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

ran all the length of the walls from one side of the pass to the other. Every so often there was a doorтАФstore┬нrooms, workshops, guard rooms. They walked for about a hundred and fifty yards to the entrance of the third redoubt. An armed sentry stood before the door. Morel asked to speak to Lieutenant Grotta, who was com┬нmander of the guard.
Thus they were able to enter in defiance of the regu┬нlations. Giovanni found himself in the entrance to a narrow passageway ; on one wall there was a board with the names of the soldiers on duty.
" Come on, come this way," said Morel to Drogo, "we had better hurry."
Drogo followed him up a narrow stair which came out into the open air on the ramparts of the redoubt. To the sentry who paced to and fro Lieutenant Morel made a sign as if to say there was no need for formalities.
Giovanni suddenly found himself looking on to the outer battlements ; in front of him the valley fell away, flooded with moonlight, and the secrets of the north lay open before his eyes.
A kind of pallor came over Drogo's face as he looked ; he was as rigid as stone. The nearby sentry had halted and an unbroken silence seemed to have descended through the diffused half-light. Then without shifting his gaze Drogo asked :
"And beyondтАФbeyond that rock what is it like? Does it go on and on like this?"
"I have never seen it," replied Morel. "You have to go to the New RedoubtтАФthat one there on the peak. From there you see all the plain beyond. They say
. ." And here he fell silent.
" What do they say? " asked Drogo, and his voice trembled with unusual anxiety.
"They say it is all covered with stonesтАФa sort of desert, with white stones, they sayтАФlike snow."
"All stonesтАФand nothing else?"
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"That's what they sayтАФand an occasional patch of marsh."
"nut right overтАФin the north they must see some┬нthing."
"Usually there are mists on the horizon," said Morel, who had lost his previous warm enthusiasm. " There are mists which keep you from seeing."
"Mists," said Drogo incredulously. "They can't always be thereтАФthe horizon must clear now and again."
"Hardly ever clear, not even in winter. But some people say they have seen things."
"Seen? What sort of things?"
"They mean they've dreamt things. You go and hear what the soldiers have to say. One says one thing, one another. Some say they have seen white towers, or else they say there is a smoking volcano and that is where the mists come from. Even Ortiz, Captain Ortiz, main┬нtains he saw something five years ago now. According to him there is a long black patchтАФforests probably."
They were both silent. Where, Drogo asked himself, had he seen this world before? Had he lived there in his dreams or created it as he read some ancient tale. He seemed to make some things outтАФthe low crumbling rocks, the winding valley in which there were neither trees nor verdure, those precipitous slopes and finally that triangle of desolate plain which the rocks before him could not conceal. Responses had been awakened in the very depth of his being and he could not grasp them.
At this moment Drogo was looking at the northern worldтАФthe uninhabited land across which, or so they said, no man had ever come. No enemy had ever come out of it ; there had been no battles ; nothing had ever happened.
"Well," asked Morel attempting to assume a jovial tone, "you like it?"
"I don't know," was all Drogo could say. Within he was a whirl of confused desires and foolish fears.
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There was a bugle call, a low bugle call, but he could not tell where.
"You had better go now," advised Morel. But Gio┬нvanni did not seem to hear, intent as he was on search┬нing his thoughts. The evening light was failing and the wind, re-awakened by the shadows, slid along the geo metrical architecture of the Fort. In order to keep warm the sentry had begun to walk up and down again, gazing every now and then at Giovanni Drogo, whom he did not know.
"You had better go now," repeated Morel, taking his comrade by the arm.
