"The Tartar Steppe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dino Buzzati)

"I can't make out—it moves too slowly."
"How do you mean, too slowly?"
"Well, I thought it might be the tufts of the canes." "Canes, what canes?"
"There is a clump of canes down there at the very bottom," he pointed to his right but it was useless for in the dark nothing could be seen. "They are a kind that have black tufts at this time of year. Sometimes the wind blows them away, these tufts, and since they are light they fly off—they look like little puffs of smoke. But it can't be that," he added after a pause, "they would move more quickly."
"What can it be then?"
"I don't know," said Tronk. "It would be odd if
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they were men. They would come another way. And then it keeps on moving—that's what I can't under­stand."
At that moment a sentry gave the alarm, then another and another again. They too had seen the black speck. At once the soldiers who were off duty came running from within the redoubt. They crowded on the parapet, curious and slightly afraid.
"Don't you see it?" said one. "But there it is, right under here, now it's standing still."
" It will be mist," said another. "Sometimes there are gaps in the mist and you see through it, see what's behind it. It looks as if it were someone moving and it is only gaps in the mist."
"Yes, yes, now I see it," they said. "There's still something black there----it's a black stone, that's what it is."
"Of course it isn't a stone. Don't you see that it is still moving? Are you blind?"
"It's a stone, I tell you. I've always seen it there—a black stone that looks like a nun."
Someone laughed.
" Oet out of here, get back inside," Tronk interrupted taking the initiative, since all the voices drove the lieu; tenant to a pitch of excitement. Reluctantly the soldiers withdrew into the redoubt and silence fell again.
"Tronk," Drogo suddenly asked, being incapable of deciding alone. "Would you give the alarm?"
"You mean the alarm to the Fort? Fire a shot you mean, sir?"
"Oh, I don't know. Do you think it's a case for giving the alarm?"
Tronk shook his head.
"I would wait till we can see better. If we fire a shot they will get excited at the Fort. Then suppose there's nothing there?"
"That's true," admitted Drogo.
"And then," Tronk added, "it would be contrary to So
the regulations, too. The regulations say that the alarm must be given only in case of a threat, that's what they say—' in the case of a threat or of the appearance of armed forces and in all cases in which suspicious persons approach within a hundred yards of the terrace or the walls:'---that's what the regulations say."
"That's true," said Giovanni, "and that's more than a hundred yards, isn't it?"
"I would say so too," said Tronk approvingly. "And then how do we know that it is a person?"
"What do you think it is, then? A ghost?" said Drogo with a touch of annoyance.
Tronk did not reply.
As if suspended in the depth of the night Drogo and Tronk stood leaning on the parapet, gazing down to where the Tartar steppe began. The enigmatic patch of darkness seemed to be motionless, as if it were sleep­ing, and little by little Giovanni began to think again that there really was nothing there, only a black boulder like a nun, and that his eyes had been deceived —a touch of fatigue, that was all, a silly hallucination. Now he felt a certain bitterness, a dark shadow, such as come when moments of destiny pass us by without touching us and the noise of their passing dies away in the distance while we refrain alone amid a swirl of dead leaves lamenting the great—and terrible—opportunity we have lost.
But then as the night went on the breath of fear began to rise from the dark valley. As the night went on Drogo felt himself little and alone. Tronk was too different from himself to serve as a friend. If only he had his comrades with him, even only one of. them, then it would have been different. He would even have felt like joking and it would have been no hardship to await the dawn.
Meanwhile tongues of mist were forming on the steppe, pale archipelagos on the black ocean. One of them came to rest at the very foot of the redoubt, hiding
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the mysterious object. The air had become damp, Drogo's mantle hung from his shoulders limp and heavy.
What a long night. Drogo had already lost hope of its ever ending when the sky began to pale and cold blasts announced that the dawn was not far of It was then that sleep overtook him. As he stood leaning against the parapet, Drogo twice let his head droop, twice he righted it with a start ; at last it fell over inertly and his eyelids surrendered to the weight. The new day was being born.
He woke because someone was touching his arm. Slowly he emerged from his dreams, dazzled by the light. A voice, Tronk's voice, was saying to him : " It's a horse, sir."
Then he recalled his life, the Fort, the New Redoubt, the enigma of the black patch. He looked quickly down, eager to know the answer, with a cowardly desire to see nothing but stones and bushes—nothing but the steppe, lonely and empty as it had always been.
But the voice kept repeating : "It's a horse, sir." And Drogo saw it, standing unbelievably at the foot of the rocks.
It was a horse, not big but low and plump, with a strange beauty in its thin legs and flowing mane. It was of an odd build but most remarkable for its colouring—a gleaming black which was like a dark stain on the landscape.
Where had it come from? Whose was it? For years and years no living thing, unless it were a raven or snake, had ventured there. But now a horse had ap­peared and you could see at once that it was not a wild one, but a picked beast, 'a real charger—except perhaps that the legs were a little too thin.
It was extraordinary and puzzling. Drogo, Tronk, the sentries, and the other soldiers at the loopholes in the floor beneath could not take their eyes off it. It broke the rules, this horse, and brought back the
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legends of the north, of Tartars and battles and filled the entire desert with its illogical presence.
By itself it was not of great importance but you could see that there must be something else behind it. Its saddle was in order as if it had been ridden a little before. So here there was an unfinished story—what had up to yesterday evening been an absurd, a ridi­culous superstition might be true then. Drogo seemed to feel them, the mysterious Tartars, lurking among the bushes, in the crevices of the rocks, motionless and silent with clenched teeth. They were waiting for the dark to attack. And meantime others were arriving, a threaten­ing swarm coming slowly out of the northern mists. They had no bands nor songs, no gleaming swords, no fine banners. Their arms were dull so as not to glint in the sun and their horses were trained not to neigh.
But a pony—this was their immediate thought in the New Redoubt—a pony had escaped from the enemy, had run on to betray them. Probably they had not noticed because the animal had run away from their encampment during the night.
So the horse had brought valuable intelligence. But what start did it have on the enemy? Drogo could not inform the Fort until evening and in the meantime the Tartars could move up.
Should he give the alarm then? Tronk said no—after all it was only a horse, he said. The fact that it had reached the foot of the redoubt might mean that it had been left, perhaps its master was a solitary hunter who had ventured imprudently into the steppe and had fallen ill or died. The horse, left to itself, had gone in search of safety, had detected the presence of men in the direction of the Fort and was now waiting for them to bring it some forage.
This was what really made him have serious doubts that an army was approaching. What motive could the animal have had for running away from an encamp­ment in such inhospitable country? And then, Tronk
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said, he had heard tell that the Tartars' horses were almost all white—even in an old picture hung in one of the rooms in the Fort the Tartars were mounted on white steeds ; but this one was coal-black.
So Drogo; after many hesitations, decided to await the evening. Meanwhile the sky had cleared and the sun shone over the landscape and warmed the hearts of the soldiers. Even Giovanni felt himself take heart from the bright light—his fantasies about the Tartars became less solid, everything resumed its normal pro­portions, the horse was only a horse and one could find all sorts of explanations for its presence without postu­lating enemy raids. Having forgotten the fears of the night, he suddenly felt himself ready for any adventure and the presentiment that his moment of destiny was at the gates filled him with joy—a happy fate which would raise him above other men.