The Tartar Steppe

by Dino Buzzati

  ‘Yes, yes, that was right,’ replied Giovanni with an effort. Simeoni’s words struck his ears as unreal, disconnected; things around him swayed to and fro disagreeably. Drogo felt ill, a cruel feeling of exhaustion had suddenly overcome him; all his will power was concentrated in the single effort to stay on his feet. Oh God, oh God, he prayed mentally, give me some help.

  To conceal his collapse he asked for a telescope – it was the famous one belonging to Simeoni – and began to look north, leaning his elbows on the parapet, which helped him to keep on his feet. If only the enemy had waited a little, a week would have been enough for him to recover; they had waited so many years, could they not have waited another few days, only a few days?

  Through the telescope he looked at the visible triangle of desert; he hoped he might not see anything, that the road would be deserted, that there would be no sign of life. That was what Drogo hoped for after wasting his whole life waiting for the enemy.

  He hoped he would not see anything, and instead a black line ran obliquely across the whitish background of the plain and that line was moving, a dense mass of men and convoys coming on towards the Fort. These were not the same scanty files as in the days when they had marked off the frontier. It was the Northern army at last, and perhaps—

  At this point Drogo saw the image in the telescope begin to rotate like a vortex, grow darker and darker and then plunge into night. As he fainted he fell limply on to the parapet like a puppet. Simeoni caught him in time; as he supported the body – life seemed to have drained from it – he felt through the cloth the lean framework of the bones.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A day and a night passed and Major Drogo lay in bed; now and again there reached him the rhythmic drip of the cistern but no other noise, although throughout the Fort anxiety and excitement grew from minute to minute. Cut off from everything, Drogo lay and listened to his own body, trying to hear whether his lost strength would ever return. Rovina had told him that it would be a question of only a few days. But of how many? When the enemy arrived would he be able to get on to his feet at least, dress, drag himself on to the roof of the Fort? Now and again he rose from his bed; each time he seemed to feel a little better, he walked without support as far as the mirror, but here the sinister image of his own face, it was growing more and more ashen and gaunt, extinguished his new hopes. His head swirled and a mist rose up before him, then he went swaying back to his bed, cursing the doctor for not curing him.

  The streak of sunlight on the floor had already swung far round – it must be eleven at least; unusual voices were rising from the courtyard and Drogo was lying motionless when Lieutenant-Colonel Simeoni, Commandant of the Fort, entered.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked in a cheerful voice. ‘A bit better? But you’re very pale, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Drogo coldly. ‘Have they advanced from the north?’

  ‘I should say so,’ said Simeoni. ‘The artillery is on the crest of the ridge already and now they are siting the guns. You must forgive me for not coming, but it has become an inferno here. This afternoon the first reinforcements are arriving – I’ve only had five minutes free now.’

  ‘Tomorrow I hope to get up,’ said Drogo, and was amazed to hear his own voice tremble, ‘I shall be able to help you a little.’

  ‘Oh no, no, you mustn’t think of it. Think about getting better and don’t think I have forgotten you. In fact I have good news for you – today a wonderful carriage will come and fetch you. War or no war one’s friends come first,’ he dared to say.

  ‘A carriage to fetch me? Why to fetch me?’

  ‘To come and take you away, of course. You don’t want to stay in this wretched room for ever. In the city they’ll look after you better – in a month you’ll be yourself again. And don’t worry about us here, everything is ready now.’

  A great flood of anger choked Drogo’s breast. Were they going to chase him away now that the war was coming at last, after he had thrown away the best of life waiting for the enemy, after he had lived on that one hope for more than thirty years?

  ‘You might at least have asked me,’ he replied with a voice shaking with anger. ‘I won’t move, I want to stay here – I’m not as ill as you think – I shall get up tomorrow.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake don’t get excited – we won’t do anything. If you make yourself excited you will get worse still,’ said Simeoni with a forced smile of comprehension. ‘It was only that to me it seemed better, and Rovina says so too.’

