Rapture: A Novel

Ivlita descended to the people. After her reconciliation on high, she decided to seek the swamp of daily life. The frosty nights that had begun to blot out the sun, and solitude, little suited her condition and would be entirely unfit for her newborn. She had to live among people

In the hamlet, where Ivlita returned on the evening following the fire, she was met with studied indifference. They already knew here about how the peasant women had paid for their attack and so there was no talk of taking hostile action against the pregnant woman. They steered clear of her, staring with trepidation at her awkward belly, and that was all. Whatever superstitions ruled the highlanders, however, Ivlita was so rich, refusing her proposal that they sell one of their houses to her meant missing out on an extremely rare business transaction; and that very same evening, Ivlita became, in exchange for a bundle of money that had become damp in the cave, the owner of a structure on piles, recently thrown together not far from the cretins’ stable and divided into several miniature rooms

Ivlita didn’t find her old friends. Laurence’s clash with the old wenny made her the wenny family’s enemy forever. When Ivlita tried calling on the spoiled class, those of Laurence’s associates among the toiling class who had survived would not allow the woman to cross the threshold of their yard, greeting her with gobs of clay and abuse. But Ivlita didn’t attach any meaning to this. She had no time for sorting out trifles. The nativity was approaching

The eldest of the wenny daughters alone refused to submit to her brothers’ humor and moved into Ivlita’s henhouse, dragging along a mahogany cradle, a gift from the spoiled—its luxuriant carvings and finish recalled the moldings and shutters of the palace that had vanished. Just as if by a wave of the hand, everything in the new dwelling was arranged and appointed. In the morning, the wenny daughter would busy herself with chores, after noon she would sit down to cut swaddling cloths and sew little blankets, and at dusk she would take up her guitar and, settling on her bed at Ivlita’s feet, sing always the same ravishing songs. The nights were foggy and quiet. They were done with architecture and repairs until spring, and so the sun would come up on a seemingly desolate hamlet: there was neither a hatchet chopping nor a cry. Even the soldiers made no appearance. And it was like that the whole day

That’s why when, during one of their suppers, the door slowly opened and admitted Laurence into the dining room, his advent was scandalous and shocking. The wall lamp weakly lit the man who entered, but even what Ivlita could see was enough. After a few days’ absence, Laurence had wasted away and grown old. Laurence removed his hat, guiltily balling up the felt, and a gray lock fell into the bandit’s eyes, half hiding his pupils, smoldering with a strange and baleful light. Not a hint of his bravery, strength, magnificence remained. His clothing was not just soiled, but even slovenly, and the former dandy, who would never before have dared show himself to his wife in such a state, didn’t even think it necessary to apologize for his oversight. He was bent and seemed to have shrunk. And the former hero expressed nothing but impotence and improbable exhaustion

Without greeting her, shifting from one leg to the other, not daring to look Ivlita in the eye, Laurence haltingly told how he had wanted to plead forgiveness, but in the church, just as he was getting ready to hand over his petition, someone opened fire on the emperor and in the confusion that arose as a result Laurence had been shoved aside. What’s more, someone began calling out “Laurence,” which forced him to save himself by running away

Ivlita was listening to his story without any enthusiasm, as though knowing beforehand what it contained. But when Laurence, with bitterness in his voice, added that the silliest thing in this whole farce was that the emperor was none other than Brother Mocius, Ivlita flared up, and without warning, Laurence seemed so intolerable and repulsive that she clenched her fists and gritted her teeth to keep from attacking him

“Where have there not been any victims of Laurence,” she thought. They were here in the villages, reposing in humble cemeteries and forest damp, frolicking on river bottoms and sea shoals, dwelling in the mountains, in cities; and even corrupting on the throne, ruling over millions and millions in an enormous empire, a man put to death by Laurence. Death penetrated everywhere, sparing no one, with unimaginable speed, and the last clod lost in the raging flood and ready from moment to moment to disappear was Ivlita and her womb

The contradiction between Ivlita and Laurence was so great there could be no thought of their reconciliation. And how naïve had been her wish for him to lay down his arms and renounce the past. Could Laurence, death itself, really cease to be himself? And how right the peasant women had been, asserting that a bandit ought to remain childless. But would Laurence really not remain childless, just the same, after infecting his wife and offspring with death?

Childless, just the same? No, no, her child would live, it was playing and wanting out. Ivlita did not fear dying, but would defend her greatest treasure. She would penetrate wherever you like, even to the edge of the world—to the birds, the beasts, the fish, hide like a toad under a stone, dig like a shrew into the earth—just so long as Laurence would never find her, could do nothing, and the infant, saved, protected, would enter the world and grow. And Ivlita, snarling with her hate-filled, fearless gaze, reduced Laurence to ashes, reddened in her anger, and Laurence, about to raise his eyes to hers, first lost his nerve, and then was surprised at her manifest hostility, threw down his hat and started racing around the room, waving his arms

As though he were to blame, after submitting to everything, that someone shot at The Prodigal Frigging Hand. And what was it, in fact, Laurence had done to make Ivlita begin hating him now? After all, hadn’t he been killing all along—either in self-defense, or punishing crafty types (they were asking for it) or for her sake? Could she blame him because love had gone to his head? And what kind of artful ploy was this, puffing up a few murders (every highlander trailed as many, if not more) into an extraordinary affair, in terms of evil

No, enough rationalizing. If Ivlita didn’t want him to murder and rob, he wouldn’t; he was ready to while away his days with her in poverty. For now, it goes without saying, he couldn’t live here because of the soldiers, but once they took themselves back home when the snows arrived, he would move in here. Ivlita, however, should not go back into the mountains. It was already cold, and then there was the child. Therefore, Laurence would settle in the forest and visit Ivlita when night came on. And Laurence lay down to sleep, without even taking his shoes off

Ivlita didn’t shut her eyes for a whole eternity, and when, at the first cock crow, Laurence departed from her dwelling, she, too, got up, dressed hurriedly, gave orders to the wenny daughter and, without waiting for daylight, dashed into the forest. Her belly sorely hindered her, but the damp ground prospered her, and when, on the far side of the thinning leaves, dawn and fog disrupted the stars to the point of breakdown, Ivlita was already far from the unpronounceable hamlet

The fog outstripped the sunshine. At first, it slid in toward Ivlita over the trees, slowing her pace, then thickened, descended, and trunks and branches were left floating in disagreeable dregs. Had it been long since the fog was in the pastures, dry and lightly evanescent? And now, oily and unyielding, it didn’t leave the road—it insistently hid from the refugee both where the west was and the spectacle of healing autumn, long expected and arrived at last, happy and absolving and too short to weary