The Dwarf

by Pär Lagerkvist

  ONCE AGAIN Maestro Bernardo has astonished me. Last night the Prince and he had one of their long confidential discussions, and, as so often before, sat eagerly talking until late at night. This proves to me that the sage has not lost his significance nor has he, by his speculative brood-ings, segregated himself from the restless world of today. Not at all. I was thoroughly mistaken.

  It annoys me when I make a mistake like that, though nobody else can see through people and unmask them as I do.

  When I was sent for, in order to wait on them as usual and fetch their wine goblets, they were both bending over some mysterious drawings which at first I could not understand. Later I got a better view of them and heard them being explained during the course of the conversation. They represented the most dreadful engines of war, intended to sow death and panic among the enemy; battle chariots to mow down the soldiery, furnished with long blades so that the ground about them was strewn with human limbs, and other devilish wheeled inventions to be propelled by galloping horses into the midst of the enemy’s ranks. Nothing, not even the greatest courage, could stop these covered wagons filled with inaccessible marksmen which, according to his descriptions, would be able to break through the strongest array, after which the infantry could press forward and do their part. There were instruments of murder so appalling that I, alas, who have never been able to dedicate myself to the art of war, could not properly understand. Mortars, culverins, and falconets spewing fire and stones and cannon balls which severed the heads and arms of the soldiers were depicted realistically and clearly, as though their representation had been as absorbing as all the rest. He also gave a detailed description of the terrible destruction caused by these various engines, of the havoc they would wreak, and he told of all this as calmly and precisely as if he were dealing with any of the other matters in which he takes an interest. One realized that he wanted to see his machines in action, as was quite logical, since they are so wonderful and his own inventions.

  Maestro Bernardo has been planning this simultaneously with his other occupations, his nature studies when he examined his extraordinary pebbles and pulled his flowers apart, and his ferreting in Francesco’s body, which I remember him describing to the Prince as one of nature’s great unfathomable masterpieces and his picture of the Last Supper in Santa Croce with the celestial Christ sitting among His disciples at their love feast with Judas the betrayer crouched in his far corner.

  He has been equally attracted and preoccupied by all these things, so why should he not be just as entranced by his marvelous machines? It may be that the human body is a most ingenious construction, though I cannot look upon it as such. But so is such an instrument and, again, it is his very own discovery.

  Oddly enough the Prince was not so interested in those terrible contrivances which to my mind would be the most effective and which by their appearance alone might stampede a whole army; he preferred the less impressive ones which did not testify to such a macabre and powerful imagination, but which he maintained would be even more efficacious. He observed that the ghastliest of all were more suited to the future, but anything which could possibly be put into practice would be used. Grapnels for the investment of a fortress, a remarkable method of mining bastions and blowing them up, ingenious improvements for catapults and ordnance unknown to the enemy -clearly all these matters already had been fully discussed and partially exploited by them.

  All this impressive material-the incredible profusion of ideas and inventions, the fertile, seemingly boundless inspiration-aroused the Prince’s deepest admiration, and he was enthusiastic in his praises of the master’s genius. Never before had he given such proof of the range of his imagination and ingenuity! All that evening they plunged into the tantalizing realm of fantasy, exchanging opinions as eagerly as during one of the most profitable evenings they had spent before. And I listened to them with pleasure, for I too for once was filled with delight and admiration.

  Now I know why the Prince summoned the great Messer Bernardo, and why he has always treated him as an equal during his stay and always shown him such deep appreciation and flattering attention. I understand his burning interest in all Bernardo’s scholarly efforts, for his nature studies, his incredible knowledge which includes the practical and the useless, and that sensitive admiring verdict on the master’s art, his Last Supper in Santa Croce, and all the other works of the learned man. I undertsand it all!

  He is a great prince!

