The Dwarf

by Pär Lagerkvist

  Our troops do nothing but withdraw. The enemy is said to be not so very far from the town, though I do not know exactly where, and the information is so shifting that one cannot keep track of it. Always the same wearisome reports that our men resisted but now are on the retreat, that now they are going to make a stand and then that they are obliged to retreat again. And the flood of refugees goes on just the same, filling the town with their cattle, their rags, and their jeremiads.

  A queer war!

  IN POINT of fact I quite understand the Prince’s indifference and his readiness to leave everything to his staff. He is not interested in defensive tactics, they do not amuse him. He is like me-he likes to take the initiative. Ours is the spirit of attack. There is no pleasure in defending oneself, only an endless monotony with no glamour or excitement. And what is the use of it? It is too futile for words. Nobody can want to bother about anything like that. This is a boring war.

  The Montanza – Boccarossa army can be seen from the city walls. This evening from my window up in the dwarfs’ apartment I can see the light of their campfires on the plain. It is a fascinating sight in the darkness.

  I can almost picture the faces of the mercenaries as they sit around the fires discussing the exploits of the day. They throw a few olive roots on the fire, and their features are hard and resolute in the light of its dancing flames. These are men who carry their fate in their hands and who do not live in perpetual suspense for the future. They light their campfires in any country and do not care which people provide their livelihood. It is all one to them which prince they serve-and in reality they serve only themselves. When they are weary they stretch themselves out in the darkness and rest for the morrow’s slaughter. They are a people without a country, but the whole world is theirs.

  It is a beautiful evening. The autumn air blows clear and cool from the mountains, and the stars must be shining. I have been sitting here for a long time at the window, watching the numerous fires. Now I too shall go to rest.

  It is strange that I who can see the fires which are so far away cannot perceive the stars. I have never been able to. My eyes are not like others’ but there is nothing the matter with them, for I can distinguish everything on earth very clearly.

  I OFTEN think about Boccarossa. I can picture him, huge, nearly gigantic, with his pockmarked face, his animal jaw, and that gaze in the depths of his eyes. And the lion’s mask on his breastplate, the grinning beast of prey sticking out its tongue at everything.

  Our troops have come fleeing into the town after an engagement which was fought just outside the ramparts. It was a gory battle which cost us many hundred dead, not to mention the wounded who crawled in through the city gates or were dragged in by women who are said to have gone out to seek their sons and husbands on the battlefield.

  Our soldiers were in a lamentable condition when they finally gave up and withdrew within the walls. Since their arrival there has been confusion in the town which is crammed to bursting, far too full of warriors, wounded and myriads of refugees from the countryside. Everything is one huge muddle, and the atmosphere is deplorable. People sleep in the streets though the nights are beginning to be chilly, and even in the daytime one can stumble over exhausted slumberers and over the wounded whom nobody has any time to attend to, though they may have had their hurts bandaged. The whole thing is hopeless, and the thought of the coming siege now that the enemy has completely surrounded the city does not help to disperse the utter despondency.

  Is it worth while trying to resist somebody like Boccarossa? Personally, I never anticipated any success in this war.

  But they say that the city is to be defended to the last drop of blood, and also that it is strongly fortified and can ho’d out for a long time, even that it is impregnable. But so are all cities until they are taken. I have my own opinion of its impregnability.

  The Prince has awakened and has begun to assume the leadership of the defense. He is unpopular and meets with no applause when he shows himself. Folk think that the murder of Montanza and his people was the act of a lunatic and can lead to nothing but more war and misery.

  The Princess is up and about again and has begun to eat a little, but she is not at all herself. She has become much thinner and the skin of her erstwhile plump face is dry and gray. She really is completely altered. Her clothes hang on her as though they had been made for someone else. She goes dressed in black. When she speaks it is in a low almost whispering voice. Her mouth is still withered and her thinness has changed the expression of her face, the eye sockets are sunken and dark about the unnaturally burning eyes.

  She kneels for hours in prayer before the crucifix, until her knees are so stiff and painful that she can scarcely rise. I have of course no idea what her prayers are about, but they cannot be answered since she goes on day after day.

  She never leaves her room.

  MAESTRO BERNARDO is said to be helping the Prince to strengthen the fortifications and inventing all kinds of ingenious arrangements for the defense of the town. Report says that the work is pursued with energy and goes on night and day.

  I have great confidence in Maestro Bernardo’s art and skill, but I do not think that he has much chance against Boccarossa. The old master is a great spirit, and his thoughts and knowledge comprehend nearly everything; indisputably he has great powers at his disposal which he has conquered from nature and which really obey him, presumably against their will. But Boccarossa seems to me as though he himself were one of those powers, as though they served him as a matter of course, and much more willingly. I think he is nearer nature.

  Bernardo is a changed person, his haughty noble features always fill me with misgiving.

  I think that it will be an unequal struggle.

  If one saw them side by side, Bernardo with his philosopher’s brow and Boccarossa with his powerful leonine jaw, there would be no doubt as to which were the stronger.