  ‘What about Rovina? Did Rovina tell you to send for the carriage?’

  ‘No, no, no one said anything to Rovina about the carriage. But he says you could do with a change of air.’

  Then Drogo thought he would speak to Simeoni as a true friend, and open his heart to him as he would have done to Ortiz; after all Simeoni was a man too.

  ‘Listen, Simeoni,’ he began tentatively, changing tone, ‘you know that up here at the Fort we all stayed on in the hope – it’s difficult to say, but you know what I mean,’ he simply could not express himself, for how can you make a man like that understand certain things? ‘If there had not been that chance …’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Simeoni with obvious distaste. (Was Drogo going to become sentimental into the bargain? he thought. Had the illness brought him down to that extent?)

  ‘But you must understand,’ Giovanni insisted. ‘I have been waiting here for more than thirty years, I have let a lot of chances go by. Thirty years is a fair time, all spent waiting for the enemy. You can’t try to tell me now – you can’t try to tell me now to go away, you can’t do it – it seems to me I have a certain right to stay.’

  ‘All right,’ responded Simeoni with irritation. ‘I thought I was doing you a favour and you answer me like that. I shouldn’t have bothered. I sent two dispatch-riders on purpose. I specially held up a troop of guns to let the carriage past.’

  ‘But I’m not blaming you at all,’ said Drogo. ‘I’m grateful to you, I know you meant it well.’ (Oh how it hurt, he thought, to have to keep on good terms with this fellow.) ‘Besides, the carriage can stay here – at present I’m not even in a condition to make a journey like that,’ he added incautiously.

  ‘A little while ago you were saying you would get up tomorrow, and now you say you can’t even get into a carriage. I’m sorry, but you don’t know yourself what you want.’

  Drogo tried to put things right.

  ‘Not at all. A journey like that and a walk to the end of the sentry’s beat are quite different things. I can have a bench brought out and sit down if I feel weak,’ he was going to say ‘a chair’ but that might have sounded silly. ‘From there I can keep an eye on the men, I can at least see.’

  ‘All right, stay then,’ said Simeoni, as if he were closing the discussion, ‘but I don’t know where I am going to make the officers sleep, the ones who are going to arrive; I can’t put them in the corridors or in the cellars. There could be three beds in this room.’

  Drogo looked at him icily. So that was what Simeoni was getting at? He wanted to send him away to have a room free. Was that all? And then he talked of solicitude and friendship. I should have seen that from the beginning, thought Drogo, it was what you would expect from a bastard like that.

  Seeing that Drogo said nothing Simeoni took heart and went on:

  ‘There could be three beds in this room easily. Two along that wall and the third in the corner. You see? Drogo, if you listen to me,’ he went on very clearly and distinctly but without the least human feeling, ‘if you listen to me you’ll make things easier for me, while if you stay here – don’t mind if I say so – I don’t see what use you can be in the state you are in.’

  ‘All right,’ interrupted Giovanni, ‘I understand. That’s enough, for goodness’ sake, I have a sore head.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the other, ‘I’m sorry to keep on but I want to settle this right away. The carriage is on its way. Rovina thinks you should
go. Here there would be a room free. You will get better more quickly, and then – if I keep you here, a sick man, I am taking a fine responsibility on myself if anything unfortunate happens. You are obliging me to assume a fine responsibility, I tell you that frankly.’

  ‘Listen,’ replied Drogo, although he saw how absurd it was to fight on; meantime he gazed at the streak of sunlight which was climbing up the wooden wainscotting, and as it climbed it slanted and stretched out. ‘I’m sorry if I say no. But I prefer to stay here. You won’t have any trouble, I assure you; if you like I shall make a written statement. Go on, Simeoni, leave me in peace – perhaps I haven’t long to live, let me stay here. I have been sleeping in this room for more than thirty years.’

