Arkadi and Boris Strugatski. Hard to be a god


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 ¿ Copyright Arcady and Boris Strugatsky
 ¿ Copyright Translated by Wendayne Ackerman, 1973
 ¿ Copyright DAW Books, INC.
 Origin: "Trudno byt bogom"
 OCR: SCOUT
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     The  stock of Anka's crossbow was made of  black plastic. The string of
chrome steel was operated by a noiselessly moving winch. Anton did not think
much of such  innovations. He owned a  conventional arquebus in the style of
Marshal Totz, King  Pitz the  first. It was overlaid with black copper and a
rope of steer sinews ran along small wheels.  Pashka, on the other hand, had
an air rifle.  Crossbows were childish weapons, he thought, for he  was lazy
by nature and lacked manual dexterity.
     They landed  on the  north shore at a  spot where the gnarled roots  of
mighty pine trees protruded from the yellow  sandy slope. Anka let go of the
rudder and looked  around.  The  sun had risen  above the forest. A blue fog
hung over the  lake. The pines glowed dark green  and a  yellow sandy  beach
stretched in the distance. A light blue sky arched over the whole landscape.
     The children bent over the side of the boat and looked into the water.
     "Can't see a thing," said Pashka.
     "A huge pike," said Anton, a trifle too sure of himself.
     "With fins like that?" asked Pashka.
     Anton did not reply. Anka, too, looked into the water, but she saw only
her own reflection in it.
     "How about taking  a swim?"  said Pashka, and plunged his arm into  the
water up to the elbow. "Cold," he reported.
     Anton  climbed  onto the bow and jumped ashore. The  boat rocked to and
fro.  Anton took hold  of the boat and glanced questioningly at Pashka.  Now
Pashka  rose, placed  the oar like  a water carrier's beam  across his neck,
bent his knees a bit and sang at the top of his voice:

     Old salt, sea-dog, Witzliputzli!
     Are you watching, on your guard?
     Look! A school of hard-boiled sharkies
     Are approaching, swimming hard!

     Anton rocked the boat.
     "Hey, hey!" yelled Pashka, trying not to lose his balance.
     "Why 'hard-boiled?'" Anka asked.
     "I  don't know,"  answered Pashka.  They climbed out  of the boat. "But
it's pretty good, isn't it? 'A school of hard-boiled sharkies!'"
     They pulled the boat ashore. Their feet  slipped on the wet sand, which
was  strewn  with  dried  needles and  pine  cones.  The boat was  heavy and
slippery but they dragged it all the way up onto the land. Then they stopped
for a while to catch their breath.
     "Almost squashed my foot,"  said  Pashka, and straightened his red fez.
He  made sure that the  tassel hung directly above his right  ear--just like
the  broad-nosed  Irukanian  pirates  were wont to do.  "life  isn't worth a
farthing, my dear!" he recited dramatically.
     Anka was intently sucking her finger.
     "A splinter?" asked Anton.
     "No. Got a scratch. One of you two must have long nails."
     "Let me see!"
     She showed him her finger.
     "Yes," said Anton. "A scratch.--Well, let's do something!"
     "Pick up your arms and let's walk along the shore!" suggested Pashka.
     "For that we didn't need to crawl ashore," Anton said.
     "It's chicken to stay in the boat," stated Pashka. "But along the shore
there  are  all kinds  of  things. Reeds, canyons,  whirlpools, eddies  with
eels--and catfish, too."
     "A school of hard-boiled catfish," said Anton.
     "Hey, did you ever dive into a whirlpool?"
     "Sure."
     "Funny that I didn't see you do it."
     "Lots of things you haven't seen yet"
     Anka turned her  back on them, raised  her crossbow and aimed at a pine
tree 20 feet away. The bark came off in splinters.
     "Wow,  did  you  see that!"  exclaimed Pashka with admiration.  Then he
aimed  his air rifle at  the same  spot. But  he  missed. "I  didn't hold my
breath properly," he said.
     "And even if you had held it properly, so what?" asked Anton. He looked
at Anka.
     With  a firm movement Anka retracted the steel bow  with the winch. She
had splendid  muscles,  and Anton watched with pleasure the hard ball of her
biceps rolling beneath her tanned skin.
     Anka took  aim carefully,  and  shot again. The second arrow penetrated
the tree trunk, a bit lower than the first
     "That  doesn't make  any sense," said Anka, and  let  the crossbow hang
down her side. "What?" asked Anton.
     "We're  only  damaging the trees, that's all. Yesterday, a  kid shot an
arrow at a tree and I forced him to pull that arrow out with his own teeth."
     "Pashka would have run away," said Anton. "You have good teeth."
     "I can whistle through my teeth, too," said Pashka.
     "Well," said Anka, "let's do something!"
     "I don't feel like climbing up and down canyons," said Anton.
     "Me neither. Let's walk straight ahead."
     "Where to?" asked Pashka.
     "Just follow your nose."
     "Meaning what?" said Anton.
     "Let's  go into the  forest!" said Pashka. "Toshka, do you remember the
'Forgotten Road'?"
     "Sure!"
     "You know, Anetchka--" said Pashka.
     "Don't you call me Anetchka," Anka cut in abruptly. She could not stand
to be called by any other name than Anka.
     Anton remembered very well that she did not like it, and said quickly:
     "Sure--the Forgotten Road. Nobody has driven over it for ages. It isn't
even marked on the map, and where it leads to, nobody knows."
     "Have you ever been there?"
     "Yes. But we didn't explore it."
     "A  road  coming from nowhere and leading nowhere," stated Pashka,  who
had regained his former self-assurance.
     "That's fine!" said Anka. Here eyes narrowed to black slits. "Let's go!
Will we get there by tonight?"
     "What are you talking about? Well be there by noon."
     They clambered up the steep slope.  Once they  had arrived  at the top,
Pashka tamed around. Down below was the blue  lake with yellow speckled sand
bars, and the boat on the sandy  beach. Close to the shore, where  the water
was as smooth  as oil, large concentric circles broke the surface-- that was
the  pike,  probably.  And  the  boy  felt,  as  always, that  vague  joy he
experienced whenever he and Toshka stole away from the boarding-school and a
whole day of  freedom lay before  them. A day filled with unexplored places,
strawberries,  sun-scorched deserted  meadows, lizards, and  ice cold  water
from unexpected springs amidst the rocks. And as always he felt  overcome by
a desire  to  shout  out  loud and  jump up into  the air.  Anton,  laughing
happily, watched him, and Pashka saw the understanding in his friend's eyes.
Anka placed two fingers in her mouth and gave forth with a piercing whistle.
And they entered the forest.
     It was a pine wood, with sparse vegetation. Their feet skidded over the
slippery, needle-covered  soil.  The slanting sun rays glittered between the
straight tree trunks, and golden spots danced on the ground. The air smelled
of resin, the nearby lake,  and strawberries. Somewhere, far above  them, an
invisible lark was warbling.
     Anka walked ahead.  She  carried her crossbow in one hand, and with the
other reached  now  and then for the strawberries  that occasionally  peeked
out, as  red as blood, from among the foliage. Anton marched behind her with
the solid battle gear of Marshal  Totz slung  over his shoulder. The quiver,
filled with mighty  battle arrows, rhythmically  banged against the seat  of
his  trousers  with every  step.  He  looked at Anka's neck:  it was  deeply
tanned,  and the vertebrae jutted out like  little knobs. Once in a while he
turned around and looked for Pashka, who had disappeared; only  the red  fez
flashed  from time to time  in the bright  sunlight. Anton  imagined  Pashka
prowling  silently  among  the  pine  trees, his air  rifle held  in  firing
position, his  lean face  with the hooked  nose pointing  forward  like some
predatory animal Pashka crawling through the underwood. But the forest knows
no mercy.  A challenge--and you  must react at  once,  thought Anton. He was
just about  to duck--but Anka  was walking  right  in front  of him, and she
might turn around any moment Wouldn't he look silly then!
     Anka tamed around and asked:
     "Did you sneak away real quietly?"
     Anton shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody sneaks away noisily!"
     "Well,  I  did. I  guess  I made some awful  noise," said Anka  with  a
worried expression.  "I dropped  a  cup--and suddenly I heard steps  in  the
corridor. Probably old maid Katja; she's on duty today. I had to jump out of
the  window  into  a  flower bed.  Guess what  kind  of flowers grow  there,
Toshka?"
     Anton frowned.
     "Under your window? I don't know, what kind?"
     "Pretty  tough flowers. No wind can rock them, no storm can break them.
You can jump around in them and trample on them and it won't harm them."
     "That's interesting," said Anton in a serious voice. He remembered that
he also had  a flower bed under his window, with flowers  that were  neither
rocked by  wind nor broken  by  storm.  But  actually he had never  paid any
attention to it.
     Anka stopped and waited until  Anton had  caught up  with her. She held
her  hand out  to him.  It  was full  of strawberries. With  the tip of  his
fingers, Anton seized exactly three berries.
     "Go ahead. Take some more," said Anka.
     "No, thanks," said Anton.  "I like to pick  them myself.-- But  listen,
Anka, it must be easy to get along with old maid Katja, isn't it?"
     "That all depends," said Anka. "Just imagine somebody telling you every
night how dirty and dusty your feet are--"
     She  fell  silent. It was good  to  walk with  her  through  the woods,
shoulder  to shoulder, and their bare  elbows touching now and  then. And it
felt good to  look at her--how pretty  she was, so nimble,  so friendly--and
how big and gray her eyes were, and what dark lashes she had.
     "Sure," said  Anton, and stretched out his hand to  grasp a  spider web
that glistened in the sun. "Her feet wouldn't get dirty. If somebody carried
you through every puddle, then you wouldn't get dirty either."
     "Who carries her?"
     "Henry from the weather station. A big, strong guy with blond hair, you
know."
     "Really?"
     "Didn't you know it? It's old hat, everybody knows they're in love."
     Both fell silent again. Anton looked at Anka. Her eyes were dark caves.
     "And when did that happen?" she asked.
     "Oh, on a moonlit  night," replied Anton, not too eagerly.  "Just  keep
this all to yourself, will you?"
     Anka laughed.
     "It wasn't hard to drag it  out of you, Toshka," She said. "Do you want
some more strawberries?"
     Quite  mechanically, Anton now  took  some berries from her red-stained
hand and  put them  in his mouth. I don't like gossip-mongers, he  thought I
can't stand people who tell tales about others. Suddenly he had a thought.
     "Some day somebody will carry you, too. How would you like it if people
talk about it then?"
     "I'm certainly not going to tell anybody about it," said Anka. "I don't
like gossip."
     Then  she continued in a  more confidential tone: "You know, I'm really
fed up with having to wash my feet two times every night."
     Poor old maid Katja, thought Anton. What an uphill fight she has.
     They reached a narrow lane. The path led up a steep slope and  the wood
became darker and darker. Ferns grew in profusion, and wood sorrel. The pine
trunks were covered with moss and the whitish foam of lichen.
     But the forest knows no  mercy. Suddenly a hoarse, shrill voice,  quite
unhuman, roared out:
     "Stop! Throw your  arms to the ground! You, milord, noble don  and you,
too, Dona!"
     If  there is a  challenge in the woods, you must react at  once,  Anton
knew.  With calculated precision, Anton  pushed Anka down into the ferns  to
the left of the path, while he himself leapt into the ferns to the right. He
slipped at first,  and then  hid behind the evil-smelling lichen  foam.  The
echo  of the  hoarse voice still  rang through  the wood,  but the  path was
empty. Suddenly everything was quiet.
     Anton turned to one side to bend his bow, when an arrow  hit  close by.
Dirt showered down on him. The hoarse, unhuman voice announced:
     "Milord has been hit in the heel!"
     Anton moaned and pulled up his left
     "Not that one, it's the right heel!" corrected the voice.
     He could hear Pashka  giggle nearby. Cautiously, Anton peered out  from
the ferns, but he could not see him anywhere in the dusky, green jungle.
     At that moment, a penetrating,  whistling sound came and a thud as if a
tree were falling to the ground.
     "Owoooooo!" howled Pashka in  a tortured voice. "Have mercy!  Spare  my
life! Don't kill me!"
     Anton  leapt to his feet.  From the  thicket of  ferns  he  saw  Pashka
approach in an unsteady  gait, both arms raised above his head. Anka's voice
asked:
     "Toshka, can you see him?"
     "Yes,  I  can," called  Anton cheerfully. "Don't  move!"  he yelled  in
Pashka's direction. "Put your hands on top of your head!"
     Pashka obediently clasped his hands above his head and declared:
     "I won't tell a thing."
     "What shall we do with him, Toshka?" asked Anka.
     "You'll find out in just a minute," said Anton, settling comfortably on
the ground and placing his crossbow across his knees.
     "Name!" he croaked, using the voice of the witch of Irukan.
     Pashka simply  arched his back and made a contemptuous  gesture. He did
not  want  to submit  to  defeat.  Anton  fired.  The  heavy  arrow  noisily
penetrated the branches above Pashka's head.
     "Wow!" exclaimed Anka.
     "They  call me Don Sarancha," grudgingly confessed Pashka. And  then he
began  to  recite:  "And  here  lies,  as  you  all  can  see,  one  of  his
accomplices."
     "An infamous  thug  and  murderer,"  Anton  clarified. "But he is known
never  to do  something for nothing.  On whose behalf  have you come here to
snoop around?"
     "Don Satarina the Pitiless has sent me," Pashka lied.
     Anton spoke with contempt in his voice:
     "This hand of mine cut the thread of Don Satarina's  stinking  life  on
the Square of the Heavy Swords just two years ago."
     "Shall I pierce him with an arrow?" suggested Anka.
     "Oh, I completely  forgot," said Pashka  quickly. "Actually,  I'm being
sent by Arata  the Fair.  He promised  me one hundred  gold pieces for  your
heads."
     Anton slapped his knees.
     "What  a liar!" he shouted. "Do you  believe  for an instant that Arata
would have anything to do with a swindler like you?"
     "Maybe  I'd  better  pierce him  with  an  arrow  after all?"  asked  a
bloodthirsty Anka.
     Anton laughed demonically.
     "By the way," said Pashka, "you were shot in your heel. You should have
collapsed long since from losing so much blood."
     "Nuts!" countered Anton. "First of all, I've had  a piece from the bark
of the  White Tree in  my  mouth the whole time; and, second, two  beautiful
barbarian maidens bandaged my wound."
     The  ferns  began to move and Anka stepped out onto the  path.  On  her
cheek was a long scratch and her knees were smeared with earth and lichen.
     "It's  about time we threw him  into the swamp," she  declared. "If the
enemy won't surrender, he must be destroyed."
     Pashka's arms dropped down and dangled at his sides.
     "You don't stick to the rules of the game," he said to Anton. "With you
it always turns out that the witch is a good person."