  LAST NIGHT I had a horrible dream. I thought that I saw Maestro Bernardo standing on a high mountain, tall and imposing with his gray hair and his mighty brow, but the air about his head was full of monsters flapping on bats’ wings, all the foul freaks which I knew from his drawings in Santa Croce. They fluttered about him like imps and it seemed as though he were their master. Their ghostly faces resembled those of lizards and toads, but his remained grave, stern and noble. He seemed just the same as usual. Then, by slow degrees, his body underwent a change. It became shrunken and misshapen, and crumpled wings sprouted forth which joined to the thin hairy legs like those of a bat. His face was as solemn as before, but he began to flutter his wings and suddenly he rose and flew away with the other gruesome creatures into the darkness of the night.

  I do not bother about dreams; they mean nothing and make no difference. Reality is the only thing that matters.

  Obviously he must be misshapen; I decided that long ago.

  BOCCAROSSA HAS crossed the frontier at the head of four thousand men! Already he is four leagues from the border and il Toro has not yet recovered from the surprise attack!

  Such is the tremendous news which aroused the town today like a thunderclap, the unprecedented occurrence which preoccupies all minds!

  The great condottiere had assembled his mercenaries in deepest secrecy in the inaccessible mountain districts at the southwest frontier, and prepared the successful invasion with diabolical cunning. Nobody suspected a thing, not even we ourselves. Only the Prince, the originator of the masterly plan of attack! It is almost inconceivable! One scarcely dares believe it!

  Now the days of the Montanzas draw to a close, and the detestable Lodovico, who is reported to be as hated by his own people as by us, will at last crack his bull neck and shut up the story of his shameless clan.

  He has been completely hoodwinked, the cunning scoundrel! Undoubtedly he suspected that the Prince was planning to attack him, but he knew that no army was being set up here, and so he was lulled into security. And least of all did he expect an onslaught in that part of the country where the ground is so impassable and where he has no border fortresses! It is the end of il Toro! His day of reckoning has come!

  The atmosphere in the town is indescribable. People crowd excitedly together in the streets, gesticulating and talking; or they stand in silence watching the troops march by, the Prince’s own troops which are now being concentrated, though no one knows where they have come from. It is as though they had sprung from the earth. One can see that everything was very carefully and secretly prepared. All the bells are ringing and the churches are crammed to bursting. The priests pray earnestly for the war and obviously it has the blessing of the church. How could it be otherwise? This is going to be a glorious war!

  All the people are rejoicing, and here at court there is no limit to the admiration and enthusiasm for the Prince.

  OUR OWN troops are going to another sector. They will cross the border to the east in the broad river valley, the old classic road of attack. It is only a day’s march away, and there on the level, where the ground is suited to a regular battle and the soil watered with glorious blood, they will join up with the condottiere’s army. That is the plan of campaign! I have worked it out!

  I do not know for certain that that is the plan, but I have picked up bits here and there and come to that conclusion. I am busy finding out everything, keeping up with everything, listening at keyholes, hiding behind cupboards and curtains to hear as much as possible of the great impending events.r />
  What a plan of attack! And of course it must succeed. There are fortresses on that section of the border, but they will fall. Maybe they will surrender straightway, knowing the hopelessness of resistance. Maybe they will be stormed. In any case, they will not stop us. Nothing can stop us, since the initial assault came as such a surprise, catching them unawares.

  And the Prince-what a general! What a sly fox! Such cunning, such foresight! And what grandeur in the whole plan of campaign!

  It fills me with pride to be the dwarf of such a prince.

  I can think of one thing only: how can I go to the war? I must. But how? How can my dream be realized? I have no military training in the ordinary sense such as is necessary to an officer or even a common soldier. But I can bear arms! And fence like a man! My rapier is as good as anybody’s! Maybe not quite so long, but a short sword is not the least dangerous! The enemy will soon find that outl

  This constant brooding makes me ill, the fear of being left behind with the women and children, of not being allowed to go along when at last something is actually happening. And the bloodiest slaughter may be just now, at the very beginning.

  I crave blood!

  I AM GOING with them! I am going with them!

