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
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?
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
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
But Ivlita was going uphill, not losing time. And day, growing stronger, whisked the fog down, until the environs of the canyon she’d left behind emerged, first vague, and then evident to a fault. How distinct in content was the much-praised scene from those Ivlita had grown used to and examined with tenderness from year to year
In the sky, patently made deeper and not shaped like a cup, but like a funnel, ready at any moment to initiate a blizzard, the clouds were the color the sky usually is, while the sky was perfectly white, without a single blood-red drop, despite the morning hours, and blood, which now turned out to be the most normal and repulsive human blood, spilled, lay in spots on the leaves (especially on the other side of the dale, to the east of the wennies’ hamlet), soaked into the moss, saturated the soil, now fresh and perfectly crimson, or a dried up red brown, or pink like an infant’s, and of every other condition—and Ivlita noticed for the first time since Jonah’s murder that her legs were wounded and bloody up to her knees. The snowy bodies rising up to the north, bordering the pastures, were just as empurpled and maimed. But without paying any more attention to the glaciers or to her illness, Ivlita hurried on, panting, if only to make it in time, and thought, trembling, that if she loitered, instead of a new body, death would fall to her
Here is the plot with its boxwood hedge, hung all over with bits of clothing and headwear and tresses of feminine hair and little crosses in honor of the satyr and with requests for intercession. Ivlita immediately recognized the hedge. Hadn’t her way passed through here when, descending from the pastures, she had run naked in the direction of the sawmill? If the bears had not prevented her back then from stopping, there would have been no misfortunes. And tearing a lock from her head, Ivlita hung it, in a hurry, on one of the little branches. Take notice, my guardian!
And there’s the village on the far side. You could reach out and touch it. Last time, in her delirium, Ivlita hadn’t seen anything properly. And now, she studied with interested curiosity the human congeries, much more abundant and richer than the hamlet she had left behind. Although the view from here was not so expansive as from the glaciers, the plain was closer, and so it was easy to make out that the village with the sawmill was not alone, and that further along and lower down there were others, numerous and just as spacious, scattered over the limitless plateau, a new world, in which Ivlita would live a new life
The captain’s emergence was met with shouts and threats. “Don’t dare touch her,” the peasants growled, shaking their fists. How’s this, these scum dare make threats? The sons of bitches should be shot, and the cunt with them. But Arcady had been taken unawares. He, spoiled by the peasants’ servility and cowardice, bound by the epoch of confidence, and certain that they would never, as he said, dare, did not have on hand a sufficient number of soldiers to disperse the unusual congregation. And was it worth it? Was it creditable that they would fight furiously for such a one? It could end badly! And then, on account of this whore, the administration would not praise him for the war…In short, rejecting immediate action, he put on a smile and, leaning over the railing, asked what was the matter
In response, the marble sculpture came to life and, emerging from the respectfully parting crowd, approached the village hall. “So beautiful, truly, if she were not pregnant, I’d be ready to change my tastes for her sake,” Arcady muttered. And with great haste and polite antics he ran down the stairs, ready for anything they might ask of him and inviting her to enter. But Ivlita only came near the captain, said something to him, swayed, and once more entered the crowd. Rooted to the spot with his mouth hanging open, Arcady, daring neither to turn back nor to cry out, gazed at the beauty, who, passing the similarly dazed peasants, slowly rounded the cemetery and was hidden beyond the cypresses
“Simply an idle caprice.” Ivlita wants a befitting celebration of their reconciliation and return to the little village
Of course, Ivlita was right, Laurence agreed. It went without saying, this bourgeois existence sure was the real, well-ordered life, and everything else was vanity, folly, and fidgeting. To be happy, nothing more was required than a sated mind and deep sleep. “Well then, wonderful,” Laurence concluded, becoming surprisingly mushy and kinder. “We’ll start life on a new footing.” And, sinking into an armchair, he asked for some wine
Ivlita took the silver horn from the table, filled it with fragrant brandy and brought it to him. Laurence hesitated. He was too worn out and overworked to stand up to such a quantity. But the memory of their first encounter lashed against his vanity. Laurence accepted the horn and emptied it, without stopping for breath
Lifting the silver horn, Ivlita leaned over and, calling out, “Enter,” struck Laurence on the head with such force that the young man rolled out of the armchair without even a groan
And the room was already filled to bursting. Captain Arcady, smiling and self-satisfied, soldiers, police, a few villagers. Dropping the horn, Ivlita turned away and withdrew into a corner. Not even looking when they dragged Laurence, bloody and firmly bound, into the yard. She remained standing like that until everyone left, last of all Captain Arcady, who had been pacing for a long time around the deserted dining room, hoping that Ivlita would suddenly turn back, would say something, and deliberating whether to break the silence. Losing his patience, he dashed out into the yard and walked around for the entire night, despite the unbearable cold, refusing to spend the night with anyone
As day was dawning, Laurence began coming to his senses. The captain, fearing an attack of rage, ordered the ropes to be pulled more tightly. But his precautionary measures were superfluous. Laurence didn’t move a muscle. His gaze slid across the representatives of authority and settled on the house from which he had been dragged. Laurence never tore his gaze from this house until he was bound to a stretcher and carried away. Laurence wept
Before his departure, Arcady drew from his pocket a bundle of money, was about to send a soldier with it, but then became emboldened and, entering Ivlita’s house, cast the money down on the table
Ivlita was sitting opposite the window, hanging her sun-petted head and crooning something, rocking an empty cradle