His inner being experienced no ordinary human joy, let alone merriment. Pain and Horror ruled, but they were of a kind that embraces all the joy and light of the world in a glorious, weighty reconciliation. Lofty melodies marched through his soul majestically like columns of long dead, spectral armies – funeral processions that are the Dithyramb of Rebirth. –
He spent the afternoon in the hotel, writing in rapt delight, trying to cram into a few pages his entire life and soul – his last testament. In the evening, he went to the garden restaurant, and he sat in a dark corner, blissfully drinking his wine, content. The warm fragrant evening nestled up to him as if to implore: “Do not abandon earthly seductiveness!” He laughed at it, knowing that Tomorrow will again be a Day, that Tomorrows and Mornings will be eternal.
He had altered his appearance as best he could, though not from fear: “If they arrest me, I will not be able to free Her ...”
Suddenly a colossal figure waddled towards him. “Oh, the local doctor!” he said to himself and slightly averted his face. Even so, the figure stopped in front of him. It was clear the dear doctor was once again in a buoyant mood, if not yet inebriated.
“Hey, don’t we know each other?”
“We do,” Sider said and laughed.
“Hell, you’ve disguised yourself! You can’t fool me. I’d recognise your eyes even if under ten pairs of green glasses. – Hah, you’re Old Barbora’s murderer!” he bellowed so loudly the other guests sitting nearby started to get up. “I’ve finally caught you! Hey, police, over here!”
Sider calmly removed his glasses. “Forgive me, Orea, that we won’t see each other tomorrow on the mountain. Forgive me all this social dirt. I am guilty of it. Forgive me for being a human ... ,” and smiling he looked at the doctor.
“Well look here, he’s not afraid!” the doctor said in disappointment, having scrutinised Sider’s face for a while. “Aha, you already know what old lady Háta confessed to!”
“I do not.”
“Hey,” the doctor boomed, sitting down slowly next to Sider, “how much longer is it going to take, headwaiter, footwaiter?”
“Here you go, kind sir!” said the waiter, bringing the usual bottle of cognac.
The doctor drank a quarter litre in one go. “Ah, ah –,” he let off some steam while stroking his belly. “A man can’t even wet his lips while hard at work all day.” He turned to Sider: “I have to admit that I behaved towards you – a bit inhumanly – yes, like a pig ... But I knew that you already knew about Háta’s confession.”
“That Old Barbora wasn’t strangled –?”
“Nonsense, man! Háta was the one who strangled her. Yes, yes, don’t look at me like that! ‘That gentleman,’ she said, ‘is as innocent as a lily. As he was running away my mother started to come round, and I, now filled with joy that the Lord had finally called her to Him, couldn’t stand it anymore and committed sin.’ ”
“So why did she strangle her?” Sider asked nonchalantly.
“My dear little friend, now that you’ve turned yourself into a psychologist, it’s rather interesting for you. She confessed to strangling her mum not because she had been a burden to her, Háta, for so long, and it wasn’t out of mercy either, from not being able to bear the sight of someone perpetually half-dead, not even because she imagined she’d actually be doing a good deed, nor on account of any inheritance – after all, for thirty-five years she had been de facto owner of the house and all belonging to it. No: this was about formal ownership, the legal title. She said she had dreamed for years of seeing in black and white on the official deed: Háta, owner of cottage number such and such.”
“A very good illustration,” Sider remarked, “of the inconceivable perversity of human nature. To not shrink from murdering one’s own mother and incriminating an innocent person for the most despicable crime because of something so trivial. It’s an interesting twist of Fate that she died in the rubble of her own shack.”
“Ha ha, you, my dear fellow, are as superstitious as the God-fearing people of these parts! – Well, no need to fear anything any longer, you brigand, and let’s raise our glasses to that!” He poured another glassful down his gullet. “Ah, ah –”
“I’ve also been charged with an offence I actually committed, an act of violence against your dear friend the psychiatrist.”
