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

"I was saying—it might mean that no one else asked for the posting and so they assigned you officially." "Perhaps that's it, sir."
" Yes, that must be it, right enough."
Drogo watched the clear-cut shadow of the two horses on the dust of the road, their heads nodding at every step ; he heard only the fourfold beat of their hooves, the hum of a fly. The end of the road was still not in sight. Every now and again when the valley curved one could see the road ahead, very high up, cut into pre­cipitous hillsides, climbing in zigzags. They would reach that spot, look up and there the road was still in. front of them, still climbing higher.
" Excuse me, sir," asked Drogo.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Is it still far?"
"Not very—about two and a half hours, perhaps three at this pace. Perhaps we will be there by mid­day."
They were silent for a while ; the horses were in a lather—the captain's was tired and dragged its hooves.
"You are from the Royal Military Academy, I sup­pose? "said Ortiz.
"Yes, sir, from the Academy."
"I see—and tell me, is Colonel Magnus still there?" " Colonel Magnus ? I don't think so. I don't know him."
The valley was narrowing now, shutting out the sun­light from the pass. Every now and again dark ravines opened of it and down them there came icy winds ; at the head of the ravines one caught sight of steep, steep peaks. So high did they seem, that you would have said two or three days were not time enough to reach the summit.
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"And tell me," said Ortiz, "is Major. Bosco still there? Does he still run the musketry course?"
"No, sir, I don't think so. There's Zimmermann— -Major Zimmermann."
"Yes, Zimmermann, that's right, I've heard his name. The point is that it is a good many years since my time. They will all be different now."
Both now had their own thoughts. The road had come out into the sun again, mountain followed mountain, even steeper now with rock faces here and, there.
"I saw it in the distance yesterday evening," said, Drogo.
"What—the Fort?"
"Yes, the Fort." He paused, then added to show that he knew how to behave : "It must be very large, isn't it? It seemed immense to me."
"The Fort—very large? No, no, it is one of the smallest—a very old building. It is only from the distance that it looks a little impressive."
He was silent for a moment, then added :
"Very, very old and completely out of date." "But isn't it one of the principal ones?"
"No' no, it's, a second class fort," Ortiz replied. He seemed to enjoy belittling it but with a special tone of voice—in the same way as one amuses oneself by re­marking on the defects of a son, certain that they will always seem trifling when set against his unlimited virtues.
"It is a dead stretch of frontier," Ortiz added, "and so they never changed it. It has always remained as it was a century ago."
"What do you mean—a dead frontier?"
"A frontier which gives no. worry. Beyond there is a great desert."
"A desert?"
"That's right—a desert. Stones and parched earth they call it the Tartar steppe."
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"Why Tartar?" asked Drogo. "Were there ever Tartars there?"
"Long, long ago, I believe. But it is a legend more than anything else. No one can have come across it—not even in the last wars."
"So the Fort has never been any use?"
"None at all," said the captain.
As the road rose more and more the trees came to an end ; only a scattered bush remained here and there. For the rest—parched 'grass rocks, falls of red earth.
"Excuse me, sir, are there any villages near at hand?"
"No, not near. There's San Rocco, but it will be twenty miles away."
"So I don't suppose there's much in the way of amusement?"
Not much, that's right, not much."
The air had become cooler, the flanks of the moun­tains were becoming more rounded, announcing the final crests.
"And don't people get bored, sir?" asked Giovanni more intimately, laughing at the same time, as if to say that it would be all the same to him.
"You get used to it," answered Ortiz and added with an implied rebuke : "I have been there for almost eighteen years. No, that's wrong, I've completed my eighteenth."
"Eighteen years?" said Giovanni greatly impressed. "Eighteen," answered the captain.
A flight of ravens passed, skimming the two officers, and plunging into the funnel of the valley.
"Ravens," said the captain.
Giovanni did not reply—he was thinking of the life that awaited him; he felt that he was no part of that world, of that solitude, of those mountains.
"But," he asked, "do any of the officers stay on who go there on their first posting?"
"Not many now," answered Ortiz, half sorry at
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having decried the Fort and noticing that the other was now going too far, "in fact almost no one. Now they all want to go to a crack garrison. Once it was an honour, Fort Bastiani, now it almost seems to be a punishment."