Читать книгу A Walk with Love and Death - Hans Koning - Страница 10

I came out onto a glade and here a woman was charring young green wood. I asked her about the way and as she said she’d be going presently to take charcoal to a house up north, I waited and went with her. A big house, she told me, at two hours’ distance. It was called Dammartin and the building intendant of Valois lived there; he was a strange man.

She was very articulate, but when I asked her had she always been charcoal burner, she answered only: “No.”

She said that beyond Dammartin the wood ended and the plain began once more, yet between Dammartin and a castle on the hill of Montmélian were no houses. I had told her I was on my way north without adding anything about England, for that might have sounded odd to her and made her suspicious about my company. She was enormous; I had a hard time keeping up with her although she was carrying her load. She didn’t even get out of breath: she walked to the tune of some chant she sang hoarsely but quite well.

It was already getting dark on the path, and I was stumbling over roots and stones, when we came to the gate of the house. It was smaller than I had imagined from her words, a low stone structure with outbuildings, barely fortified, with a beautiful lawn all around it.

There was no one in sight and no sound but the barking dogs.

I looked at her with some surprise; she shrugged with the same indifference as when I had asked her earlier if she wasn’t afraid of wolves. “He lives as if it was peacetime,” she said. “I leave you here, sir, good-bye.” She opened the gate and vanished behind the house with her charcoal, shouting at the dogs, which fell silent.

I crossed the lawn and looked around me in the dusk. Then I knocked on the front door.

From behind it an old voice called, “Who is it?”

I said I was a student asking lodging for the night. First a peephole, then the door itself opened. It was so dark in the house that I could barely make out the man holding the door.

I thought he’d question me but he said only, “This way if you please.”

I followed him blindly through a long corridor and down some steps, and through a courtyard where the evening light still hung, caught between the white walls, into an almost bare room.

“The master of the house is indisposed,” he said, “and will not be able to entertain you.” He made a slight bow and left; I almost called after him. Suddenly, I felt unbearably lonely.

There was a bunk against the far wall; I sat there until it had become so dark that the gray square of the window no longer stood out. Then I lay down in the blackness and pulled the cover over me. I was cold through and through, and it took me a long time before I stopped shivering.

When I woke, the room was filled with sunlight, and the old man came and led me back down that corridor to what seemed part of a large hall screened off. The furniture consisted of wooden tables and benches. There was a wide window of little glass panels in lead; a man was sitting near it, beside a long table, bent over and looking out on the lawn. When he heard my step he lifted his head and turned a pale sharp face toward me. He made a gesture for me to sit down; there was nowhere to sit very near him and I took a bench at the lower end of his table.

Bread and wine, cheese and meat were brought; before he started eating he said, “I’m the owner of Dammartin House; please feel at home.”

“I’m Heron of Foix,” I answered, but he did not speak again during his meal.

He ate little and left the room shortly afterward, indicating with a little nod that I should take my time.

I had been afraid to seem greedy and was delighted to be left alone with all that food, for I was starved. I didn’t remember ever having sat at such a well-laid table. I seated myself more comfortably, cut a huge slice of the cheese and now started my breakfast in earnest.

The room had been warmed by the sun, the grass outside shone with smoothness, and I was as snug as a prince. When I had finished I didn’t stir; I couldn’t quite get going again. I poured some more wine; it gave off slow oily reflections in the sunlight.

The house was silent, it was as if my presence had been forgotten.

I fell into a reverie. Traveling to England, I would have to cross the sea, which I had never seen; it seemed to me now as if that sea itself was my destination. I visualized it, a smooth glittering plain of water, slowly canting up and down, boats gliding to and fro, and everyone in them seasick. Everyone but me; I climbed a mast, there was a hard wind in my face, great brightness all around me.

“Good morning,” someone said. I looked up into the face of a girl.