     "You don't know the first thing about it!" said Anton. He, too, stepped
out onto the path. 'The forest knows no mercy, you filthy mercenary."
     Anka returned the air rifle to Pashka.
     "You two  are real sharpshooters," said  Anka enviously. "Do you always
aim so close?"
     "What else did you expect from us?" Pashka asked. "We don't  run around
yelling 'Bang, bang--you're dead!' When we play, we always take risks."
     Anton added with nonchalance:
     "We play William Tell a lot."
     "We  take turns," volunteered Pashka. "One day I have to go stand there
with an apple on my head, and next time he's got to do it."
     "You  don't say." Her words  came slowly. "I'd love to watch that  some
time."
     "We'd show it to you right now--with pleasure," snapped Anton. 'Too bad
we don't have an apple!"
     Pashka grinned  from ear to ear.  But Anka  quickly yanked the pirate's
fez from his head and swiftly rolled it up into a cone.
     "It doesn't  have to  be  an apple!" she said. "This makes a  marvelous
target. Come on, let's play William Tell!"
     Anton took the red cone and examined  it carefully. He glanced at Anka;
her eyes were like dark wells. Pashka was dancing about; he felt great Anton
held the cone out to him.
     "I can  hit the bull's-eye  at  30 paces," he  said flatly. "Of course,
only with a pistol I'm familiar with."
     "Really?" said Anka, and she turned to Pashka. "And how about  you? Can
you score a direct hit from 30 feet away?"
     "I'm  known  as  the  fastest  gun this  side of  the lake!" he grinned
broadly. "Let's try it out."
     Anton made an about-face and walked down the path, counting out loud:
     "... fifteen... sixteen... seventeen..."
     Pashka said  something that Anton couldn't hear, and Anka laughed, much
too loud.
     "Thirty," said Anton and turned around.
     At a distance of thirty paces, Pashka looked pretty small. The red cone
sat on his  head like a  dunce cap.  Pashka  grinned. He was still  playing.
Anton leaned forward and leisurely drew his bow.
     "Bless you. Father  William!"  Pashka called out to him. "And  whatever
happens, thanks for everything!"
     Anton placed a  bolt  in the  slot which  would guide  the  missile. He
straightened up. Pashka and Anka  looked at him. They were standing close to
each other. The lane stretched ahead like a dark soggy passage between  tall
green  walls.  Anton  raised the crossbow. The battle  gear of  Marshal Totz
suddenly felt very heavy. My hands are trembling, thought Anton. That's bad.
What nonsense! He remembered how he and  Pashka  had amused themselves  last
winter for one full hour  by  aiming snowballs  at an icicle on a fence post
They  were  throwing  from  a distance of twenty  feet, then  fifteen,  then
ten--and they still could not hit it And finally, when  they had grown tired
of the game and were just  about to leave, Pashka pitched the last snowball,
without even taking aim, and made a direct hit.
     Anton  pressed  the  stock hard against his  shoulder. Anka is standing
much too close, he thought He was on the point of calling out to her to move
over a bit, but then  he  remembered  that  this  would  seem silly. Higher.
Higher still.  .  .  Higher . .. Suddenly  he was  firmly convinced that the
heavy  bolt was going to strike Pashka  right between the eyes, bore  deeply
between those merry, green eyes, even  if he turned around  now and  let the
arrow fly in the opposite direction.
     He opened his eyes and looked at  Pashka.  Pashka's grin had  vanished.
Anka raised her  hand very slowly, then ever  so slowly spread  her  fingers
apart.  Her  face  looked very intense  and grown-up.  Now Anton lifted  his
crossbow higher still and pulled the trigger. He did not see where the arrow
landed.
     "Missed it!" he said very loud.
     He  walked  along  the  path but his legs would  not properly obey him.
Pashka  wiped the  red cone across his face,  shook himself like a wet  dog,
unrolled the cone and formed it into a fez  again. Anka bent down and picked
up her crossbow. If shell hit me over the head with it, thought Anton,  I'll
even say thank you. But Anka did not even look at him.
     She tamed to Pashka and asked: "Are we leaving?"
     "Right away," said Pashka.
     He looked at Anton, tapping his finger against his forehead.
     "But you were scared too." Anton said. Pashka did not reply.  Once more
he tapped his finger against  his forehead.  Then he  followed  Anka.  Anton
ambled along in the rear, trying to cope with his doubts.
     What did I do, he thought.  His head felt very heavy  all  of a sudden.
Why are they so  put out? Pashka--well,  he was scared stiff. Who  knows who
was more afraid: Father William or his son? But what's the matter with Anka?
Maybe she was worried about Pashka. But what  should  I  have done? Now they
make me trot behind like an outcast. I should take off on my own. I can take
that tarn over there on the left, there's an interesting looking little pool
Maybe I can catch an owl; wouldn't that be something!
     But he did not even slow down. That's for good, he thought Somewhere he
had read that such things happened frequently.
     They reached the Forgotten Road  sooner than they had expected. By now,
the  sun  was high up in the  sky, and it  was  very hot.  The pine  needles
pricked  their bare skin. The road was paved  with concrete; it consisted of
two  rows of  cracked,  reddish-gray blocks. Thick tufts of dried grass were
growing in the cracks. The soft shoulders on either  side were full of dusty
thistles.  Above  the  road flew  fat blowflies, buzzing and  droning, and a
brazen one bumped right into Anton's forehead. The air was quiet and sultry.
     "Look, you two!" said Pashka.
     He pointed to a round metal sign hanging over the middle of the road on
a rusty  wire  that had  been strung  across. The paint was peeling off  the
sign.  They  could  barely  make  out  a  light-colored  crossbar  on a  red
background.
     "What is that?" asked Anka. She did not seem too interested.
     "A traffic sign," said Pashka. "Do Not Enter."
     "A one-way street," explained Anton.
     "What does that mean?" asked Anka.
     "That means that you can't enter that road," said Pashka.
     "But why do they have the road, then?"
     Pashka shrugged his shoulders.
     "It's a very old road," he said.
     "An anisotropic  road," Anton  explained. Anka stood  with her  back to
him. "Traffic can move only in one direction."
     "The wisdom  of  our forefathers,"  said Pashka  pensively. "There they
were,  driving  along  for  about  200 miles,  and  all of a  sudden--smash,
bang!--Do Not Enter! Wrong  Way! And you  can't  drive on, and  there  isn't
anybody you can ask."
     "Just imagine all the things  that might be there on the other side  of
that traffic  sign!" said Anka. She looked all around.  For many miles there
was  only the deserted forest and  not a person to ask what might lie beyond
that traffic sign. "Maybe it  isn't an anisotropic  traffic sign after all,"
said Anka. "The paint's almost all peeled off."
     Now Anton lifted his crossbow, took careful aim and shot  off an arrow.
How nice if the bolt would snap the wire and let the traffic sign fall right
before Anka's feet. But the  arrow hit  the upper part of the  sign, pierced
the rusty metal and nothing fell down except some flakes of dried paint
     "Silly ass!" said Anka without bothering to turn around.
     That  was the  first  remark she  had addressed  to him  since they had
played William Tell. Anton smiled wryly.
     "And  enterprises of  great  pitch and moment,"  he recited, "with this
regard their current turn away and lose the name of action."
     Faithful Pashka called out:
     "Hey, kids, a car was here! After the thunderstorm! The grass is  still
flat where the tires drove over it! And here--"
     That lucky Pashka, thought Anton. Carefully he examined the tire tracks
in the road. He, too, saw the trampled grass and the black skid marks  where
the car must have suddenly braked before a pothole in the concrete pavement.
     "I can see it now," called out Pashka. "The car must have come from the
other side, from behind the traffic sign."
     It seemed very obvious, but Anton said:
     "Baloney! He's come from the other direction!"
     Pashka regarded him with surprise:
     "What's gotten into you? You're blind as a bat!"
     "He's  come from this way here," Anton argued stubbornly. "Let's follow
his track."
     "You idiot!" Pashka sounded angry. "Who  in his right mind would  drive
into a one-way street the wrong way? And look here:  here is the pothole and
over there the skid mark --so where did the car come from?"
     "I don't care what  you say! I'm going  along this one-way street, even
if it's the wrong way."
     Pashka turned pale with fury. "Go right ahead!"
     He started  to hiccup.  "What idiocy!  The sun  must  have cooked  your
brain!"
     Anton turned around. He looked straight ahead, ducked under the traffic
sign and passed through to the other side. He only wished he could come upon
a collapsed bridge  and have  to work his way over to the other side. I have
nothing  more  to  do with  them,  he  thought.  Let them  go  wherever they
please--with her  darling Pashka.  Then he remembered how Anka  had  cut off
Pashka when  he  had called  her  Anetchka, and  feeling a bit relieved,  he
turned and looked back.
     His  eye fell on Pashka. Like a dog sniffing a scent, Don Sarancha  was
following the track  of the mysterious car. The rusty sign over the road was
gently  swaying in  the wind, and the blue sky gleamed  through the hole the
arrow  had made, Anka sat at the side of the road, her elbows resting on her
knees and her chin supported by her small, clenched fists.
     As they were returning home,  dusk began to fall.  The two  boys rowed,
while Anka sat at the rudder. A red moon stood above the dark forest and the
frogs croaked untiringly.
     "And we had planned everything so  nicely," said Anka  mournfully. "You
two--!"
     The boys remained silent. Then Pashka asked softly:
     "Toshka, what did you find behind the one-way street sign?"
     "A  collapsed bridge,"  answered Anton. "And the skeleton of a  German,
chained to a machine gun."  He thought a while, then he  added: "the machine
gun was halfway sunk into the ground already."
     "Hmm, yes,"  said Pashka. "These things  can happen. I  helped somebody
repair his car back there."


     As Rumata passed by the tomb of  the Holy  Mickey--the seventh  and the
last on  this stretch of the road--darkness had  already fallen.  The highly
praised  Chamalharian  stallion which he had won from Don Tameo in a game of
cards, was  in fact a miserable nag. The animal was dripping  with sweat; it
kept stumbling over its own legs, and its irregular trot reminded one of the
swaying motions  of a tossing ship.  Rumata pressed his knees hard into  the
animal's flanks and slapped  his  gloves  between the horse's ears. The  nag
responded  merely  with  a tired  nod; its pace remained the same. Under the
late  evening dusk, the bushes that lined  the road appeared like solidified
smoke  clouds. Swarms of flies buzzed annoyingly around the rider's head. Up
in  the  darkened  night  sky  a  few  yellowish  stars  dimly  nickered. An
alternately cold and warm  wind came in  gentle, irregular squalls,  typical
for this  coastal strip  during fall with  its sultry,  dust-filled days and
cold, frosty nights.
     Rumata drew his cloak  closer around his shoulders  and let  go of  the
reins. There was no use trying to hurry. Midnight was still  one hour  away,
and already he could  recognize the black jagged outline of Hiccup Forest on
the  horizon. To the left  and  the right  of  the road  carelessly ploughed
fields stretched into the distance. Swamps stinking of rotten vegetation and
decaying animals glimmered in  the faint light of the stars: here and  there
silhouettes of hills and  the  half-rotted wooden palisades from the time of
the Great Invasion loomed up horribly.  Far off in the distance the  sullen,
lambent  flames  of  a  fire  flickered:  most likely  a village was burning
somewhere over  there--one of the  innumerable  wretched  little  look-alike
places that until recently  had been known by names  such as "Death Hamlet,"
"Gallows Hill View,"  or "Robbers  Nest"; imperial  edicts had  renamed them
"Blossom Grove," "Peace Harbor View" and "Angel Rest."
     This land stretched over  hundreds of miles, from the shores of the Big
Bay  to  the eerie Hiccup Forest. The  terrain teemed with  hosts  of gnats,
gouged  by gorges, half smothered  by swamps;  its inhabitants were raked by
fever and forever threatened by pestilence and vile colds.
     Near a  bend  in  the road, a dark  figure stepped from the bushes. The
stallion gave a sudden  start and threw back its head. Rumata quickly seized
the  reins,  then with a swift movement  adjusted his  right sleeve--an  old
habit of his--and reached for his  sword. Then he had a closer look. The man
at the side of the road took off his hat.
     "Good evening, noble don," he said softly. "I beg your pardon."
     "What's  the  matter?"  inquired Rumata. He  cocked an ear  toward  the
bushes.
     There  is  actually  no such thing  as  a  silent  ambush. Robbers  are
betrayed  by the singing of  their bow strings;  the men of the Gray Militia
constantly  belch up  their sour beer;  the  hordes of the barons grunt with
greed  and rattle  their  sabers; and the monks  who hunt for slaves scratch
themselves noisily. No,  it was  all quiet  in the thicket. This  man was no
bushwhacker, thought Rumata.  He did not look at all like a sniper: he was a
short, stocky townsman wrapped in a rather inexpensive cloak.
     "Will  you permit  me  to run alongside your horse?" he asked the rider
and bowed deeply to him.
     "Come along,"  said Rumata, toying with the  reins. "You  can hold onto
the stirrup."
     The  man walked alongside, holding  his hat  in his  hand. His head was
completely bald. A stewart from some baronial estate, thought Rumata. Visits
barons and cattle dealers, buys up hemp and flax. A  stalwart man . . . Then
again, maybe  he's  no  stewart  after  all. Maybe he's  a "bookworm," or  a
fugitive. Maybe he's  a  ne'er-do-well--there are many of  that kind roaming
the roads at night--certainly more than there are  baronial stewarts. But be
could be a spy as well...
     "Who are you and where are you coming from?" asked Rumata.
     "They call me Kiun,"  answered the man  sorrowfully. "And I  come  from
Arkanar."
     "You mean you are fleeing from  Arkanar," said Rumata and bent  forward
slightly toward him. "Yes."  The man spoke with  sadness. Some freak, an odd
character, thought Rumata. Or is he a spy after all? I'll keep an eye on him
. . . But why should I  bother to keep an eye  on him? Who will be helped by
that? Who am I to scrutinize and test him? I don't even want to observe him!
Why shouldn't  I simply  believe  him?  There is  a man,  quite obviously an
intellectual, on the run, his life at stake ... He feels lonely, he's afraid
and  weak,  just  looking for  a  helping  hand--and then he  runs  into  an
aristocrat The aristocrats are  too  stupid and arrogant to  know much about
politics. Instead, they have very long sabers, and they  don't like the Gray
Militia, Why shouldn't citizen Kiun simply seek protection from some stupid,
arrogant aristocrat? That's  it. Of  course,  I  won't  keep my eye  on  him
especially. I have no special reason to. Let's rather chat for a while, kill
some time, and then we will part friends...
     "Kiun . . ." he said aloud. "I once  knew a  Kiun. A  quack doctor  and
alchemist on Klempner Street. Are you related to him?"
     "Oh dear, yes, I am," said  Kiun. "I'm  only a very distant relative of
his,  but  they  don't care.  They exterminate our kind  up  to  the twelfth
generation."
