Read Online Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Curzio Malaparte
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Classics, History, Biography & Autobiography, Editors; Journalists; Publishers, World War II, Military
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into qualified workers of the U.S.S.R., from horsemen into stakhanovtzi of the labor Sturm Truppen, from nomads of the steppe into udarniki and spets —specialists—of the Five-Year Plan. I undid the last knot and offered him a cigarette.
The prisoner's hands hurt, his fingers were numb; he could not take a cigarette from the package. I placed the cigarette between his lips, and lit his and my own.
"Blagodariu —Thanks," the Tartar said and smiled at me. I smiled at him too, and for a long time we continued to smoke in silence. The stench of the carrion filled the room, greasy, soft and sweetish. I inhaled the stench of the dead mare with a strange enjoyment. The prisoner also seemed to breathe with a delicate, sad pleasure. His nostrils quivered, they throbbed strangely. And I became aware only then that all the life in that pale, ashen face in which the untroubled, slanting eyes had the fixed glassy stare of a corpse, had gathered about his nostrils. His old homeland, the homeland he had found again, was in the odor of the dead mare. We looked into each other's eyes, in silence, and inhaled with a delicate and sad enjoyment that sweetish smell. That carrion odor was his homeland, his ageless and living homeland, and now nothing stood between us any longer. We were brothers living in the ageless odor of the dead mare.
... Prince Eugene lifted his face, turned his eyes toward the door; his nostrils quivered as if the dead mare's odor stood on the threshold and looked at us. It was the smell of grass and leaves, of sea and woods. Dusk had already set in, but an uncertain light still wandered across the sky. In that spectral light the faraway houses of Nybroplan, the steamers and sailing boats moored along the quays of Strandvägen, the trees of the park, the ghostly shadows of Rodin's "Penseur" and of the "Niké of Samothrace" were reflected, deformed, on the light landscape as in the drawings of Ernst Josephson and of Carl Hill, who were driven by their gloomy madness to see animals, trees, houses and ships reflected by the landscape as in a distorting mirror.
"He had hands like yours," I said.
Prince Eugene glanced at his hands. He seemed slightly ill at ease. His were the white shapely hands of the Bernadotte—pale slender fingers.
And I told him: "The hands of an engineer, of a tank driver, of an udamik of the third Piatiletka are no less beautiful than yours. They are the hands of Mozart, Stradivarius, Picasso, Sauerbruch."
Prince Eugene smiled and, blushing a little, said, "I am all the prouder of my hands."
The voice of the wind gradually had grown stronger, shriller, like a long doleful neighing. It was the north wind, and its voice made me shudder. The recollection of the frightful winter I had spent in Karelia, between the Leningrad suburbs and the shores of Lake Ladoga, called up the vision of the silent, white, endless Karelian forests, and I shuddered as if the wind that caused the panes of the large windows to rattle was the merciless, frozen wind of Karelia.
"It is the north wind," said Prince Eugene.
"Yes, it is the Karelian wind," I said. "I recognize its voice."
And there flashed through my memory the horses of Lake Ladoga.
III. Ice Horses
T HAT MORNING I went with Svartström to see the horses freed from their prison of ice.
A greenish sun in the pale blue sky shone like an unripe apple. Since the thaw had set in, the icebound surface of Lake Ladoga had begun creaking; it wailed, at times it shrieked shrilly as if in pain. In the deep of night, from the end of the korsu {3} we could hear it suddenly crying out, wailing for hours at a time, until the dawn. It was already spring; the lake exhaled its fetid breath into our faces, that lean smell of rotten wood and wet sawdust that is typical of the thaw. The opposite shore of Lake Ladoga looked like a thin pencil stroke on blotting paper. Now the sky was a cloudless faded blue: it seemed a sky of tissue paper. Yonder, toward Leningrad—a gray
The prisoner's hands hurt, his fingers were numb; he could not take a cigarette from the package. I placed the cigarette between his lips, and lit his and my own.
"Blagodariu —Thanks," the Tartar said and smiled at me. I smiled at him too, and for a long time we continued to smoke in silence. The stench of the carrion filled the room, greasy, soft and sweetish. I inhaled the stench of the dead mare with a strange enjoyment. The prisoner also seemed to breathe with a delicate, sad pleasure. His nostrils quivered, they throbbed strangely. And I became aware only then that all the life in that pale, ashen face in which the untroubled, slanting eyes had the fixed glassy stare of a corpse, had gathered about his nostrils. His old homeland, the homeland he had found again, was in the odor of the dead mare. We looked into each other's eyes, in silence, and inhaled with a delicate and sad enjoyment that sweetish smell. That carrion odor was his homeland, his ageless and living homeland, and now nothing stood between us any longer. We were brothers living in the ageless odor of the dead mare.
... Prince Eugene lifted his face, turned his eyes toward the door; his nostrils quivered as if the dead mare's odor stood on the threshold and looked at us. It was the smell of grass and leaves, of sea and woods. Dusk had already set in, but an uncertain light still wandered across the sky. In that spectral light the faraway houses of Nybroplan, the steamers and sailing boats moored along the quays of Strandvägen, the trees of the park, the ghostly shadows of Rodin's "Penseur" and of the "Niké of Samothrace" were reflected, deformed, on the light landscape as in the drawings of Ernst Josephson and of Carl Hill, who were driven by their gloomy madness to see animals, trees, houses and ships reflected by the landscape as in a distorting mirror.
"He had hands like yours," I said.
Prince Eugene glanced at his hands. He seemed slightly ill at ease. His were the white shapely hands of the Bernadotte—pale slender fingers.
And I told him: "The hands of an engineer, of a tank driver, of an udamik of the third Piatiletka are no less beautiful than yours. They are the hands of Mozart, Stradivarius, Picasso, Sauerbruch."
Prince Eugene smiled and, blushing a little, said, "I am all the prouder of my hands."
The voice of the wind gradually had grown stronger, shriller, like a long doleful neighing. It was the north wind, and its voice made me shudder. The recollection of the frightful winter I had spent in Karelia, between the Leningrad suburbs and the shores of Lake Ladoga, called up the vision of the silent, white, endless Karelian forests, and I shuddered as if the wind that caused the panes of the large windows to rattle was the merciless, frozen wind of Karelia.
"It is the north wind," said Prince Eugene.
"Yes, it is the Karelian wind," I said. "I recognize its voice."
And there flashed through my memory the horses of Lake Ladoga.
III. Ice Horses
T HAT MORNING I went with Svartström to see the horses freed from their prison of ice.
A greenish sun in the pale blue sky shone like an unripe apple. Since the thaw had set in, the icebound surface of Lake Ladoga had begun creaking; it wailed, at times it shrieked shrilly as if in pain. In the deep of night, from the end of the korsu {3} we could hear it suddenly crying out, wailing for hours at a time, until the dawn. It was already spring; the lake exhaled its fetid breath into our faces, that lean smell of rotten wood and wet sawdust that is typical of the thaw. The opposite shore of Lake Ladoga looked like a thin pencil stroke on blotting paper. Now the sky was a cloudless faded blue: it seemed a sky of tissue paper. Yonder, toward Leningrad—a gray
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