Count Luna

by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

  “What nerve!” exclaimed Jessiersky, who, in reality, cared no more for his own chamois than for Koller’s.

  Actually, the gamekeeper told him, the Koller preserve itself had been kept going for some time only on the game that moved over from the Zinkeneck preserve.

  “And it is quite wise for the game to do so,” Jessiersky said, “for if it didn’t change haunts, it would become too numerous and then we would have to shoot it ourselves. These things are regulated by Nature — it’s only among humans that they are not regulated. When we have too many children, they cannot move over to another planet, with the result that before long we’re all going to be annihilated down here.”

  The gamekeeper, who, like all simple people, was convinced that the world could never fall into such a state of disorder as the educated people believed, did not understand this remark. So he merely said, “But if the game move back again, the Koller gamekeepers and their guests will simply come after them, and their excuse will be that in the high mountains it is impossible to tell exactly where boundaries are.”

  “Well, yes,” said Jessiersky in bored tones, “but you can’t tie up either the game or the men.”

  The gamekeeper glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and then asked him for authorization to take action against the Koller people.

  “Don’t kill anyone, for goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Jessiersky. “In the city no one pays very much attention when a man is murdered. But out here all hell breaks loose.”

  The gamekeeper replied that he had no intention of having the trespassers shot on sight — though his men and he, too, had wished often enough to put a bullet into those fellows over there! There was one guest in particular who, as he and his men had learned, had purchased the right to shoot no less than four chamois bucks — a man by the name of Count Luna who, disregarding all protests, had several times . . .

  “What?” cried Jessiersky.

  “. . . come far in over the boundary,” completed the gamekeeper.

  Jessiersky came to an abrupt halt.

  The gamekeeper, pleased at Jessiersky’s unexpected interest, stopped also, and the mourners behind them stood still and gazed in astonishment at the two men whose sudden stop made the chamois brushes on their hats shake as though with excitement.

  “What did you say?” cried Jessiersky again. “What is the name of this man who . . .”

  “A Count Luna, or whatever way you pronounce it,” replied the gamekeeper who had become slightly unsure of himself.

  Jessiersky remained silent for a moment. “I am going crazy,” he thought. “So the fellow came here after all; he followed me even here! I deluded myself when I thought he wouldn’t dare to!” But where had Luna got the money to pay for four chamois? “What does he look like?” Jessiersky asked excitedly. “Have you seen him?”

  “Only through the field glasses.”

  “Well? And what does he look like? I want to know!”

  Alas, the gamekeeper said, he was a very good-looking gentleman. He meant to imply that it was most regrettable that such an aristocratic person should let himself be taken into a preserve he had no right to enter, probably guided, because of his rank, by two of Baron Koller’s men.

  “By two?”

  Yes.

  Jessiersky stared at him. “And what does he really look like?” he asked again. “Is he thin or fat?”

  Fairly thin.

  “Does he have smallpox scars on his face?”

  “Does he what?”

  “Is he pockmarked?”

  That he didn’t know, said the gamekeeper. As he had mentioned before, he had seen him only through the binoculars and from quite a distance.

  “Where does he live?” Jessiersky inquired. “In Schreinbach?”

  No, replied the gamekeeper, unfortunately not. He himself had gone to look him up there and ask him not to let himself be led into the neighboring preserve because he might get treated to a load of fine shot like any common poacher. But in Schreinbach, he learned that the count did not live there. One of the Koller men, who were all rogues — getting friendly with people and then poaching on their preserves — had told him in the inn at Schreinbach, where he had stopped for a beer after his fruitless excursion, that the count had never had any intention of staying there. Immediately upon his arrival, he had gone to the preserve and had been spending his nights in one hunting shack after another. Never once had he come down to the valley, because “you have to really apply yourself” if you were going to get four chamois bucks when they were not there, at least not in the Koller preserve — as the fellow had had the nerve to add.