     "And where are you fleeing to, Kiun?"
     "Any place. As  far away  from  here as  possible. Many  have  fled  to
Irukan. Ill try my luck with Irukan, too."
     "Well, well," said Rumata. "And  you  think the noble don will lead you
safely through the sentry posts?"
     Kiun remained silent.
     "Or, maybe you think the noble don doesn't know what  kind of a man the
alchemist on Klempner Street really is?"
     Kiun  still  did not  answer. I think I'm talking a  lot  of  nonsense,
thought Rumata. But then  he rose high up in his stirrups and, imitating the
town crier on the Royal Square, puffed up his throat and shouted:
     "Accused  and  condemned  of the most  horrible and unforgivable crimes
against God, the Crown and the public safety!"
     Kiun still remained silent.
     "And  what if the  noble don adored and revered Don Reba, the father of
all abominations? What if he were devoted with all his heart to the cause of
the Gray Militia? Or do you think that is totally out of the question?"
     Kiun kept silent.  To the right of the road,  the black silhouette of a
gallows  tree loomed  in the dark. A  ghostly white naked body, strung up by
the feet, swung from a crossbeam.  Oh well, thought Rumata,  what's the good
of it all? He pulled tight his reins, seized Kiun by the shoulder and turned
the man's face around for him to see.
     "And how  would you like it if  the noble don  would hang you now right
next to that  gallows bird?" he said and stared into the white face and dark
orbs  of  Kiun.  "I'd  do  it  myself.  Swift  and  skillful.  With a strong
Arkanarian  rope? For  the  sake of ideals? Why do you keep silent, bookworm
Kiun?"
     Kiun  did not speak. His teeth were rattling with fright and he twisted
weakly under Rumata's strong grip like a captured lizard. Suddenly, a splash
could be heard as something fell into the canal alongside  the road. At  the
same time, as if  to drown out  the splashing  noise of the impact,  the man
shouted desperately:
     "Go ahead and hang me! String me up, you traitor!"
     Rumata caught his breath and let go of Kiun.
     "I was only joking," he said. "Don't be afraid."
     "Lies, lies," Kiun sobbed. "Nothing but lies everywhere!"
     "All right, then," said Rumata. "Forgive me! You'd  better  fish it out
of the water,  whatever you just threw in there. It will  get soaked through
otherwise."
     Kiun did not budge from the spot. His  upper body swayed back and forth
in indecision. He  continued to  sob softly, and beat  his palms senselessly
against  his  cloak.  Then, slowly, he crawled into the  canal.  Rumata  was
waiting. He was very tired  and he sank down into his saddle. That's the way
it's got to  be, he thought;  it can't  be  done  any other  way. Kiun  came
staggering out of the canal, a bundle hidden under his cloak.
     "Books, of course," said Rumata.
     Kiun gently shook his head.
     "No," he said hoarsely. "Only one book. My book."
     "What do you write?"
     "I'm afraid it wouldn't interest you, noble don."
     Rumata wrinkled his brow and sighed.
     "Hold onto the stirrup," he said, "and come on."
     Neither spoke for a long time.
     "Listen,  Kiun," said Rumata. "I  was only joking. Don't  be  afraid of
me."
     "What a world," grumbled Kiun. "What a funny world. Everybody is making
fun. And they all do it the same way. Even the noble Don Rumata.
     Rumata was startled.
     "You know my name?"
     "Yes,  I do,"  said  Kiun.  "I recognized you by  the  circlet  on your
forehead.  And at first I was so happy to have met you of all people here on
this road--"
     Why, of  course, Rumata thought.  That's what was  on  his mind when he
called me a traitor. He said:
     "You see, I thought you were a spy. And those I kill usually at once."
     "A  spy?"  Kiun  replied.  "Yes,  indeed.  Nowadays  it's  so  easy and
profitable to be a spy. Our shining eagle, our most noble Don Reba,  is very
anxious to know what the king's  subjects are saying and thinking.  I wish I
were  a  spy. A proper scout in the Gray Joy Tavern. How fine and honorable!
At six  o'clock, off  I go  to the inn. The  innkeeper will rush to my usual
table to bring me my first tankard, and I  can drink as much  as I can hold.
Don Reba is paying for the beer-- or to be exact, nobody really pays for it.
I  just sit there with my beer in front of me  and my ears open. Sometimes I
pretend to make some notes about  the conversations, and you  should see the
poor  frightened things crawl up to offer their friendship and their purses.
In their eyes I can see what I  always wanted to: the  devotion  of  whipped
dogs, awe and fear and impotent hatred. I can have any girl I want, any time
I like;  women melt in  my arms right in front of  their husbands' eyes--all
healthy, strapping men, who  stand  there  with obsequious giggles. Splendid
prospects, noble don, don't  you agree? I heard all this  first-hand  from a
fifteen-year-old kid, a pupil of the Patriotic School--"
     "And what did you tell him then?" Rumata's curiosity had been roused by
the fugitive's tale.
     "What should I have told him? He wouldn't have understood anyhow. So  I
told him about the men of Waga Koleso, the robber chief; whenever they catch
a spy, they simply slit his belly open and  stuff his guts with pepper. Then
again, there  are the drunken  soldiers who jam a spy into a sack  and drown
him in the village pond. And, what's more, I was telling the truth, the pure
truth--but he  wouldn't believe me. He said,  "That's not what they teach us
at school." Then  I  took a  piece of paper  and  started  to write down our
conversation. I needed it at the time for my book, but the  poor boy thought
it was a denunciation. He suddenly broke out in a sweat all over..."
     They could see lights twinkle through the foliage  of the  trees lining
the road. It  was coming  from the inn  called Bako's Skeleton. Kiun's steps
began to falter and he fell silent.
     "What's the matter?" asked Rumata.
     "A  patrol of the Gray Militia. Over  there," answered  Kiun under  his
breath.
     "Well, so  what?" said Rumata. "Listen--we love and revere these simple
rough men, our militant Gray boys. We need them. From now on the people will
have to  keep their tongues in check, if they don't want to  dangle from the
nearest branch of a tree!"
     He laughed because he  had  expressed it so splendidly--exactly  in the
language of the Gray Barracks.
     Kiun seemed to shrink; he pulled his head between his shoulders.
     "Simple folk  have to know their place.  God didn't give  them a tongue
for talking, but for licking the boots of their master,  the noble lord, who
has been placed above them from the very beginning of time..."
     In the paddock, behind  the  inn, the saddled horses of the Gray Patrol
pranced about.  Through an open window  came  the  raucous  cursing  of  the
players and the  knock  and rattle from their game of  knucklebones.  In the
doorway  stood  "Skeleton  Bako"  in  person,  blocking  the  way  with  his
tremendous belly.  He  wore an old leather  jacket whose seams  had burst in
innumerable places. The  edges  of  his sleeves dripped  with moisture.  His
mossy  paw gripped a club--evidently he had just slain a  dog for his broth,
had broken out in a heavy sweat with the effort, and had stepped  outside to
get his wind back. A Gray Sturmovik lolled on the stairs, his battle-ax held
between his knees. The massive handle of his ax pushed his face to one side.
It  was plain to see  that he was nursing a giant hangover. When  he noticed
the  rider,  be cleared  his  throat, spat  between  his  feet,  and  called
hoarsely. "Sto-o-o-p! Who goes there? St-o-o-op! No-o-o-ble d-o-n-n-n!"
     Rumata's chin barely jutted out as he rode past the man without so much
as a glance.
     ". . . But if their tongue is licking the wrong boots," he said  aloud,
"then it must be yanked out, for it is written: Your tongue--my enemy..."
     Hidden by the nag's croup, Kiun hopped alongside  with long leaps.  Out
of  the corner of  his eye, Rumata  noticed  Kiun's  bald head gleaming with
perspiration.
     "Stop, I said!" roared the Sturmovik.
     One could hear his ax scraping  against the steps as he dragged himself
down the stairs, cursing God, the devil, and all people of high birth.
     About five men,  pondered Rumata, and tugged at his lace cuffs. Drunken
butchers. So what!
     They had passed the inn by now and kept moving toward the woods.
     "I  can walk faster, if you so  desire," said Kiun with an  exaggerated
firm voice.
     "Certainly not!" said Rumata and slowed his horse down.
     "It would be boring to ride so many miles without a single brawl. Don't
you ever want to get  into a good fight, Kiun? Just talk, that's all you do,
don't you?"
     "No," said Kiun. "I have never any desire to get into a fight."
     "That's  exactly your  trouble," Rumata  grumbled, annoyed. He directed
the stallion to the side of the road, and tugged impatiently at his gloves.
     From  a bend in the road, two riders came galloping at full speed. They
halted as soon as they caught sight of him.
     "Hey, there, noble don!" shouted the first one. "Show your pass!"
     "You  boor!" Rumata's  voice was icy. "You  can't even  read, what good
will a pass do you!"
     He jerked his knees deeply into his horse's flanks, and the steed  took
off in  a  fast trot  straight toward the two  Gray Sturmoviks. Cowards,  he
thought. Let's just slap their faces a few times! No, what's the use. Here I
am, burning to vent  the rage that has been building up all day--but nothing
will come  of  it  anyhow. So  let's stay  calm  and humane,  let's  forgive
everyone, remain imperturbable like the gods. The gods are never in a hurry;
after all, they have all eternity ahead of them...
     He  rode  close  to the Sturmoviks. The  two  men,  no  longer sure  of
themselves, seized their axes and fell back.
     "W-e-e-ell?" Rumata asked slowly.
     "Oh--what's  the  matter  with me?"  stammered  the braver  of the  two
Sturmoviks, quite perplexed. "I mean--it's you, the noble Don Rumata?"
     His  companion  had already turned his  horse  around and made off in a
fast  gallop.  The first Sturmovik kept falling back and lowered  his raised
ax.
     "I  beg  your most humble pardon, noble don,"  he gushed. "We  did  not
recognize  you  right  away  ... it was  our fault.  Official business,  you
know--so  easy  to make a mistake  there. The fellows  have been drinking  a
little,  and  they  are burning  with  eagerness--" He maneuvered his  horse
around, ready  to take  off. "You will  understand, noble don, such restless
times .  . . We're hunting down those fleeing bookworms ... I hope you won't
make complaints about us, noble don--"
     Rumata turned his back on him. "A pleasant journey,  most  noble  don!"
shouted the Sturmovik after him, much relieved.
     As soon as the two riders were out of sight, Rumata called out  softly:
"Kiun!"
     There was no answer.
     "Hey, Kiun!"
     Still  no answer. He listened more closely; now he could hear a distant
rustling in the bushes that was set off distinctly against the background of
the constantly  singing gnats and mosquitoes. Kiun must be marching  hastily
across the  land, toward the West, in the direction of the Irukanian border.
That's that, thought  Rumata.  What was the good of the whole  conversation?
It's always  the  same  thing, over  and  over again. Cautious  exploring at
first, then guarded exchange  of ambiguous remarks . . . Week after week you
waste  your energy on stupid chatter with  any number of morons; but if  you
are  lucky  enough  to  meet  some  real  person,  there's  no  time  for  a
heart-to-heart  talk. You'd like  to  provide some cover for him, to protect
him, to help  him reach some refuge--and he walks away without  ever knowing
whether he encountered  a  friend  or a vain fop.  And  you don't  find  out
anything  about  him  either--his  desires, his  abilities, his  reason  for
living, his goals...
     His thoughts turned to Arkanar in the evening. Solid stone houses along
the  main  streets,  friendly  lanterns  over the  inn  gates,  kindhearted,
satisfied shopkeepers  drinking their beer at  clean tables, chatting  about
the world, how  it isn't  such a bad place after all; discussing the falling
bread prices  or  the rising harness prices; here and there a conspiracy  is
unveiled,  warlocks and suspect  bookworms are incarcerated, the king is  as
magnificent and grand as ever;  Don Reba, however,  is infinitely clever and
always on  his  guard.  "You don't say!"---"That's the way it's  supposed to
be!"-- "The world is round!"--"For all I care it might be square, only don't
you touch our learned men!"--"Believe me, brothers, all our misfortunes come
from those know-it-alls!"-- "Happiness is not  caused  by money; the peasant
is a human being, too, so  they say, fine, but go on--and all the time  more
and more of this inciting poetry: and they begin to  raise hell,  there  are
riots and  mutiny  . . ." "Throw  them  all in  jail,  brothers! Myself, for
example, what would I do? I would ask them directly: can you read and write?
Lock him up! You write poems?  Lock  him up! You  are an expert on diagrams?
Lock  him up! You know too much!--" "Bina,  my angel, another three tankards
of beer and a roast hare!"
     And outside  the window--stomp,  stomp, stomp--come marching  along the
nailed boots of the sturdy, red-nosed fellows in their gray shirts. And over
their right shoulder,  the heavy hatchets. "Brothers!  There  they  are, our
protectors! They keep this learned rabble at a proper distance, yes, indeed!
.  . . And  that one over there, that's my boy, my  son--Over  there on  the
right flank! It  was only yesterday that I tanned his  hide!  Yes, brothers,
we're living  in  a  wonderful time!  Our monarchy, so  solidly  entrenched,
prosperity, unshakable  law  and  order--and  justice. Hooray  for  our Gray
Troops! Hooray, Don Reba! Long live our King! That's the life, brothers!"
     Over the dark plains of  the kingdom  of  Arkanar,  however,  lit up by
raging  fires and  glowing woods,  hundreds  of miserable  men  are fleeing,
skirting the sentry  posts,  running, stumbling,  and running  on. Bitten by
gnats,  with  bleeding, sore feet, covered with  dust  and sweat, tormented,
frightened and tortured by despair, but  as hard as steel and  firm in their
convictions--they are unlawfully accused  and  persecuted. Why? Because they
heal  and  teach  their people, who  are riddled by disease  and swamped  by
ignorance;  because, like gods, they  create a second nature out of clay and
stone, wishing to beautify our existence,  for  a people that does not  know
beauty;  because they penetrate  into the secrets of nature hoping to  place
these secrets at the service of  and  for the benefit of the dull, apathetic
people, who have been kept in fear by ancient black arts. They are helpless,
good and awkward, way ahead of their own times...
     Rumata pulled off one  glove and  soundly  slapped his stallion between
the ears. "Let's go, you lame old  mare!" He  spoke  Russian. It was already
past midnight when he rode into the forest.
     Nowadays  nobody  could tell exactly  any more  where that strange name
came from--"Hiccup Forest." A rumor had been circulated via official sources
that some 300  years earlier the Iron Squads of Imperial  Marshal  Totz (who
later became the first  king of Arkanar) had penetrated this  forest as they
were pursuing the retreating  hordes of the copper-skinned barbarians. There
the brave  warriors had gathered the bark  of  the White Trees and  brewed a
kind of  domestic  beer which turned  out so miserably that whoever drank it
would suffer for hours from hiccups and belching.  The following morning, so
the  legend goes, when  said Marshal Totz came to inspect the camp, he tamed
up  his blue-blooded nose  and spoke,  the following words; "Indeed, this is
unbearable! The whole forest has the hiccups and reeks of bad beer!" That is
the origin, it is said, of this peculiar name.
