The Tartar Steppe

by Dino Buzzati

  ‘What a pity. In three days I am leaving with mamma and Giorgina – we will be away some months, I think.’ She became gay and lively at the thought. ‘We are going to Holland.’

  ‘To Holland?’

  Now the girl was all excitement as she talked of her journey – of the friends she would travel with, of the gay times during carnival, of her life, of her companions, as if Drogo were not there. Now she felt entirely at her ease and seemed more beautiful.

  ‘A wonderful idea,’ said Drogo who felt bitterness grip his throat like a noose. ‘This is the best time of the year for Holland, they tell me. They say there are plains all covered with tulips.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Maria, ‘it must be lovely.’

  ‘They don’t grow grain, they grow roses,’ Giovanni went on with a slight quiver in his voice, ‘millions and millions of roses as far as the eye can see and above them you see the windmills, all freshly and gaily painted.’

  ‘Freshly painted?’ asked Maria, who was beginning to see the joke. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So they say,’ Giovanni replied. ‘And I have read it somewhere too.’

  The strip of sunlight had travelled over the whole carpet and was now climbing slowly over an inlaid writing desk. The afternoon was already dying, the sound of the piano had faded, outside in the garden a solitary bird struck up its song again. Drogo gazed at the andirons on the hearth; they were absolutely identical with a pair at the Fort. The coincidence consoled him subtly as if it showed that after all Fort and city belonged to the same world, with the same ways of life. But apart from the andirons Drogo had not managed to find anything else they had in common.

  ‘Yes, it must be lovely,’ said Maria lowering her eyes. ‘But now that I am on the point of leaving I don’t want to any more.’

  ‘That’s silly, it always happens at the last moment – it’s so tiresome packing,’ said Drogo purposely, as if he had not understood her undertone of feeling.

  It needed a word, a simple phrase to tell her that he was sorry she was leaving. But Drogo did not want to ask for anything – at that moment he was really not capable of it, he would have felt he was lying. So he said nothing and gave a vague smile.

  ‘Shall we go into the garden for a minute?’ the girl proposed at last, not knowing what to say. ‘The sun must be lower.’

  They rose from the divan. She was silent, expecting Drogo to say something; perhaps she was looking at him with a last vestige of love. But at the sight of the garden Giovanni’s thoughts took flight to the bare grassy slopes around the Fort – up there, too, the prime of the year was at hand; hardy plants were springing up among the rocks. Perhaps at this very time of year, centuries ago, the Tartars had come.

  ‘It is very warm for April,’ said Drogo. ‘It will turn to rain, you’ll see.’

  That was what he said and Maria gave a little desolate smile.

  ‘Yes, it is too warm,’ she answered with a flat voice, and both were aware that it was all over. Now they were far apart again, a gap was opening between them; in vain they stretched out their hands to touch each other. With each minute the distance between them grew greater.

  Drogo knew that he still loved Maria and her world – but he had no roots there any more, a world of strangers where his place had been easily filled. He looked at it from without now, looked at it with regret; to go back would have been awkward – new faces, different habits, new jokes, new expressions, to which he was unaccustomed. It was no longer his life, he had taken another path. It would have been stupid and pointless to turn back.

  Since Francesco did not come, Drogo and Maria said goodbye with exaggerated cordiality, shutting within themselves their secret thoughts. Maria grasped his hand tightly and looked into his eyes – perhaps she was asking him not to leave like this, to pardon her, to attempt to find once more something they had lost.

  And he looked at her too and said: ‘Goodbye, I hope we shall see each other before you leave.’ Then he walked off without turning back, walked towards the gate with a military step, and the gravel of the pathway crunched in the silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  Generally four years at the Fort sufficed to give one the right to a new posting, but nevertheless Drogo, who wanted to avoid some remote garrison and to stay in his own city, sought a personal interview with the divisional commander. In fact it had been his mother who insisted on the interview – she said that if you didn’t want to be forgotten about you had to push yourself. If he didn’t do anything no one was going to look after his interests of their own accord. And so he would probably get another dreary frontier posting. And it was his mother who, through friends, pulled wires so that the general would receive her son in a favourable frame of mind.

