by Dino Buzzati
For in the shadows they had heard the stifled laughter of the three assistants. Now they had their heads bent and were exaggeratedly intent on their work. The old man went on writing and kept to himself.
‘What is there to laugh at?’ Prosdocimo repeated. ‘You’re a bit too smart, you people. You’ll find that out one of these days.’
‘Yes,’ said Drogo, ‘what is there to laugh at?’
‘They are fools,’ said the tailor, ‘it’s best to pay no attention to them.’
Here footsteps were heard coming down the stairs and a soldier appeared. Prosdocimo was wanted upstairs by the sergeant-major in charge of the clothing store.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the tailor.
Drogo sat down and prepared to wait. Now that their master was gone, the three assistants had broken off their work. The old man at last raised his eyes from his papers, rose to his feet and limped over to Drogo.
‘Did you hear?’ he asked with a strange inflection, making a gesture to indicate the tailor who had left the room. ‘Did you hear him? Do you know, sir, how long he has been in the Fort?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Fifteen years, sir, fifteen accursed years, and still he goes on repeating the same story – I am here on a temporary basis, I expect to go any day …’
At the assistants’ table someone muttered. This must be their daily butt. The old man paid not the slightest attention.
‘But he will never move from here,’ he said. ‘He and the commanding officer and lots of others will stay here till they’re done – it’s a kind of illness. You’re new, sir, watch out – you’re newly arrived; watch out while there is time.’
‘Watch out for what?’
‘See that you leave as soon as possible, that you don’t catch their madness.’
‘I am here for only four months,’ said Drogo, ‘I haven’t the slightest intention of staying.’
‘Watch out all the same, sir,’ said the old man. ‘It was Colonel Filimore who began it. Great events are coming, he began to tell me, I remember very well – it will be eighteen years ago. ‘Events,’ that was what he said. These were his words. He got it into his head that the Fort is tremendously important, much more important than all the others and that in the city they don’t understand.’
He spoke slowly so that there was time for silence to come between one word and another.
‘He got it into his head that the Fort is tremendously important, that something was bound to happen.’
Drogo smiled.
‘That something would happen? A war you mean?’
‘Who knows – perhaps even a war.’
‘A war from across the steppe.’
‘Yes, probably from the steppe.’
‘But tell me, who would come?’
‘How should I know? Of course no one will come. But the colonel has studied the maps, he says there are still Tartars, the remains of an old army, he says, roaming up and down.’
From the shadow there came the idiotic sarcastic laughter of the assistants.
‘They are still waiting for them,’ the old man went on. ‘Take the colonel or Captain Stizione or Captain Ortiz or the lieutenant-colonel – every year they say something must happen and so it will go on until they are retired.’ He broke off and leant his head to one side as if he were listening. ‘I thought I heard steps,’ he said. But there was no sound of anyone.
‘I hear nothing,’ said Drogo.
‘Prosdocimo, too,’ said the old man. ‘He’s only a sergeant-major – the regimental tailor, but he has joined up with them. For fifteen years he’s been waiting too. But you don’t believe it, sir, I see that, you don’t say anything and think it is nothing but a lot of stories.’
Almost imploringly he added:
‘Watch out,’ he said, ‘you will let them convince you, you’ll end up by staying here too, I have only to look into your eyes.’
Drogo was silent; it seemed to him beneath his dignity to confide in such a poor creature.
‘And you,’ he said, ‘what do you do?’
‘Me?’ said the old man. ‘I am his brother, I work here with him.’
‘His brother? His elder brother?’
‘That’s right,’ and the old man smiled, ‘his elder brother. I was a soldier too, once – then I broke a leg and now I’m reduced to this.’
Then in the subterranean silence Drogo felt the throb of his own heart; it had begun to beat strongly. So even this old man hidden away in his lair in the cellar casting accounts – even this obscure and humble being looked forward to a heroic fate? Giovanni looked him in the eyes and the other shook his head a little with a mixture of sadness and bitterness, as if to indicate that there was indeed no remedy: ‘That is how we are made,’ he seemed to say, ‘and we shall never get better.’
