The guests sat down at the tables, the soldiers opened bottles of beer, and from the other end of the yard came the smell of grilling meat. The kerosene lamps were lit and hung on nails hammered in the trunks of the trees. As it grew dark, the officers filled their glasses, clinked, and drank. Sredoje sat at the end of the table, next to Hans, and together, in silence, they sipped their beer. The rest of the company was noisy, celebrating the birthday of the cross-eyed officer with the hooked nose, who sat next to Waldenheim. Perhaps, too, they were showing off before their superior from Belgrade. They praised the beer, praised the spot under the trees, and, when the meat arrived, praised the skill of the military cook, who in answer to the loud summons of all present appeared in a long white apron spattered with grease and blood.
Red wine in liter bottles was brought to the tables, along with clean tall glasses. A young and chubby second lieutenant stood up and toasted his colleague on the occasion of his colleague’s twenty-sixth birthday, and everyone had to empty a glass of wine. The tall, cross-eyed officer responded, announcing that it was an honor for him to celebrate his birthday in the presence of the esteemed Captain Doctor Waldenheim, at which they all again drained their glasses. Waldenheim stood up and quietly, deliberately proposed a toast, and referred to the delicate position in which they found themselves, in a foreign country where there was not yet sufficient understanding of the German aim to introduce a civilized way of life. Everyone applauded and again drank. Sredoje, this time, only wet his lips with the wine, but the chubby second lieutenant shouted across to Waldenheim that his interpreter was shirking, at which Sredoje, with a forced laugh, raised his glass and drained it. Now everyone wanted to speak, to drink, to clink glasses. Sredoje suddenly felt the wine rising in his throat; he broke into a sweat, and his stomach began to churn. He got up and rushed to the far end of the lawn, to the well, around it, and to the wire fence, where by a wooden post he vomited in one dense stream. Now he was empty, sober, but exhausted.
He stood panting, pulling himself together, wiping the sweat off his face, as the soldiers eating around the spit and the grill watched him. The officers’ wild laughter reached his ears. He had to return. He walked back in the shadows cast by the fading fire and came into the lamplight right next to his seat. A full glass was waiting for him, and the second lieutenant, the minute Sredoje sat down, clinked glasses with him, winking. Sredoje shook his head; he could not swallow another drop. The second lieutenant called across to Waldenheim, who, conversing with the cross-eyed officer, turned distractedly to Sredoje and raised his hand. Everyone fell silent. “You’re not feeling well?” he asked Sredoje across the table in a soft voice. Sredoje shook his head. At that, Waldenheim snapped his fingers, called over one of the soldiers serving at the table, and whispered in his ear. Then he turned to Sredoje with a look full of understanding. “He’ll show you to bed. Is that all right?” At Sredoje’s thankful acceptance, he turned to the other officers and said, “Our young friend is not accustomed to ordeals of this kind,” and clinked glasses with his neighbors. Everyone was now shouting, drinking. No one paid attention to Sredoje, who got up and followed the soldier.
He thought they would go to the lodge, but the soldier led him out through the gate and by the fence that went parallel to the tables. He walked at the soldier’s side, taking care not to stumble in the shadows of the tall trees. They left the circle of light, plunged into darkness, and the air was suddenly cooler, fresher. Sredoje breathed more easily. But he could see nothing until the soldier switched on a flashlight, revealing an uneven path. The sound of laughter grew fainter and, after they rounded a small hill, ceased completely. Only their own footsteps and breathing could be heard. The soldier stopped, swept the darkness with the flashlight, and its beam fell on a small house, on the door of the house. He pushed a key into the lock, and the door creaked open. When they stepped inside, Sredoje almost fainted from the hot air that hit them. But the soldier seemed not to notice. In the room, the only pieces of furniture were beds and a small white chair next to each, like the chairs on the lawn of the hunting lodge.
Turning, the soldier said over his shoulder to Sredoje, “If you need to go outside, go while I’m here.”
Sredoje was surprised. “No, I don’t need to. But why do you ask?”
“Because I’ve been ordered to lock the door.” And then, as if to justify it, he added, “We don’t mount guard here.” He waited for a moment to see if Sredoje would change his mind, then murmured “Good night” and left, taking the flashlight with him and slamming the door shut.
Sredoje heard the key turn and the soldier’s footsteps receding. In the silence, he was sorry he hadn’t asked the soldier to wait by the open door a while, for the room to air, but it was too late now. He looked for a window, though he did not remember seeing one in the brief sweep of the flashlight. He felt along the walls with his hand and came upon wooden shutters. He groped for the bolt, found it, turned it, but the shutters would not open. He pulled it, rattled it, but nothing happened. Passing his fingers along the edges of the shutters, he discovered that they had been nailed in place with large nails. He gave up with a groan. His legs shook with fatigue; his head was swimming. He walked to the middle of the room, felt around for a bed, sat down. He took off his jacket, threw it across the back of a chair. The revolver he carried in his inside pocket knocked against the seat. He took off his trousers and shoes, collapsed onto the pillow, and was instantly asleep.
He woke, dimly aware that something had disturbed his sleep. His head ached, his body was bathed in sweat, all he wanted was to sleep, but whatever it was that wouldn’t let him was fumbling between his legs. He put his hand out and caught hold of someone’s hand, pushed it away, and in the same moment, relieved, sank back to sleep. But he woke again: the hand was touching him. He pushed it away again, harder. It did not occur to him to wonder whose hand it was or why it was touching him; he only knew that it prevented him from sleeping and that he had to go back to sleep. Sleep was like an animal swallowing him. He slept and again started, bewildered: the hand was back, stubbornly pulling him out of the peace into which he had just settled. He didn’t want to move, such was his longing to return to that peace, but he had to. He found the hand and, turning from his back to his side, shoved it far away, to the neighboring bed. It must have left him alone longer after that, because it was a deep, heavy dream he came out of when the hand intruded again. Sredoje felt that he had no more strength to resist it, yet he could not allow the hand to continue, because what it was doing was something so unnatural that even in his sleep he fought it. He turned over on his back and without opening his eyes felt for his jacket, slipped the revolver out of the pocket, and, relieved that he had found a solution, slid it across his body to his other side, and pulled the trigger.
There was a deafening explosion and a flash that penetrated his eyelids, though they were shut tight. The hand jerked away, he heard a scream, and when he opened his eyes, there was complete darkness and the sound only of his own breathing. He jumped up, wide awake. He realized that he had wounded, if not killed, someone— Waldenheim, probably. He walked across to switch on the light, but remembered that there was no light in the room. And did he want to see the wound, see a dying body? He must flee, he thought, trembling. He pulled on his trousers, stuffed his feet into his shoes, grabbed hold of his jacket. He rushed for the door, but collided with a wall instead; he searched back and forth until he felt wood and the lock. A huge key was sticking out of it — the first moment of relief in this nightmare. He turned the key, pushed at the door, and dove into the free cold night air.