  The general was sitting in an immense study behind a large table smoking a cigar. There was nothing remarkable about the day – perhaps it was raining, perhaps merely cloudy. The general was getting on in years and looked benignly at Drogo through his monocle.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ he began as if it were he who had requested the interview, ‘I wanted to know how things are going up there. Filimore – how is he?’

  ‘When I saw him last, your excellency, the colonel was in excellent health,’ Drogo replied.

  The general was silent for a minute. Then he shook his head in a fatherly fashion. ‘Ah, you have been a trouble to us, you people up there in the Fort. Yes, yes, that affair over the boundary. There’s no doubt about it, that story about the lieutenant – I’ve forgotten his name – displeased His Highness very much.’

  Drogo kept silence not knowing what to say.

  ‘Yes, that lieutenant,’ the general went on to himself. ‘What is the name? A name like Arduino, I think.’

  ‘Angustina was his name, your excellency.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Angustina, a fine one he was. Endangering the boundary line through a piece of stupid obstinacy. I don’t know how we … Well, never mind,’ he concluded abruptly as if to show his magnaminity.

  ‘But, your excellency, allow me,’ Drogo dared to observe. ‘But Angustina was the one who died.’

  ‘May be, very possibly, you may be right – I don’t remember,’ said the general as if it were a detail without the slightest importance. ‘But His Highness was most displeased, very much displeased.’

  He said no more and looked at Drogo with a questioning air.

  ‘So you have come,’ he said, and his voice, which had a diplomatic ring, held a strong hint, ‘to be transferred to the city, haven’t you? You all have a craze for the city, and don’t realise that it is in the outposts that one learns to be a soldier.’

  ‘Yes, your excellency,’ said Giovanni Drogo, trying to control his words and the tone of his voice. ‘In fact I have done four years already.’

  ‘Four years at your age! what are four years?’ replied the general with a laugh. ‘However, I’m not reproaching you – I was merely saying that as a general tendency it is not perhaps the most likely to build up the morale of those in positions of command.’

  He broke off as if he had lost the thread. He concentrated for a second then began again:

  ‘However, my dear sir, I shall try to meet your wishes. Now we shall have your file brought in.’

  As they waited for the documents the general reopened the conversation.

  ‘The Fort,’ he said, ‘Fort Bastiani, let’s see – do you know the weakness of Fort Bastiani?’

  ‘I am not sure, your excellency,’ said Drogo. ‘Perhaps it is a little too isolated.’

  The general gave a brief pitying smile.

  ‘What odd ideas you young people have,’ he said. ‘A little too isolated. I must confess I would not have thought of that. The weakness of the Fort – do you want me to tell you what it is? It is that there are too many men there, too many men.’

  ‘Too many men?’

  ‘And that is why,’ the general went on without remarking on the lieutenant’s interruption, ‘that is why it has been decided to
alter the regulations. What are they saying about it, the people in the Fort?’

  ‘About what, your excellency? Excuse me.’

  ‘What we are talking about, of course. The new regulation, I told you,’ the general repeated with annoyance.

  ‘I haven’t heard about it, really I have not,’ Drogo replied in astonishment.

  ‘Ah, yes, perhaps the official announcement has not been made,’ the general admitted more good-naturedly. ‘But I thought you would have known just the same. Usually soldiers are experts at knowing things before other people.’

  ‘A new regulation, your excellency?’ Drogo asked curiously.

  ‘A reduction in strength, the garrison cut almost by half,’ said the other brusquely. ‘Too many men, I always said so. It needed thinning, that Fort.’

  At that moment the adjutant entered with a big bundle of files. Spreading them on a table he took one out, Giovanni Drogo’s, and handed it to the general who ran a practised eye over it.

