The Tartar Steppe. Dino Buzzati

Fort no one was thinking of him and not only in the Fort, probably in the whole world, there was not a soul who had a thought for Drogo; everyone has his own worries, can barely cope with himself – perhaps even his mother at that moment had other things on her mind, for he was not her only child and she had thought about Giovanni all day; now it was the others’ turn. That was more than fair, Drogo admitted to himself without the shadow of reproof, but meantime he was sitting on the edge of his bed in his room in the Fort (there was, he now saw, cut into the panelling and coloured with extraordinary patience a full scale sabre, which at first glance almost seemed real – the painstaking work of some officer years before), he was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his head bent forward a little, his back bowed, his eyes heavy and dull, and felt himself alone as never before in his life.

      Suddenly he rose with an effort, opened the window and looked out. The window gave on to the courtyard and there was nothing else to be seen. Since it looked towards the south Drogo sought in vain to distinguish in the darkness the mountains which he had crossed to reach the Fort; but they were lower than he thought and hidden by the wall.

      Only three windows were lit but they were in the same block as his own and so he could not see in; the light they threw out and that from Drogo’s room fell on the wall opposite where it seemed to be magnified; a shadow was moving in one of them – perhaps an officer undressing.

      Drogo shut the window, undressed, went to bed and lay thinking for a few minutes, looking at the ceiling; it too was lined with wood. He had forgotten to bring anything to read but that did not matter, he felt so sleepy. He put out the lamp; little by little the pale rectangle of the window emerged from the dark and Drogo saw the stars shining.

      He felt as if a sudden drowsiness were dragging him down into sleep. But he was too conscious of it. A confusion of images, almost like the figures of a dream, passed before his eyes and even began to form a story; then a few seconds later he found that he was still awake.

      More awake than before, because the vastness of the silence suddenly struck him. From far, far away – or had he imagined it? – there came the sound of a cough. Then close by a soft drip of water sounded in the wall. If he lay still he could see that a small green star, which in the course of its journey through the night had reached the top of his window, was on the point of disappearing; it twinkled for a moment on the very edge of the dark window frame and then finally disappeared. Drogo wanted to follow it a little further by leaning his head forward. At that moment there was another ‘plop’ as if something had fallen into the water. Would it be repeated again? He lay waiting for the noise, such a sound as went with underground passages, marshes and deserted houses. The minutes appeared to stand still; complete silence seemed at last to be undisputed master of the Fort. And once more wild images of the life he had left so far behind crowded round Drogo.

      There it was again, the sound he hated. Drogo sat up. So it was a noise that went on and on; the last splash had been no less loud than the first so it could not be a drip which would at last die away. How could he sleep? Drogo remembered that there was a cord hanging by the side of the bed, perhaps a bell-cord. He tried pulling it; the cord answered his pull and in some remote and winding corridor of the building a brief tinkling answered almost imperceptibly. But how stupid it was, thought Drogo, to call someone for such a trifle. And who would come in any case?

      Soon after there was the sound of feet in the corridor outside; they drew closer and someone knocked at the door. ‘Come in,’ said Drogo. A soldier with a lamp in his hand appeared. ‘Yes sir,’ he said.

      ‘It’s impossible to sleep here, damn it,’ said Drogo becoming coldly angry. ‘What is this wretched noise? There’s a pipe burst; see that you stop it – it’s quite impossible to sleep. All you need is a rag under it.’

      ‘It’s the cistern, sir,’ the soldier answered immediately as if he were used to the whole affair. ‘It’s the cistern, sir, there’s nothing we can do about it.’

      ‘The cistern?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ explained the soldier. ‘The cistern – just behind that wall. Everyone complains but no one has ever been able to do anything about it. Captain Fonzaso shouts about it every now and again too, but it’s no good.’

      ‘Away you go then,’ said Drogo. The door closed, the footsteps died away, the silence grew again, the stars gleamed in the window. Giovanni thought of the sentries walking up and down like automata a few yards from him, without pause. Scores of men were awake while he lay in bed and everything seemed sunk in sleep. Scores – thought Drogo – but for whom and why? It seemed as if in the Fort the rigid laws of army life had reached a pitch of insanity. Hundreds of men guarding a gap through which no one would pass. Let me get away, get away as soon as possible, thought Giovanni, get away from this atmosphere, from this mysterious mist. He thought of his own simple home: at this hour his mother would be asleep, all the lights out – unless she were still thinking of him for a moment, which was very likely; he knew her so well and how for the least thing she would lie and worry all night and turn in her bed, unable to rest.

      Once more there was the hollow overflow of the cistern, another star passed out of the frame of the window and its light continued to reach the world, the breastworks of the Fort, the feverish eyes of the sentries, but not Giovanni Drogo who lay waiting for sleep, a prey to sinister thoughts.

      Supposing all Matti’s hair-splitting was an act he put on? Suppose in actual fact they didn’t let him go even at the end of four months? Suppose they kept him from seeing the city again with excuses and quibbles about regulations? Suppose he had to stay up there for years and years, in this room, in this solitary bed, suppose he had to waste all his youth? What absurd things to think, said Drogo to himself, realising their stupidity; yet he did not succeed in dispelling them, for soon under cover of the night they returned.

      Thus he seemed to feel spreading around him an obscure plot to try to retain him there. Probably not even Matti was concerned in it. Neither he nor the colonel, nor any other officer was the least interested in him; whether he stayed or went was completely indifferent to them. Yet some unknown force was working against his return to the city – a force which perhaps without his knowing it had its origins in his own heart.

      Then he saw a great hall, a horse on a white road; he seemed to hear voices calling him by name and fell asleep.

       Chapter Five

      Two evenings later Giovanni Drogo was on duty in the third redoubt for the first time. At six o’clock in the evening the seven guards formed up in the courtyard – three for the Fort, four for the lateral redoubts. The eighth – that for the New Redoubt – had left earlier, for it had some way to go.

      Sergeant-Major Tronk, an old inhabitant of the Fort, had been in charge of the men for the third redoubt – twenty-eight of them with a trumpeter who made twenty-nine. They were all from number two company – Captain Ortiz’ company to which Giovanni had been posted. Drogo took command and unsheathed his sword.

      The seven guards were drawn up in line with perfect dressing; in accordance with tradition, the colonel watched from a window. On the yellow courtyard they made a black pattern which was good to see.

      The last rays of the sun slanted across the walls and over them the sky was bright, swept clear by the wind. A September evening. The second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Nicolosi, came out by the great door of the command post, limping from an old wound and leaning on his sword. That day it was Monti’s turn to inspect the guard, an immense captain whose hoarse voice gave the command and all together, absolutely together, the soldiers presented arms with a great metallic clash. There was a tremendous silence.

      Then one by one the trumpeters of the seven guards sounded the calls. They were the famous silver trumpets of Fort Bastiani, with cords of red and gold silk hung with a great coat of arms. Their pure note filled the sky and the motionless hedge of bayonets resounded with it, like the low resonance of a bell. The soldiers were as motionless as statues; their faces military and expressionless. It could not be that they were preparing for monotonous spells of guard duty;