He, too, felt tired, as after a long walk, though he couldn’t remember how long they had been walking.

So he asked her:

“Is there far to go?”

“Are you already tired? Not even a small child would wear out so fast! We’re almost there.”

The voice was not Livia’s. It was coarse, and too shrill.

They took another hundred steps or so and found themselves in front of a cast-iron gate that was open.The grassy meadow continued on the other side of the gate.

What on earth was that gate doing there, if there was no road or house as far as the eye could see? He wanted to ask the woman this but refrained, not wanting to hear her voice again.

The absurdity of passing through a gate that served no purpose and led to nowhere seemed so ridiculous to him that he stepped aside to walk around it.

“No!” the woman yelled. “What are you doing? That’s not allowed! The owners get upset!”

Her voice was so shrill it nearly pierced his eardrums. Who were these “owners”? All the same, he obeyed.

Just past the gate, the landscape changed, turning into a racecourse, a hippodrome with a dirt track. But there wasn’t a single spectator; the grandstands were empty.

Then he realized he was wearing riding boots with spurs instead of his regular shoes and was dressed exactly like a jockey. He even had a little whip under his arm. Matre santa, what did they want from him? He had never ridden a horse in his life! Or rather, yes, once, when he was ten years old and his uncle had taken him to the countryside where—

“Mount me,” said the coarse voice.

He turned and looked at the woman.

She was no longer a woman, but sort of a horse. She had got down on all fours, but the hooves over her hands and feet were clearly fake, made out of bone, and indeed, the ones on her feet were slipped on, like slippers.