  ‘Everything in order,’ he said. ‘But the request for transfer doesn’t seem to be here.’

  ‘The request for transfer?’ asked Drogo, ‘I did not think it was necessary after four years.’

  ‘Not usually,’ said the general, evidently annoyed at having to explain things to a subaltern. ‘But since this time there is such a large reduction in strength and everyone wants to leave, we must take them in order.’

  ‘But no one knows at the Fort, your excellency, no one has put in a request yet.’

  The general turned to the adjutant.

  ‘Are there any requests for transfer from Fort Bastiani?’ he asked him.

  ‘About a score, I think, your excellency,’ replied the adjutant.

  What a joke, thought Drogo completely overcome. His comrades had obviously kept it a secret so as to steal a march on him. Had even Ortiz deceived him so basely?

  ‘Excuse me, your excellency, if I come back to the same point,’ Drogo found courage to say, knowing how much depended on it, ‘but it seems to me that the fact of having done four years’ unbroken service should stand me more in stead than a mere question of formal precedence.’

  ‘Your four years do not count for anything, my dear young man,’ replied the general coldly, and he seemed somewhat offended, ‘they do not count at all compared with many others who have been up there all their lives. I can consider your case with the utmost goodwill, I can further your legitimate ambitions, but I cannot do less than justice. And then each case must be taken on its merits.’

  Giovanni Drogo had turned pale.

  ‘But then, your excellency,’ he asked almost stammering, ‘then I run the risk of staying up there all my life.’

  ‘Must be taken on its merits,’ the other continued imperturbably, and he went on turning over Drogo’s documents. ‘I see here for example, it is right before my eyes, a reprimand. Now a reprimand is nothing very serious’ (he went on reading) ‘but here is something rather unpleasant, it seems to me, a sentry killed by mistake.’

  ‘Unfortunately, your excellency, I did not …’

  ‘I cannot listen to your excuses, you know that quite well, my dear young man,’ the general interrupted him. ‘I am only reading what is written on your report, I even admit that it may have been pure accident, it can easily happen. But there are your colleagues who have managed to keep clear of such things. I am willing to do whatever I can, I have consented to receive you personally, as you see, but now … If only you had made the request a month ago. Odd that you didn’t know. A very considerable disadvantage.’

  The good-natured note struck at the beginning of the interview had disappeared. Now the general spoke with a slight suggestion of boredom and insolence, making his voice rise and fall. Drogo saw that he had made a fool of himself, saw that his comrades had fooled him, that the general must have a very mediocre impression of him and that there was nothing more to be done about it. The injustice of it gave him a burning sensation in his breast, over his heart. I could go away, resign my commission, he thought, after all I won’t die of hunger and I am still young.

  The general made a friendly gesture with his hand.

  ‘Well, goodbye, lieutenant, and cheer up.’

  Drogo came to attention, clicked his heels, stepped backwards to the door and on the threshold gave a last salute.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A horse climbs up through the lonely valley and the noise of its hooves awakens a great echo in the silence of the ravines. The bushes high up on the rocks are motionless, the yellow grasses do not move, even the clouds pass through the sky with unusual slowness. The horse slowly climbs the white road – it is Giovanni Drogo returning.

  There is no mistaking him – now that he has come closer you can recognise him easily and there is no particular sign of suffering in his face. So he has not rebelled, he has not resigned his commission, he has swallowed the injustice and is going back to his old post. At the bottom of his heart he is even pleased in a faint-hearted way at having avoided sudden changes in his mode of life, at being able to go back, as he was, to his old habits. He deludes himself, this Drogo, with the dream of a wonderful revenge at some remote date – he believes that he still has an immensity of time at his disposal. So he gives up the petty struggle of the day-today existence. The day will come, he thinks, when all accounts will be paid with interest. But in the meantime the others are overtaking him, they contend keenly with each other, they outstrip Drogo and have no thought for him. They leave him behind. He watches them disappear into the distance, perplexed, a prey to his usual doubts: perhaps he really has made a mistake? Perhaps he is an ordinary mortal for whom only a mediocre fate is reserved?

