by Dino Buzzati
He was to be accompanied on the expedition by the governor of the province, Quinto Andronico, and his beautiful and intrepid wife; the naturalist Professor Inghirami; and by his colleague Fusti, who was an expert in taxidermy. Quinto Andronico was a weak, skeptical man and had known for some time that his wife felt drawn to Count Gerol, but this did not worry him. In fact, he agreed willingly when Maria suggested that they should accompany the Count on his hunt. He was not the least bit jealous, nor even envious, although Gerol was greatly superior to him in wealth, youth, good looks, strength and courage.
Two carriages left the town shortly after midnight with an escort of eight mounted hunters and arrived at Palissano at about six the following morning. Gerol, Maria and the two naturalists slept; only Andronico remained awake, and he stopped the carriage in front of the house of an old friend of his, the doctor Taddei. After a few moments the doctor, woken by a coachman and still half-asleep, with a nightcap on his head, appeared at a first-floor window. Andronico greeted him jovially from below and explained the object of the expedition, expecting his listener to burst out laughing at the mention of dragons. To his surprise Taddei shook his head disapprovingly.
“I don’t think I’d go, if I were you,” he said firmly.
“Why not? Don’t you think there’s anything to it? You think it’s all a lot of nonsense?”
“I don’t know about that,” replied the doctor. “No, personally I think there is a dragon, though I’ve never seen it. But I wouldn’t get involved in this business. I don’t like the sound of it.”
“Don’t like the sound of it? Do you mean you really believe in the dragon?”
“My dear sir, I’m an old man,” said the doctor, “and I’ve seen many things. It may be a lot of nonsense, but it may also be true; if I were you, I wouldn’t get involved. And I warn you: the way is hard to find, the rocks are very unsafe, you only need a gust of wind to precipitate sheer disaster and there isn’t a drop of water. Give up the whole thing—why not go down to the Crocetta,” (he pointed toward a rounded grassy hill rising behind the village) “you’ll find plenty of hares there.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “I assure you, I wouldn’t go. I once heard it said—but it’s useless, you’ll only laugh . . .”
“Why should I laugh?” protested Andronico. “Please go on.”
“Well, some people say that this dragon gives off smoke, and that it’s poisonous and a small quantity can kill you.”
Forgetting his promise, Andronico laughed loudly. “I always knew that you were reactionary,” he snorted, “reactionary and eccentric. But this is too much. You’re medieval, my dear Taddei. I’ll see you this evening, and I’ll be sporting the dragon’s head.”
He waved goodbye, climbed back into the carriage and ordered the coach to move on. Giosue Longo, who was one of the hunters and knew the way, went at the head of the convoy.
“What was that old man shaking his head at?” inquired Maria, who had woken up in the interim.
“Nothing,” replied Andronico. “It was only old Taddei, who’s an amateur vet; we were talking about foot-and-mouth disease.”
“And the dragon?” inquired Count Gerol, who was sitting opposite him. “Did you ask him about the dragon?”
“No, I didn’t, to be quite honest,” replied the governor. “I didn’t want to be laughed at. I told him we’d come up here to do a bit of hunting, that’s all I said.”
The passengers felt their weariness vanish as the sun rose; the horses moved faster and the coachmen began to hum.
“Taddei used to be our family doctor. Once”—it was the governor speaking—“he had a fashionable practice. Then suddenly he retired and went into the country, perhaps because of some disappointment in love. Then he must have been involved in some other trouble and came to this one-eyed place. Lord knows where he could go from here; he’ll be a sort of dragon himself soon.”
“What nonsense!” said Maria, rather annoyed. “Always talking about the dragon—you’ve talked of nothing else since we left and it’s really becoming rather boring.”
“It was your idea to come,” replied her husband, mildly amused. “Anyway, how could you know what we were talking about if you were asleep the whole way? Or were you just pretending?”
Maria did not reply but looked worriedly out of the window; at the mountains, which were becoming higher, steeper and more arid. At the far end of the valley there appeared a chaotic succession of peaks, mostly conical in shape and bare of woods or meadows, yellowish in color and incredibly bleak. The scorching sunlight clothed them in a hard, strong light of their own.
It was about nine o’clock when the carriages came to a standstill because the road came to an end. As they climbed down, the hunting party realized that they were now right in the heart of those sinister mountains. On close inspection, the rock of which the mountains were made looked rotten and friable as though they were one vast landslide from top to bottom.
“Look, this is where the path starts,” said Longo, pointing to a trail of footsteps leading upward toward the mouth of a small valley. It was about three-quarters of an hour’s journey from there to the Burel, where the dragon had been seen.
“Have you seen about the water?” Andronico asked the hunters.
“There are four flasks, and two of wine, your Excellency,” one of them answered. “That should be enough . . .”
Odd. But now that they were so far from the town, locked in the mountains, the idea of the dragon began to seem less absurd. The travelers looked around them but saw no signs of anything reassuring. Yellowish peaks where no human being had ever trod, endless little valleys winding off into the distance: complete desolation.
