foal-girl,” Sashenka asked with a sly smile. “About Lastochka.”

“There’s no such word as foal-girl,” Marat said with a smirk. He was the oldest of them all and had turned twelve just the day before, so now he liked to put on airs.

It was a bright, sunny day. A few clouds hung in the sky like little heaps of snow, and the whole world seemed glad that spring had come.

The children sat on the low ledge along the stable wall, watching the older pupils lead the horses out for exercise. And, naturally, they had plenty to say about it. Marat especially liked showing everyone how much older and wiser he was.

Then Sashenka noticed Grandpa Pakhom sitting down beside them to watch the horses too, and immediately began pestering him.

“What do you mean, there’s no such word?” Sashenka protested. “A foal is a boy. So what do you call a girl?”

“Well, obviously you call it...” Marat began confidently, then stopped. He had suddenly realised he didn’t know.

The other children looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to solve the problem. But no answer came.

“See? You don’t know either, so stay out of it. Grandpa, tell us,” Sashenka said, waving him away. “About Lastochka.”

“Oh, leave me be.” Pakhom waved a hand. “I don’t feel like it. You’ll only laugh.”

“We won’t!” Sashenka squealed. “We promise!”

But Grandpa only shook his head and got up to leave.

“Grandpa!” Sashenka caught him by the hand. “Please!”

The other children had gone quiet too, waiting.

Grandpa shook his head once more, but sat down again.

“All right, then. But mind you, I don’t much like telling this story, because everyone says it’s just a fairy tale. My great-grandfather, though—he was only a boy when it happened—said he saw the whole thing with his own eyes. And he was a God-fearing man. Never told a lie in his life. Lived through the Tsar’s time and the Soviet time too...”

“Never told a lie!” Marat scoffed. “Back then they put people in prison and shot them for telling the truth!”

“Of course they did.” Pakhom gave him a sly smile. “But my great-grandfather knew better than to go rubbing his truth in people’s faces. Ask him a question, he’d answer. Nobody asked, he kept his mouth shut. That’s why they called him the Silent One. But when he did speak, he spoke the truth.

“And this is the story he told me...”

It happened back in the Tsar’s time.

There was a wealthy merchant named Taras living not far from here. His family name I don’t remember. He owned whole herds of horses and plenty of other livestock besides. Several of his young stallions won races and sold for a great deal of money.

And he had a snow-white mare named Snezhana. What a beauty she was. They said she had Arabian blood in her, or near enough. Taras even took her abroad to race, and she won valuable prizes. 

Then she injured a leg and could race no more. But she gave Taras some fine foals after that, so he kept her.

Years passed. Snezhana grew old and weak. The horse doctors said there was nothing more to be done for her, and Taras decided to send her to the knacker’s yard. He was a hard man, remembered no past service and had pity for no one.

But there was an orphan boy working odd jobs around his place, Vasil, though everyone called him Vasyatka. He was about fifteen years old, and he loved Snezhana dearly. He doted on her. So Vasyatka begged Taras to let the old mare spend one last summer out with the herd, roaming free.

“Let her have a little freedom before she dies,” he pleaded.

Taras waved him away. 

“Fine. Let her go. Saves me paying the knacker. I’ve troubles enough without worrying about an old mare.”

And troubles he certainly had. That year, the harvest failed. One disaster followed another all summer long. First, hail flattened the fields. Then the rains came and would not stop, flooding what remained and leaving the crops to rot. And when the winter grain had finally been sown, an early frost struck before the first snow and killed that too.

There was no hay. No straw. No grain. Everyone knew then that real trouble had come. There was nothing to feed the livestock. Winter was coming, the fodder was gone, and hunger had already begun. When the herds were driven home in autumn, there was little to do but slaughter the animals and sell the meat—and that’s what many people did.

But when Taras saw Snezhana, he could hardly believe his eyes. The old mare seemed years younger. Her coat shone, she was strong again—and, wonder of wonders, she was in foal. Taras certainly hadn’t expected that. He had her put in a stall and ordered that she be well fed.

When summer came, things grew a little easier. But the harvest failed again, and once more there was trouble enough for everyone.

For months Taras himself fussed over Snezhana, waiting to see what she would produce. In the old days she had always been bred to fine-blooded stallions. This time, it seemed, she had chosen a suitor for herself.

And when the foal was finally born, Vasyatka fell in love with her at once and named her Lastochka—Swallow. But Taras clutched his head in despair.

A filly. Small. Grey. Plain. And pot-bellied!

Taras flew into a rage at Vasyatka, shouting that the boy hadn’t watched the mare properly and that she must have got herself bred by a donkey.

“Before God, there was no donkey!” Vasyatka protested. “And the foal’s no mule. She’s a horse. So she’s small—what of it? She’s pretty. And quick too.”

“Quick!” Taras shouted. “What good is quick? We barely have enough feed for the horses worth keeping!”

And Taras ordered both horses sent to the knacker’s yard.

