The Hippodrome

In Short

Rachel Hayward’s 1913 novel The Hippodrome follows Arithelli, a striking and slender young woman who arrives in Barcelona and is immediately drawn into a secretive circle of international anarchists led by hardened revolutionaries like Count Emile Poleski and Sobrenski. While earning her living performing risky equestrian leaps at the local hippodrome, Arithelli is pressed into service as a courier for "the Cause." Amidst ideological fanaticism, poverty, and shifting loyalties, she falls deeply in love with a young, consumptive aristocrat-turned-conspirator named Vardri, leading to a tragic collision between human passion and ruthless revolutionary dogma.

The Story

The narrative opens in May at a Barcelona railway station, where Count Emile Poleski spots a remarkably thin, graceful young woman stepping off a train from Port-Bou. This is Arithelli, who soon finds herself initiated into a radical anarchist cell operating under the guise of astronomical classes and everyday life. Recognized for her endurance and cool nerve, she is put to work carrying secret messages while also performing grueling daily rehearsals at the hippodrome, riding pure-bred Andalusians under the abuse of a cynical manager.

Emile acts as her reluctant handler, bound by a grim vow that he will be the one to execute her if she betrays the Brotherhood. As weeks pass, Arithelli suffers from exhaustion and severe illness, nursed back to health by a disreputable local doctor named Michael Furness using traditional herbal remedies. During her recovery and subsequent travels, she grows closer to her fellow conspirators, including a young Austrian refugee named Vardri who tends the stables and plays haunting melodies on the guitar.

Arithelli and Vardri fall intensely in love, finding a fragile pocket of happiness and resolving to escape together to Austria via Italy. However, their secret romance does not escape the cold, calculating notice of Sobrenski, the cell's ruthless leader, who views personal attachments and romantic love as dangerous liabilities that threaten the collective. As Emile is dispatched back to Russia on a perilous mission that seals his own doom in Siberia, the net closes tightly around Arithelli and Vardri. The novel culminates in a violent confrontation at the stables where shots ring out in the dark, leaving Arithelli dead on the hay after a fateful struggle, her brief rebellion against the cold machinery of the Cause cut short by betrayal and death.

How It Unfolds

• The voyage begins: Count Emile Poleski meets the newly arrived Arithelli at a bustling Barcelona railway station, quickly recognizing her sharp intellect and unconventional background.
• The arena routine: Arithelli secures a job performing dangerous equestrian acts at the hippodrome, enduring the harsh commands of a cynical, cigarette-smoking manager while adapting to her new life.
• The underground cell: Initiated into an anarchist faction, Arithelli takes on clandestine messaging duties, participating in meetings disguised as astronomy classes while surrounded by hardened, indifferent men.
• A severe trial: Stricken by a dangerous throat infection, Arithelli faces physical collapse until an unconventional doctor named Michael Furness successfully treats her using traditional remedies.
• The awakening of love: Amidst the bleakness of revolutionary plotting, Arithelli and the young Austrian conspirator Vardri grow close, eventually admitting their love and planning a secret escape.
• The final reckoning: Sobrenski monitors the lovers with cold calculation, leading to a fateful night in the stables where darkness, a discharged pistol, and revolutionary discipline seal Arithelli's tragic fate.

The People

Count Emile Poleski is a hardened, cynical Polish aristocrat who devotes his intellect and remaining wealth entirely to "the Cause." He views people through a detached microscope, yet finds himself uniquely entangled with Arithelli, ultimately facing his own tragic return to Russia.

Arithelli is a remarkably thin, observant, and resilient young woman of Jewish descent. She prides herself on her independence and physical endurance, but grows to loathe the cold brutality of the anarchists before risking everything for love.

Vardri is a young, consumptive Austrian aristocrat cast out by his father for his political beliefs. Half-starved and reckless, he works in the hippodrome stables before finding solace and devotion in his romance with Arithelli.

Sobrenski is the calculating, unyielding leader of the anarchist cell. Gifted with swiftness of action and absolute indifference to human suffering, he views love and emotion as weaknesses to be systematically exploited and destroyed.

Michael Furness is a slouching, good-natured Irish doctor and wastrel who treats the animals at the hippodrome. Beneath his rough exterior lies the genuine soul of a healer, demonstrated when he saves Arithelli from suffocation using an old herbalist's remedy.

Estelle is a volatile, bruised dancer at the hippodrome who relies on alcohol and temper. Despite her own struggles and quarrels with the circus manager, she remains a sympathetic presence toward Arithelli.

In Its Own Voice

Describing the bustling, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Spanish city through the eyes of its jaded inhabitants:

"He looked round, scowling, till he found the man he wanted, and who was to all outward appearances the driver of one of the row of fiacres that waited outside the station."

Illustrating the cold, disposable attitude the revolutionaries hold toward human life:

"If a vase is cracked, break it. If your glove is worn out, throw it away."

Capturing Arithelli's resolute defiance when facing the brutal demands of her circus employer:

"You sit there, do you, and tell me you refuse to work! You with your insolence!"

What It's Really About

The novel explores the corrupting friction between dogmatic political fanaticism and the irrepressible human need for personal connection. Hayward examines how abstract revolutionary movements—represented by "the Cause"—demand the total eradication of individual emotion, empathy, and ordinary affection, treating human beings as mere tools or disposable machinery. Against the backdrop of anarchist cell politics in early twentieth-century Barcelona, the narrative questions whether freedom can truly be achieved through an organization that replicates the cruelty and tyranny it claims to fight. It also touches on Jewish identity, class disparity, and the heavy psychological toll of living entirely outside conventional societal bounds.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers drawn to historical fiction with a distinctly gritty, atmospheric edge will find The Hippodrome a fascinating, obscure gem. Reading it feels like uncovering a lost, moody cinematic noir set against the sun-scorched streets and smoky cafes of turn-of-the-century Barcelona. Hayward's prose is brisk and unsentimental, offering a rare, unvarnished look at the internal psychology of radical political undergrounds through a distinctly female lens.

However, contemporary readers should approach the book with an awareness of its period attitudes and stylistic limitations. The pacing occasionally shifts abruptly, and the secondary characters can feel starkly utilitarian, reflecting the ideological numbness of the world they inhabit. There are no neat moral triumphs or comforting resolutions here; instead, the book offers an honest, melancholic portrait of a woman trying to carve out a space for genuine feeling in an environment that treats life as cheap and love as treason. What stays with you long after finishing is the haunting image of Arithelli—proud, exhausted, and fiercely independent—riding her horse through the dust of the arena toward an inevitable doom.