Perhaps because a door had been opened somewhere on the stairs one could now hear, filtering through the walls, distant voices coming from some indeterminable source. Every now and again they stopped and there was a break; soon they started again, coming and going like the slow breathing of the Fort.
At last Drogo had understood. He gazed at the multiple shadows of the uniforms hanging there – shadows which trembled with the flicker of the lights and thought that at that precise moment, the colonel in the secrecy of his study had opened the north window. It was quite certain – at a moment like this, so sad with darkness and autumn, the commandant of the Fort looked north, towards the black gulfs of the valley.
It was from the northern steppe that their fortune would come, their adventure, the miraculous hour which once at least falls to each man’s lot. Because of this remote possibility which seemed to become more and more uncertain as time went on, grown men lived out their lives pointlessly here in the Fort.
They had not come to terms with ordinary life, with the joys of common people, with a mediocre destiny; they lived side by side, with the same hopes, never speaking of them because they were not aware of them or simply because they were soldiers who kept to themselves the intimacies of their hearts.
Perhaps Tronk too – probably so. Tronk followed the clauses of the regulations, the mathematical discipline, knew the pride of painstaking responsibility and deluded himself that that sufficed. Yet if they had said to him: ‘It will be like this all your life, always the same to the very end,’ even he would have woken up. Impossible, he would say. Something different must come along, something truly worthy of him, so that he could say: Now it is over and I have done what I could.
Drogo had understood their simple secret and thought with relief that he was an outsider, an uncontaminated spectator. In four months’ time, thank God, he would leave them for ever. The obscure attractions of the old fortress had vanished ridiculously. So he thought. But why did the old man keep on looking at him with that ambiguous expression? Why did Drogo feel a desire to whistle softly, to drink some wine, to go into the open air? Was it perhaps to prove to himself that he was really free, really calm?
Chapter Eight
It is dead of night and Drogo’s new friends, Lieutenant Carlo Morel, Pietro Angustina, Francesco Grotta and Max Lagorio are sitting with him in the mess. There remain only an orderly leaning against the lintel of a distant door and the portraits of former colonels, deep in shadow, lining the walls. Eight bottles stand out darkly against the tablecloth among the disorderly remains of the dinner.
They are all somewhat excited – partly by the wine, partly by the night, and when their voices fall silent one can hear the rain outside.
The dinner is in honour of Count Max Lagorio who is leaving next day after two years in the Fort.
‘Angustina,’ said Lagorio, ‘if you come too, I’ll wait for you.’ He said it in his usual joking way but they knew it was true.
Angustina, too, had completed his two years’ duty but he did not want to leave. Angustina was pale and sat with his usual air of detachment as if he were quite uninterested in them and were there by pure chance.
‘Angustina,’ repeated Lagorio, almost shouting and on the verge of intoxication, ‘if you come too I’ll wait for you – I’m willing to wait three days.’
Lieutenant Angustina did not reply but gave a faint long-suffering smile. His blue sun-bleached uniform stood out among the others with a certain faded elegance.
Lagorio turned to the others – to Morel, to Grotta, to Drogo.
‘You tell him, too,’ and he laid his right hand on Angustina’s shoulder. ‘It would do him good to come to town.’
‘It would do me good?’ asked Angustina, as if his curiosity were aroused.
‘You would feel better in the city. All of them would, I think.’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ said Angustina drily. ‘I don’t need any treatment.’
‘I didn’t say you needed treatment. I said it would do you good.’
These were Lagorio’s words and outside they heard the rain falling in the courtyard. Angustina smoothed his moustache with two fingers – he was obviously bored.
‘Don’t you ever think,’ Lagorio went on, ‘of your mother, of your people. Imagine if your mother …’
‘My mother will get used to it,’ answered Angustina with an undertone of bitterness.