“Nonsense! Our state does not extradite foreign nationals for some lousy fiddle-faddle like knocking someone unconscious. Even if it turned out not to be the case, it would just be a fine of a hundred or so, now that you’re known to be neither a murderer nor a thief – and he’s a cretin and a scoundrel! Don’t you dare doubt that, or you’ll have me to contend with! After all, you’re the one responsible for giving his gob such a fine smacking! You’d never done anything worthwhile in your life, but for sorting him out like this the Lord will forgive you all your misdeeds. Damn it, you’re my friend, you went there just to avenge me! I’m supposed to have dementia praecox – the rogue!” He stood up and waved his arms as though fencing with an invisible adversary. “I wonder if you know, my dear fellow, that this payback has turned him, merely a nitwit before, into a complete imbecile? He’s suffered a softening of the brain since; he has dementia praecox. He no longer even knows the difference between a vein and an artery, and he can’t tell the difference between convex and concave glass; recently he ordered convex glasses for one farsighted lunatic, ha ha! And the swine has started drinking to boot, and he’s bringing the entire medical profession into disrepute with his constant drunkenness. I’m surprised they haven’t thrown the rascal out yet.”
“But have you, Doctor, been bestowed the recognition and honours you undoubtedly deserve over these past three years?”
“Of course I have, my dear fellow. I was appointed medical councillor and awarded the Order of St. George First Degree.”
“Do you know anything about Mrs Errata S. escaping from the lunatic asylum?”
“You little rascal, how could I not know, I of all people!?”
“I’m not suspected of her murder, am I?”
“Listen, you don’t suffer from persecution mania, do you? They couldn’t care less about you. They found her in the pond right behind the asylum – she’d hung herself, or more accurately, she’d drowned.”
“Did they prove her identity beyond any doubt?”
“Absolutely. You really are a moron.”
“And who was the lady arrested a month ago allegedly for scaring people on Stag’s Head?”
“I’ll tell you that as well. She’s the wife of an industrialist who tramped over to the other side of the mountain for a summer vacation for the first time this year. Young, dishy, she has three children and a head full of straw; nothing eccentric about her. The devil only knows why she twice tried to scare people on the mountain, and really stupidly at that. She hung green brushwood on her body from head to toe and howled at people up on the slopes. They caught her soon enough. At first she claimed she was the one who had been frightening people out of their wits up there for so many years, but once she had been shown that this was impossible, she broke down in tears and admitted that the real spirit of Stag’s Head appeared to her once in the forest and ordered her, so she said, to haunt the place in her stead during May. She claimed she was to serve as bait that some unknown person would run after. She had completely succumbed to the power of this suggestion, spoke under its influence even while in detention. Even so, she was set free.”
Only a slight shudder ran through Sider upon hearing this news, which a few days before would have totally crushed him, as it meant the death sentence for him. “What’s your view on the whole matter?” he inquired coldly.
“Someone was responsible for those pranks, of course. It stands to reason it wasn’t a ghost. Or are you, my dear friend, such a noodlehead to believe it was? You know what it was? It was a man dressed up as a woman! A strong, nimble, cunning rascal, just like yourself. He also had the power of animal magnetism, hypnotic abilities – te
le– telepathic, you pathetic lump. He also understood science. Do you know what science is, you rummy?” This word reminded him of the duties of a guest and he downed another glass. “Ah, ah! ... hocus pocus it was, pres–ti–digitation, electricity and trick photography,” he said with a mighty hiccup that sounded like a dog barking, “all in all a load of humbug like that silly novel The Castle of the Carpathians. In the story some prima donna walks along the castle batt–le–ments – and she sings – but she’s been long dead, just as dead as you’re a complete pig – and don’t you get it? all of it was science! Do you know what science is? Science is – science,” he roared like a bull, “and anyone who doesn’t believe in science hook, line, and sinker has me to answer to – you crackpot, you – superstitious – ninny –”
He reached for his glass again, which the waiter had refilled in the meantime, but he knocked it over. Without even noticing, he drank from the empty glass. “Ah, ah! ...” And suddenly becoming tender: “I told you off, but I respect you, I adore you, you swine – but mark the words of a wise, sixty-year-old man – don’t take stock in sup– super– superstition – be po– po– positive – I behave like a pig sometimes, but I always know what I’m say– saying. I – I’m a good person – and that cretin the psychiatrist alleges I have dementia pr– pr. Psychiatrist – nonsense – that’s no science! There’s no soul, only matter – the brain – there’s no psycheee, so therefore there’s no psychiatrist either, especially not one that’s such a scoundrel, who drinks like a fish every day, attends to his patients drunk, or topples over even before he gets to see them – and someone like that tells me that I have dem–, my dear sir, something like that hurts, until the end of my days it will gnaw at my heart.” His head fell onto his elbows and he started to weep loudly.