Vasyatka wept. He begged. He pleaded. It did him no good. Taras drove him off the property and didn’t even give him a piece of bread for his work.

The men from the knacker’s came the next morning. But the mare and her foal were gone. And Vasyatka was nowhere to be found either. So the boy was declared a horse thief, and the police were told to look for him. But they found nothing.

That winter, people in the villages began saying that someone was stealing a little grain here, a little hay there. Men went out with their guns and lay in wait, but they never caught the thief. Then there was nothing left to steal.

How the three of them survived that winter, no one knows. When the young grass finally came up in spring, people began catching glimpses of them on the distant pastures. Vasyatka must have taken Snezhana and Lastochka deep into the forest and found himself an old hunting hut. Maybe he hunted for food. Maybe he stole it. Or maybe some miracle was looking after them. Who can say?

The villagers called the police officer, and he rode out with his men to catch them. They caught no one. Those Ural forests were vast and rich in those days. And after that, Vasyatka and his horses kept well away from the villages, always choosing the farthest meadows.

Only when the first frosts came and the snow began to fall did Vasyatka start creeping back towards the villages, where food and hay could be found. That was when they caught him.

They followed his tracks through the thin snow and found the little hut deep in the forest where he had hidden Snezhana and Lastochka.

And what they saw there astonished them. Snezhana had grown younger still. You would never have taken her for an old mare now. And Lastochka had begun shedding her grey foal coat. Underneath it was hair as white as snow — whiter even than her mother’s. She had grown beautiful too. Still pot-bellied, though. Like a little barrel on four legs. Otherwise, there wasn’t a thing wrong with her.

Taras was delighted. Hadn’t spent a single kopeck on either of them, and now he had two horses back.

They tried to lead the mares away, but Snezhana and Lastochka neighed and kicked and bit and would let no one near them. In the end, the men managed to bind them and began dragging them back towards Taras’s stables.

The men took hold of Vasyatka and marched him off to gaol.

As they went down the village street, Taras decided to make an example of the boy. He ordered one of the men to whip Vasyatka, so everyone could see what happened to horse thieves.

The whip sang through the air. Vasyatka screamed.

And that was more than Lastochka could bear. Up she reared. No one could hold her.

She scattered the men around her and charged straight toward Vasyatka. She kicked so wildly that everyone fled out of her way.

Vasyatka grabbed her around the neck, swung himself onto her back — and Lastochka tore down the street.

The mounted police came to their senses and raced after them. Closer they came. And closer. They were just about to catch the pair when suddenly two snow-white wings unfolded from Lastochka’s sides.

So that was it. She had never been pot-bellied at all. Her wings had been folded away all this time, hidden from sight.

And when Lastochka rose into the air with Vasyatka on her back, people dropped their hats in astonishment. They stood staring up, mouths hanging open.

Taras was shouting, “Catch them! Catch them!”

Catch them? How were they supposed to do that?

But Snezhana was still trapped. The street was narrow and packed with people. She darted one way, then the other, but everywhere she turned someone blocked her path. They caught hold of the poor mare.

And then Snezhana screamed. Not a neigh. A scream — like a human being.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, a great snow-white winged stallion swooped down from the sky.

Like an angel he was. Into the crowd he plunged, scattering people in every direction.

And the last anyone saw of Snezhana, she was racing down the street in all her old beauty and pride, her mane flying and her white tail streaming behind her — and beside her ran her white angel.

Naturally, awe or not, people gave chase.

But once Snezhana reached open ground and had a clear field ahead of her, she showed them why she had won all those prizes in her younger days.

And that was how they escaped. Lastochka and Vasyatka through the sky; Snezhana and her angel across the fields.

Nobody caught them. And nobody ever saw Vasyatka again. But people did tell stories about three white horses. They were seen now here, now there, far in the distance. Grazing quietly, troubling no one—but never letting anyone come close. Two mares and one stallion. And such beauties, all three of them, as you’d never seen...

“What on earth are you doing?!” Grandpa suddenly jumped to his feet and ran towards the riding field, where one of the more spirited young horses had begun to buck and an inexperienced rider was plainly losing control.

“What a load of nonsense,” Marat said sceptically. “Just a fairy tale.”

“Everything’s a fairy tale to you!” Sashenka said indignantly.

“Well, first of all,” Marat began, “even if you put wings on a human being, they couldn’t lift him off the ground. Science says so. And a horse is even heavier. And second, how stupid is it that nobody ever noticed the wings? So obviously it’s just a —”

Marat’s voice trailed off.

There wasn’t much confidence left in his words now, nor, it seemed, much desire to be right.

For a long while the children sat in silence, watching the riding field.

Then someone whispered: 

“Oh... look!”

High above their heads, against the blinding sun, two shadows flashed past.

No. Not shadows. Just the opposite. Two dazzling shapes, bright against the sky, like angels. Only these angels were horses.

They flashed past and vanished. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a trick of the spring sunlight.

Far across the field, Grandpa Pakhom looked back at the children—and smiled his sly little smile.