  FOOD IS beginning to run short in the town. Of course we do not notice it at the court, but they say the people are starving. Nor is that peculiar, with all the superfluous inhabitants who have no business to be here. The refugees are more and more disliked, being regarded, and rightly so, as the cause of the food shortage. They are a burden to the citizens. Most unpopular of all are their whining dirty children who go begging all over the place and are even said to steal when they get the chance. Bread is doled out twice a week but very little, for no preparations had been made for a siege and the stores are small. Soon they will come to an end. The refugees who had a cow or goat with them and lived on the milk have now slaughtered their emaciated beasts who were already nearly dead of starvation, and kept themselves alive with the meat which they could also exchange for flour and other necessities. Now they have nothing left and the townspeople affirm that they have hidden their meat and are better off than themselves, but I do not believe it, for they do not look like that. They are thin and seem very undernourished. This does not mean that I have any sympathy for these people; I share the town dwellers’ aversion to them. They are stupid like all peasants, and spend most of their time sitting and staring. They have no intercourse with outsiders, but have divided themselves up according to their different villages and keep together in their dirty camps, the little bit of the square where they keep their old rags and which they seem to regard as a kind of home. In the evening they sit around their fires, if they have been able to procure any fuel, and talk in their imbecile language, of which scarcely a word is comprehensible. Nor would it be worth listening to if it were.

  The filth and stench from all these people camping in the squares and streets is appalling. All this foulness is unbearable to me who am scrupulously clean about my person and very sensitive to any unpleasant features in my surroundings. Many consider that I am unduly susceptible in my detestation of human excrement and its smell. These primitive creatures are like the cattle with which they associate, and relieve themselves anywhere. It is too swinish for words. The air stinks of it and I fi
nd the condition of the streets and squares so disgusting that I try to avoid going into the town. I do not have to carry so many messages now since the Princess’ extraordinary change and Don Riccardo’s timely death.

  All these homeless people sleep in the open at night and cannot be too snug in their rags now that an unusually hard winter has set in. They say that some have been found frozen to death in the morning, that some scarecrow who remained prone when all the others had got up proved on closer examination to be dead. But they die more of their privations than of the actual cold, and then only the old folk who lack stamina and natural bodily warmth. Nobody minds their dying; they are only a burden to the others, and there are far too many people here in the town.

  Boccarossa’s men lack nothing. The whole country is at their disposal for plunder, and they make longer and longer forays into the interior to provide for their needs. They burn the villages as soon as they have taken what they want, and one can often see the reflection of distant fires in the sky at night. The surrounding district has long been completely devastated.

  Oddly enough they have not yet attempted to storm the town. This surprises me, for it would have been an easy prey. Maybe they think that it is easier to starve it out; they have nothing against a siege when they can simultaneously pillage the countryside.

  ANGELICA wanders listlessly about in idleness. Formerly she at least used to occupy herself with her embroidery. She is generally down by the river and sits there feeding the swans or merely watching it glide by. Sometimes she spends the whole evening at her window, gazing at the enemy’s tents and bivouac fires and the plundered plain. I suppose that reminds her of her prince.

  People look so strangely idiotic when they are in love, and particularly when they love in vain. The expression of their faces becomes peculiarly foolish and I cannot understand how anybody can say that love makes them more beautiful. Her eyes are, if possible, blanker and sillier than ever, and her cheeks are pale, not at all as they were during the banquet. But her mouth seems larger, the lips fuller, and it is plain that she is no longer a child.

  Probably I am the only one who knows her criminal secret.

  To my astonishment the Princess asked me today if I thought that Christ hated her. I answered quite truthfully that I knew nothing about it. She looked at me with her burning eyes and seemed distressed. But He must hate her, for He never allowed her any peace, and then He must hate her because of all her sins. I found this very likely and said so. The fact that I shared her opinion seemed to calm her and she sank into a chair, sighing deeply. I did not quite know what I was doing there, for as usual she had no task for me. After a moment I asked if I might go, and she replied that she had no power to decide that, but at the same time she gazed pleadingly at me as though she wanted me to help her. But I found the situation uncomfortable and went away. When I reached the doorway she flung herself on her knees before the crucifix and began desperately to gabble her prayers, clutching the rosary between her thin fingers.

  It made a strange perplexing impression on me. What has happened to the old nincompoop?

  OBVIOUSLY she genuinely believes that He hates her. She returned to the subject again today. She said that all her prayers were of no avail, for He still refused to forgive her. He will not listen to her and ignores her existence, except that He never allows her a moment’s peace. It is so dreadful that she cannot endure it. I said that I thought she ought to appeal to her father confessor who has always shown such sympathy and understanding for her spiritual difficulties. She shook her head; she had already done so, but he could give her no help. He did not understand her at all. He thought that she was without sin. I smiled sneeringly at this utterance from the smug monk.