     One might quarrel  about the veracity of  this  legend, but in any case
this was no ordinary forest. Giant trees with firm white trunks were growing
in  it,  of  the kind that could  no  longer  be found anywhere  else in the
country. Not even  in the  dukedom  of  Irukan, and  definitely not  in  the
Mercantile Republic of Sloan, where all the  timber had long  since been cut
down for  use in  the  construction of  ships. There were rumors  making the
round  that  many such woods  still existed beyond the Red Mountains, in the
country of  the  barbarians--but  there are all kinds of stories told  about
those barbarians, you know ...
     A  path had been cut  through the forest some 200 years back. This road
led to the silver mines  and by virtue of feudal law the noble family of the
Barons of Pampa, the descendants of  a comrade-in-arms of Marshal  Totz, had
been invested with these holdings. According  to this feudal law, the Barons
of Pampa  were  supposed  to pay  the  Arkanarian kings twelve poods of pure
silver each year. Thus each new king would gather  an army shortly  after he
ascended to  the throne, and march toward Castle Bau, where the barons dwelt
The walls of the castle were solid, the barons were brave, and each year, as
before, the  kingdom of Arkanar had yet to collect the  twelve poods of pure
silver. After their defeated armies had returned home, the Arkanarian  kings
would once again confirm  the  barons' legal  claims, in  addition to  other
privileges, including the right to pick one's nose  at the royal  table, the
right to go  hunting  in the  western regions of Arkanar  and,  finally, the
right to call the princes by their  first names,  without adding  their rank
and title.
     Hiccup  Forest  was  full of  dark secrets.  Throughout the day,  heavy
carloads of  silver ore would roll toward the South. But at night,  the road
was deserted, for few men dared walk there under the lights of the stars. It
was  said  that at night the Siu bird called from the High  Tree. No one had
ever  beheld  this bird,  for  it cannot  be seen by human  eyes,  being  no
ordinary bird. It  was  said that great  shaggy spiders would jump  from the
tree branches onto a horse's neck  to suck his blood in almost  no time.  It
was  said that the monstrous  primeval dragon Pech  roamed this forest;  the
monster  was said  to  be  covered with giant scales; to  bear  a live young
dragonlet  once  every twelve  years;  and to drag after it 12 tails pouring
with  sweat. And somebody  is said to have seen with  his own eyes, in broad
daylight, how the naked wild sow Y, cursed by the  Holy Mickey, was dragging
itself along the highway, moaning and  grunting--a rapacious beast of  prey,
invulnerable to iron but easily pierced by a bone.
     Here in this mysterious forest, you might encounter the fugitive slave,
the one  with the black tattoos  between his shoulder blades. He  was stupid
and pitiless, just like the shaggy, blood-sucking spiders. Or you might meet
the magician, the one who had  been mangled  by three deaths;  he was always
gathering mysterious mushrooms for his magic potions, which could make a man
invisible, or change him into  different animals, or even  give him a second
shadow.
     Everyone knew, of course, that  the  robber captain Waga Koleso and his
band  roamed  along  the road  all through  the  night,  and fugitive forced
laborers  from  the  silver mines,  with  their  black  hands  and  whitish,
transparent  faces.  The poisoners  would  gather here for  their  nocturnal
meetings, and the brazen hunters of the Barons  of Pampa  camped out in  the
glades  where they could roast their stolen buffaloes on a spit over an open
fire.
     In the  midst of  the  thicket, where the underbrush was growing denser
than anywhere, stood a giant tree, gouged with clefts and chinks by old age.
Beneath it leaned  a  warped wooden  hut, surrounded by a blackened,  wooden
palisade. The hut had been here since  time immemorial. The  door was always
closed. Idols hewn of entire logs leaned against the moldering wooden steps.
This  hut  was,  as everyone could testify, the most, most dangerous spot in
all Hiccup  Forest. Every  twelve years the old wild sow  Pech comes here to
bring forth its young. Then the sow crawls under this hut to die,  poisoning
the whole foundation of  the  hut  with its black venom. If ever this poison
seeps  to the outside, the end of the world  will be near. People  also  say
that on unclean nights, the  idols  will dig  themselves  out from the soil,
walk to the path, and make mysterious signs there. And they also say that at
times a demonic  light will shine in the dead windows of the hut, while dull
sounds  can be heard  from within, and  smoke can  be  seen rising from  the
chimney up to the sky.
     Not long ago, the village idiot  Kukisch from the hamlet "Sweet Stench"
(also popularly known as "Dung Heap") happened to chance upon this hut  and,
fool that  he is, stared  into a window. He  came  home completely mad,  and
after he  had regained the pitiful traces  of wit he had, he  told of having
seen a light inside the hut, a man sitting at a rough wooden table, his feet
propped up  on  the  rough bench, holding  a little casket  in his  hand and
drinking from it. His jowls drooped almost down to his belt and his skin was
all pockmarked. And that, naturally,  was the Holy Mickey  in person, before
he had seen the light,  in fact: a moll hunter, drunkard, and blasphemer. To
gaze upon him was only possible for those  who were entirely without fear. A
sweet, heavy odor had come  through the window and shadows  flitted  through
the trees.  People  came from all over  to listen  to the idiot's  tale. The
whole story  finally ended when the Sturmoviks appeared,  screwed his elbows
up to his shoulders and sent him packing. Still, of course, the rumors about
the old hut could not be quenched, and from  then on it was  generally known
as the "Drunkard's Lair."
     Rumata made  his  way  through the  prolific growths of  gigantic ferns
until he came to the entrance of the  Drunkard's Lair. He  tied his horse to
one of the idols. There was a light inside the  hut  and the door  was open,
hanging  by a  single  hinge. Father Kabani  sat at  the  table,  completely
disheveled.  A penetrating  odor of schnapps  filled the hut; on the  table,
amidst gnawed bones and boiled beets, sat a giant earthenware jug.
     "Good evening, Father Kabani," said Rumata as he crossed the threshold.
     "I  bid you welcome," replied Father Kabani with a  voice that  sounded
like a hunter's horn.
     Rumata approached the table with clicking spurs, dropped his  gloves on
the table  and looked again at Father Kabani, who sat motionless,  his heavy
drooping jowls supported in  his palms. His shaggy,  half-gray eyebrows hung
down onto his cheeks like dried grass tufts over a ravine. From the nostrils
of  his porous  large-pored nose the air came whistling whenever he breathed
out. It stank of half-digested alcohol.
     "I  invented it myself!" he  said  suddenly, unexpectedly.  With  great
effort he  pulled  up his  right  eyebrow  and  directed a  somber glance at
Rumata. "I myself! And what  for?" He withdrew his right hand from under his
jowl and his hairy finger gestured aimlessly in the air. "And despite all, I
am good for nothing!  I  have invented it--and  yet I'm no good,  eh? That's
right, that's  right, a failure. None  of us invents anything anyhow, nobody
has any new ideas, but-- oh, the devil with it all...!"
     Rumata unbuckled his belt, took off his fez and removed his swords.
     "Come, come," he said gently.
     "The box!"  Father Kabani wheezed. Then he  fell silent and  moved  his
cheeks in a strange fashion.
     Without taking his eyes off the old man, Rumata swung his feet, shod in
dusty boots, over the bench  and sat down. He placed both his swords next to
each other on the table.
     "The box  . . ." repeated Father Kabani. "We always say we invented it.
But  in  reality it  was all thought up  a  long time before us. Some person
invented it ages ago, put it in a box, made a hole in the box, and then made
off--maybe went to sleep somewhere--And what comes next? Then Father  Kabani
arrives,  closes his eyes and puts  his hand  into the hole."  Father Kabani
looked at his hand. "Ha!  Invented!  I, he said,  have thought up this thing
... ! And if you don't believe it,  then you are an ass. And I stick my hand
inside --One! What do I find? Barbed wire! What is that for? For the wolves,
naturally. Splendid! And I stick my hand inside again--Two! What do I  find?
What a cleverly conceived thing, a so-called meat grinder. What is that for?
For  finely  ground  meat. Splendid!  I stick my  hand  inside for the third
time--Three! What is  it?  Firewater. What  is that for? To make  damp  wood
burn, eh?"
     Father Kabani fell silent once, more  and arched forward as if  someone
had  grabbed him  by the  collar. Rumata took  the jug, peered  inside, then
poured  a  few drops on the back of  his  hand. The  liquid was  violet  and
smelled strongly of cheap alcohol. Rumata carefully dried his hand with  his
lace  handkerchief.  Greasy  spots  remained  on the  cloth. Father Kabani's
disheveled head touched the table. He suddenly straightened up again.
     "Whoever put  all  this  stuff into  the box knew what it was good for.
Barbed wire against the wolves? I made that up myself,  fool that I am. They
use the  barbed  wire  for fencing  the  mines  and  the  pits! So that  the
political prisoners don't run away  from there. But I won't play  along with
them! I'm  an enemy of the  state, too. But did they ask  me? Sure they did!
Barbed  wire, eh? Sure,  barbed wire,  what else.  Against the  wolves,  eh?
Against  the wolves .  .  .  Excellent  . . . Splendid chap! Let's fence the
mines and the pits with it! Don Reba in person, the first minister of state,
helped to  fence the  mines. And he even requisitioned my meat grinder. He's
got brains, all right! Splendid! And now he grinds the meat in the Tower  of
Joy--from  human  beings--And  that  works  miracles  during interrogations,
people say..."
     I know all that, thought Rumata. I know it all. I know how you screamed
in  your private  audience  with  Don  Reba,  how you crawled  at his  feet,
imploring  and  begging: Stop,  please. I'll confess! But it  was  too  late
already. Your meat grinder had already started...
     Father Kabani seized the jug and lifted it to his hairy mouth, tippling
the poisonous  swill  as he roared  like the wild sow Y. Then he set the jug
back on the table with a bang and popped a boiled beet into his mouth. Tears
flowed over his broad cheeks.
     "Yes, firewater!" he said when he found his voice again. "To be used as
tinder  for the  hearth  and  for  a jolly game  or  two. But  what  kind of
firewater is  that, my dear, if you  can drink it? Mix it with beer, and how
the price of beer  would soar! But no, I won't give it to you! I'll drink it
all myself.  And  how I drink it!  Night and day. I'm all bloated. And  it's
getting  worse all the time. The  other day I looked  in  a mirror  and--Don
Rumata,  you won't believe  it--I was scared of myself! I looked closer--may
the Good Lord protect me! What was left of  Father Kabani? A sea-monster,  a
polyp,  dotted all over with colored spots. Some  red, some blue  . . . They
say firewater was invented for merry games with fire--"
     Father Kabani spat on the floor, scraping his shoe over the spot to rub
out his spittle. Suddenly he asked: "What day is it today?"
     "The eve of Kata the Just," said Rumata.
     "And why isn't the sun shining?"
     "Because it's night."
     "Night  again," said Father Kabani painfully and fell forward, his face
splashing into the beets.
     Rumata  regarded him for a  while, whistling  softly between his teeth.
Then he rose from the bench and walked over  to  the back  porch. Amid small
piles of  beets  and sawdust glittered  the glass  pipes  of Father Kabani's
voluminous distillation equipment for home-brewed liquor. It was the amazing
creation  of a  born engineer and  a  masterful glass-blower. Twice,  Rumata
walked around the devilish machine, then, in the dark, groped for a piece of
iron  and began  to hit  about  at  random, without  aiming  at  anything in
particular.  There  was  the sound of  breaking  glass, rattling  metal, and
gurgling liquids. The cheap smell of soured spirits pervaded the small room.
As he walked over to the other  comer to switch on the  electric light,  the
broken glass crunched under his boots. In the comer stood a heavy strongbox,
containing  a "Midas" field  synthesizer. With his right  hand Rumata  swept
some rubble off the top of the safe, dialed a combination of various numbers
on  the  lock  and opened  it. Even  in the  bright  electrical  light,  the
synthesizer looked rather odd in  the midst of all  the rubbish and garbage.
Rumata grasped a handful of sawdust from a pile and threw it into the feeder
funnel. The synthesizer started humming at once, then automatically switched
on the indicator. With the tip of his boot, Rumata shoved a rusty pail under
the  output slot. And in no time--clink, clink,  clink--golden ducats, coins
with the aristocratic profile of Pitz the Sixth, King of Arkanar,  fell into
the battered pail.
     Rumata carried the old man  over  to an old creaking wooden cot, pulled
off his boots,  tamed him  over on his right side, and covered  him with the
almost hairless fur  of a  long-dead animal. In the process,  Father  Kabani
woke up briefly. He  could neither  move nor think clearly. So he  contented
himself with  reciting a few verses of  a  forbidden romance: "I am  like  a
crimson flower in your dear  little hand . . . ," whereupon he lapsed into a
hearty snore.
     Rumata  cleared  the table,  swept  the floor, and  cleaned the  single
window,  which was black  with  accumulated dirt and  soot from the chemical
experiments  that Father Kabani  conducted at the  window  sill.  Behind the
dilapidated stove  he found a bottle with alcohol  which  he  poured into  a
rathole.  Then  he  watered his Chamalharian stallion, fed him oats from his
saddlebag, washed his face  and hands, and sat down to wait.  He stared into
the little smoking flame of the oil lamp.
     He had been leading this strange dual existence for the past  six years
and had apparently adjusted to it by now. Only from  time to time--like  the
present, for instance--it suddenly seemed  to him that  there was no reality
behind the organized bestiality, the depressing cult of  the Grays.  He felt
as  if a strange theater performance were  unrolling in  front  of his eyes,
with himself, Rumata, playing the  principal part And any moment now,  after
some particularly successful rejoinder, the applause would begin to  thunder
and  the connoisseurs  and  art  lovers from  the Institute  of Experimental
History would shout enthusiastically from their loges:
     "Bravo, Anton, fantastic, great! Well done, Tony!"
     He  looked around  but there was no crowded theater, only  damp,  mossy
walls of rough-hewn logs, blackened by the smoking oil lamp.
     Outside, the Chamalharian stallion neighed softly and pawed the ground.
Gradually, a deep whistle came nearer. It sounded so familiar, so well known
from days  of  old, that  tears almost welled up in Rumata's eyes--the sound
was so unexpected in this  godforsaken place. Rumata listened  intently, his
mouth half  open. Now the throbbing stopped suddenly; the  tiny flame in the
oil lamp began to sputter,  then suddenly flared up again. Rumata  was about
to  get up from  the bench when Don Kondor emerged from the darkness of  the
night and came striding into the room.  Don Kondor was the Supreme Judge and
Keeper of the Great Seal of the Mercantile Republic of Soan,  Vice-President
of the Conference of the  Twelve Negotiators,  and  Cavalier of the Imperial
Order of Righteous Pity.