  Jessiersky listened to this tale, or rather, he was not really listening. He seemed to be staring, past his employee, into space. Then he suddenly left the gamekeeper and the mourners and started back at a rapid pace, almost on the run, for the castle. He did not appear for dinner, which was served soon afterward to his guests, but could be heard rummaging about in his rooms and in the hall where the two gun cases stood. What he was looking for, as he angrily informed the servant he had called away from his duties at table, was a particular kind of cartridge containing bullets without a steel jacket. They were used for target shooting with Mannlicher rifles. He pulled open the drawers of both gun cases, but found nothing and immediately discharged two of the servants whom he blamed for the disappearance of the cartridges. Finally he began searching through the guest rooms and at long last discovered the cartridges in the chest of drawers in the bedroom of his father-in-law.

  Old Pilas had not gone down to dinner. He had remained in his room to be alone with his grief. “Do you mean to say that you’ll be going target shooting today?” the old man cried out indignantly.

  “Be quiet, please!” shouted Jessiersky, put the cartridges in a knapsack, and sent a manservant to the kitchen with the order to pack up enough food for a few days.

  Meanwhile the other mourners had finished their meal. They appeared in the corridor on the upper floor and through the open door watched Jessiersky rummaging about in old Pilas’ room. Was he actually leaving, they inquired uneasily, and if so, would he allow them to stay on for a while longer in his absence?

  “Stay if you want or go to hell for all of me!” he replied irritably and ran down the stairs, the knapsack in his hand. The next day he vanished from the house at the crack of dawn.

  By no stretch of the imagination could Alexander Jessiersky be said to have any great enthusiasm for hunting. He hated having to leave the house at a ridiculous hour in the morning to go after a cock with a lantern or, if the quarry was merely a roebuck, to have his already freezing knees lashed by damp grass for hours. He abhorred shirts wringing with perspiration, heavy knapsacks, hobnail shoes, and loden capes with their offensive smell. He could think of far pleasanter pastimes than sliding about on slippery paths or breaking his knuckles in the talus. Every now and then he could be persuaded to go out deerstalking early in the evening, but any other shooting that had to be done he left to his gamekeepers or to occasional guests. But he had no great fondness for these either; they regularly repaid his hospitality by disturbing him at table with their foolish chatter. So he issued fewer and fewer invitations. The result of all this was that the neighboring preserves were kept going almost entirely by the game which went on and on reproducing itself over his land and sometimes moved over the boundary in whole herds.

  It was his specialty, on the other hand, to take walks in the valley, scanning the peaks through a pair of strong binoculars to observe the activity of the game. Not unlike people who are so experienced in reading maps that even the barest sketch is full of meaning for them, he “read,” not so much out of interest, perhaps, as out of boredom, a great deal of what went on up in the mountains. In the course of time, he began to notice more and more things which a less experienced observer would have overlooked. His gamekeeper, who at first had been baffled by
his knowledge, had long since concluded that Jessiersky had not actually stayed down in the valley all the time, but from time to time, behind their backs, had gone up into the mountains.

  This time he did go up. He ordered a carriage drawn by the two palominos to be brought at early dawn to take him as far as possible up the Gihon valley.

  Just as he was leaving, the chief gamekeeper, having got wind of his plan, appeared in a nightshirt smelling of old sweat and took the liberty of inquiring where Herr Jessiersky was going.

  To a place, replied Jessiersky, holding his nose, where he himself could put a stop to the activities of these gentlemen who were coming over from the neighboring preserve to hunt on his property.

  Hadn’t he perhaps better leave that to him and his men, by giving them permission to shoot, the gamekeeper inquired anxiously.

  No, said Jessiersky, that he did not want to do, and anyway, he was never going to leave anything to anybody again, for he had seen what happened when he did.

  Thereupon, the gamekeeper, in a piqued tone, asked whether he did not want to take at least one of the men along with him.

  That, replied Jessiersky, he did not want to do either. He couldn’t stand having people trail after him all the time. Under no conditions must the gamekeeper and his men come after him secretly! And, instead of asking questions here, he had now better hold back the dogs so that they wouldn’t run after the carriage.