“It was a pleasure, Doctor,” Sider squeezed his shoulder and started walking away.
“Stop, stop, traitor!” the doctor roared and stood up. Sider walked on. “Stop! I loved you affectionately, stop!”
Sider turned round. The doctor rushed towards him like a rhinoceros charging at full tilt. Sider stepped out of the way, and the doctor would have taken a dive had Sider not caught him and sat him down on the nearest bench with a quick jerk. But the physician showed no appreciation for this good deed, and having recovered, he brayed:
“Ha ha! Now I recognise you, You’re the psychiatrist! You and no one else! That noble gentleman who slapped you around, he’s my greatest friend! Don’t deny it, villain! You killed all your patients – ha ha, only now I know – you, you are the ghost of Stag’s Head – don’t deny it, scumbag, you’re that charlatan of science, you’re that – Castle of the Carpathians,” – he fell back on the bench and mumbled – “I – I – po– po– positivism –”
As he was leaving, Sider could hear the sound of heavy snoring.
•
The tops of the western mountains glittered with gold under the gaze of the rising sun as Sider rose from his bed after the most beautiful of all sleeps: the kind that when waking seems like a second and eternity simultaneously, having been a single triumphant stream of infinite, adamantine, otherworldly, and yet entirely forgotten dreams. – He went to the window and opened it.
He had never seen a sky so stupefyingly, vertiginously blue and deep, never had he heard birdsong so polyphonic and sparkling, never before had such powerful currents of such mystical fragrances rushed towards him. For a long, long, long time he stood there in celestial ecstasy. And as the invisible sun, incandescent gold sublimated into gas, rose higher and higher, lower and lower its powerful, golden gaze descended down the sides of the western colossi, just as the more a thought rises towards God, the more it descends into the lowlands and the swamps of humanity ... The golden robe had already slid down from the crown of Stag’s Head almost to its foot when for the second time – now standing – Sider awoke from a dream.
“How beautiful it is here, as if Earth had gathered all her jewels into one pile and thrown them before me, beseeching: ‘Don’t leave me!’ And to be honest – I’m almost tempted – – perish the thought, you’re not allowed even to knock on my door today! See, your finger just grazes my door – and already I’m somehow atremble ... Away with you, ogre, for I am going to my execution – ugh, ugh, this thought will continue to menace me if I don’t snuff it out while it’s still embryonic! ... Love of the earth is the mother of all cowardice, its only mother; courageous is every thought of Eternity; to see sub specie aeternitatis – and Courage itself – these are identical concepts to the core! ...”
He quickly added a few lines to the pages he’d written the day before, looked at photographs of his parents and a few of his other most cherished items – and abruptly he cast everything aside in irritation and quickly got dressed. His sublime mood returned in full.