  Giovanni was climbing up to the solitary Fort as on that September day, that distant day. Only this time there was no other officer coming up the other side of the valley and Captain Ortiz was not riding to meet him at the bridge, where the two roads joined.

  This time Drogo rode on alone and meditated on life. He was going back to the Fort to remain there for what might be a long time at the very moment when many of his comrades were leaving it for ever. His comrades had been more wide awake, thought Drogo, but then they might also be better officers – that, too might be the explanation.

  With the passage of time the Fort had lost its importance. Long ago it had perhaps been a key position or at least was considered such. Now, reduced to half strength, it was merely a road block, and as such not considered of strategic importance in any plan of campaign. It was maintained solely so as not to leave the frontier unmanned. The possibility of a threat from the northern steppe was not admitted – at most some nomad caravan might arrive at the pass. What would existence be like up there?

  Meditating thus, in the course of the afternoon Drogo reached the edge of the highest plateau and found himself face to face with the Fort. It no longer contained the same disquietening secrets as it had the first time. In reality it was no more than a border barracks, a ridiculous fortress, the walls would stand up to guns of recent make for only a few hours. With time it would be allowed to go to ruin – already a piece of parapet had fallen here and there, and a platform had broken away, yet no one had it mended.

  Such were Drogo’s thoughts as he halted on the edge of the plateau and watched the usual sentries go up and down on the top of the walls. The flag on the roof hung limply, none of the chimneys smoked, there was not a soul to be seen on the bare expanse.

  What a boring life it was going to be. Probably Morel, who was a cheerful soul, would be among the first to go and Drogo would be left without friends. Then there would be the usual guard duties, the usual games at cards, the usual jaunts to the nearest village to drink and make unexciting love. What a wretched existence, thought Drogo. And yet a last trace of enchantment hung over the outline of the yellow redoubts, some mystery persisted up there, in the angles of the earthworks, in the shadow of the casemates, forebodings such as could not be expressed in words.

  At the Fort he found
much changed. With so many departures at hand there was great excitement everywhere. They did not know yet who were due to go and the officers – almost all of them had asked for a transfer – lived in a state of anxious expectancy and forgot their former cares. Even Filimore, this was known for certain, was to leave the Fort and this helped to disturb the rhythm of routine duties. The feeling of restlessness had even spread to the soldiers since a large contingent, it was not yet fixed how many, was to go down to the plain. Guard duties were carried out with an ill will and when the time came for guard mounting they were often not ready; in everyone the conviction had grown that to take so many precautions was both stupid and useless.

  It seemed obvious that their former hopes, their warlike dreams, their constant waiting for the enemy had been no more than a pretext to give life some significance. Now that it was possible to go back to human society all these seemed childish fancies and no one was willing to admit that he had believed in them, no one hesitated to laugh loud and long over them. The important thing was to leave the Fort. Each of Drogo’s colleagues had used influential friendships so as to be among those chosen; each one, in his heart, was convinced he had been successful.

  ‘What about you?’ they asked Giovanni with vague sympathy, those comrades who had kept the great news from him so as to steal a march on him and have one rival less. ‘What about you?’ they asked.

  ‘I shall probably have to stay here for a month or two,’ replied Drogo. And the others hastened to encourage him – of course he would be transferred too, that was only just, he mustn’t be so pessimistic, and so on.

  Of them all only Ortiz seemed to be unchanged. Ortiz had not asked to leave; for some years he had taken no further interest in the subject and the news that the garrison was being reduced reached him last; that was why he had not been able to warn Drogo. Ortiz watched the new wave of excitement indifferently – he devoted himself to the affairs of the Fort with his usual zeal.