Pre-holiday concerns distracted her attention, but on the next day she was still interested. “He hasn’t found him yet?”
The dean shook his head. “Who knows? The Wanderer could be a needle in a haystack, or he could be a burning coal in a pocket. Who knows?”
On the morning of the third day Toria did not ask about the search, but the dean morosely said to her in a low voice, “I doubt there is a way out for him. The Wanderer is not one to reconsider a judgment. You might not believe me, but I feel pity for Soll, simple, human pity.”
Toria raised her eyebrows but did not reply.
Least of all did she desire to witness the execution that was in preparation in the square. Even though she fastened her window tightly, she could still hear both the roar of the agitated crowd and the booming of the drums, as if through cotton padding. She greatly desired to know where Egert Soll was at this moment and tried hard to suppress the urge to visit the annex.
Several minutes passed. Toria, tormented by a presentiment, paced around her room; then, biting her lip, she flung the windows open.
The square was covered with people, like a living, moving carpet, and Toria no longer doubted that Soll had disappeared somewhere in that swarm. Cringing, she looked at the scaffold at the very moment when the glinting blade crashed down.
The crowd gasped with one voice, and then drew breath in its vast chest, about to break out into a cheer, but the crowd was anticipated by a single, solitary human voice, a heartrending voice full of pain. This voice was distorted beyond recognition, but Toria recognized it. She recognized it and flinched.
How long has this been going on?
I have no control over it.
The steps of the spiral staircase were already streaking past her eyes. Not knowing why, she ran to the exit, and the weary words repeated over and over again in her ears: I have no control over it … no control … no control …
Fireworks shot up over the square. The official celebration of the Day of Jubilation had begun.
Daylight was fading, but the streets were lit as if it were day. Torches burned in every hand, and clusters of lanterns and lamps transformed the city into one large, rejoicing tavern. Fireworks raged over the square, and under their short bursts traveling jugglers and acrobats performed tirelessly: the largest and most prosperous troop had laid claim to the empty scaffold, and their competitors could only sigh enviously as the fool’s cap that continuously circled the crowd grew ever plumper and clanked more resonantly with each pass.
Barrels of wine stood at each crossroads, and drunken dogs, who lapped at the rose-colored streams that trickled along the pavement, crept, lurching, into courtyard entrances. Dissonant, shrill, yet lively music flooded over the city: people in the crowd played on whatever came to hand; herds of reed pipes, wine bottles, wooden rasps, and children’s rattles squawked and clamored shrilly, and the haunting sound of a stray violin from time to time rose up over this tuneless noise. Strings of people, joined by the hands, skipping and laughing, weaved in chains from alley to alley, and there were times when the heads of these impossibly long human chains swerved into a street from which the tail was just disappearing.
Toria understood the folly of her plan right away: to search for a single man in this dancing city, however distinctive he might be, was a pointless exercise worthy of an imbecile. Soll had either been trampled right there in the square or he had long been drinking and dancing together with the rest. But if something bad had really happened to him and he needed help, why did she not immediately turn to her father? What was the good of flinging herself headlong into this drunken, festive cauldron?
Having thoroughly berated herself, Toria reluctantly turned back, but at that very moment a dancing chain leapt out onto the street in front of her. Toria halted and watched as all the faces turned into one laughing face in the light of the torches and lanterns, a laughing face that flew by her from alley to alley, grasping the hands of strangers and dragging them into the rabid dance. Last in line was a young, happy boy in a white shirt, and his clinging hand seized Toria by the wrist.
“With us, little sister! Let’s dance, hey!”
The street rushed up to meet her.
Barely managing to run, stumbling and trying to break free, Toria flew at the tail of the dancing chain. Someone latched on behind, squeezing her palm with sweaty fingers; afraid of falling and being trampled, Toria matched the movements of her partners, skipping through sharp turns and trying not to fly into walls. At one point the chain snapped, and those dancing behind almost fell on Toria, but she adroitly wrenched herself free and, abandoning the laughing, human press, darted away.
Her heart was beating furiously, her breast was rising rapidly, but all the same she could not catch her breath; her hair had fallen down and her slim-toed slippers were as drenched in filth as the pavement. Supporting herself against a wall with her hand, Toria shivered, catching sight of a man lying motionless beneath that same wall. Overcoming her fear, she walked up and peered into his face. The drunkard was sleeping peacefully; he was a brunet with a magnificent mustache, and the black, luxuriant hairs now retracted inward, now puffed outward to the beat of his valiant snoring.
Toria staggered back and ran away. Some youngling tried to slip a caramel, held in his teeth, into her mouth: Toria gave him such a look that the poor fellow felt compelled to swallow the candy himself. Horsemen were rushing back and forth across the wide street, and with weary indignation Toria speculated on murderous horse hooves and drunken pedestrians who had lost all sense of caution.
One of them had collapsed right in the middle of the street. Toria’s blood ran cold as the boisterous riders came back.
“Get out of the way!” someone cried commandingly as hooves struck the stones right near the head of the man passed out in the road, but the noble animals, clearly surpassing in wisdom the people who had saddled them, did not tread on the drunkard, and the cavalcade galloped on.
The man on the pavement did not move. Toria overcame her fear and revulsion and walked up to him.
The prone man was unusually tall and wide of shoulder. His fair hair was matted at the back of his head with dried, black brown blood: it was obvious that this fall had not been his first.
Feeling how hard her heart was beating, Toria crouched down next to him on her haunches and peered into the face that pressed against the pavement. “Egert…”
He did not answer. His face was a gray, dusty mask, notched by the furrows of tears.
“Egert,” she said, dismayed, “you can’t stay here! You’ll be trampled, do you hear me?”
Another dancing chain dashed by. A foot, shod in a heavy boot, stumbled and kicked the recumbent Egert on the back. He did not flinch.
Toria seized him by the shoulders. “Egert! Wake up! Come on, wake up! Quickly!”
Hooves were beating at the end of the street. It would be impossible to drag Egert: he was too heavy and tall. Gritting her teeth, she turned him over onto his back, then onto his stomach, and again onto his back. She rolled him like a woodcutter rolls a log; his head with the fair, clotted hair flopped limply.
The riders galloped through the place where Egert had just been, and the hooves struck bright sparks from the stones. Toria felt a gust of wind, smelling of wine and smoke. She pushed Egert up against a wall; his eyes were open, but his vacant gaze went right through the girl who was bending over him. It frightened Toria: never before had she seen such a strange gaze on a person.
“Egert,” she said in despair. “Please, can you hear me?”
Not even a shadow of a thought glimmered in his cloudy, motionless eyes.