Frou-Frou's back is broken

Seventeen officers over four versts and nine obstacles: the brook, the five-foot barrier called the Devil in front of the Imperial Pavilion, a dry ditch, a water-jump, an incline, the Irish bank with its hidden ditch beyond, two more water-jumps and a last ditch. At the fourth attempt Colonel Sestrin gets them away. Frou-Frou loses ground, then passes three riders; at the brook Kusovlev's Diana falls and she clears both horse and water like a falling cat. She raps the Devil with a hind hoof, then draws level with Gladiator and passes on the outside; she takes the Irish bank without being asked, and Yashvin's voice comes from the crowd. At the last small water-jump, a yard and a half wide, Vronsky drops back in the saddle and pulls up her head. She lands, her hind legs drop, her back breaks. He kicks her in the belly, and she lies muzzling the ground and looking at him. The mare is shot. He is unhurt, which he regrets.

The novel's central emblem, and Tolstoy withholds any statement of what it stands for. The mare does everything asked and more; the ruin comes from one careless movement by the rider at the smallest obstacle on the course, after the danger has passed. His kick, then the eloquent eyes, then the shooting. It is the first irretrievable misfortune of his life and the first he has caused.