Florian Read Online Free PDF

bit of good. Neither paid any attention. They dashed across the meadow. Little Bosco, burdened by his full belly, was far in the rear. He still wasn’t used to running fast.
    But Florian quickly tired. He noticed that he had outdistanced his fearsome pursuer; from his gallop he fell into a trot, from the trot into a leisurely saunter, and soon he came to a halt beside Sibyl. Anton approached just as Bosco arrived quite out of breath. With the proverbial stubbornness of the terrier, Bosco rushed at Florian’s hindlegs and was about to bite into one of them, without malice, just for fun, when Florian, who apparently did not think highly of such harlequinade, shot both his hindlegs so high that, looked at from the front, with his neck and head bent, he seemed to execute a formal bow.
    Bosco soared into the air. The hooves hadn’t hurt him, but the spring of Florian’s legs sent him gracefully up and away in a high curve. He rolled over a few times in flight, turned a few somersaults after coming to earth, and when he had caught his breath broke into a pitiful whining interspersed with short angry barks. His tail between his legs and his back arched, he finally got up but remained at a respectful distance.
    This stormy and not altogether painless experience of Bosco’s produced excellent results. He never again—really, never again—dared rush at a horse’s legs, or even snap at them.
    Florian was angry, and, with his ears laid back against his head, he clung to his mother’s side.
    Anton felt that the time had come to make peace between the two youngsters.
    He called to the flabbergasted, inconsolable Bosco, who hesitantly and shyly crawled near. Anton had to meet him halfway, whereupon Bosco rolled over on his back. That meant: “Do with me what you please.” It spelled at once a complete surrender of his own will and boundless trust.
    Anton lifted him up and carried him over to the colt. “There,” he said, holding Bosco in front of Florian’s nose. “There . . . why aren’t you nice to each other . . . there.” More he didn’t know.
    Florian recognized his puny foe and was still huffy, an attitude he indicated by ears laid back. He didn’t seem the least bit kind, or intelligent . . . only slightly malevolent. This upset Anton. Malevolence—that did not go with Florian at all; it couldn’t and mustn’t. Meanwhile Bosco had struggled up in Anton’s arm and was audibly sniffing at Florian’s muzzle, becoming visibly gayer and affectionate.
    Florian was tickled. He blew his breath at his tiny flatterer and brought his ears up again. The great dark eyes were questioning and full of expectation.
    Anton grinned with joy. That was better. Ever since he had come to work here at the stud-farm he had never seen a Lipizzan either angry or malevolent or pugnacious—not to speak of his Florian who, in Anton’s eyes, was the most beautiful, most faultless Lipizzan that ever grew toward a glorious destiny.
    Bosco began to wash Florian’s nose with his quick little red tongue. It looked like a passionate declaration of love, an ecstatic explosion of friendship. Only the very young can love thus, innocently, can follow an impulse with such complete abandon. Florian plainly enjoyed it, for he bent his head and allowed Bosco to plant moist kisses on his nose and forehead.
    â€œThat’s enough,” Anton said, his calm restored, and set Bosco down.
    The terrier scurried around Florian with an expression of rapture in the gaze he cast up at his big newly won friend, singing for him in the highest pitch tiny love songs that ended abruptly and then started again in hasty, uneven little stanzas.
    â€œNow I go,” Anton cogitated, “I’ve got to go, I’ve got work to do. Bosco!” he called, ambling away. “Bosco!”
    Once, twice, Bosco chased after him, ran around him and darted back