     Rumata jumped up and  knocked  the bench  over. He would have loved  to
embrace, his friend, kiss his cheeks, but his legs automatically bent at the
knee  (as  prescribed by etiquette),  his spurs clicked solemnly,  his right
hand swept in a semicircle from his  heart  over to his  right side, and his
head  lowered itself  so  swiftly that his  chin  almost  disappeared in his
scarf.  Don Kondor took off his velvet cap, adorned by a simple feather, and
quickly waved it in the direction  of  Don Rumata, as  if  he  were  shooing
flies. Then he threw the cap on the table and undid  the clasp at the collar
of his cloak. The cloak sank downwards along his back as he sat on the bench
and stretched  out his  legs.  His left hand was held akimbo,  and  with his
outstretched right hand he  held the hilt  of his  gilded  sword,  whose tip
stuck in the moldy wood of the floor. He was rather small and lean, and big,
somewhat protruding eyes marked  his pale face. His black hair was gathered,
like Rumata's, by a heavy golden circlet with a green stone on his forehead.
     "Are you alone, Don Rumata?" he asked hastily.
     "Yes, noble don," Rumata answered, depressed.
     Father  Kabani's  voice thundered suddenly: "Noble Don Reba!  You are a
hyena, that's what you are!"
     Don Kondor did  not pay any  attention  to him. He  did not  even  turn
around.
     "I've come with the helicopter," he said.
     "Let's hope nobody saw you."
     One legend  more or less. "What's the difference?" answered Don  Kondor
in a somewhat irritated voice. "I've simply not the time to ride around on a
horse. What's happened with Budach? I'm worried about  him. Do sit down, Don
Rumata, will you please? I'm getting a crick in my neck this way."
     Rumata obediently took a seat on the bench.
     "Budach has  disappeared," he said. "I  waited for him at the Square of
the Heavy  Swords. The  only person that  came was a  one-eyed vagabond, who
gave the password  and handed me a bag  full of  books. I waited for another
two hours; then I got in touch with Don Hug,  who told me he took  Budach as
far as the  border. Budach was in the company of  some  noble don, a man who
could be  trusted since  he had lost everything at a game of cards with  Don
Hug  and  therefore sold himself  over, body and soul.  Consequently, Budach
must be somewhere here in Arkanar. That's all I know."
     "Not much, I dare say," remarked Don Kondor.
     "But the affair with Budach is not that important," replied Rumata. "If
he is still alive,  I'll find him and  extricate  him from any tight spot he
might  be  in.  That's no problem really. But this wasn't  what I  wanted to
discuss with you. I must once more draw your attention to  the fact that the
situation in Arkanar is exceeding the bounds of the basis theory--"
     Don Kondor made a sour face.
     "No, no, hear  me out,"  said Rumata firmly. "I have the feeling I  can
never  make  myself  properly  understood  over  the  radio. And  in Arkanar
everything  is helter-skelter! A  new, systematically effective  factor  has
made  its appearance. It looks as if  Don Reba is intentionally hurtling the
whole depressing Grayness of the kingdom on the scientists. Anyone who rises
even slightly above the average Gray level puts his life in jeopardy. Listen
to me, Don Kondor! These are no vague, emotional impressions, these are real
facts!  It's enough to be  intelligent and educated, to dare to have doubts,
to say something out of the ordinary. Perhaps if some day you refuse a glass
of wine, your life will  be in danger. Any little grocery clerk can beat you
to death. Hundreds, thousands of people are being denounced. They are caught
by the Sturmoviks, strung up by their feet in the streets. Naked, with their
head dangling down. Only yesterday they trampled an old man  to  death in my
street with  their boots:  somebody told  them he could read and write. They
kept kicking  him  for two  hours,  these  stupid  pigs  with their  beastly
drooling snouts--"
     Rumata paused for  a  moment to collect  himself  and ended  in a  calm
voice:  "To  sum it  all  up,  it won't  be long  now  until  not  a  single
intelligent person will remain alive in Arkanar. Just like  in the domain of
the Holy Order after the slaughter of Barkan."
     Don Kondor fixed his dark eyes on Rumata and pressed his lips together.
     "I don't like what's happening with you, Anton," he said in Russian.
     "There are lots of things I don't like either, Alexander Vassilevitch,"
said Rumata. "For instance, I don't like the fact  that we have tied our own
hands,  the way we have set up  our problem here. I don't like the fact that
we  call  it  the 'problem  of  bloodless  procedure.'  For as far as  I  am
concerned, this is  equivalent to  scientific justification of inactivity. I
know  all your arguments!  And I am well  acquainted  with our theories. But
theories do  not work in such a situation, where every  minute  human beings
are attacked by wild beasts in a typical fascist manner! Everything is going
to pieces, going to rack and rum. What good  is our knowledge and our  gold?
It always comes too late."
     "Anton," said Don  Kondor, "calm  down. I believe you when you say that
the  situation  in Arkanar  has  reached  a critical  point.  But  I am also
convinced that you cannot propose a single constructive solution."
     "That's true," agreed Rumata. "I have no concrete solutions to propose.
But it gets to be more and more difficult  for  me to control myself in view
of these increasing signs of physical and moral corruption."
     "Anton,"  said  Don  Kondor. "There are  250 of  us altogether  on this
entire  planet. All of us exercise effective self-control, and it is equally
difficult for all of us. The most experienced among us  have lived here  for
twenty-two  years. They  came  only  as observers,  nothing  else.  They are
forbidden to intervene here in any way. Just  imagine: an out-and-out ban on
any intervention.  We don't  have  the  right to rescue Budach, even if they
trampled him to death in front of our eyes."
     "You don't need to talk to me as if I were a child," said Rumata.
     "But you are  as impatient as a child,"  replied Don  Kondor.  "And you
must display a lot of patience here."
     Rumata laughed bitterly.
     "And while we  are practicing patience and waiting  forever,"  he said,
"holding endless discussions  about the proper ways to behave, these  beasts
are attacking their fellow human beings every day, every single minute."
     "Anton," said Don Kondor, "there are  thousands of other planets in the
universe which we have not yet visited and where history runs its course."
     "But we did come to this planet!"
     "Yes.  Not  to  vent  our  righteous anger,  but rather  to  help these
creatures here. If you're too weak for the  job, then get out! Go back home!
After all, you're not a child. You knew what to expect here."
     Rumata did  not speak. Don Kondor's features relaxed; he seemed to have
aged  many years during his last words.  Slowly he strode the length of  the
table,  seized  his  sword and dragged it behind him  like  a stick. Then he
lapsed into an almost imperceptible, sad shaking of his  head; only his nose
seemed to move.
     "I can  understand all that," he said. "I've gone through all  of  this
myself.  There were times when this sensation of personal impotence, my  own
wretchedness,  appeared  to me  as  the most  horrible  thing.  Some  weaker
characters even went crazy over it and were sent back home for treatment. It
took  me fifteen years to understand what  the most horrible thing  is. It's
become dehumanized, Anton; to harden your  soul  by dragging  it through the
dirt.  We are the gods here, Anton, but  we have to  be wiser than the local
gods  that  men  here have created after their own image. Our path, however,
leads us along the edge of an abyss. One  wrong step and you are caught in a
morass,  and for the rest  of your days you cannot free and cleanse yourself
of it. In the Story of the Descent, Goran the Irukanian wrote: After God had
descended from  Heaven and emerged from the Pitanian swamps in order to show
himself to the people, lo and behold, his feet were covered with dirt."
     "Goran was  ultimately  burned  to death for  that," added Rumata in  a
somber voice.
     "True, they put him to  death by burning him alive. But these things do
not really concern us. I have been  here  now  for fifteen years. Even in my
dreams I don't see Earth any longer.  Some time ago while I was rummaging in
some old papers, I found the photo  of a  woman, and for the longest time  I
could  not remember who she was.  Sometimes I  am overcome by a sensation of
horror because in reality I am no longer a staff member of the Institute but
rather an exponent  of that  local institution,  the  highest judge  of  the
Mercantile Republic.  That, to my mind, is  the most  frightening thing:  to
become  adjusted  to  your  role. Inside  each  of  us, the noble  wild  sow
struggles with the communard. And while everyone around cheers for  the sow,
the  communard is all  alone.--Earth  is  a  thousand years  and a  thousand
parsecs  away  from here."  Don  Kondor  fell silent;  he patted  his knees.
"That's  the way it is, Anton,"  he said after a while, and  his  voice grew
firmer. "So let's remain communards!"
     He doesn't understand, thought  Anton-Rumata.  How should he after all?
He's lucky; he does not  know  the Gray Terror or Don  Reba. All that he has
seen on this  planet in the  course of these past fifteen years fits somehow
within the framework  of  the basis theory.  And  if  I  talk  to  him about
fascism, the Gray Sturmoviks, the rising militancy of the petty bourgeoisie,
he accuses me of emotional word games: "Don't fool around  with terminology,
Anton! Terminological confusion will bring about dangerous  results!"  He is
absolutely  incapable of  comprehending  that the average level  of medieval
bestiality corresponds to the  happy day yesterday on  Arkanar. In his  eyes
Don  Reba  is  another  Richelieu, a wise and farsighted  politician, who is
defending  the absolute regime from feudalistic  excesses. I am the only one
on this planet to see the terrible shadow spreading over the whole land. But
I just can't  understand where  this shadow is coming from, and why. And how
can I convince him,  when I  can clearly see in his eyes that he would  like
best to send me back to Earth on the spot for a cure?
     "How is the noble Synda?" asked Rumata.
     Don  Kondor  stopped inspecting him  with his eyes and  murmured: "Very
well,  thank you." Then he  added:  "We must  finally come to grips with the
fact that neither  you, nor I, nor anybody of our group here, will  ever see
the tangible results of our work. We are not physicists but historians.  Our
unit of time  is not the second  but the century. And what we are doing here
is not  meant to be the sowing of the seed but merely the preparation of the
soil.  And those emissaries from Earth, those--enthusiasts we get  from time
to time--I wish they'd go to hell, those eager beavers ..."
     Rumata put on a forced smile and tugged needlessly at his riding boots.
Eager beavers. Yes indeed.
     Ten  years ago, Stefan Orlovski,  alias  Don Kapada,  commander of  the
crossbow troops of His  Imperial Highness, had ordered his  soldiers to open
fire on the emperor's men as they  were publicly torturing eighteen Estorian
witches. With his own  hand he had slain the imperial  high judge and two of
his assistants  but in  the end  he had  been pierced  by the  spears of the
emperor's bodyguard. As he lay  dying, he called out  to the people watching
the public spectacle:
     "Remember, you are human beings! Defend yourselves, kill them, don't be
afraid of  them!" But his voice could scarcely  be heard over the din of the
roaring crowd as they were shouting, "Burn the witches! Burn them alive!"
     And it  was at about the same time that Karl Rosenblum, one of the most
highly  regarded  historical  experts on the Peasants'  War  in  Germany and
France, alias Pani-Pas, the wool merchant, incited a riot amongst the Murian
peasants, He  took two cities by assault and  was killed by an arrow in  his
back as he tried to put a stop to the looting. He was  still  alive when  he
was rescued by  a helicopter but he could no longer speak. His big blue eyes
expressed  guilt  and amazement  as  big tears trickled  down  his bloodless
cheeks ...
     And shortly before Rumata's arrival  on this planet,  the most powerful
fellow  conspirator,  confidant  of  the  Tyrant  of  Kaisan  (alias  Jeremy
Toughnut, specialist  in reforms  on Terra), had  staged a palace revolution
out of a clear sky,  had seized power and tried to introduce the  Golden Age
within two months; had stubbornly refused to reply to the strongest protests
and  interpellations  of neighbors  and  the  Earth  had earned the  dubious
reputation of a  crazy fool; had successfully evaded eight  rescue attempts;
and was finally captured  by the Institute's special commando  troop who had
taken him by submarine to an island base near the South pole...
     "Just  think  of  that!"  Rumata said under his breath. "And people  on
Earth still  firmly believe to this very day that our physicists are working
on the most complicated problems ..."
     Don Kondor suddenly sat up and took notice.
     "Ah, finally," he whispered.
     From  outside  came  the sound  of angry or  desperate neighing,  hoofs
pawing the ground, and energetic cursing in a voice with a strong  Irukanian
accent.  A man entered  the  room,  It was Don  Hug, the  first groom of the
chamber of His Lordship the Duke of Irukan. He was stout, red-cheeked with a
smartly  upturned mustache, grinned from ear to ear, and from under the wavy
curls of his  auburn wig peered two merry little eyes. And once again Rumata
wanted to obey the impulse  to  embrace the new arrival--it was his  boyhood
friend Pashka; but  Don Hug suddenly assumed  a formal posture, his fat face
took on  the sickeningly  sweet smile demanded by etiquette; he bowed nimbly
from the waist down, pressed his  hat against his chest and pursed his lips.
Rumata stole  a furtive  glance  over to  Alexander Vassilevitch.  Alexander
Vassilevitch  had vanished,  and in  his  place was  Don Kondor, the Supreme
Judge and Keeper of  the Seal; his legs stretched out, his left hand akimbo,
while his right hand clasped the hilt of his gilded sword.
     "You are very late, Don Hug," he said in an unpleasant tone of voice.
     "I  beg  your  most  humble  pardon!"  called  out  Don   Hug,  swiftly
approaching the table. "I swear  by  my Duke's  rickets, nothing but totally
unforeseen unfortunate circumstances! I was stopped four times by the patrol
of His  Highness, the King of Arkanar,  and  twice I had  to fight  off some
rascals." He  raised his left hand with an elegant movement to show  off his
blood-soaked,  bandaged limb. "By the way, noble  don,  whose helicopter  is
that behind the hut?"
     "It's mine," Don  Kondor answered snippishly.  "I have no time to waste
on brawls along the way."
     Don Hug gave him a  friendly smile  and sat down, straddling the bench.
"In other words, noble dons,  we are forced to state that  our most  learned
Dr.  Budach has mysteriously vanished somewhere between the Irukanian border
and the Square of the Heavy Swords-"
     Father  Kabani stirred  on  his  cot. He turned over  in  his sleep and
without waking he mumbled: "Don Reba ..."
     "Leave Budach to  me,"  said Rumata, in a desperate tone,  "and despite
everything, will you please try to understand me..."


     Rumata woke up with a start. He opened his eyes. It was broad daylight.
Down in  the  street, just below his windows, was some commotion.  Somebody,
probably a soldier, yelled at the top of his voice: "You  stinking bum! Look
at this  filth! I'll make you lap it up  with your tongue!  (Good morning to
you, thought Rumata.) Shut up, you! I swear by the hunchback of Holy Mickey,
you make me lose my temper!"
