Egert removed his eyes from the book. A procession of strange and aggrieving stories had been passing before his eyes for the past several days, and any sane man would consider most of these stories to be fairy tales; any sane man, but not the man who wore a slanting scar on his cheek.
There once was a man who married a beautiful girl and loved her with his entire soul. But his young wife was far too pretty, and an image of her betrayal appeared to the man in a dream. Then, fraught with fear and wrath, he spoke words that turned into a curse, “Let any other man be ruined, upon whom her affectionate, favorable gaze falls even once, and let him die a painful death!”
But his young wife remained faithful to him with all her heart and soul, and not a single time did she gaze with tenderness at another man. The years went by, and the couple lived in prosperity and happiness, and their children grew. And so their eldest son matured; he turned from a boy into a youth. And one day, inflamed by his first love, he danced home at dawn. His mother, standing by the porch, gazed at her son and saw his sparkling eyes and his wide shoulders; she saw the lithesome strength and youthful fervor of her son, and her gaze became full of pride, favor, and affection.
And the old curse broke free and, without discernment and without mercy, descended upon the youth, regardless of the tears his mother wept. She lost her wits and tore out her eyes, the eyes that had killed her son with a mere glance.
The grass in the university’s interior court was shining under the sun, concealing within its velvety green a horde of vociferous grasshoppers. The invisible insects were in a state of bliss, singing hymns to life. It was just past the lazy midday hour, and a warm wind carried the smells of earth and flowers, but the book, indifferent as a bystander, still lay before Egert on the battered old table.
A rich and eminent lady had a beautiful daughter who fell in love with an itinerant troubadour. The daughter wanted to run away from home and elope with the vagrant. But their plans went amiss; having discovered the purpose of the enamored couple, the old mother was angered beyond all measure, and being experienced in magic, she spoke a curse, “The man who deflowers my daughter will not know happiness, he will never see the light again, and he will not even remember his own name!”
The girl wept bitterly for a long time. The minstrel left for the far reaches of the earth, and there was no longer anyone who dared to covet the hand of the beautiful and wealthy bride. But then one day an arrogant, albeit impoverished, lord announced his intention to take her as his wife. The wedding was performed in a hurry, and on their wedding night the young husband brought to his wife a coarse, lascivious young hostler.
And so it happened that the very next day the hostler was struck blind and thus could no longer see the light. He also went mad and forgot his own name, and he shriveled up and thus nevermore did he know happiness. And the young husband began to live with his wife, and he received an abundant dowry. However, his matrimony did not last long because …
A bumblebee, a striped, fluffy ball, flew into the room. It buzzed under the gray arch of the ceiling, bumped into a beam, and fell onto a page that was yellowed with time; then it buzzed aggrievedly and flew back out the window. Egert rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his fists.
Why did Dean Luayan think it was necessary that he read all of this?
In all the centuries sometimes incorrigible evildoers suffered from curses, but at other times they befell people who were not guilty of anything. Egert felt a particular sympathy toward the latter. He too was a victim of a curse; all these people were entwined with him in a common misfortune. The Wanderer happened upon his path, and in passing, with a single slash of his sword, he unrecognizably mutilated Egert’s life.
Egert had never before had to sit for so long behind a book. His back was aching, and his tired eyes were watering and smarting from the unfamiliar employment. Pushing aside the thought of rest, Egert sighed and once again pulled the open book toward him.
A fugitive tramp had taken refuge in the home of a lonely widow. The guards, who served the prince of that realm, were persecuting him, but the woman took pity on him and concealed him in her basement. But when the pursuers, ferocious and well armed, turned up at her house, the widow was frightened. She fainted and thus betrayed the whereabouts of the fugitive. The guards hanged him immediately, but with the noose already around his neck he said to the woman, “What have you done? You are false: let no one trust you until the day of your death!”
The tramp died, and the guards buried him right under the widow’s window. Ever after, people shunned the miserable woman, for they did not trust her: they did not trust her words, or her eyes, or her voice, or her actions. They did not trust in her kindness and honesty, and she gained a reputation as a wicked, malicious witch throughout the district.
But as chance would have it, one day an old man, white-haired as the moon, road through the village on a horse. He visited the house of the despondent woman and told her, “I know why this misfortune has seized you. I know that you have already atoned for your unwitting guilt. Listen to me, and I will tell you how to remove the curse!”
She listened well, and waiting until midnight, she went out to the grave under her window, which was overgrown with nettles and thistles. In one hand she carried a jug of water, and in the other she carried a sharp dagger, left behind by the old man. She stood before the grave, raised her face to the moon, and said to the dead man in the ground, “Here is water, and here is sharp steel. Let your thirst be quenched! Take your sorcery from me!”
With these words she planted the dagger right in the grave mound; she thrust it deep, right up to its hilt. Then she poured the water out of the jug over the ground and went back into her house. The next morning she looked outside, and saw that a tree was growing on the grave, a young alder. And then the woman understood that the curse was broken, and she rejoiced, and from then onward she began to live peacefully and happily, and she cared for the tree on the grave as for a son.
With difficulty, Egert tore his eyes away from the even, disinterested lines. The curse was broken, the curse was broken repeated over and over in the rustle of the wind, in the warbles of an unseen bird, in someone’s distant steps along the echoing corridor of the annex. The curse was broken.
Glorious Heaven! It was worth all the days and nights he had spent stooped over this dreadful book to so fortuitously come upon a story with a happy ending. Wise, a hundred times wise, was Dean Luayan. The curse was broken. The curse could be broken.
With an inane smile plastered to his face, he looked out the window. He watched as a shaggy, homeless mutt trampled the grass, scampered after a butterfly. In front of him lay cold nights under bridges and the malicious kicks of a thousand feet, but right now he was frolicking like a puppy, forgetful of everything else under the sun. He was happy.
Happy, thought Egert. Lurching as if he were drunk, he stood up from the table and climbed up onto the windowsill.
Evening was drawing near, a warm, spring evening; a square of dark blue, predusk sky hung over the interior courtyard of the university, and doves were slowly whirling through it, as if showing off. Suffused with oblique rays of the setting sun, the white birds seemed rose colored, like candied fruit. Egert wanted to weep and shout at the top of his lungs: he felt as if the weight of the curse had already been lifted and the shameful scar had already been scoured from his face, like a crust of sticky mud. Not daring to sing, he restricted himself to grinning expansively and joyfully at the homeless mutt on the grass.