by Dino Buzzati
“We’re here to settle the matter once and for all. You should be pleased. No more goats from tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“Because the dragon will be dead,” replied the Count, smiling.
“But you can’t . . . you can’t do that,” exclaimed the young man in terror.
“Don’t you start too,” shouted Gerol. “Give me that goat at once.”
“I said no,” the young man answered firmly, drawing back.
“Good God!” The Count rushed at him, punched him full in the face, seized the goat from his back and threw him to the ground.
“You’ll regret this one day, I tell you, you see if you don’t,” swore the young man quietly as he picked himself up, not daring to react more aggressively.
But Count Gerol had turned his back on him.
But now the whole valley basin was ablaze with the sun’s heat and the glare from the yellow scree, the rocks, the stones and the scree again was such that they could hardly keep their eyes open; there was nothing, absolutely nothing, remotely restful to the eye.
Maria became more and more thirsty and drink gave no relief. “Good Lord, what heat,” she moaned. Even the sight of Count Gerol had begun to pall.
In the meantime, dozens of men had appeared, apparently springing from the earth itself. They had presumably come up from Palissano at the news that strangers were up at the Burel and they stood motionless on the brows of the various peaks of yellow earth, watching without a word.
“Fine audience you’ve got now,” remarked Andronico in an attempt at a joke, directed at Gerol, who was involved in some maneuvers concerning the goat with two hunters.
The young man looked up and saw the strangers staring at him. He assumed an expression of disdain and continued with what he was doing.
The dragon, exhausted, had slithered down the rock face onto the gravel; it was lying there, motionless except for its swollen stomach, which was still throbbing.
“Ready!” shouted one of the hunters, lifting the goat from the ground with Gerol’s help. They had opened its stomach and put in an explosive charge with a fuse attached.
The Count then advanced fearlessly across the scree until he was about thirty feet from the dragon, put the goat carefully on the ground and walked away, unwinding the fuse.
They had to wait for half an hour before the creature moved. The strangers standing on the crests of the hills stood like statues: silent even among themselves, their faces expressed cold disapproval. Indifferent to the sun which was now immensely strong, they stared fixedly at the reptile, as though willing it not to move.
But at last the dragon, with another bullet in its back, turned suddenly, saw the goat and dragged itself slowly toward it. It was about to stretch out its head and seize its prey when the Count lit the fuse. The spark ran rapidly along it, reached the goat and the charge exploded.
The report was not loud, much less so in fact than the culverin shots: sharp yet muffled, like a plank breaking. Yet the dragon’s body was hurled violently backward, its belly had obviously been ripped open. Once again the head began to move slowly from side to side as though it were saying no, that it wasn’t fair, that they had been too cruel and that there was now no more it could do.
The Count laughed gleefully, but this time he laughed alone.
“Oh, how awful! That’s enough!” gasped Maria, covering her face with her hands.
“Yes,” said her husband slowly, “I agree, this may end badly.”
The monster was lying in a pool of black blood, apparently exhausted. And now from each of its two flanks there rose a column of dark smoke, one on the left and one on the right, two slow-moving plumes rising, it seemed, with difficulty.
“Do you see that?” said Inghirami to his colleague.
“I do,” affirmed the other.
“Two blowholes just like those of the Ceratosaurus, the so-called opercula hammeriana.”
“No,” said Fusti, “it’s not a Ceratosaurus.”
At this juncture Gerol emerged from behind the boulder where he’d been hiding and came forward to deliver the final blow. He was right in the middle of the stretch of gravel with his iron club in his hand, when the assembled company gave a shriek.
For a moment Gerol thought it was a shout of triumph for the slaying of the dragon. Then he became aware of movement behind him. He turned around sharply and saw—ridiculous—two pathetic little creatures tumbling out of the cave and coming toward him at some speed. Two small half-formed reptiles no more than two feet long, diminutive versions of the dying dragon. Two small dragons, its children, probably driven out of the cave by hunger.
It was a matter of minutes. The Count gave a wonderfully skillful performance. “Take that! And that!” he shouted gleefully, swinging the iron club. And two blows were enough. Aimed strongly and decisively, the club struck the two little monsters one after the other and smashed in their heads like glass bowls. They collapsed and lay dead, looking, from a distance, like half-deflated bagpipes.
But now the strangers, without a word, turned and fled up the stony gulleys as though from some unexpected danger. Without making a sound, without dislodging a pebble or turning for a moment to look at the dragon’s cave, they disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.
Now the dragon was moving again—it seemed as though it were never going to make the final effort to die. Dragging itself like a snail and still giving off two puffs of smoke, it went toward the two little dead creatures. When it had reached them it collapsed onto the stones, stretched out its head with infinite difficulty and began to lick them gently, perhaps hoping to resuscitate them.
Finally, the dragon seemed to collect all its remaining strength: it raised its neck toward the sky to emit, first very softly but then with a rising crescendo, an unspeakable, incredible howl, a sound neither animal nor human but one so full of loathing that even Count Gerol stood still, paralyzed with horror.