He was ready; once more he went to the window. “I was in this very room on that hauntingly beautiful morning when, as I was about to leave, I saw the coloured dots up there on the mountain ... That day was just as blue and just as bewitching ... Today I am also leaving – though I’m going a bit further ... But – am I mistaken? Nothing – might happen up there. Maybe in the end it will all turn out to have been a dreary farce – as is customary in this world of ours. Will I see – Her today of all days? ... It’s a paradox – but no, I feel that my soul will evoke Her, must evoke Her! She has turned into an enchanted orchard whose irresistible allure attracts all the magical birds of the cosmos. There is not the slightest atomic quiver that has not been caused solely, solely by –Will; only those who lack it seek causes elsewhere, in something outside of themselves, in ‘nature,’ in ‘God’ ... Farewell, little room, to a speedy Reencounter!”
Turning away from the window something suddenly startled him. He looked – and slowly turned pale ...
On the side of Stag’s Head, about 100 metres above Cortona, he saw two dots: blue and – – – red ... He grabbed his field glasses. Yes, they were ascending, very slowly ... ; without a doubt it was the women ...
“Just like before ... ! Sublime horror of the All – how lethally my soul is being flooded by – an otherworldly Niagara ... Orea! Also – – Errata! Graves are opening. Eternity herself is flinging her arms around me – I must not sink –
“But is it Errata? ... Right now it’s nothing more than a red dot. I’m being ridiculous by jumping to conclusions ... Maybe even Orea – ... Maybe yesterday that doctor fellow was right after all. It’s not out of the question that it’s all some infernal, fiendish hocus-pocus. Strictly speaking, everything, everything, even what happened in Cliff Street, could always be explained in ‘a completely natural way,’ whether it’s supernatural phenomena sanctioned by science, such as ‘suggestion,’ ‘telepathy,’ or ‘hallucination,’ – and of course by timeless design, finality in All-Happening – which of course thus becomes God ... Pah to all these imbecilic human concepts! The concept of reality is nonsensical – it was only created by beggarly animalistic conceit – as was its complement: illusion! – no: fantastic Super-Splendour is the All!: and therein lies the alpha and omega of wisdom! Enough! Orea – Errata – I am coming, coming to you! I will behold the Sun itself where before I saw only the reflections of its reflections . . .”
The sun’s first sparkle burst above the mountain as Sider walked out to the street.
“I would like to have a look at what remains of Barbora’s house ... Should I – or no? Ah, those dots won’t run away from me, and running away, they’d want me to catch up with them, just like all women do. Might something important still await me there?”
He stood in front of a pile of rubble and crushed rocks. Evidently the site had remained undisturbed, as if everyone had been afraid to touch the ruins ...
For a while he waded through the rubble, climbed up onto the pile ...
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said to himself, “except over there – probably the blood of sweet Háta ...” He was climbing back down when he saw a box rusted through and through stic
king out of the remains of one of the walls. He had no trouble pulling it out as it had apparently been hidden in a secret cache in what had formerly been the wall. He cracked it open easily with a stone, and he discovered a thick journal.
The handwriting had faded and was mostly illegible, likely written by a woman’s hand. The language, clearly Romanic, was almost incomprehensible to Sider. Judging by the frequent dates at the beginnings of paragraphs, it was a diary.
But what was it that sent shivers through Sider as he viewed the handwriting? Yes, it was identical to the handwriting on the back of the Portrait ... He leafed through it and saw an ink drawing – a woman’s face – Her – face ... In a mystical way he felt as though he had drawn it himself a long time ago. And more than once he
The last date was 18 June 1820. Not a single word followed – –
“Today is also 18 June, and the year – 1920,” he shuddered ... “18 June – ah, I remember: the day the ancient Greeks consecrated to Nemesis ... I read in a work by a certain historian: ‘It is the day when two of the greatest military leaders of the new era felt the claws of Fortune – august Hohenzollern at Kolín, illustrious Bonaparte at Waterloo.’ And I – – – So – after all? ... How gruesome!”
And now for the first time true fear, bordering on horror, shot through him. “Did I in the depths of my soul still hope it would not come to pass? Was it merely a delusion that I actually wished it would happen?”
Unwittingly he looked up at Stag’s Head, darkly hoping he would not see the dreadful dots again. He saw them once more, a little higher ...
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