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IV
LIE had often been alone ; sometimes even as a child, I. I lost in the countryside ; on other occasions it had been in the city at night, in streets where crime was commonplace ; then there was the night before when he had slept by the wayside. But now, it was quite differentтАФnow that the excitement of the journey was over and his new comrades were already sleeping and he sat in his room on his bed by the light of the lamp, sad and lost. Now he really understood what solitude meantтАФ(quite a nice room, all panelled with wood, with a big bed, a table, an uncomfortable divan and a wardrobe). Everyone had been nice to him; in the mess they had opened a bottle of wine in his honour, but now he did not care, had already completely forgotten them тАФabove the bed there was a wooden crucifix, opposite it an old print with a text of which the first words could be read : Humanissimi Viri Francesci Angloisi virtutibus. During the whole night no one would come in to greet him ; in all the Fort no one was thinking of him and .not only in the Fort, probably in the whole world, there was not a soul who had a thought for Drogo; everyone has his own worries, can barely cope with himselfтАФperhaps even his mother at that moment had other things on her mind, for he was not her only child and she had thought about. Giovanni all day; now it was the' others' turn. That was more than fair, Drogo admitted to himself without the shadow of reproof, but mean┬нtime he was sitting on the edge of his bed in his room in the Fort (there was, he now saw, cut into the panel┬нling and coloured with extraordinary patience a full scale sabre, which at first glance almost seemed real тАФthe painstaking work of some officer years before), he was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his head bent forward a little, his 'back bowed, his eyes heavy
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and dull, and felt himself alone as never before in his life.
Suddenly he rose with an effort, opened the window and looked out. The window gave on to the courtyard and there was nothing else to be seen. Since it looked towards the south Drogo sought in vain to distinguish in the darkness the mountains which he had crossed to reach the Fort ; but they were lower than he thought and hidden by the wall.
Only three windows were lit but they were in the same block as his own and so he could not see in тАв the light they threw out and that from Drogo's room fell on the wall opposite where it seemed to be magnified ; a shadow was moving in one of themтАФperhaps an officer undressing.
Drogo shut the window, undressed, went to bed and lay thinking for a few minutes, looking at the ceiling; it too was lined with wood. He had forgotten to bring anything to read but that did not matter, he felt so sleepy. He put out the lamp ; little by little the pale rectangle of the window emerged from the dark and Drogo saw the stars shining.
He felt as if a sudden drowsiness were dragging him down into sleep. But he was too conscious of it. A con┬нfusion of images, almost like the figures of a dream, passed before his eyes and even began to form a story; then a few seconds later he found that he was still awake.
More awake than before, because the vastness of the silence suddenly struck him. From far, far awayтАФor had he imagined it?тАФthere came the sound of a cough. Then close by a soft drip of water sounded in the wall. If he lay still he could see that a small green star, which in the course of its journey through the night had reached the top of his window, was on the point of dis┬нappearing ; it twinkled for a moment on the very edge of the dark window frame and then finally disappeared. Drogo wanted to follow it a little further by leaning his
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head forward. At that moment there was another "plop" as if something had fallen into the water. Would it be repeated again? He lay waiting for the noise, such a sound as went with underground passages, marshes and deserted houses. The minutes appeared to stand still ; complete silence seemed at last to be undisputed master of the Fort. And once more wild images of the life he had left so far behind crowded round Drogo.
There it was again, the sound he hated. Drogo sat up. So it was a noise that went on and on ; the last splash had been no less loud than the first so it could not be a drip which would at last die away. How could he sleep? Drogo remembered that there was a cord hanging by the side of the bed, perhaps a bell-cord. He tried pulling it ; the cord answered his pull and in some remote and winding corridor of the building a brief tinkling answered almost imperceptibly. But how stupid it was, thought Drogo, to call someone for such a trifle. And who would come in any case?
Soon after there was the sound of feet in the corridor outside ; they drew closer and someone knocked at the door. " Come in," said Drogo. A soldier with a lamp in his hand appeared. "Yes sir," he said.
" It's impossible to sleep here, damn it," said Drogo becoming coldly angry. "What is this wretched noise? There's a pipe burst ; see that you stop itтАФit's quite impossible to sleep. All you need is a rag under it."
It's the cistern, sir," the soldier answered imme┬нdiately as if he were used to the whole affair. "It's the cistern, sir, there's nothing we can do about it."
"The cistern?"
"Yes, sir," explained the soldier. "The cisternтАФjust behind that wall. Everyone complains but no one has ever been able to do anything about it. Captain Fon┬нzaso shouts about it every now and again too, but it's no good."
"Away you go then," said Drogo. The door closed, the footsteps died away, the silence grew- again, the