Now they saw why it had not wanted to go back into its den (where it could have found shelter) and why it hadn’t roared or howled but merely hissed. The dragon was thinking of its children, to save them it had given up its own hope of escape; for if it had hidden in its cave the men would have followed it and discovered its young; and had it made any noise, the little creatures would have come out to see what was happening. Only now, once it had seen them die, did the monster give this terrible shriek.
It was asking for help, and for vengeance for its children. But from whom? From the mountains, parched and uninhabited? From the birdless, cloudless sky, from those men who were torturing it? The shriek pierced the walls of rock and the dome of the sky, it filled the whole world. Unreasonably enough it seemed completely impossible that there should be no reply.
“Who can it be calling?” said Andronico, trying in vain to adopt a lighthearted tone. “Who is it calling? There’s no one coming, as far as I can see.”
“Oh, if only it would die!” said the woman.
But the dragon would not make up its mind to die even though Count Gerol, suddenly maddened by the desire to conclude the business once and for all, shot at it with his rifle. Two shots. In vain. The dragon continued to lick its dead children; ever more slowly, yet surely, a whitish liquid was welling up in its unhurt eye.
“The saurian!” exclaimed Professor Inghirami. “Look, it’s crying!”
The governor said, “It’s late. That’s enough, Martino, it’s time to go.”
Seven times the monster raised its voice, and the rocks and sky resounded. The seventh time it seemed as though the sound were never going to end, but then it suddenly ceased, dropped like a plumb line, vanished into silence.
In the deathly quiet that followed there was a sound of coughing. Covered with dust, his face drawn with effort, weariness and emotion, Count Gerol, throwing his rifle down among the stones, came across the debris coughing, with one hand pressed to his chest.
“What is it?” asked Andronico, no longer joking but with a strange presentiment of d
isaster. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” said Gerol, trying to sound unconcerned. “I just swallowed a bit of that smoke.”
“What smoke?”
Gerol didn’t reply but indicated the dragon with his hand. The monster was lying still, its head stretched out on the stones; except for the two slight plumes of smoke, it looked very dead indeed.
“I think it’s all over,” said Andronico.
It did indeed seem so. The last breath of obstinate life was coming from the dragon’s mouth.
No one had answered his call, no one in the whole world had responded. The mountains were quite still, even the diminutive landslides seemed to have been reabsorbed, the sky was clear without the slightest cloud and the sun was setting. No one, either from this world or the next, had come to avenge the massacre. Man had blotted out this last remaining stain from the world, man so powerful and cunning that wherever he goes he establishes wise laws for maintaining order, irreproachable man who works so hard for the cause of progress and cannot bring himself to allow the survival of dragons, even in the heart of the mountains; man had been the executioner, and recrimination would have been pointless.
What man had done was right, absolutely in accordance with the law. Yet it seemed impossible that no one should have answered the last appeal. Andronico, his wife and the hunters all wanted to escape from the place without more ado; even the two naturalists were willing to give up the usual embalming procedure in order to get away more quickly.
The men from the village had disappeared as though they had felt forebodings of disaster. The shadows climbed the walls of loose rock. The two plumes of smoke continued to rise from the dragon’s shriveled carcass, curling slightly in the still air. All seemed over now, an unhappy incident to be forgotten as soon as possible. But Count Gerol went on coughing. Exhausted, he was seated on a boulder and his friends around him did not dare speak to him. Even the fearless Maria averted her gaze. The only sound was his sharp coughing. All attempts at controlling it were unsuccessful: there was a sort of fire burning ever deeper within him.
“I knew it,” whispered Andronico to his wife, who was trembling a little. “I knew it would end badly.”
The Opening of the Road
JUNE 20, 1845, THE DAY THAT HAD BEEN FIXED, FOR some time, for the inauguration of the new road which was to cover the fifty miles between the capital and San Piero, a town of forty thousand inhabitants situated in an isolated position right at the edge of the kingdom, surrounded by a vast expanse of deserted heathland. Work on the road had been started by the old governor. The new one, who had been elected only two months ago, had not seemed particularly interested in the project and, under the pretext of some minor ailment, had arranged to be represented at the ceremony by Count Carlo Mortimer, Minister of the Interior.
The inaugural journey took place although the road was not completely ready and though the last twelve miles, near San Piero, were nothing more than a rudimentary roadbed; but the foreman assured them that their carriages would be able to complete their journey. Besides, it hardly seemed desirable to postpone this long-awaited ceremony. The people of San Piero were in a ferment of enthusiasm and excitement. At the beginning of June a dozen carrier pigeons arrived in the capital bearing messages of devotion to the governor and announcing that great celebrations were being prepared at San Piero.
So on June 19 the inaugural procession left the capital. It consisted of a mounted escort and four carriages.
In the first rode Count Carlo Mortimer; his secretary, Vasco Detui; the Inspector of Public Works, Vincenzo Lagosi (the father of the Lagosi who was to die so tragically at the battle of Riante); and the builder and contractor Franco Mazzaroli, who had been in charge of building the road.
In the second came the general Antes-Lequoz with his wife, a brave though eccentric woman, and two civil servants.
In the third were the Master of Ceremonies, Don Diego Crampi, with his wife and young secretary, and the doctor Gerolamo Attesi, a surgeon.