  This morning I plucked up my courage and confided in the Prince, telling him my burning wish to share in the campaign. I presented my request with such passion that it made an obvious impression on him. Also I was fortunate enough to arrive at a time when he was in a particularly favorable mood. He passed his hand over his cropped fringed hair as is his wont when in good humor and his black eyes glittered as he looked at me.

  Naturally I could go to war, he said. He was going himself and would take me along as a matter of course. Can a prince be without his dwarf? Who else would pour his wine, he added, smiling at rne.

  I am going with them! I am going with them!

  AT PRESENT I am in a tent on a mound with a few pine trees, from which one has an excellent view of the enemy on the level ground below. The tent is in the Prince’s colors, striped with red and yellow, and its rattlings are as stimulating as a fanfare of trumpets. I am fully armed, just like the Prince, with breastplate and helmet, and my sword in a silver baldric by my side. It is near sunset, and for the moment I am alone. I can hear the officers’ voices planning the morrow’s attack, and in the distance the gay melodious songs of the soldiers. I can glimpse il Toro’s black-and-white tent down below and the men about it looking so small as to be innocuous; far off to the left are unarmed knights, stripped to the waist, watering their horses in the river.

  We have been in the field for more than a week, and the time has been crammed with great happenings. The campaign has developed exactly as I prophesied. We stormed the border forts after bombarding them with Messer Bernardo’s excellent culverins; the effect of their awe-inspiring cannonade was unsurpassed, and terrorized the garrison into surrender. Il Toro sent inadequate troops against us, taken from the forces with which he was trying to check Boccarossa’s advance, and we have fought some fierce skirmishes with them. However, they were vastly inferior to us, so the victory has always been ours. During this time Boccarossa’s army, opposed to ever weakening and dwindling troops, has pressed forward over the lowlands, burning and pillaging and always bearing north in order to make contact with us. This longed-for and vital objective was attained at midday yesterday, and now we stand together on the slopes between the lowland and the mountains, a combined host of more than fifteen thousand men, including two thousand horsemen.

  I was present at the meeting between the Prince and his condottiere. It was a historic moment, never to be forgotten. The Prince, who has been rejuvenated these days in a manner which arouses general admiration, was clad in a suit of splendid armor, with breastplate and armpieces of silver gilt. On his helmet were plumes of yellow and red which dipped and swayed as, surrounded by his foremost captains, he courteously greeted his celebrated brother in arms. For once there was a faint color on his pale and aristocratic face and the thin lips were curved in a candid and friendly smile which, like everything else connected with him, was yet reticent and somewhat cautious. Opposite him stood Boccarossa, broad and powerful, with a body that, to me, seemed gigantic. I had a peculiar sensation of never having seen him before. He had come straight from the battle. He wore steel armor, very plain in comparison with that of the Prince, and its only adornment was a beast’s head in bronze on the cuirass, an enraged lion whose tongue protruded from its gaping jaws. His helmet had no crest and no ornament of any kind, but fitted close to that head of his which seemed the most terrifying I had ever seen. The jaw alone of that fat pockmarked visage was enough to inspire awe; the thick blackish red lips were pressed together into a mouth which seemed incapable of opening, and the expression which crouched brooding within the eyes might force an adversary into submission without ever leaving them, merely by showing that it was there. He was a frightening sight, but more of a man than anybody else whom I ever have met. I must admit that he made such an impression on me that I may never be able to rid myself of it. He was a revelation of something-I know not what. Perhaps of humanity when it really is capable of something. As though bewitched, I stood and scrutinized him with that ancient gaze of mine which has already witnessed everything, with my dwarf’s eyes in which all the centuries dwell.

  He was taciturn, said practically nothing. It was the others who spoke. Once he smiled at some utterance of the Prince. I do not know why I say that he smiled-but it was an expression that, on another face, might have been called a smile.

  I wonder if, like me, he cannot smile?

  He is no smooth-face like the rest and no newborn babe either, but of ancient race, though not so old as my own.