Lagorio noticed it and changed the subject.
‘Listen, Angustina, think of it – the day after tomorrow you turn up at Claudina’s. ‘I haven’t seen you for two years’ she’ll say.’
‘Claudina,’ said Angustina reluctantly. ‘Who’s she? I don’t remember.’
‘Of course you don’t remember. It’s impossible to talk to you about anything – that’s a fact. There’s no mystery about it, is there? People saw you together every day.’
‘Ah,’ said Angustina out of politeness, ‘now I remember. Yes, Claudina – do you know she won’t even remember that I exist.’
‘Get away with you, we know they all go mad about you, don’t try to be modest now,’ exclaimed Grotta and Angustina gazed at him without moving an eyelid, obviously struck by such bluntness.
They fell silent. Outside the sentries paced to and fro in the autumn rain. The water hissed on the terraces, gurgled in the gutters and streamed down the walls. Outside the night lay deep; Angustina had a slight fit of coughing. It seemed strange that a sound so disagreeable should proceed from such a refined young man. But he coughed with due restraint, lowering his head each time as if to indicate that he could not help it – that it was really something he had nothing to do with but which he must endure. So he transformed the cough into a kind of wilful habit for others to imitate.
Yet a painful silence had fallen; Drogo felt he must break it.
‘Tell me, Lagorio,’ he asked, ‘when do you leave tomorrow?’
‘About ten, I think. I wanted to leave earlier but I have to say goodbye to the colonel.’
‘The colonel gets up at five, summer and winter, so he won’t waste your time.’
Lagorio laughed.
‘But I don’t get up at five. On my last morning at least I want to take it easy. No one is going to rush me.’
‘So you will get there the day after tomorrow,’ Morel observed enviously.
‘It doesn’t seem possible to me, I can assure you,’ said Lagorio.
‘What doesn’t seem possible?’
‘To be in the city in two days’ time,’ he paused, ‘and for always, too.’
Angustina had become pale; he no longer smoothed his moustache but gazed into the shadow before him. The room was heavy with the thoughts which come by night, when fears emerge from the crumbling walls and unhappiness is sweet to savour, and over humanity, as it lies sleeping, the soul proudly beats its wings. The glassy eyes of the colonels looking out of the great portraits foretold heroic deeds. And outside it still rained.
‘Can you imagine it?’ said Lagorio pitilessly to Angustina. ‘The evening of the day after tomorrow I shall probably be at Consalvi’s. The best society, music, pretty women.’
‘If that is what you like,’ Angustina answered contemptuously.
‘Or else,’ Lagorio continued with the best of intentions, merely to persuade his friend, ‘Yes, perhaps that is better – I shall go to Tron’s, to your uncle’s; there are nice people there and they play like gentlemen as Giacomo would say.’
‘That’s fine, too,’ said Angustina.
‘In any case, said Lagorio, ‘the day after tomorrow I shall be enjoying myself and you will be on duty. I shall be walking about the city,’ and he laughed at the idea, ‘and the captain of the day will come up to you. “Nothing to report – Private Martini is feeling ill.” At two o’clock the sergeant will waken you: “Time to inspect the guard, sir.” He will waken you at two, you can take an oath on it, and at that very minute I shall without a doubt be in bed with Rosaria.’
They were Lagorio’s usual silly, unintentional cruelties and everyone was used to them. But behind his words the image of the distant city appeared to his comrades with its palaces and its great churches, its airy domes and the romantic avenues along the river. Now, they thought, there would be a thin mist over it and the streetlamps would give a faint yellow light; this was the time when there were couples in the lonely streets, the cries of the coachmen under the lighted windows of the Opera, echoes of violins and laughter, women’s voices in the gloomy entries to the wealthy houses, and lighted windows incredibly high up among the labyrinthine roofs. It was the fascinating city of their youthful dreams, their still unlived adventures.