They walked without speaking: first went the hunters with the guns, culverins and other hunting equipment, then Maria and lastly the two naturalists. Fortunately, the path was still in the shade; the sun would have been merciless amid all that yellow earth.
The valley leading to the Burel was narrow and winding too; there was no stream in its bed and no grass or plants growing on its sides, only stones and debris; no birdsong or babble of water, only the occasional hiss of gravel.
At a certain point a young man appeared below them, walking faster than the hunting party and with a dead goat slung over his shoulders. “He’s going to the dragon,” said Longo, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The inhabitants of Palissano, he then explained, were highly superstitious and sent a goat to the Burel every morning to placate the monster. The young men of the region took it in turns to take the offering. If the dragon was heard to roar, this portended untold disaster; all kinds of misfortunes might follow.
“And the dragon eats the goat every day?” inquired Count Gerol, jokingly.
“There’s nothing left of it the next day, that’s for certain.”
“Not even the bones?”
“No, not even the bones. It takes the goat into the cave to eat it.”
“But couldn’t it be someone from the village who eats the goat?” asked the governor. “Everyone knows the way. Has no one ever really seen the dragon actually take the goat?”
“I don’t know, your Excellency,” replied the hunter.
Meanwhile the young man with the goat had caught up with them.
“Hey there, young man!” called Count Gerol in his usual stentorian tones. “How much do you want for that goat?”
“I can’t sell it, sir,” he replied.
“Not even for ten crowns?”
“Well, I could go and get another one, I suppose . . .” he weakened. “For ten crowns . . .”
“What do you want the goat for?” Andronico inquired. “Not to eat, I trust?”
“You’ll see in due course,” replied Gerol evasively.
One of the hunters put the goat over his shoulders, the young man from Palissano set off back to the village (obviously to get another animal for the dragon) and the whole group moved off again.
After another hour’s journey the
y finally arrived. The valley suddenly opened out into a vast rugged amphitheater, the Burel, surrounded by crumbling walls of orange-colored earth and rock. Right in the center, on top of a cone-shaped heap of debris, was a black opening: the dragon’s cave.
“That’s it,” said Longo. They stopped quite near it, on a gravelly terrace which offered an excellent observation point, about thirty feet above the level of the cave and almost directly in front of it. The terrace had the added advantage of not being accessible from below because it stood at the top of an almost vertical wall. Maria could watch from there in absolute safety.
They were all quiet, listening hard, but they could hear nothing except the endless silence of the mountains, broken by the occasional swish of gravel. Here and there lumps of earth would give way suddenly, streams of pebbles would pour down the mountainside and die down again gradually. The whole countryside seemed to be in a state of constant dilapidation: these were mountains abandoned by their creator, being allowed to fall quietly to pieces.
“What if the dragon doesn’t come out today?” inquired Quinto Andronico.
“I’ve got the goat,” answered Gerol. “You seem to forget that.”
Then they understood: the animal would act as bait to entice the dragon out of its lair.
They began their preparations: two hunters struggled up to a height of about twenty yards above the entrance to the cave, to be able to hurl down stones if necessary. Another placed the goat on the gravelly expanse outside its cave. Others were posted at either side, well protected by large stones, with the culverins and guns. Andronico stayed where he was, intending to remain a spectator.
Maria was silent; her former boldness had vanished altogether. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she would have given anything to be able to go back. She looked around at the walls of rock, at the scars of the old landslides and the debris of the recent ones, at the pillars of red earth which looked to her as though they might collapse any minute. Her husband, Count Gerol, the two naturalists and the hunters seemed negligible protection in the face of such solitude.
When the dead goat had been placed in front of the cave, they began to wait. It was shortly after ten o’clock and the sun now filtered into every crevice of the Burel, filling it with its immense heat. Waves of heat were reflected back from one side to the other. The hunters organized a rough canopy with the carriage covers for the governor and his wife, to shield them from the sun; Maria drank avidly.
“Watch out!” shouted Count Gerol suddenly from his vantage point on a rock down on the scree, where he stood with a rifle in his hand and an iron club hanging from his hip.
A shudder went through the company, and they held their breath as a live creature emerged from the mouth of the cave. “The dragon! The dragon!” shouted several of the hunters, though whether in joy or terror it was not clear.
The creature moved into the light with the hesitant sway of a snake. So here it was, this legendary monster whose voice made a whole village quake.
“Oh, how horrible!” exclaimed Maria with evident relief, having expected something far worse.
“Come on, courage!” shouted one of the hunters jokingly. Everyone recovered their self-assurance.
“It looks like a small Ceratosaurus!” said Professor Inghirami, now sufficiently confident to turn to the problems of science.
The monster wasn’t really very terrible, in fact, little more than six feet long, with a head like a crocodile’s only shorter, a long lizard-like neck, a rather swollen thorax, a short tail and floppy sort of crest along its back. But its awkward movements, its clayey parchment color (with the occasional green streak here and there) and the general apparent flabbiness of its body were even more reassuring than its small dimensions. The general impression was one of extreme age. If it was a dragon, it was a decrepit dragon, possibly moribund.
“Take that!” scoffed one of the hunters who had climbed above the mouth of the cave. And he threw a stone down toward the animal.
