Cyclops (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a tailor, they didn’t post him, he’s stitching great coats, sleeping at home. They didn’t even cut his hair. And me they’re sending to Apatin!”
    The man had softened with self-pity, so much so that his eyes went moist. Melkior felt the pointless need to offer consolation which humans resort to when failing to find a better or more sincere feeling.
    “Who knows? Perhaps it’s only exercises. After all, there’s a war on in Europe, nobody wants to be caught by surprise.”
    “That’s just it!” cried the driver with desperation as if Melkior has guessed what he feared most. “That’s what Hitler is counting on—surprise!”
    Coming quite close to Melkior, he said in a confidential whisper, “There are Jerry spies and fifth columnists everywhere. They’ve been paddling about in rubber boats since nineteen thirty-seven, photographing the natural wonders. Tourists,” and he laughed with bitter irony as if he had found some relief in a shot of stiff drink.
    “But you’re busy,” he added, self-conscious, having noticed Melkior’s impatience. “Yes, well, we’ve all got our worries. Goodbye,” and off he went, opening his paper again with an air of importance, like a caring man among the lot of happy-go-lucky fools.
    Melkior remained where he was. What was his rush? His pity over Dom Kuzma’s fate struck him now as ridiculous. The word
mobilization
had filled him with a feeling of unbearable dread, the restlessness of a terrible anticipation had come over him. This was now something he would have to live with. … There appeared (childish, of course) images of deserted streets, of doors and shops boarded up. … The dead city has shut itself into its walls, with not a sound to be heard, not a light to be seen. Behind closed shutters cautious matches were struck, papers burned in stoves, things piled into suitcases: people packing, hurrying, leaving. … The streets were deserted and silent. The eerie quiet was disturbed only by an occasional government motorcar driving past at breakneck speed; it carried urgent orders: burn the documents … submit the report. … The echoes of horses’ hooves in the night, the whisper of mysterious words among the sentries, top military secrets.
    Unrealistic and childish, like Dom Kuzma’s Samson story in Melkior’s boyhood. Nevertheless Melkior found serious, military pathos in those images. He pictured himself as a muscular, strapping soldier decked out in full army gear (isn’t that what they call it) standing at attention in a column of awesome Samsons about to slay the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. … All they were waiting for is the order from the officer on the white charger …
    Reflected in the plate glass window, among the shoes on display, was Melkior’s thin, unprepossessing silhouette, a poorly built city dweller. The slanting image reflected in the shop window triggered a crafty sneer inside Melkior, and the word
mobilization
suddenly found itself in autumn mud churned by a squelching olive drab monotony of dejected strangers on some endless trek; there was the bluster of angry sergeants, the tired voice of sodden boots, and the mysterious word “aide-de-camp.” Here was born a fear of the new events around him: the driver bound for Apatin to drive a tank … across our mountainous country. … Oh for a mountain and a forest in which to go quiet and still like an insect curled deep inside the bark of an indestructible tree: I’m not here … and to live, to live. … How to conceal one’s existence, steal from the world one’s traitorous body, take it off to some endless isolation, conceal it in a cocoon of fear, insinuate oneself into temporary death?
    Dom Kuzma had no idea that he might be the object of envy. … Arriving at a weighing machine tended by an invalid in a passageway, he doffed his hat, ran his handkerchief over his small moth-eaten head with ears—as if two angels were carrying it, ran his handkerchief over his thin