Without being aware of it everyone was now watching Angustina’s face; it was heavy with a weariness to which he would not admit. They realised that they were not there to send off Lagorio but in reality to salute Angustina who alone would remain. One by one after Lagorio, as their turn came, the others too would go – Grotta, Morel and even before that Giovanni Drogo who had scarcely four months to do. But Angustina would stay on – why they did not know, but they perfectly understood it. And although they felt obscurely that on this occasion too he was conforming to his ambitious style of life they could not find it in them to envy him; it seemed to be nothing more than an absurd mania.
But why is Angustina, that damned snob, still smiling? Why, being as ill as he is, doesn’t he run and pack his kit and get ready to leave? Why is he staring instead into the shadows in front of him? What is he thinking about? What secret pride keeps him in the Fortress? Is he another? Look at him, Lagorio, you are his friend, have a good look at him while you still have time, imprint his face on your memory as it is this evening with its thin nose, the lack-lustre expression of the eyes, its unpleasant smile; perhaps one day you will understand why he did not want to follow you, will understand what was locked behind his expressionless brow.
Lagorio left next morning. His two horses were waiting for him with his batman at the gate of the Fort. The sky was overcast but it was not raining.
Lagorio looked happy. He had left his room without so much as a glance at it, nor when he was in the open air did he look round at the Fort. The walls rose above, gloomy and beetling; the sentry at the gate was motionless; there was not a living soul on all the vast level space. From a little hut which leant against the wall of the Fort there came the rhythmic beat of a hammer.
Angustina had come down to say goodbye to his friend. He stroked the horse. ‘It’s still a fine beast,’ he said. Lagorio was going away, going down to the city, where life was easy and happy. But he was staying on; with expressionless eyes he watched his comrade busy with the horses and he tried to smile.
‘I can’t believe that I am leaving,’ said Lagorio. ‘This Fortress had become an obsession.’
‘Go and see my people when you get there,’ said Angustina, paying no attention to him. ‘Tell my mother I am well.’
‘Don’t worry,’ replied Lagorio. And after a pause he added: ‘I’m sorry about yesterday evening, you know. We are quite different beings and I have never really understood what you were thinking. You seemed to have obsessions – I don’t know – perh
aps you were right.’
‘I had forgotten all about it,’ said Angustina laying his hand on the horse’s flank and looking at the ground. ‘Of course I wasn’t angry.’
They were two different men with different tastes, separated by intelligence and culture. It was an astonishing thing even to see them together such was Angustina’s superiority. And yet they were friends – of them all Lagorio was the only one to understand him instinctively, but he felt sorry for his comrade and was almost ashamed to leave before him as if it were unseemly ostentation and he could not make up his mind to go.
‘If you see Claudina,’ Angustina went on with unaltered voice, ‘give her my regards – no, perhaps it’s better if you say nothing.’
‘But if I see her she’ll ask me. She knows that you are here.’
Angustina said nothing.
‘Well then,’ said Lagorio, who with the help of his batman had finished adjusting his saddle-bag, ‘perhaps I had better go, otherwise I shall be late. Goodbye.’
He shook his friend’s hand and leapt elegantly into the saddle.
‘Adieu, Lagorio,’ exclaimed Angustina. ‘Bon voyage.’
Lagorio sat straight in his saddle and looked at him; he was not over intelligent but something told him obscurely that perhaps they might not meet again.
He struck in his spurs and the horse moved off. At this moment Angustina raised his right hand slightly as if to recall his companion, to ask him to stay another moment for he had one last thing to tell him. Lagorio saw the gesture out of the corner of his eye and halted a few yards away.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Did you want something?’
But Angustina lowered his hand and resumed his previous indifferent pose.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ he replied. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, I thought …’ said Lagorio with a puzzled air and he rode off across the plateau rocking in his saddle.
Chapter Nine
