"The Tartar Steppe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dino Buzzati)
"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
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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
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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 but 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."
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"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—perhaps 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.
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,
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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.
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IX
JHE terraces of the Fort were white—so too were the valley to the south and the northern desert.
The snow covered the whole width of the glacis ; along the crenellations it had laid a rim of white ; it plunged from the gutters with a little hollow noise; every now and again for no apparent reason it detached itself from the sides of the precipices and terrible masses roared smoking down into the gulfs.
It was not the first snow but the third or fourth fall, and was a sign that many days had gone by. "It seems like yesterday that I arrived at the Fort," said Drogo, and so it did indeed. It seemed like yesterday and yet time had slipped away with its unvarying rhythm, no slower for the happy man nor quicker for the unlucky ones of this world.
Another three months had passed—passed neither slowly nor quickly. Christmas had faded from sight in the distance and the New Year had come, bringing mankind a few strangely hopeful minutes. Giovanni Drogo was already preparing to depart. He still had to have the medical inspection which Major Matti had promised him and then he would be able to go. He kept telling himself that this was a happy event, that in the city the life awaiting him was easy, amusing and perhaps happy, and yet he was not pleased.
On the morning of the tenth of January he entered the medical officer's room on the top floor of the Fort. The doctor was called Ferdinando Rovina; he was over fifty with a flabby, intelligent face, an air of tired resignation, and wore not a uniform but a long dark jacket which made him look like some sort of magistrate. He was sitting at his table with various books and charts before him; he sat' quite still and it was impossible to tell what his thoughts were.
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The window looked out on to the courtyard from which there rose the sound of regular pacing to and fro because it was evening already and the changing of the guard was about to begin. From the window one caught sight of a part of the outer wall and the extraordinarily serene sky. The two officers saluted and Giovanni quickly saw that the doctor was fully informed of his case.
"The ravens are nesting and the swallows are going," said Rovina jokingly, and he produced from a drawer a sheet of paper with something printed on it.
"Perhaps you do not know, doctor, that I came here by mistake," answered Drogo.
"My dear boy, everyone comes here by mistake," said the doctor gloomily. "That applies to everyone more or less—even to those who have stayed on."
Drogo did not quite know what he meant and confined himself to a smile.
" Oh, I'm not blaming you. You are quite right, you young people, not to moulder up here," Rovina went on, "there are far better chances down in alb city. Sometimes I think myself that if I could . . ."
"Why not?" asked Drogo, "couldn't you get a transfer?"
The doctor waved his hand as if he could not believe his ears.
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