  With this Jessiersky slung the binoculars over his shoulder and climbed into the carriage in which gun, knapsack, and loden cape had already been stowed. A lap robe was spread over his knees. The horses began to pull and, with white manes and tails fluttering in the breeze, bore him out of sight of the deeply offended chief gamekeeper.

  Chapter 9

  Jessiersky rode up the valley of the Gihon, which was really the Schrein Brook, or Schreinbach, from which the village below Zinkeneck had taken its name. As they went on, the road became scarcely distinguishable from the brook bed beside which it ran; and finally the horses, though pulling with all their might, could not budge the carriage another inch uphill. Jessiersky got out, loaded the knapsack on his back, and had the driver pull the loden cape through the straps. He picked up his gun and, to be on the safe side, removed its cap and put it into his pocket. Then he took a last look at the carriage and the sweat-drenched palominos which were recovering their wind; and as the driver lowered the whip in his farewell salute, Jessiersky shouldered his walking stick, turned about, and began to ascend the slope of the Hochzinken.

  His path led him first through sparse woods where the tall grass, interspersed with clumps and clusters of gentians, came up above his knees, then over upland pastures. All around him the Alps unfolded like an ocean of petrified waves that had been lashed up by some monstrous storm. Toward noon he reached the region of the gorges through which ran the boundary between his preserve and Koller’s.

  Here the sun was beating down with all its force on the rocky peaks which rose up in a long row into the dark blue sky. The brilliance of the rocks dazzled and blurred Jessiersky’s vision: it was as though black shadows were passing by. A kind of luminous shower seemed to be pouring down from a storm of light, and if a real storm had gathered, its shadows would scarcely have been distinguishable from the darkness of the sky, its billowing white cloud towers from the bone-white towers of the cliffs. It was all as still as eternity. Only the grass, dotted with the spring flowers of the upland summer, with mountain cornflowers, forget-me-nots, and primroses, whispered in the sunny wind; and away in the distance, almost as if from nowhere, the tinkle of sheep bells could be heard. But no animal was in sight. A hut nearby — a kind of stable made of rough stones — which must have been built as a shelter for the sheep, lay in ruins, and the rotten wood of the caved-in roof gave off an odor in the noonday heat. Perhaps the herds were grazing along the margins of two or three pools or lakes of transparent emerald that had formed at the foot of the peaks in the titanic maze of moss-covered boulders.

  To Jessiersky it seemed ludicrous that this awe-inspiring landscape should be registered in his name, but still more so that it should once have been owned by old Fries. Here, then, in this all but lunar landscape he would put a stop to the activities of the moon! Indeed, the scenery here resembled certain areas of the moon’s surface even more closely than did the land around the city of Luna on the map. Was it six months now or longer that he had been poring over that map in his library when for the first time he had heard Luna’s footsteps passing high above his head — although probably it had not been Luna at all?

  He threw down his pack and took shelter in the shade of the ruined hut. Surrounded with stinging nettles, which were growing rampant here, and a swarm of flies which refused to be beaten off, he took up his binoculars and carefully surveyed the landscape before him. He now discovered the sheep which were standing on strips of grass on the mountainside above the lakes. He also saw all sorts of game which, perhaps because of the heat, were moving very slowly, but nowhere did he discern any human being. Finally he got to his feet, picked up his goods and chattels, and walked for about an hour and a half down over the steep slope until he came to inhabited pastures. One of them, on which there were three herdsmen’s huts, he decided to make his headquarters.

  Whereas the path over which he had just come had been very steep, the ground from here on sloped down rather more gently into the valley. But here too the rays of the noonday sun were beating down with merciless force. It was not only the sun, however, which had made its power felt here. Fire had also raged pitilessly, for the tops of most of the firs that were growing here and there along the slope had been seared by lightning. The cruel ravages of water were also evident. Probably during the same storms that had decapitated the trees, the meadowland had been ripped up to its yellow-brown depths by raging torrents, and in places there were piles of talus as high as a man which had been washed down from the peaks.

