For many weeks nothing else happened; we saw the De Simones every so often, but Trachi’s behaviour revealed nothing of the storm that raged inside him. It was I, and none other, who provoked the breakdown.

One October evening, Trachi was at the blacksmith’s. I met Teresa, and we went for a walk together in the woods. We talked, and of who else but Trachi? I didn’t betray my friend’s confidence; but I did worse.

I quickly realized that Teresa was not as shy as she initially appeared to be: she chose, as if by chance, a narrow path that led into the thickest part of the woods; I knew it was a dead end, and knew that Teresa knew. Where the path came to an end, she sat down on dry leaves and I did the same. The valley bell-tower rang out seven times, and she pressed up against me in a way that rid me of all doubt. By the time we got home night had fallen, but Trachi hadn’t yet returned.

I realized immediately that I had behaved badly; actually, I realized it during the act itself, and still today it pains me. Yet I also know that the fault is not all mine, nor is it Teresa’s. Trachi was with us: we had immersed ourselves in his aura, we had gravitated into his field. I know this because I myself had seen that wherever he passed flowers bloomed before their time, and their pollen flew in the wind of his wake as he ran.

Trachi didn’t return. Over the following days, we laboriously reconstructed the rest of his story based upon witnesses’ accounts and his tracks.

After a night of anxious waiting for all of us, and for me of secret torment, I went to look for him myself at the blacksmith’s. The blacksmith wasn’t at home: he was at the hospital with a cracked skull; he was unable to speak. I found his assistant. He told me that Trachi had come at about six o’clock to get shoed. He was silent and sad, but tranquil. Without showing any impatience, he let himself be chained as usual (the uncivilized practice of this particular blacksmith: years earlier he had had a bad experience with a skittish horse, and we had, in vain, tried to convince him that this precaution was in every way absurd with regard to Trachi). Three of his hooves had already been shod when a long and violent shudder coursed through him. The blacksmith turned upon him with that harsh tone often used on horses; as Trachi’s agitation seemed to increase, the blacksmith struck him with a whip.

Trachi seemed to calm down, ‘But his eyes were rolling around as if he were mad; and he seemed to be hearing voices.’ Suddenly, with a furious tug, Trachi pulled the chains from their wall mounts, and the end of one hit the blacksmith in the head, sending him to the floor in a faint. Trachi then threw himself against the door with all his weight, head first, his arms crossed over his head, and galloped off towards the hills while the four chains, still constricting his legs, whirled around, wounding him repeatedly.