     Another voice, hoarse and coarse,  growled: "You've  got  to watch your
step in this  miserable street!  It rained this morning, but  who knows when
they last swept this place."
     "You'll show me where I'm supposed to look, all right."
     "You'd better let go of me, noble don, let go of my shirt, will you!"
     "Oh, you'll show me, all right--"
     Rumata heard a  loud slapping sound.  It was evidently the second slap;
the first one had woken him up.
     "You'd better stop hitting me, noble don." A familiar  voice. Who could
it be? Probably  Don Tameo. I'll let him  win back his decrepit Chamalharian
nag today. I wonder  if  I'll  ever learn to distinguish a good horse from a
poor  one. But  after all,  my family isn't  known for their  expertise with
horses.  Camels, yes; we are experts on fighter camels.  A good  thing there
are hardly, any camels here in  Arkanar. Rumata stretched his arms and legs,
until  his joints cracked.  He  groped  for a  silken rope  attached to  the
headboard of  his bed and tugged at  it several times. Little bells could be
heard ringing throughout the house. That fellow  is probably hanging  out of
the window, watching the racket down below.
     I could simply get  up, of course, and get dressed by myself, but  that
would only start tongues wagging again.
     He listened once more to the stream  of  abuse  coming from  below  his
windows. The inventiveness  of the human  tongue! What entropy, what measure
of the uncertainty of human knowledge!
     Lately, Rumata  continued with his  thoughts,  some  know-it-alls  have
emerged in the guard troops, declaring that only one sword alone can be used
for  noble warfare,  while the second  sword  must  be  used exclusively for
street  fights--and Don  Reba pays  too much attention to their  worries  in
beautiful Arkanar. By the  way, Don Tameo is  not one of them. Too much of a
coward, our dear Don Tameo, and an incorrigible armchair politician.
     How  horrible when  the day starts out with Don Tameo ... Rumata sat up
in bed  and clasped  his  hands  around his knees underneath  the patched-up
elegant coverlet. He  was  seized by a  feeling of leaden  hopelessness. You
could ponder forever, keep  thinking about how powerless and small we are in
the face of circumstances ... On Earth I wouldn't ever dream of doing such a
thing.  On  Terra  we  are  strong,   self-assured  men  with   specialized,
psychological training, men  who are ready  for  anything.  And  we do  have
strong nerves:
     We  manage,  for  instance, not to turn  away our  head  when some poor
person is beaten  or executed. We are capable of tremendous self-control: We
can stand to listen  unperturbed to the endless babblings of the most abject
cretins. We have also forgotten how  to feel disgusted:  We  don't mind when
someone puts a dish before us  from which the dogs eat, or when they wipe it
out afterwards with a duly rag. And aren't we marvelous actors?  Not even in
our dreams do we  lapse into our mother tongue or any of the other languages
of  Earth. And  after all,  we are equipped with an invincible  weapon:  The
basis theory of feudalism, worked out in the quiet offices of  our officials
and   in  our  laboratories,  based  on  studious   research   and   serious
discussions...
     It's  just too  bad that  Don Reba hasn't the slightest inkling  of the
theory. And too bad, also, that our special psychological training peels off
like sunburnt skin, that we  have  to  go to extremes, that we are forced to
submit to a steady mental reconditioning: grit  your teeth and remember that
you are a god  in disguise. Remember that  they  do  not know what they  are
doing; and that they are almost all free of  guilt. And that is why you must
have the patience of Job, patience, patience--and meanwhile the fountains of
humanism inside us, which on Earth seemed to be well-nigh inexhaustible, are
drying  up  here  with  frightening  speed.  Holy Mickey!  Weren't  we  real
humanists back on Terra, lovers of mankind, humanism was the mainstay of our
nature and in our respect for the human being, in our love for  man, we even
steered toward anthropocentrism--and now we discover with horror that we did
not  truly  love  mankind  but  only  the  communards,  our  compatriots who
resembled us ...  And more and more frequently we catch ourselves in the act
of wondering: Are these  human beings,  after all? Are  they even capable of
becoming human  beings  in time? And then we remember men like Kyra, Budach,
Arata,  the  hunchback,  or  the  unsurpassable  Baron  Pampa, and  we  feel
ashamed--but  this is equally rare  and unpleasant and, worse still, it does
not help us in the least...
     All right, thought Rumata, that's enough of that. At least not so early
in  the morning.  And  damn this Don Tameo! So  much  trouble, so  much  has
accumulated inside me, in my soul, and there is no place to get rid of it in
this isolated state. That's  what gets me: the isolation, the solitude. What
did they call us back home? "Strong and self-assured,  strapping young men."
When we were back home did we ever imagine in those days that  we would ever
have to  put up  with such loneliness? Nobody would  believe  it.  Anton, my
friend, what's happening to you? To the West from here,  barely three  hours
by plane, lives Alexander Vassilevitch, a good  man with a set of brains. To
the East is Pashka,  a merry, faithful  friend, who went to school  with you
for  seven  years.  It's just  a momentary  depression,  Anton. Too  bad--we
believed you had more endurance; but doesn't this  happen to all of us? What
a  wretched grind. We understand. So why don't  you go  back home to  Terra,
recuperate from all this, occupy yourself with theoretical research, and the
rest will follow...
     Incidentally, Alexander Vassilevitch is a dogmatist par excellence.  So
if  the  basis  theory doesn't  take in the Gray Ones--"In fifteen years  of
working  on this, my friend, I have never once come across an exception like
this ..." In other words, I am simply dreaming of the  Gray hordes. And if I
dream  about  them, it  simply means that I  am  overworked, under  too much
tension, that they should send me home for a rest. "All right, Don Rumata, I
promise to investigate this personally and advise you of my findings. But in
the meantime, give me your word, no  excesses, please . . ." And  then there
is Pavel, whom I used to call Pashka  when we were kids together: now he's a
scientist, an expert,  a  brain  full  of  information.  He  became  totally
immersed in  the history of two planets and proved with  enthusiasm that the
phenomenon of the  Gray hordes represents merely the most common  occurrence
in the relationship  of the  bourgeoisie  against the barons--" By the  way,
I'll pay you a brief visit in a  few days. To  be frank with  you, I'm quite
disturbed when I think about  the incident with  Budach . . ."  Many thanks!
And that's the end of it!  I'll take care of the Budach case myself, even if
I'm no longer much good for anything else.
     The most  learned  Doctor Budach.  A  great  physician,  a most devoted
citizen of Irukan; the duke almost  knighted  him,  but then he  changed his
mind and had  him incarcerated. The most distinguished  specialist for cures
by drugs  in  the  entire empire. Author  of  the widely  known  and  famous
treatise  Concerning Herbs  and Other Plants, which Items in Mysterious Ways
Cause and Occasion Sorrow,  Joy or  Tranquility; Concerning the Salivary and
Body Fluids of Reptiles, Spiders  and  the Hairless Wild Sow  Y,  which Last
Disposes  over said Characteristics and Many  Others  Besides. A  remarkable
person, undoubtedly, and a genuine mental  giant, at the same time a devoted
humanist and eccentric who never had any money. His entire fortune consisted
of a sack  full of books. Who needs you, Doctor  Budach,  in this country of
darkest ignorance that wallows in a bloody morass of conspiracy and greed?
     Let  us assume you are alive  and you are in Arkanar. Of course you may
have fallen  into the hands  of  the barbarians, who  periodically  raid the
countryside  from their  mountain strongholds.  If  this should be the case,
then  Don  Kondor  will  contact   with  our  friend  Schumtuletidovodus,  a
specialist  in the  history  of antique cultures,  who presently works as an
epileptic shaman for the chieftain  whose first name consists of  forty-five
syllables. But if  you should be in  Arkanar after  all--first  of  all, you
might have  been captured  by the nocturnal armies of the  robber  chieftain
Waga  Koleso. No, not "captured, " - but  simply taken along, for they would
consider your companion the far more desirable booty, your friend, the noble
don, who has gambled away his entire fortune. Either way, they will not kill
you: Waga Koleso is far too avaricious.
     There's  an equal chance, though, that some idiot of a baron has you in
his clutches.  Without  any malicious intentions,  merely out of boredom and
some warped idea of hospitality. He simply would like to drink together with
a  noble guest,  so  he  sends out his hordes and has  them drag  you to the
castle of your companion. And you  will be  sitting  in the stinking chamber
until the dons have drunk themselves into oblivion and finally part company.
In that case no harm will befall you.
     But it's quite another story with the remnants of the recently defeated
peasant army of Don Ksi and of Pert Posvonotchnik, who have retreated to the
hamlet "Rotten Nest" where they are secretly supported and fed by our bright
eagle, Don  Reba himself--just in case some complication should arise in his
relationship with the barons. These peasant  soldiers know no  mercy; better
not even imagine the eventuality.  And  then there is Don Satarina, a crabby
imperial aristocrat,  102  years  of age and, of course,  totally senile. He
carries on a family feud with the dukes of Irukan, and snatches--whenever he
revives sufficiently--anything that crosses the Irukanian border. He is very
dangerous;  when  he  is under  the influence  of  Cholezistit,  he is quite
capable of issuing commands with such catastrophic results that the churches
cannot collect the corpses from his cellars fast enough.
     And then there's the top possibility. Not the  most dangerous one,  but
the one most likely to occur: the Gray Patrol of Don Reba. The Sturmoviks on
the main  roads. You might have  fallen into their hands quite by  accident,
Budach, in which case your only hope would be the quick wit and cool head of
your companion  to get you out of this calamity. But what if Don Reba should
be  interested in you  personally? For Don Reba will occasionally display an
unexpected  concern .  .  .  His spies might report that you  are  traveling
through Arkanar, then a detachment under the command of some very eager Gray
officer will be sent out to meet you. And  this Gray cretin of low rank will
be responsible for your ending up in a bag of stones in the Tower of Joy...
     Rumata pulled once more  at the rope, very  impatient now. The  bedroom
door  opened with  a repulsive creak and  a thin, somber-looking boy entered
the room. His name was  Uno, and his fate might have served as the theme for
a  ballad. He bowed deeply as he stood on the threshold, scraping the  floor
with his torn shoes, and stepped up to the bed. On the  small  bedside table
he put down a tray with  letters, some coffee, and a stale bread crust to be
chewed, which  in turn  was  supposed  to strengthen and cleanse  the teeth.
Rumata glanced at him, very annoyed.
     "Tell me please, are you ever going to oil that creaky door?"
     The  boy looked silently at the  floor. Rumata threw the coverlet back,
let his bare feet dangle  down over the edge of the bed and reached for  the
tray.  "Washed  yourself this morning?" he  asked. The  boy shifted from one
foot  to the other; without answering  he wandered through the room, picking
up the scattered garments that lay on the floor.
     "I believe I asked you whether you washed yourself today?" said  Rumata
while he opened his first letter.
     "Water won't wash away your sins," muttered  the  boy under his breath.
"So why, noble don, should I wash myself?"
     "And what did I tell you about microbes?" said Rumata.  Carefully,  the
boy placed  his master's green trousers over  the back of the armchair, then
passed his thumb in a circle above it to chase away the wicked ghosts.
     "I prayed three times last night," he said. "What more could I do?"
     "You numbskull," said Rumata and started to read his letter.
     It was  from Dona Okana, a lady-in-waiting, the  latest favorite of Don
Reba. She invited  him to come and visit her  this very evening,  and signed
the letter "amorously languishing for you." The P.S. stated in clear, simple
language  what  she  really  expected  from  this  rendezvous.  Rumata  felt
embarrassed; he  blushed. Throwing  a side glance at the boy,  he  murmured:
"That's  really too much . . ." He  ought to think it  over. To go there was
disgusting; not to go there would be foolish. Dona Okana was a well-informed
person. He quickly drained his cup of coffee and  put the chewing-crust into
his mouth.
     The next envelope was made of heavy paper; the seal was damaged. It was
obvious that the letter had been opened. The letter was  from  Don Ripat, an
unscrupulous  careerist and  lieutenant  in the Gray  Militia,  who inquired
after his esteemed  well-being, expressed his belief in the imminent victory
of the Gray Cause, and begged to postpone payment  of  his  debt, by quoting
various unfavorable circumstances. "All right,  all  right,"  Rumata mumbled
and put the letter aside, picked the envelope up once again  and examined it
with great interest. Oh yes, they were working much more carefully now; much
more carefully.
     The third letter contained an invitation to a duel because of a certain
Dona Pifa, but the writer was willing to withdraw his challenge provided the
noble Don Rumata  would testify that he was making no claims upon the person
of Dona Pifa and had never made any such claims. The letter was typical: the
basic text had been written by a calligrapher and the blanks had been filled
in with names and times-- in a clumsy hand and full of mistakes.
     Rumata put the letter down and scratched the mosquito bites on his left
hand.
     "I want to wash up. Bring the things in!" he ordered.
     The  boy  disappeared  behind the door,  to return soon  with  a wooden
basin.  He  dragged the  tub  along the floor, his  behind wagging with  the
exertion. Then he ran once  more out of the room and dragged in an empty tub
with a big dipper.
     Rumata  now  jumped  to  his feet, pulled  the  elaborately embroidered
nightshirt over his  head, and noisily  unsheathed the swords that  had been
hanging over the headboard of his bed.  Cautiously, the  boy ducked behind a
chair. For ten minutes  Rumata practiced  attack and defense; then he leaned
the  swords  against the  wall, bent over the empty  tub,  and ordered: "The
water!" It was  rather miserable to wash without soap but  Rumata had become
used to it. The boy scooped up the water with the dipper and poured it  over
Rumata's back,  neck, and  head. Dipper after dipper filled with water.  All
the  while  he kept grumbling:  "Everywhere else  people  behave like  human
beings, only here in our house  must we  bother with  such refined nonsense.
Who has  ever  heard of such  a thing? To wash yourself with  two buckets of
water? Every day a fresh towel . . . And His Lordship jumps around all naked
with two swords every morning, without having said his prayers first.. ."
     While Rumata toweled himself vigorously, he spoke with an authoritative
tone:  "I  am a member  of the court, not just some lousy  baron. A courtier
must always be clean and sweet-smelling."
     "His Royal  Highness will  hardly  sniff  at  you,"  replied  the  boy.
"Everyone knows that  his Highness prays day and night for  us sinners.  And
Don Reba--he never washes. I have it  first-hand;  his  servant has told  me
so."
     "All right, don't fret,"  said Rumata and put on his  nylon undershirt.
The  boy  regarded  the undershirt  with  dismay.  Rumors  about it had been
circulating for  quite  some time now  amongst the servants in  Arkanar. But
there was nothing that  Rumata could do about it,  for  very natural reasons
growing out of his masculine mentality. As Rumata slipped on his shorts, the
boy jerked  his head to one side,  moving  his lips  as if he wanted to shoo
away the spirit of impurity.