  Then she asked me what I thought of her. I said that I considered her a voluptuous woman and that I was sure that she was one of those who are destined to burn for all eternity in the fires of hell. At this, she flung herself on her knees before me and wrung her clasped hands so that the knuckles whitened, moaning and sighing and beseeching my mercy and deliverance in her great distress. I let her lie writhing at my feet, partly because I had no means of helping her and partly because I thought it was only right and proper that she should suffer. She seized my hand and moistened it with her tears, even tried to kiss it, but I pulled it back and would not let her carry on like that. This made her moan and whimper even more, and seemingly reduced her to a state of utter despair and agitation. “Confess thy sins!” I said, aware that my face was very stern. And she began to confess all her sins, her lewd life, her lawless affairs with men toward whom the devil had filled her with desire, and her voluptuous pleasure when she felt that she was ensnared in the devil’s noose. I compelled her to describe her sins in detail and the horrible satisfactions they yielded and the names of those with whom she had had criminal relations. She obeyed all my commands and gave me a terrible picture of her revolting life. But she did not mention Don Riccardo and I commented on this. She looked inquiringly at me and seemed not to grasp my meaning. Was that too a sin? I informed her that it was the most heinous of all. This did not seem at all clear to her, and she looked at me in wonder, almost in doubt. I could see that she began to ponder what I had said, this notion which was so foreign to her, and that her ponderings gave her food for anxiety. I asked her whether she had not loved him best of all. “Yes,” she whispered, in a scarcely audible voice, and fell to weeping again, but not in the same way as before, more as most people weep. She went on for so long that I had no wish to stay there listening to her, but told her that now I must go. She looked pleadingly and hopelessly at me and asked if I could give her no consolation. What could she do to make Christ have mercy upon her? I answered that it was presumptuous of her to ask such a thing, for she was so full of sin that it was natural that the Savior should not listen to her prayers. He had not been crucified for the redemption of such as she. She listened meekly and said that she felt that too. She was not worthly that He should listen to her. She was aware of this in her innermost consciousness when she knelt praying before his image. She sat down sighing, but somewhat calmer, and began to talk about herself as the most depraved of all mankind, and that she never could share in the heavenly grace. “I have loved much,” she said, “but I have not loved God and His Son, and so my punishment is only just.”

  Then she thanked me for my kindness. It was a relief to be able to confess, even if, as she well understood, she could not hope for any absolution. And it was the first time she had been able to weep.

  I left her sitting there with red-rimmed eyes and her hair ruffled like an old birds’ nest.

  THE PRINCE spends much of his time with Fiammetta. Often they sit together alone after supper and I have to stay and wait upon them. At one time he used to linger there like that with the Princess, but very seldom. Fiammetta is quite a different type, cold, sedate, and unattainable, a real beauty. Her dark face is the hardest I have ever seen in a woman and if it were less lovely one would surely find it devoid of gentleness. There is an irresistible power about the coal-black eyes with their single spark.

  I presume that she is frigid in love and not lavish with herself, but demands much and requires complete submission from those whom she condescends to love. Perhaps the Prince likes this and is willing to put up with it. For all I know, cold-ness in love may be as much relished as warmth.

  Personally I have nothing against her, unlike all the others. She treats the servants as though they were dust, and they say that they are not accustomed to such, that she is not. their mistress but only a concubine. She does not seem to regard the other court ladies as her equals, but I wonder if she ever did, or if she ever has regarded anyone as her equal. It does not look like ordinary superciliousness, but more like an innate pride. Naturally they are furious, but they dare not show it, for if Madama should never return here, then Fiammetta might well replace her.

  All the court says that she has let herself be “seduced” from sheer ambition, and that she is as co
ld-blooded as a fish, and that it is all extremely indecent. I do not understand what they mean, for, unlike the others who lower themselves to such infamies, she does not appear immodest.

  Certainly the Prince is greatly charmed with her and is always exceedingly polite and witty in her presence. Otherwise he seems rather restless, nervous and irritable, and occasionally violent with his servants, and even with very distinguished persons. He was never like that before. They say that he is very annoyed over the development of events and not least over the people’s discontent with him, for he is no longer what they call popular. He is particularly bad-humored when the hungry come and shout for bread beneath the castle windows.

  I find it unworthy of a prince to pay any attention to the thoughts and sayings of the mob which surrounds him. They are always shouting for something. One would be kept very busy if one bothered with everything the people shout about.

  They say that he has had the old court astrologer Nicodemus and the other long-beards secretly thrashed because of their extraordinarily favorable prophecies. It is not improbable. His father did so, though then it was because they prophesied something which opposed his wishes.

  It is not easy to read the stars, and to read them so that men are pleased with what is written there.

  IN THE town the situation is getting worse and worse; it is nothing less than sheer famine. Every day many die of hunger, or of cold and hunger combined, it is difficult to say which. The streets and squares are full of folk who cannot get up and who seem indifferent to their surroundings. Others wander about in an emaciated condition looking for something edible, or at least something with which to appease their hunger. Cats, dogs, and rats are hunted down and regarded as excellent fare. At the beginning of the siege the rats were held to be a menace to the refugee camps whose rubbish heaps attracted them, but now they are a desirable quarry. However, they are becoming more and more of a rarity. They seem to have had some kind of disease, for their corpses are all over the place, thereby failing the people when they were really needed.