  The other said nothing for a moment; he looked contemptuously at his sick colleague, gave an unpleasant smile and then asked with a different voice: ‘And suppose I ask you as your superior officer? If it were an order I was giving you, what would you say then?’ and here he made a pause as if relishing the effect he had produced. ‘This time, my dear Drogo, you are not showing your usual military spirit, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but in the end you’ll go away all right. There is no telling what the change will do for you. I can see that you don’t like it, but you can’t have everything in this life, you have to listen to reason – now I shall send you your batman to get your things ready. The carriage should be here by two. I’ll see you again later.’

  With these words he hurried off, deliberately so as not to give Drogo a chance to make further objections. He shut the door in great haste and walked quickly away along the corridor as if he were pleased with himself and complete master of the situation.

  The silence which remained was oppressive. There was a noise of water dripping in the cistern behind the wall. Then in the room one could only hear Drogo’s heavy breathing; it sounded almost like a sob. And outside the day was in its prime; even the stones were growing warm; from far off there came the unvarying noise of the waters falling over the precipitous clifffaces; the enemy was massing behind the last ridge in full view of the Fort while along the road over the steppe troops and transport still came on. On the ramparts of the Fort everything is ready; the ammunition as it should be, the men well prepared, the arms seen to. All eyes are turned towards the north, even if they can see nothing because of the intervening mountains; for it is only from the New Redoubt that everything can be seen. Thus once more as in the far off days when the Northerners arrived to mark off the frontier there is the same state of suspension, between gusts of fear and joy. But no one has the time to remember Drogo who is dressing with Luca’s help and preparing to leave.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It had to be admitted that it was a handsome carriage, even too much so for those country roads. But for the regimental coat-of-arms on the doors it might have been taken for the carriage of some rich gentleman. On top there sat two soldiers, the coachman and Drogo’s batman.

  In the midst of all the confusion at the Fort (the first detachments of reinforcements were already arriving) no one paid much attention to a thin officer with a drawn and yellowish face who came slowly down the stairs and, making towards the door, went out to where the carriage stood.

  At that moment a long column of troops, mules and horses was to be seen coming from the valley and advancing over the sunlit plateau. Although they were tired with their forced march, the soldiers quickened their pace as they came nearer to the Fort, and the band, at the head of the column, were seen to draw the grey cloth coverings from their instruments as if they were preparing to play.

  Meanwhile one or two people saluted Drogo, but not many, and not as they had used to do. Apparently they all knew that he was on the point of leaving and that from now on he counted for nothing in the hierarchy of the Fort. Lieutenant Moro and one or two others came to wish him a good journey, but it was the briefest of salutations with that vague, undefined affection which the young have for the older generation. One of them said that Lieutenant-Colonel Simeoni begged him to delay his departure; he was extremely occupied at the moment; would Major Drogo be so good as to wait for a minute or two – the commandant would come without fail.

  But when he had climbed into the carriage Drogo at once gave the order to drive off. He had made them lower the hood to let him breathe better and had wrapped round his legs two or three dark-coloured blankets on which his sabre gleamed.

  Rocking on the stones the carriage went off across the stony plateau; thus Drogo’s road took its last turning. Sitting sideways on the seat, his head nodding with each jolt of the wheels, Drogo gazed at the yellow walls of the Fort and saw them sink lower and lower.

  Up there he had lived his life, cut off from the world; he had undergone thirty years of torture merely waiting for the enemy, and now that they were arriving he was being chased away. But his comrades, the others down there in the city, had had an easy, happy life; now with a proud disdainful smile they had reached the goal and reaped the rewards of glory.

  Drogo’s eyes gazed as never before at the yellowish walls of the Fort, the geometrical outlines of the casemates and magazines. Slow, bitter, bitter tears ran down over his wrinkled skin; everything was ending miserably; there was nothing further to be said.

  There was nothing, nothing at all in Drogo’s favour; he was alone in the world, sick, and they had chased him away like a leper. He cursed them over and over again. But it was better to let things go, not to think any more; otherwise an unbearable flood of anger swelled in his breast.