  The hut standing highest on the slope being the first to which he came, Jessiersky walked in. He threw down his load and seated himself wearily beside the hearth. Except for his brief stop by the gorges, he had been under way since early morning. He took off his shoes. It was hot and musty in the hut, and in the adjacent stall, the cattle were pacing about and banging against the walls. From the room above under the roof, where the hay was stored, came a voice asking who was there. Jessiersky irritably called out to whomever it was to be silent, adding that if anyone wanted to know who was there he could come and see for himself. Whereupon a half-grown boy came sliding down from the hay loft. Recognizing Jessiersky, he greeted him and began at once to gather up the scattered possessions.

  Jessiersky, meanwhile, remained seated by the hearth, stretching his aching legs and examining the blisters that had formed on his feet. Finally he stood up, walked to the door, sat down again on the threshold, and lighted a cigarette.

  A kind of porch had been constructed here. The floor consisted of some planks which were raised up horizontally above the slanting ground of the pasture, and the roof, an extension of the hut roof, was supported by two wooden uprights. Not far away, by the fence, which enclosed a pile of cattle fodder, the so-called swath, a little stream of water was trickling out of a pipe into a wooden trough, and the mud all around it had been trampled by the hoofs of cattle. Nothing could be heard but the spring and nothing was stirring here or in either of the other two huts. Poor and miserable as they were, they seemed to have been built solidly and well. How many generations of mountain herdsmen they must have sheltered from rainstorms and the noonday heat! And the breath of the glaciers seemed to be still present in the wind that was blowing against the slope. They rose up in the distance, behind the rigid stony desert of the lesser peaks, now bathed in cataracts of light, now illumined by flickering sunbeams, now lost in billowing clouds, now swathed in smoky shadows.

  Meanwhile, a young woman, who must have been in her room sleeping — for mountain herders d
o most of their work at night — came out of the hut. She came up behind Jessiersky, walking noiselessly on her bare feet, and greeted him. He turned about and glanced up at her fleetingly. Then, his eyes fixed once again on the distant glaciers, he announced that he would spend the night there. “And, by the way, bring me my field glass,” he added.

  While she was getting the binoculars, he saw the boy, who must have left the hut by the stall door, run down over the pasture to the two other huts. From there he returned with two or three other young people and one elderly woman. They went into the hut, again through the stable door, and Jessiersky heard them behind him whispering with one another.

  He had focused the binoculars first upon the ice fields, which at one moment were dazzlingly brilliant and the next a dull gray, then upon the misty stone ridges of the peaks, and finally upon the ancient fir trees farther off in the pasture. They were the last outposts of a forest that stretched from the foot of the pastureland down into a dark, ravine-like valley and its roaring stream. How old those trees really were it was impossible to say, but they must have been there for several centuries. Their roots coiled in and out of the ground around them like clusters of enormous snakes. Their branches were enveloped in moss and lichen, and their spiked tops reached up toward the sky like the points of lances. The stiff skeletons of some of the dead trees were still standing like gigantic whisk brooms, and one was completely hollow. It had an opening like a sentinel box, and the wood seemed thinner than a wasp’s nest, so that a person could poke holes in it with his bare fingers. Others, broken up into gray pieces, were lying in a maze of dead branches, resembling blackened whale ribs. The entire pile was resting on a bed of mountain fescue and hawkweed, mild vetch and lady’s-mantle, yarrow and spignet. Others, although reduced to shapeless fragments, were still surrounded with clouds of dark green needles. There was not a tree that, at its base, could be encircled by fewer than three men, not a trunk that did not divide into several trunks, not a cluster of trunks that had not branched out, like a huge chandelier, into enormous perpendicular arms. There was not one of these firs and pines that was not in itself a whole forest, some parts of it living, some rotting, some dead; deciduous trees had taken root and animals of all kinds sheltered in its glades and impenetrable thickets. The timber of any one of these trees would have sufficed to build a sizable boat.