Maresi (1948)

Franz von Hübner, a once-wealthy Austrian country squire, is financially ruined. In an act of desperation, one day he shoots the draft horse of a freight wagon in the middle of the street, for no apparent reason. He has to answer for this only in court, where he explains his actions by recounting what has happened in his personal life over the past twenty years. The horse he killed had once belonged to him, and he had been closely attached to his broodmare, Maresi. After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, he was a respected and prosperous man, but with the collapse in 1918, Hübner’s fortunes also took a sharp downturn. Deep in debt, he fell into the hands of unscrupulous people. He lost his estate, and as a now-impoverished man, he could no longer marry Countess Blanka von Steinville as planned. For financial reasons, he also had to part with his mare Maresi and sold her to a haulage contractor. But when he later saw her again in these miserable surroundings, he simply could not bear the way her new owner treated her. So, in an act of mercy, he shot the horse. The court accepts Hübner’s reasons and ultimately acquits him. The story also ends happily for Franz von Hübner and his young countess, Blanka: her love for Franz matters more to her than social prejudice and village gossip.