     Still, it  wouldn't  be a  bad idea  to introduce here the  fashion  of
wearing undergarments, thought Rumata. But  such innovations could naturally
be carried out only  with  the help  of  the fairer sex. And in  this  area,
too--unfortunately   for  him--he  distinguished  himself  by  rather   high
requirements.  Quite inconvenient  for a spy. For a cavalier and  man of the
world, for  a renowned  connoisseur of court etiquette  and for a person who
was sent to  the provinces, there to fight duels to settle love affairs,  it
was only fitting to  have twenty mistresses. Rumata made heroic endeavors to
keep  up  with  his reputation. Half the members of his  agency, rather than
devote  their  time  to  more serious efforts, spread  the  most  despicable
rumors--rumors calculated to arouse the envy and delight of the young men of
the  Arkanarian Guard. Dozens of  overjoyed  and  disappointed  ladies  whom
Rumata  visited until late in the night--reciting poems  all the time (third
night  watch: fraternal  kiss on  the lady's cheek, a  mighty leap over  the
balcony's balustrade and right  into the arms of the commander of  the night
watch, whom  he  knew well)--dozens of  ladies would  outdo each other  with
tales of the  marvelous style  of  the genuine cavalier  from  the big city.
Rumata  used   the  vanity  of  these  women,  depraved  to  the   point  of
repulsiveness, for his own purposes. However, the question  of underwear was
never touched on.
     How much simpler had been the  business with the  handkerchiefs! On the
occasion of the very first ball be had pulled an elegant silk cloth from his
waistcoat pocket, and with flourish  had  proceeded to dry his lips with it.
And at the next ball, the manly  youths were drying their sweaty  faces with
large or small pieces of cloth of various colors, gaily embroidered and with
monograms. And within one month, the ladies' men were outdoing each other by
draping bedsheets over their hand, dragging the four comers elegantly  along
the floor behind them ...
     Rumata  put  on  his  green trousers and a white batiste shirt  with  a
freshly pressed, upturned collar.
     "Any callers?" he inquired of the boy.
     "The barber is waiting," said the boy.  "And there are two dons sitting
in the drawing  room,  Don Tameo  and Don Sera. They had me bring them  some
wine and are  quarreling violently. They are waiting to have  breakfast with
you."
     "Go and get the barber. Tell the  noble  dons that I'll join them  very
soon. But don't  be  rude  to them,  do you hear  me? You must always remain
polite."
     Breakfast was not very opulent and left  room for  an  early  lunch.  A
strongly spiced roast  was  served  along  with  dogs'  ears,  marinated  in
vinegar. They drank Irukanian  sparkling  wine, the viscous,  brown Estorian
and the white Soanian. While he skillfully dissected a leg of lamb with  the
aid  of two daggers, Don Tameo complained about the overbearing  temerity of
the lower  classes. "I  will  lodge a complaint at the highest instance," he
declared.  "The  nobility  demands that  the plebs, the  peasants,  and  the
artisans  be  forbidden to  show  their  faces in public  places and  in the
street. Let  them use  the courtyards and back entrances. In those instances
where  the appearance of a peasant cannot be avoided--for example, when they
deliver  bread, meat, or wine--they should obtain  a special permit from the
Ministry for the Protection of the Crown.'"
     "What a clever  brain!" Don Sera spoke  with enthusiasm and sprayed the
area  before him liberally with  saliva and juice  from the meat.  "But last
night at  the Court . .  ."  And  he related  the latest  gossip. Don Reba's
current flame.  Lady in  waiting Okana,  had been careless enough to step on
the king's sore foot. His Highness flew into a  rage and turned to Don Reba,
ordering him to mete out an exemplary  punishment to the evildoer. Whereupon
Don Reba, without even so much as batting  an eyelid, replied; "It  will  be
carried out, Your Highness. This very night!"
     "I laughed so hard that  two buttons popped off my waistcoat!" remarked
Don Sera, cocking his head to one side.
     Protoplasm, though  Rumata.  Nothing  but ingesting  and  digesting and
procreating protoplasm.
     "Indeed, noble dons," he said. "Don Reba is  truly  a very, very clever
man."
     "Ho, Ho!" said Don Sera. "Much more--he is an intellectual luminary!"
     "An outstanding statesman," said Don Tameo emphatically, with a knowing
expression.
     "Yes  it's really very strange," Don  Rumata continued with  a friendly
smile, "when you  remember  the kind of  things  people would tell about him
hardly a year  ago.  Do  you  recall, Don Tameo, how  wittily  you expressed
yourself on the subject of his bow legs?"
     Don  Tameo's  drink  almost  went  down  the  wrong  way  as he quickly
swallowed a little glass of Irukanian wine.
     "I can't remember a thing," he grumbled. "And besides I am not known as
a wit--"
     "Oh surely you must remember," said Don  Sera and  reproachfully wagged
his head.
     "Yes,  indeed!"   shouted  Don   Rumata.   "You  were  present  at  the
conversation,  Don Sera! I remember so well how you  laughed at Don  Tameo's
witty ideas. You laughed so  hard that  something popped off the clothes you
were wearing."
     Don Sera turned  red and  blue  in the face and started to  justify his
remarks with long-winded  and  distorted explanations. He  was  lying in his
teeth, of course. Don Tameo's face had grown somber. He made a long face. He
devoted himself wholeheartedly to the  strong  Estorian  wine, and  since he
had--according to his  own  words--"begun two mornings ago, and had not been
able to desist till now," he had to be supported from either side when  they
finally departed.
     It  was a sunny, friendly  day. The common people  stood  around in the
streets  and gaped as if  there  were something  to  look  at;  little  boys
whistled  and  screamed,  throwing  mud at  each  other;  prettily  bedecked
housewives  with bonnets on their heads  leaned out  of  the windows; daring
servant girls flashed their  shy glances  from moist eyes.  Don Sera's  mood
began to improve. He tripped a peasant and almost split his sides to see how
the man wallowed in the mud. Don  Tameo suddenly noticed that  he had put on
his fez with the double sword ornament back to front. He yelled: "Stop! Stay
put!" and raised his fez, held it up steady, while he tried to turn his body
180  degrees  underneath  the  fez.  Another  item  popped  off  Don  Sera's
waistcoat. Rumata seized  a pretty servant girl passing by the group, tugged
at her pink ear and begged her to put Don Tameo's headgear in order. A crowd
of onlookers  quickly  gathered  around the  three  noble dons,  all eagerly
dispensing  advice  to  the girl whose face was as red as  a beet--and Don's
Sera's waistcoat kept losing a steady stream of buttons, buckles, and hooks.
When finally they were on their way again, Don Tameo summoned up his courage
and on  the spot drew up an addenda to his  complaint wherein he pointed out
how necessary  it  was "To  keep pretty persons  of the  female gender at  a
proper distance from peasants and the common people."
     And then  a cart loaded with earthenware  pots blocked  their path. Don
Sera  unsheathed both his swords  and  stated that it was not fit and proper
for the noble dons to make a detour around pots of any kind and declared his
determination to pave  his way straight through the  cart. But  while he was
still busy  trying to aim properly and  distinguish where  the  wall of  the
house ended  and where the  pots  began, Rumata  grasped  the spokes  of two
wheels  and  turned the cart around, and thus  cleared the road. The  gaping
crowd, who had followed the incident with delight, began to cheer: Hip, hip,
hooray! The noble  dons  were  about to  continue on their way  when from  a
second-storey window  a fat  merchant's  gray-blue head  popped  out, loudly
giving forth with a  tirade concerning the rudeness of the courtiers against
whom "Our  Enlightened Eagle, Don Reba, would soon find some proper remedy."
Of course  they  had to  stop on the spot once more and  transfer the entire
load of pots into  the merchant's  window. Rumata saved the  last pot, threw
two gold pieces with the profile  of Pitz the Sixth inside  into  the vessel
and presented it to the petrified owner of the wagon.
     "How much did you give him?" asked Don Tameo as they started out again.
     "Oh,  it's  not  worth  mentioning,"  answered  Rumata,  shrugging  his
shoulders. 'Two pieces of gold."
     "I swear  by the  humpback of our Holy Mickey!" broke from Don  Tameo's
lips.  "You do have  money!  If you  want,  I'll sell  you  my  Chamalharian
stallion!"
     "I'd rather win that stallion from you in a game of knucklebones," said
Rumata.
     "Splendid!" shouted Don Sera and stopped in his  tracks. "Let's  have a
game of knucklebones!"
     "Right here?" asked Rumata.
     "Why not?" asked Don Sera.  "I see no reason why three noble dons can't
play a game of knucklebones wherever it pleases them!"
     Suddenly Don  Tameo stumbled  and sprawled full length in the mud.  Don
Sera's legs, too, suddenly became entangled and he fell down.
     "Oh, I completely forgot," he said. "We're supposed to be on guard duty
now."
     Rumata  dragged the two to their feet and led each by the arm along the
way. Before the giant dark house of Don Satarina he came to a halt
     "We ought to pay a visit to the old don," he suggested.
     "Sure, can't  see any reason why three noble dons shouldn't call on Don
Satarina," said Don Sera.
     Don Tameo opened his eyes.
     "In  the king's Service," he  managed the words painfully, "we must all
look ahead to  the future.  D-d-d-on Satarina-- that's a piece  of  the past
already. Onward, noble dons! I must get to my guard post."
     "Onward!" echoed Don Rumata.
     Don Tameo's head dropped  forward to rest on his chest; he did not wake
up  a second time. Don Sera cracked his knuckles and  began  to tell stories
about his ever-successful amorous adventures. They arrived at the palace and
went  to  the  guardroom  where Rumata, very relieved,  laid Don Tameo  on a
bench. Don  Sera, however, took a  seat  at the table, grandly swept aside a
pile of orders signed by the  king, and  declared that the time had  finally
come to drink a glass of cold Irukanian wine. The landlord ought to roll out
a little barrel, he stated, and these  old women (he pointed to the officers
of the guard on  duty who were playing cards at  another table)  should join
them  for a drink. The  commander of the  guard,  a  lieutenant of the guard
troop, came over. He eyed  Don Tameo and Don Sera from top to toe. And after
Don  Sera  had directed an inquiry  to  him--"Why are all the flowers fading
away in the shelter of my solitude?"--he decided it would not make any sense
to send them to their sentry post in the present condition; they'd be better
off to lie there for a while.
     Rumata won a gold  piece from the lieutenant and talked  with him about
the new ribbons on their uniforms  and the best method of polishing a sword.
He mentioned a short time later that he hoped to visit Don Satarina, who was
known to possess  some fine  grinding stones,  and seemed  visibly  upset to
learn that the honorable grandee  apparently had now lost his mind for good.
One  month earlier  he was  said to  have released all  his  prisoners,  had
dissolved his  bodyguard and handed over  to  the state his rich  arsenal of
instruments of torture.  At the age of  102 years, the old man declared,  it
was his intention from  now on to devote the rest of his life to good deeds.
He'd probably not be long for this world now.
     Taking his leave of  the lieutenant,  Rumata left the palace and ambled
over in the direction of the harbor. He had to walk around puddles and  jump
over deep wheel ruts filled with greenish-brown water. Without further  ado,
he pushed the loitering  onlookers out of his path, winked at the girls (who
seemed greatly impressed by his outfit), bowed deeply to the ladies who were
being  carried down the street in  sedan chairs, waved friendly greetings to
his  acquaintances  from  the   court  and  deliberately  ignored  the  Gray
Sturmoviks.
     Next, Rumata made a little detour to look in at the School of Patriots.
This school  had been founded two years previously  under the  protection of
Don  Reba himself  for  the  purpose  of  training  the adolescent  sons  of
merchants and  the lower middle class for positions as low-ranking  military
and administrative officials. The building was constructed of stone, without
any  columns or ornaments; it  had  thick  walls with narrow,  embrasurelike
windows; on  either side of the main entrance were two semicircular  towers.
If necessary, one could defend oneself there for quite a while.
     Rumata  climbed up a narrow circular  staircase  leading to the  second
floor, his  spurs clanking  on the stone floor. On his way to the  office of
the school's procurator he passed by the classrooms. A  monotonous,  uniform
hum of voices came  from the rooms;  answers were given in  unison. "What is
our king?"--"A  sublime person." "What are  our ministers?"--  "Faithful and
without the  spirit of  contradiction."  "And  God, the Creator,  spoke:  'I
pronounce a curse.' And He pronounced a curse . . ." ". . . and at the sound
of the  horn blowing twice, run two by  two  and form a  chain, holding your
spears  ready  to  thrust   ...""...  in  case  the   tortured  should  lose
consciousness, the torturing must be interrupted immediately..."
     The school, thought Rumata. The breeding ground of wisdom. The mainstay
of culture ...
     Without knocking, he pushed open  the low entrance door and entered the
office; it was dark and icy  as a crypt. Behind an immensely massive writing
desk, heaped with papers  and thrashing canes, a tall, angular man jumped to
his feet. A pair of deep-seated  eyes peered from his bald head,  and on his
tightly braided  gray uniform could be seen the  epaulets of the Ministry of
Security. He  was the procurator of the School of Patriots, the most learned
Father Kin, a sadist, a murderer, and a monk at the same time, author of the
Treatise Dealing with Denunciations, which had aroused Don Reba's interest
     "Well, how  are you  faring here?" asked  Don Rumata  with a benevolent
smile. 'The literate folk . . . Some we slaughter and others we teach, eh?"
     Father Kin smiled wryly.
     "Not every literate man is an enemy of the crown," he said. "The king's
enemies  are the  literate  dreamers,  skeptics,  and  disloyal  dissidents!
Whereas our task here--"
     "All right, all right," said Rumata. "I  believe  you. Are you  writing
anything new? I have read your treatise--a very useful work, but stupid. How
can  you harbor such thoughts? How do  you get such  ideas? That isn't  very
good, my dear ... procurator, is it... ?"
     "I make no boastful claims of special intelligence or wisdom," answered
Father Kin with dignity. "My only goal is the good of  the state. We need no
clever people. We need loyalty. And we--"
     "That will do, that will do," said Rumata. "All right then. But are you
writing anything new or not?"
     "In the  near  future I  will hand the minister an  outline of the  New
State for his perusal. I have used the  Realm  of the  Holy Order as a model
for it"
     "The very ideal"  Rumata was filled with wonder. "Do you intend to make
monks of all of us?"
     Father Kin pressed his palms together and leaned forward.
     "Permit  me, noble  don, to  make  myself  clear,"  he  said excitedly,
licking his lips. "The crux of the matter lies  somewhere else. The  crux of
the matter lies in the basic pillars of the New State. And the basic pillars
are rather simple; there are but three: blind belief in the infallibility of
the  law;  total  submission  to  the  law;  and  finally,  the  unrelenting
observation of everyone by all."
     "Hum," said Rumata. "And what for?"
