On the day of the exam, Fox was not at all himself. Egert could not drag a single word out of him all morning. At the door to the headmaster’s study the young men, stuffed full of knowledge, gathered in a tense, excited knot, hissing and cursing at each other. Many of the faces had frozen into the intense expression of a tightrope walker, inching his way along a rope with a lit candle clenched in his teeth. As each exited the study, they immediately poured out their souls to their comrades, some joyful, some despairing. Egert, who as an auditor was not subject to compulsory examination, shuddered at the very thought of being required, like Fox, to appear before the eyes of the strict, academic judiciary.
Regardless of his paranoid expectations, Gaetan passed the exam; immeasurably happy, he immediately invited Egert to come visit the house of his father in a nearby town. Egert was stunned yet grateful, but in the end he had to say no.
The students, who received two months of vacation, enthusiastically discussed their plans for the summer. A large portion of them decided to spend their break in their family homes, whether those were grand estates or tiny hovels; a smaller portion of the students, mainly the poorest, decided to find work on a farm somewhere: they too invited Egert to join them. He recalled his unpleasant experience with rural labor under the guidance of the hermit and refused them as well.
Upon the departure of Fox, Egert again found himself alone.
The corridors of the university emptied, as did the annex; in the evenings, light gleamed out of only the occasional window. An old servant, equipped with a torch and a cudgel, made nightly tours of the university buildings and grounds. An old washwoman, having tidied the annex, brought dinner to the dean and his daughter, and to the few employees and servants who remained for the summer. Egert would also have been relegated to this group, but he unexpectedly received another missive from home and was able to make a new payment for his keep.
This time a note accompanied the money. Egert’s heart crashed against his rib cage when he recognized the handwriting of his father. The elder Soll did not ask a single question; he only coolly informed his son that he had been deprived of his lieutenancy and expelled from the regiment, and that the epaulets had been publicly shorn from his disgraced and mud-splattered uniform. The vacant lieutenancy had been filled by a young man by the name of Karver Ott; by the way, he had inquired as to Egert’s current location.
Reading and rereading this letter, Egert at first relived his shame; then that feeling was exchanged for nostalgia for Kavarren.
He imagined his home with the militant emblem on the gates an infinite number of times, and the most desperate, inconceivable plans crept into his head. In his dreams he saw himself secretly arriving in town and climbing up his own front steps, also secretly because no one had forgiven his desertion. But then witnesses of his former degradation appeared who tracked him down specifically so that they could spit in his scarred face. And would he really have to talk to his father? And how could he look his mother in the eyes? No, while the curse remained upon him, he could not return to Kavarren.
Then his thoughts turned in a different direction: Time was passing and every long day brought him closer to his meeting with the Wanderer. This meeting became a constant thought for Egert, a fixed, obsessive idea; the Wanderer began to appear in his dreams. The curse would be broken and Egert would return to Kavarren with every right to do so. He would not hide from anyone: he would walk through the main street with his head held high, and when the people shrank back at the appearance of the guards, then, in front of them all, he would challenge Karver to a duel.
Sitting in the damp, half-lit room, Egert trembled with fervor and agitation. It would be a beautiful, gallant challenge. The crowd would hush, Karver would blanch and try to squirm his way out of it, Egert would deride him for his cowardice in front of everyone, he would draw his sword and cross blades with the contemptible coward, and he would kill him: he would kill his former friend, who had become a mortal enemy, because villainy deserves to be punished, because …
Egert winced and shivered. His dream broke off like the chirruping of a grasshopper when a hand is cupped over it.
He had killed three men. The first was called Tolber: he was a guard, a rooster who was guileless to the point of idiocy. Egert did not even properly remember what caused the argument; perhaps it was over a woman, but it may have merely been the result of drunken boldness. The duel was brief yet ferocious. Tolber charged at Egert like a rabid boar, but Egert met his attack with a brilliant, unrelenting counterattack. Then Egert Soll’s sword struck his opponent in the stomach and Egert, whose veins were boiling at that moment not with blood, but with hot, violently burning oil, understood only that he was victorious.
Egert could not even remember the name of the second man who died by his hand. He was not a guard, but simply an arrogant landowner who came to town with the intention of having a proper binge. He went on that binge, and, drunk as a swine, he cuffed Egert on the ear and called him a snot-nosed brat; and indeed, the man was about twenty years older than Egert. He left behind a wife and three daughters. Egert was told about them after the burial.
Glorious Heaven, what else could he have done! He could not really bear all insults alike and not punish the offenders, could he? True, he increased the number of widows and orphans in the world, but the landowner got what he deserved, and so did that first one. It was really only Dinar who had suffered innocently.
Three girls, the oldest about twelve. A bewildered, mourning woman. Who informed her of her husband’s death? Heaven, if only I could remember the name of that man … But memory resolutely refused to extract from the distant past a word that had long ago been forgotten because it no longer mattered.
Far in the distance, somewhere in the recesses of the darkened corridors, a cricket chirped softly. It was very late in the night. Shuddering against his will, Egert immediately lit five candles. It was an inconceivable waste, but the room was lit up as though it were day, and in the muddled depths of the iron looking glass that hung on the wall by the door, Egert saw his scarred face.
And at that very second, the ability to feel pain and violence as it crawled across his skin returned to him with such force that he staggered.
Glorious Heaven! The city beyond the thick walls of the university felt like a solid, aching wound. The university itself was almost empty, and the annex was completely empty except for Egert, but Egert sensed suffering not that far away: a habitual suffering, like a permanent migraine.
His knees buckled slightly at the thought that he would have to walk through the darkened corridors and stairs. Clutching candles in his sweaty palms—three in his right and two in his left—Egert nudged open the door with his shoulder.
Niches yawned blackly; columns threw out malformed, creeping shadows. The faces of great scholars, which adorned the walls in bas-relief, loomed over Egert with contemptuous grimaces. In order to bolster his confidence, Egert proceeded to sing in a trembling voice: “Oh, oh, oh! Do not speak, my dear, don’t say a word! Oh, my soul is fire, but the door is squeaking: it hasn’t been oiled!”