The fourth was for the servants and provisions, since food would have been hard to come by during the journey.
Everything went according to plan as far as Passo Terne, a small village where the travelers spent the night. The following day they had only about twenty more miles to go; though twelve of these, as has already been pointed out, would be slow going, and difficult because of the unfinished state of the road.
The august personages left Passo Terne at six in the morning, to be able to travel while it was still cool. They were all in excellent humor, despite the rather particular bleakness of the region through which they were traveling: a stretch of sun-dried plain broken here and there by humps of red earth, about fifty or sixty feet in height. There were few trees, fewer houses and the occasional small hut where the laborers had lived during the making of the road.
After about an hour’s traveling at a brisk trot the travelers arrived at the point where the road, unfinished, became irregular and narrower and the surface less compact. Here they were greeted by a crowd of workmen who had built a rough triumphal arch of planks, decorated with branches and lengths of red cloth.
The horses were forced to move very slowly and the carriages, despite their solid structure, began to bounce and creak. It was very warm, the air was still and heavy with humidity. The countryside became increasingly depressing, an expanse of reddish earth stretching away as far as the horizon on all sides and with little or no vegetation.
Conversation in the carriages began to languish as their occupants became unbearably sleepy. Only Count Mortimer seemed anxious and kept his eyes fixed on the road, which became less practicable foot by foot.
Finally, the third carriage skidded to a standstill; one wheel had sunk into a hole and was thoroughly shattered by repeated attempts to free it. The Master of Ceremonies and his wife and secretary, and the doctor, had to find room in the other coaches.
After two more hours of difficult progress (so that San Piero could not have been more than six miles off) the first coach came to a halt after a series of jolts. The coachman had been half-asleep and hadn’t noticed in time that the metaling stopped suddenly, giving way to rough stony ground; one of the horses had fallen heavily and the vehicle had almost been pulled right over.
They all got out and saw with astonishment that all signs of a road vanished beyond that point. Further ahead there were no signs of any work in progress. Count Mortimer, hoarse with fury, called for Mazzaroli, who was in charge of the proceedings. But Mazzaroli did not appear. He had mysteriously disappeared.
For a moment they stood paralyzed by an indefinable feeling of apprehension. Then, when it became apparent that Mazzaroli wasn’t going to appear and since it was obviously pointless standing there vituperating him for his brazen impudence, Mortimer sent one of the escorts along to a hut more or less built into the base of a wall of rock about a hundred yards off. It was inhabited by an old man who was brought along to speak to Mortimer.
The old man said he knew nothing about the road and that he hadn’t been to San Piero for about twenty years, but that it was a good two hours’ journey away, over a sort of low rocky terrace which could just be seen in the distance, and around a marsh. The region, he added, was almost entirely uninhabited and that therefore there were not even any paths.
This was so monstrous that everyone, including Mortimer, was momentarily completely crushed. There seemed to be no plausible explanation, however far-fetched, for the fact that the roadworks stopped suddenly and that beyond a certain point not a single stone had been moved. Nonetheless, after a few moments they faced the most obvious solution: they must return, hush up the absurd scandal as far as possible and punish those responsible.
But to everyone’s surprise Count Mortimer announced that he intended to continue on foot, since he did not know how to ride a horse. The inhabitants of San Piero were waiting for him; poor people who had spent wildly in order to be able to give him a fitting welcome. The others could go b
ack if they wished. He personally had a definite duty to carry out.
In vain they attempted to dissuade him. It was about midday when the other members of the expedition, feeling morally obliged to follow the Minister, continued their journey on foot, preceded by their mounted escort with what remained of the stack of provisions. The two ladies went back to the capital in the carriage alone.
Over the expanse of heathland, gnawed by centuries and centuries of sun, the heat was tremendous. The progress of the little group was agonizingly slow; their smart but flimsy shoes were not designed for such rough ground and no one had the courage to take off their stifling padded uniforms, heavy with medals, since Mortimer was going ahead without the slightest sign of discomfort.
They had been walking for a little less than half an hour when the leader of the escort reported to the Minister that the horses, without any apparent reason, refused to go any farther; they were allowing themselves to be martyred by the spurs rather than take a single step forward.
This time Mortimer lost his temper and, to save further argument, ordered the escort to turn back, except for four who were to accompany the authorities.
At about two in the afternoon they came to a wretched-looking farm. By some miracle, a peasant had managed to cultivate a small patch of ground and to raise a few goats, so that the exhausted and thirsty travelers were able to refresh themselves a little with drafts of milk. But the relief was short-lived, since the peasant was emphatic that San Piero was no less than four hours’ steady walk away.
The road inexplicably interrupted, the lack of any kind of path, the utter desolation of the region, the fact that San Piero seemed to get farther away the farther they walked: these things all conspired to alarm Mortimer’s companions. They gathered around him and begged him to give up the idea of going on. It was time to escape from the nightmare. It was only too easy to lose one’s way in that wilderness and they obviously couldn’t hope for any help from anybody once they were lost in those infernal regions. It seemed plain that there was some kind of curse on the whole venture. And therefore they should beat a retreat without further ado.