  The sun was already on its downward path although it had still some way to go; the two soldiers on the boot were chatting quietly, indifferent whether they stayed or went. They had taken life as it came without worrying themselves with stupid thoughts. The carriage – it was wonderfully built, a real sick man’s carriage – swayed like a delicate balance at each pothole. And the Fort (and with it the whole panorama) grew smaller and lower, although its walls gleamed strangely in that spring afternoon.

  The last time very likely, thought Drogo when the carriage reached the edge of the plateau where the road began to dip down into the valley. Goodbye, Fort Bastiani, he said to himself. But Drogo was a little dazed and did not even have the courage to stop the horses to give another look at the old keep, which after all these centuries was only now about to begin its true life.

  For a moment longer the image of the yellowish walls, the slanting bastions, the mysterious redoubts, the cliffs on either side black with the thaw, remained in Drogo’s eyes. It seemed to Giovanni – but it was for an infinitely short instant of time – that the walls suddenly soared up towards the sky, gleaming with light; then everything was brutally hidden as the road plunged between the grass-grown rocks.

  Towards five o’clock they reached a little inn where the road ran along the side of the ravine. Overhead there rose, like a mirage, chaotic crests covered with grass and red earth, desolate hills where no man had perhaps ever been. In the depths ran the stream.

  The carriage drew up on the little space before the inn at the very moment when a rifle battalion was passing. Drogo saw on either side young faces, red with sweat and exertion, their eyes gazing at him in astonishment. Only the officers saluted him. He heard a voice coming from those who had passed: ‘He travels in comfort, the old boy.’ But no laughter followed. While they went on into battle he went down to the inglorious plain. What a fool of an officer, the soldiers probably thought – but perhaps they had read in his face that he too was going to his death.

  He could not shake off a slight sensation of dullness, a sort of mist; perhaps it had been the swaying of the carriage, perhaps his illness, perhaps simply his suffering at seeing his life end so miserably. Nothing mattered any more to him, absolutely nothing. The idea of going back to his city, of wandering with dragging steps through the old deserted house or of lying in bed for long boring, solitary months frightened him. He was in no hurry to arrive. He decided to pass the night in the inn.

  He waited
until the whole battalion had passed, until the dust raised by the soldiers had settled behind them again, and the rumble of their wagons had been drowned by the voice of the stream. Then he climbed slowly out of the carriage, leaning on Luca’s shoulder.

  There was a woman sitting on the doorstep busy with her knitting; at her feet a child slept in a rude cradle. Drogo looked with astonishment at that wonderful sleep, so different from that of grown men, so light and so deep. In this being no disturbed dreams had yet come to life, its little soul went on its way without a care, without desires or remorse, and the air was pure and very still. Drogo stood motionless gazing at the sleeping child; an acute feeling of sadness entered his heart. He tried to imagine himself deep in sleep, a strange Drogo whom he had never known. He tried to imagine how his own body looked, sleeping like a beast, worn by obscure exertions, his breathing heavy, his mouth falling half-open. And yet one day he had slept like that child, he too had been a thing of grace and innocence, and perhaps an old, sick officer had stopped to look at him with bitter astonishment. Poor Drogo, he said to himself, and realised how weak he was; but he after all was alone and no one loved him except himself.

  Chapter Thirty

  He was sitting in his bedroom in a wide easy-chair; it was an evening so splendid that it brought in at the window a perfumed air. Drogo looked listlessly at the sky which was becoming more and more blue, at the violet shadows in the deep valley, at the crests still bathed in sunlight. The Fort was a long way off, even the mountains around it could no longer be seen.

  It must have been a happy evening even for men of moderate good fortune. Giovanni thought of the city in the dusk, the sweet unrests of the new season, young couples in the avenues along the river, the windows already lit and issuing from them the chords of a piano, the whistle of a distant train. He imagined the bivouac fires of the enemy in the heart of the northern steppe, the lanterns of the Fort swaying in the wind, the wonderful sleepless night before the battle. Himself excepted, everyone had some reason for hope, however small.