I enjoy sitting on the steps leading to the main door to the manor house \u2013 if time allows, naturally. I look then at the garden and feel how, with every passing moment, I am becoming a natural part of it, an integral piece of the whole. The silence \u2013 which is in no way absolute, as it rings with the sounds of dropping leaves and boughs, the creaking of trees, and the bickering of birds \u2013 turns into music floating through me. An energising stream that allows me to focus and sharpen my senses.<\/p>\n
I watch the animals leading their secret lives in the garden, and also those that only come to visit. Inexpertly and for fun, I\u2019ve divided them into two broad-brush groups: the ones with long legs, and those that pitter-patter around the world on their short little paws. Now that I have become part of the garden, I\u2019ve extended this division to myself, the people I know, and the links that make us a community, or, more generally \u2013 part of society. How about myself? Do I have long legs or short paws? Do I daintily stride through the silence of the garden, or scurry around anxiously with others in pursuit of a freshly dropped nut?<\/p>\n
The ringing of the telephone broke my concentration. Wonderful and unbearable, the outside world signalled its refusal to be forgotten. Answering, I decided I\u2019d change the ringtone to the buzzing of a bumblebee or the bellow of a juvenile bison.<\/p>\n
\u201cShall we make an appointment to see the horse you\u2019re interested in? Mirage. Do you remember?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mirage! How could I have forgotten Mirage? Papa Balzac didn\u2019t waste a second in naming the three most beautiful sights in our valley of tears: a ship in full sail, a galloping horse, and a woman dancing. All these views are worth a fortune, but the galloping horse seems the relatively least expensive option.<\/p>\n
One way or another, Mirage captivated me not only with her gentleness, but first and foremost, with her deep and bright gaze.<\/p>\n
I am a horse person \u2013 who isn\u2019t? However, I\u2019ve never considered myself an expert in the subject, which is why, before buying Mirage, I decided to consult expert equestrians. \u201cShe\u2019s pretty, isn\u2019t she?\u201d was a question etched with the hope of reassurance. \u201cPretty\u201d, nodded my expert. \u201cIn fact, very pretty.\u201d I smiled with joy. \u201cA good deal, then.\u201d \u201cI never said that\u201d, my interlocutor raised his eyebrows. And he was right. He never did.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can watch her and marvel at her. But she won\u2019t run in any competition. That is, run she may, but she won\u2019t stand a chance. She is a mirage\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone can see what a horse is like. But seeing depends on the eye of the beholder. I accepted the underwhelming predictions of the mare\u2019s results, yet I had it my way. I became the happy owner of the most beautiful horse on the planet. She won\u2019t be successful? So be it! What, by the way, does success even mean? The state so many desire and imagine in countless dreams? Some follow it deliberately and persistently, striding on long legs while looking beyond the horizon. Others hurry and get lost in the race, scuttling on their little paws. Their purpose is to grasp happiness as soon as it is possible, and to consume it this instant. Here and now, this moment, immediately. Before anyone else and even at the expense of everyone else. There is no single definition of success, for it is different for every one of us. Still, everything has its proper categories. An athlete\u2019s career is crowned by gold medals, and a mountaineer by a peak ascended, while for a musician it is thunderous post-concert applause and a sold-out Albert Hall or La Scala that do it.<\/p>\n
I was leading my Mirage, and in my mind\u2019s eye saw a scene that had taken place many years earlier, when I used a stick to trace the plans of my enterprise on a factory brownfield site overgrown with weeds. \u201cThis whole area will be teeming with life. Office blocks will be here, and a shopping mall there\u2026\u201d Each consecutive circle the stick drew was wider.<\/p>\n
The potential investors present at the scene considered me an idiot, albeit a harmless one, even if armed with a stick. And I\u2019m certain that they told themselves over and over again in their minds, \u201cThere\u2019s no harm in looking and wondering, right? There\u2019s no way this plan can work. Bah! No more than a mirage.\u201d Years later in a street in Paris, I bumped into the Frenchman with whom I shouldered the risk of that development.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you believe in all that?\u201d I asked. \u201cAll those plans of mine? The success?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo\u201d, he replied with disarming honesty, broad smile lighting his face. \u201cWho in their right mind would believe in mirages coming true?\u201d<\/p>\n
Quite recently, Mirage won her first steeplechase. In the end, she was destined for success, wasn\u2019t she?<\/p>\n
I watch her dancing on her long legs in the paddock, and, on my way home, I instinctively lengthen my stride. Business needs long legs. True success needs long legs. I\u2019ve never been interested in racing on short paws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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