It hit the dragon exactly on the skull. There was a hollow “toc,” like the sound of something hitting a gourd. Maria felt a movement of revulsion.
The blow had been hard but not sufficient. The reptile was still for a few moments, as though stunned, and then began to shake its head and neck from side to side as if in pain. It opened and closed its jaws to reveal a set of sharp teeth, but it made no sound. Then it moved across the gravel toward the goat.
“Made you giddy, did they, eh?” cackled Count Gerol, suddenly abandoning his arrogant pose. He seemed eager and excited in anticipation of the massacre.
A shot from the culverin, from a distance of about thirty yards, missed its mark. The explosion tore the stagnant air; the rock faces howled with the echo, setting in motion innumerable diminutive landslides.
There was a second shot almost immediately. The bullet hit the animal on one of its back paws, producing a stream of blood.
“Look at it leaping around!” exclaimed Maria; she too was now enthralled by this show of cruelty. In the agony of its wound the animal had started to jump around in anguished circles. It drew its shattered leg after it, leaving a trail of black liquid on the gravel.
At last the reptile managed to reach the goat and to seize it with its teeth. It was about to turn round when Gerol, to advertise his own daring, went right up to it and shot it in the head from about six feet away.
A sort of whistling sound came from its jaws; and it was as though it were trying to control itself, to repress its anger, not to make as much noise as it could, as though some incentive unknown to mere men were causing it to keep its temper. The bullet from the rifle had hit it in the eye. After firing the shot Count Gerol drew back promptly and waited for it to collapse. But it didn’t collapse, the spark of life within it seemed as persistent as a fire fed by pitch. The ball of lead lodged firmly in its eye, the monster calmly proceeded to devour the goat and its neck swelled like rubber as the gigantic mouthfuls went down. Then it went back to the foot of the rocks and began to climb up the rock face beside the cave. It climbed with difficulty, as the earth kept giving way beneath its feet, but it was obviously seeking a way of escape. Above it was an arch of clear, pale sky; the sun dried up the trails of blood almost immediately.
“It’s like a cockroach in a basin,” muttered Andronico to himself.
“What did you say?” inquired his wife.
“Nothing, nothing,” he replied.
“I wonder why it doesn’t go into its cave,” remarked Professor Inghirami, calmly noting all the scientific aspects of the scene.
“It’s probably afraid of being trapped,” suggested Fusti.
“But it must be completed stunned. And I very much doubt whether a Ceratosaurus is capable of such reasoning. A Ceratosaurus . . .”
“It’s not a Ceratosaurus,” objected Fusti. “I’ve restored several for museums, but they don’t look like that. Where are the spines on its tail?”
“It keeps them hidden,” replied Inghirami. “Look at that swollen abdomen. It tucks its tail underneath and that’s why they can’t be seen.”
As they were talking one of the hunters, the one who had fired the shot with the culverin, came running hurriedly toward the terrace where Andronico was, with the evident intention of leaving.
“Where are you going?” shouted Gerol. “Stay in your position until we’ve finished.”
“I’m going,” the hunter answered firmly. “I don’t like it. This isn’t what I call hunting.”
“What do you mean? That you’re afraid? Is that it?”
“No, sir, I’m not afraid.”
“You’re afraid, I tell you, or you’d stay in your place.”
“No, I’m not. But you, sir, should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Ashamed of myself?” cursed Martino Gerol. “You young swine. You’re from Palissano, I suppose, and a coward. Get away before I teach you a lesson.”
“And where are you off to now, Beppi?” he shouted again, seeing another hu
nter moving off.
“I’m going too, sir. I don’t want to be involved in this horrible business.”
“Cowards!” shrieked Gerol. “Cowards, you’d pay for this if I could get at you!”
“It isn’t fear, sir,” repeated the second hunter. “It’s not fear. But this will end badly, you’ll see.”
“I’ll show you how it’ll end right now!” And seizing a stone from the ground, the Count hurled it at the hunter with all his force. But it missed.
There was a few moments’ pause while the dragon scrambled about on the rock without managing to climb any higher. Earth and stones gave way and forced him back to his starting point. Apart from the sound of falling stones, there was silence.
Then Andronico spoke. “How much longer is this going to go on?” he shouted to Gerol. “It’s fearfully hot. Finish off the animal once and for all, can’t you? Why torture it like that, even if it is a dragon?”
“It’s not my fault,” answered Gerol, annoyed, “can’t you see that it’s refusing to die? It’s got a bullet in its skull and it’s more lively than ever.”
He stopped speaking as the young man they had seen earlier came over the brow of the rock with another goat over his shoulders. Amazed at the sight of the men, their weapons, at the traces of blood and above all the dragon (which he had never seen out of its cave) struggling on the rocks, he had stood still in his tracks and was staring at the whole strange scene.
“Oy! Young man!” shouted Gerol. “How much do you want for that goat?”
“Nothing, I can’t sell it!” he replied. “I wouldn’t give it you for its weight in gold. But what have you done to the dragon?” he added, narrowing his eyes to look at the bloodstained monster.