  The Prince seemed somewhat insignificant beside him, and I admit it, despite my great admiration for my lord, which I have often emphasized, particularly of late.

  I hope that I may see him in combat.

  For the great battle is to take place tomorrow morning. One might think that the attack should have been made at once, as soon as the two armies had met, and before Lodovico had had a chance to take breath and assemble his scattered forces, as now he has been able to. I pointed this out to the Prince, but he replied that the men must have a rest first. Besides, one must be chivalrous to one’s opponent and give him time to get into battle array before starting such a momentous action. I expressed my doubts as to the wisdom and justification of such a strategy. He answered: “Wise or not, I am a knight and must act as such. You do not have to.” I shook my head. There is no understanding the character of that peculiar man. I wonder what Boccarossa thinks of it all.

  There can be no doubt that il Toro has put his respite to good account. All day we have been able to see it from up here. He even has been able to procure reinforcements.

  But we shall win; that goes without saying. And it may be an advantage if he collects as many men as possible, since that makes all the more for us to slay. The greater the enemy, the greater the victory. He ought to realize that he will be defeated anyhow and that, therefore, it would be better not to have so many men. But he is overconfident and as obstinate as a mule.

  But it would be wrong to think that he is not dangerous. He is sly, cunning, and ruthless, a really fine general. He would be a terrible adversary if the war had not caught him unawares. The significance of our surprise attack becomes more and more evident and doubtless we shall be reminded of it during the whole campaign.

  I know all the details of the plan for tomorrow’s attack. Our-that is to say, the Prince’s-army, will attack their center, Boccarossa’s, their left wing. We shall form not one but two fronts, as is quite natural, since we have two armies at our disposition. The enemy who has but one will be compelled to fight on two fronts, and obviously he will thereby encounter many difficulties which we shall avoid. There can be no doubt of the outcome, but we must be prepared for certain losses. I think it will be a bloody business, but nothing can be achieved without sa
crifice. And this battle is so vitally important that its outcome will probably decide the future course of the war. In such circumstances it is worth while to sacrifice a good deal.

  The secrets of warfare, once a sealed book to me, interest me more and more. And the ups and downs of life in the field appeal to me enormously. It is a marvelous life! Body and soul feel liberated when you take part in war. One becomes a new man. I have never felt so well. I breathe so easily, I move so easily. It is as though my body were as light as air.

  Never in all my life have I been so happy. I even feel as though I had never been happy before.

  Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

  I am as happy as a child at the thought of the battle.

  I jot down a few lines in haste.

  We have won a victory, a glorious victory! The enemy is retreating in disarray and trying in vain to reassemble his scattered troops. We are following them up! The road to Montanza’s hitherto un-conquered city lies open before us.

  As soon as events permit I shall give a detailed description of the wonderful engagement.

  Events speak for themselves, words have no further meaning. I have exchanged the pen for the sword.

  AT LAST I have leisure to write. We have been fighting and advancing all the time for several days and it has been impossible to give a thought to anything else. Sometimes we have not even had time to pitch a tent for the night, but have camped in the open among the vineyards and the olive groves, wrapped in our cloaks, pillowing our heads on stones. A wonderful life! But now it is a little calmer. The Prince says we need a breathing space and he may be right. Even perpetual successes can be exhausting in the long run.

  Now we are only a league from the town and can see it lying before us with its towers and battlements, its churches and belfries and Montanza’s old castle on a rise in the center with other smaller houses clustering around, the whole surrounded by a high wall. A veritable nest of robbers! We can hear the pealing of the church bells, presumably calling upon God to save them. We shall see to it that he has no opportunity of granting their prayers. Il Toro has assembled the remnants of his army here, between us and the city. He has rounded up all the men he can get hold of, but they will not suffice for he has already been too badly mauled. Once more the outcome is a certainty. A great commander like that ought to realize the hopelessness of his position. Apparently he intends to do his best and mobilize his uttermost resources in the hope of cheating fate. This is his last attempt to save the city.