     "What do you mean, what for?"
     "You  are stupid after all," said Rumata. "All right, I  believe you. I
wanted something  else. What was  it now? . . . Oh, yes. Tomorrow you'll get
two new teachers to add to your staff. Father Tarra, a venerable old man, is
dabbling  in  --cosmography; and  Brother Nanin,  also  a most  worthy  man,
specialist in  history. They are my people, and you are to treat them right!
Here is my pledge." He threw a money pouch of  leather on the table. "That's
for you, five gold pieces. All clear?"
     "Yes, noble don," said Father Kin humbly.
     Rumata yawned and looked around.
     "Just as  long as we understand each  other," he said. "For some reason
my father  used to love  these people very dearly, and charged me  with  the
task of making their lives as pleasant as possible. Would you  do me a favor
and explain, you learned man, why such a most noble don would be so inclined
toward the sciences?"
     "Some special merits perhaps?" guessed Father Kin.
     "What are you babbling about?"  asked Rumata angrily. "But  then again,
why not? Indeed, why not? There might be a beautiful daughter, or a sister .
. . Don't you have any wine here? Of course not--"
     Father Kin  shrugged his shoulders  guiltily. Rumata  took  one of  the
papers that  cluttered the  writing desk and held it against the light for a
while.
     "Defensive  belt  breakthrough,"  he  read  out  loud. "Oh,  you crafty
fellows!"
     He dropped the paper on the  floor and rose to his feet "Just make sure
that  your educated brood doesn't bother these  two. Ill come to  visit them
some time soon,  and if I hear that--" He pushed his fist under Father Kin's
nose.
     "All right, all right, don't worry." Father Kin snickered obsequiously.
     Rumata  nodded curtly and walked out the door, scraping his spurs along
the floor.
     On the Boulevard of Overwhelming Gratitude, he went  into an  armorer's
workshop  and bought  new rings for his sword  sheath.  He tried out  a  few
daggers, hurled them against  the wall, weighed them in his hand,  but could
not decide on any of them. Then he sat down on a  table and chatted with the
owner of the place, a certain Father  Hauk. Father Hauk  had kind, sad eyes,
and small pale hands, stained with inkspots. Rumata discussed with him for a
while the merits of Zuren's poetry, listened to an interesting commentary on
the  poem.  "It  weighs  upon my  soul like  fallen  leaves,"  and asked for
something new  to read. Before  leaving, he sighed with the author  over the
inexpressibly sad verses and recited  "To be or  not  to be" in an Irukanian
translation.
     "Holy  Mickey!"  Father  Hauk cried out  exuberantly. "Who  writes such
verses?"
     "I do," said Rumata and left the store.
     He made his way to the Gray Joy Inn, drank there  a  glass of Irukanian
white wine, patted the innkeeper's wife on the  cheek,  skillfully overthrew
with one thrust of his sword  a table where a government spy sat  staring at
him  with empty eyes. Then he walked to  a  far  comer of the inn  and found
there a ragged, bearded man, who had an inkwell suspended around his neck.
     "Good day, Brother Nanin," he greeted the man. "How many petitions have
you written today?"
     Brother Nanin's embarrassed smile displayed his small decayed teeth.
     "Nowadays people  want  to write  very  few petitions,  noble don,"  he
answered.  "Some believe that  it  is useless to beg for favors. And  others
count on the likelihood  that  they  will get  what  they  want soon anyhow,
without having to ask for it."
     Rumata bent  over  and  whispered in his  ear that he had  arranged the
matter with the School of Patriots.
     "Here are two pieces of  gold for you,"  he said finally. "Clean up and
put on some decent clothes. And weigh your words. At least for the first few
days. Father Kin, the procurator, is a dangerous man." .
     "I'll read him my treatise about rumors,"  said Brother Nanin  merrily.
"I thank you, noble don."
     "The things one does in memory of a dear departed father," said Rumata.
"But, tell me, where can I find Father Tarra?"
     Brother  Nanin's  smile vanished  suddenly and  a  nervous tick  played
around his mouth.
     'There was  a brawl here yesterday," he  said.  "And Father Tarra had a
bit too much to drink and got somewhat out of hand.  And, then, you know, he
has red hair . . . They broke his ribs."
     "What a mess!" Rumata said. "Why do you all drink so much?"
     "Sometimes it's hard to control oneself," said Brother Nanin sadly.
     "That's very true," said Rumata. "Well, here's a few more gold  pieces,
and try to take care of him, will you?"
     Brother Nanin bowed low and wanted  to  kiss  Rumata's hand  but Rumata
stepped back quickly.
     "Now, now," he said. "I have seen  you make better jokes in your  time,
Brother Nanin. Farewell!"
     The  harbor smelled  like  no  other  spot  in Arkanar.  It smelled  of
seawater and foul algae, of spices, tar,  smoke, and rotten corned beef, and
from the  taverns came a nauseating odor of boiled fish and home brewed beer
turned  sour. The  sultry air  was filled with a  jumble of curses  in  many
tongues. On the piers, in the narrow lanes between the warehouses and around
the  taverns,  thousands of people shoved and  pushed. They caught  the eye.
Down-and-out seamen, bloated merchants,  fishermen with somber faces,  slave
traders, pimps, heavily made-up whores, drunken soldiers,  men impossible to
classify, hung with arms from  head  to toe, and fantastic vagabonds in torn
clothes  with  golden bracelets  around their  dirty  wrists. And  all  were
excited and ill-tempered. Don  Reba  had issued an edict three days  before,
forbidding any ship or boat to leave the harbor.
     The Gray  Sturmoviks lounged on  the  quays,  playing  with their rusty
butcher cleavers. They  spat into  the  water and  bestowed impertinent  and
malicious glances on the  crowd. On some of the ships that were moored  near
the quays, groups  of five or six  men  huddled, brawny, copper-skinned  men
clad in heavy furs turned inside out. These were the barbarian  mercenaries.
They were no  good in  a  fight  at  close range, but  when  they were  at a
distance (as they  were now) they  were very dangerous with their  blowpipes
and poisoned  arrows.  In  the  distance loomed the  black  masts of the war
galleys of the royal fleet, like threatening fingers pointing skywards. From
time to time, streams of fire issued from them and landed on the  surface of
the water toward the quays: the oil slicks were ignited in this way in order
to intimidate the waiting crowd.
     Rumata passed the customs shed where the ship captains were  waiting in
front of closed doors in vain, trying to obtain their  permit  to depart. He
thrust through the noisy crowd that was busy at  bartering  and trading with
anything at hand: from slave girls and black pearls to narcotics and trained
spiders. He continued on to the quays, threw a swift glance over to the side
where corpses in sailors'  uniforms were publicly displayed. The dead bodies
had already swelled up under the hot sun. He  described a wide circle around
a square which  was littered with all kinds of junk and garbage, and finally
entered  an  evil-smelling  little side  street. It was  much quieter  here.
Half-naked  prostitutes  were sprawled  in  the doorways of cheap waterfront
dives; at a street crossing  a soldier lay, dead drunk, his nose  bashed  in
and  his pockets  tamed  inside out: suspicious figures  with pale nocturnal
faces crept along the walls of the houses.
     This  was the first time that Rumata  had come here during  the day. At
first he was  surprised at the lack of reaction to his presence. The  people
he encountered either looked past him with their watery eyes or saw straight
through him. Still,  they stepped aside to let him pass. Once  when he tamed
around  a comer and  then  swiftly  looked back, he  saw some twenty various
heads--male  and female, bushy-haired  and  bald--disappear instantly behind
doorways,  windows, and fences.  Suddenly he felt the  strange atmosphere of
this  nauseating  neighborhood,  an  atmosphere  filled  not  so  much  with
hostility or danger as with an evil, avaricious interest.
     He pushed a door open with his shoulder and entered one of the taverns.
Inside the darkened room a man dozed behind the bar. He was very old, with a
face like a mummy and an extraordinarily long nose. There were no patrons in
the room.  Rumata approached the bar and  was just about to flip his fingers
against the enormous nose of  the old  man when all  of a  sudden  he became
aware that the old man was not really asleep, but was watching him carefully
from  behind his  almost closed  eyelids. Rumata threw a  silver coin on the
table and the old man's eyes jerked open as if pushed by a button.
     "What would  you like,  noble don?" he inquired officiously. "Something
to eat? To sniff? Or maybe a girl?"
     "Don't ask such stupid  questions," said Rumata. "You  know  quite well
what I'm here for."
     "Well! Now isn't that the noble Don Rumata!"  shouted the old man as if
completely taken by surprise. "There  I am, just sitting there--and suddenly
I see a familiar face--"
     After this long speech, the old man closed  his  eyes again. Rumata got
the message: the  coast was clear. He  walked  around  the  bar  and crawled
through a  tiny door  into the adjoining room. It  was very crowded and dark
inside and the room was filled with  a penetrating odor of sour beer. In the
middle of the room, standing behind a high  desk,  was an elderly  man.  His
deeply wrinkled face was bent over a pile of papers. His head was covered by
a flat black cap.  A weak oil  lamp flickered on the high desk and its  pale
light barely illuminated the faces of the men sitting  motionless along  the
wall. Rumata used his two swords  like canes and groped for a low chair near
the wall. He sat down. Special laws and a special etiquette ruled here. None
of  those present  paid the slightest  bit  of attention to the newcomer. If
somebody entered, then that was the way it was  supposed to  be; but in case
it was not  the way it was supposed  to be, then you blinked  just once  and
that person disappeared. You could search the wide world over and never find
a trace  of him . . . The pucker-faced old man busily scratched his pen over
the paper; the people along the wall did not budge. From time to time one of
them  would  sigh  deeply.  Up  and  down   the  walls  scurried   invisible
salamanders, hunting for flies.
     The motionless men along  the  wall were the  leaders  of robber bands.
Rumata  had known some  of them  by sight  for quite a while now. These dull
brutes  were  not  worth  anything, actually.  Their  psyches were  no  more
complicated  than that of  the average shopkeeper. They were stupid, brutal,
and very handy with .knives and cudgels. But then there was the  man at  the
high desk.
     He was  called  Waga Koleso, and  he was  all-powerful;  there  was  no
competitor who  would  have  contested his  position  as chief  of  all  the
criminal forces in the land, from the Pitanian swamps in the Western regions
of Irukan to the maritime borders of the mercantile republic of Soan. He had
been cursed  and  expelled from all three official  churches of  the  empire
because of  his excessive  haughtiness,  for he claimed  to be  the  younger
brother of the ruling prince.  He had at his  disposal  a standing nocturnal
army, some  ten thousand men strong; had a  few hundred thousand gold pieces
in his treasure chests; and  his agents penetrated as  far as the very heart
of the government machine.  He  had been officially  executed  at least four
times  during  the past twenty  years,  each time in the presence of a large
populace. According to  an  official  version he  was  currently languishing
simultaneously in  three  of  the darkest  jails  of  the realm.  Don  Reba,
however, had repeatedly issued commands "regarding the rebellious  spreading
of rumors and legends  by enemies of the  State and other malevolent persons
regarding a certain so-called Waga  Koleso, who in actuality  does not exist
and thus belongs to the realm of legends."
     According to certain rumors, the same Don Reba summoned several barons,
who  disposed  of  strong  troops  of  warriors, and  promised the following
reward: five hundred gold pieces for Waga's body and seven thousand for Waga
alive. In his time, Rumata  himself had had to  spend a great deal of effort
and  money  in  order  to  establish contact with Koleso. He felt  violently
repelled  by the old  man  but Koleso was  occasionally  very  useful,  even
literally indispensable. Besides, Waga  was of scientific  interest  to him,
namely as a  most  intriguing specimen in  Rumata's  collection  of medieval
monsters, and as a person who apparently lacked any trace of a past.
     Finally,  Waga  put his quill aside, straightened up his back and  said
with a croaking voice:
     "Well, then, my  dear children. Two and a  half thousand pieces of gold
within three days. And expenses run only 1996. Five hundred  and four little
round  pieces of  gold in three days. Not bad, my dear children,  not bad at
all..."
     Nobody moved. Waga .left his place behind the high desk, took a seat in
a comer and forcefully rubbed his dry palms together.
     "Isn't  that something to make you jump  for joy, my dear children?" he
said. "These  are good times for us, these fruitful years  . . . But we must
work hard  for our daily bread. Indeed, how hard! My older brother, the king
of Arkanar, has set  his mind  on  annihilating  all learned  men in his own
kingdom as well as in mine. Well, he in his wisdom ought to know what should
be done. After all, who  are we to doubt the wisdom of his judgment? It does
not behoove us to  criticize his most exalted decisions. On the  other hand,
we may--nay, we must--extract some profit from these decisions. And since we
are his  loyal subjects,  we must  serve  him. As we are but  his  nocturnal
subjects we will not deliver into his hands our modest part of these profits
without further ado. He, of course, won't notice it,  and  therefore he will
not be annoyed at us. What is the matter?"
     Nobody moved.
     "I had the  impression that Piga was  sighing  over there. Am  I right,
Piga, my son?"
     There  was  a  slight  commotion,  somebody  fidgeting  in  his   seat,
apparently, as  nothing could be seen in the  darkened room.  A slight cough
came from a comer.
     "I didn't sigh, Waga," said a coarse voice. "I wouldn't.. ."
     "That's it, Piga, just keep  quiet! Excellent! Now hold your breath and
listen  to me carefully! Look sharp and  set to work  and nobody will bother
you at your difficult task. My older brother, His Royal Highness, has let it
be  known through his mouthpiece, the  noble Don  Reba,  that he  has  set a
rather considerable sum of money on the heads of several learned men who are
in hiding or who  wish to flee from here. We  must deliver these  heads into
his royal  hands, just to humor the old man. On the other hand, though, some
of these scientists want to  hide  from  my  older brother's wrath,  and are
willing to  remunerate whoever will assist them in it. Out of compassion, in
the name  of  pity, and also to guard my brother's soul  from the burden  of
excessive misdeeds, we  will help these people.  And  if later on  His Royal
Highness should  still be in need of these heads, he can still get them from
us. At a good price. Very cheap ..."
     Waga fell  silent and lowered his head. Tears  were trickling down  his
cheeks all of a sudden--the slow tears of an old man.
     "I am getting old," he sighed, trying vainly to stifle a sob. "My hands
are trembling  with  age, my legs  fail me  and  my  memory begins to  fade.
Indeed, I forgot completely that inside this tiny, stifling cage a noble don
is languishing in our midst--surely he does not care to hear about our petty
money deals. I am  leaving you, I will rest. But meanwhile, my children, let
us ask the noble don to be  gracious enough to forgive our oversight .  . ."
Moaning  and groaning he  rose  to his feet, arched over to make a  bow. The
rest  of  the  men  also got  to their feet and  bowed  before  Rumata,  but
indecision and fear showed plainly in  their faces. Rumata  could  lit