By now the valleys beyond the Plateau lay in dense Gloom, and from up here I could see the lights of the larger towns – Lewin and Frankenstein far away on the horizon, and Kłodzko to the north. The air was pure and the lights were twinkling. Here, higher up, Night had not yet fallen, the sky in the west was still orange and brown, still growing darker. I wasn’t afraid of this darkness. I walked ahead, towards the Table Mountains, tripping over frozen clods of earth and clumps of dry grass. I felt hot in my fleeces, my hat and scarf, but I knew that as soon as I crossed the border I wouldn’t need them anymore. It’s always warmer in the Czech Republic, nothing but southern slopes.
And just then, over on the Czech side, Venus, my Damsel, shone out above the horizon.
She was growing brighter by the minute, as if a smile had risen on the dark face of the sky, so now I knew I had chosen a good direction and was heading the right way. She glowed in the sky as I safely crossed the forest and imperceptibly stepped across the border. She was guiding me. I walked across the Czech fields, constantly moving in her direction, as she descended lower and lower, as if encouraging me to follow her over the horizon.
She led me as far as the highway, from where I could see the town of Náchod. I walked down the road in a light and happy mood – whatever happened now, it would be Right and Good. I felt no fear at all, though the streets of the Czech town were empty now. But what is there to be afraid of in the Czech Republic?
So when I stopped outside the bookshop, not knowing what would happen next, my Damsel was still with me, though out of sight behind the rooftops. And then I found that despite the late hour there was someone in the shop. I knocked, and Honza opened the door to me, not in the least surprised. I said I needed a place for the night.
‘Yes,’ he said, letting me in without asking any questions.
A few days later Boros came to fetch me, bringing some clothes and wigs that Good News had thoughtfully prepared for me. Now we looked like an elderly couple on our way to a funeral, and in a sense it was true – we were going to my funeral. Boros had even bought a lovely wreath. This time he had a car, though borrowed from some students, and he drove it fast and assertively. We made a lot of stops at parking areas – I really was feeling ill. The journey was long and tiring. When we reached our destination, I couldn’t stand on my own feet, so Boros had to carry me over the threshold.
Now I live at the Entomologists’ research station on the edge of the Białowieńa Forest, and since I’ve been feeling a little better, each day I try to go on my short round. But I find it hard to walk now. Besides, I haven’t much to keep an eye on here, and the forest is impenetrable. Sometimes, when the temperature rises and oscillates close to zero, sluggish Flies, Springtails and Gall Wasps appear on the snow – by now I have learned their names. I also see Spiders here. I have learned, however, that most Insects hibernate. Deep inside their anthill, the Ants cling to each other in a large ball and sleep like that until spring. I only wish people had the same sort of confidence in each other. Perhaps because of the different air and my recent experiences, my Ailments have grown worse, so I spend most of my time just sitting and gazing out of the window.
Whenever Boros appears, he always comes with interesting soup in a thermos flask. Personally, I haven’t the strength to cook. He also brings me newspapers, encouraging me to read them, but they prompt my disgust. Newspapers rely on keeping us in a constant state of anxiety, on diverting our emotions away from the things that really matter to us. Why should I yield to their power and let them tell me what to think? I trot around the little house, treading paths this way and that. Sometimes I don’t recognise my own footprints in the snow and then I ask: who could have come this way? Who made these footprints? I think it’s a good Sign not to recognize oneself. But I am trying to complete my Investigations. My own Horoscope is the thousandth, and I often sit over it, doing my best to understand it. Who am I? One thing’s for sure – I know the date of my death.
I think of Oddball, and that this winter he’ll be alone on the Plateau. And I think about the concrete I poured – will it withstand the frost? How will they all survive yet another winter? The Bats in the Professor’s cellar. The Deer and the Foxes. Good News is studying in Wrocław and is living in my flat. Dizzy’s there too – it’s easier for two to live together. And I’m sorry I failed to bring him round to Astrology. I often write to him through Boros. Yesterday I sent him a little story. He’ll know what it’s about:
A medieval monk and Astrologer – in the days before Saint Augustine forbade the reading of the future from the stars – foresaw his own death in his Horoscope. He was to die from the blow of a stone that would fall on his head. From then on he always wore a metal cap beneath his monk’s hood. Until one Good Friday, he took it off along with the hood, more for fear of drawing attention to himself in church than for love of God. Just then a tiny pebble fell on his bare head, giving him a superficial scratch. But the monk was sure the prediction had come true, so he put all his affairs in order, and a month later he died.
That is how it works, Dizzy. But I know I still have plenty of time.
FROM THE AUTHOR
The epigraphs and quotations in the text are from Proverbs of Hell, Auguries of Innocence, The Mental Traveller and the letters of William Blake.
Father Rustle’s sermon is a compilation of genuine sermons by hunt chaplains sourced from the internet.
My thanks to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) for the opportunity for peaceful, productive work.
And to Andrew Leader for his very generous grant towards the cost of translation.
OLGA TOKARCZUK is one of Poland’s most beloved authors. In 2015 she received the Brückepreis and the prestigious annual literary award from Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, along with Poland’s highest literary honour, the Nike Award and the Nike Readers’ Prize. Tokarczuk also received a Nike in 2008 for Flights, as well as the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for the English translation by Jennifer Croft. She is the author of nine novels and three short-story collections and has been translated into a dozen languages.
ANTONIA LLOYD-JONES is a leading translator from Polish and has twice won the Found in Translation Award, as well as the 2018 Transatlantyk Prize for the most outstanding promoter of Polish literature abroad. She is a mentor for the UK’s Emerging Translator Mentorship Programme and a former co-chair of the Translators Association.
PRAISE FOR OLGA TOKARCZUK
Winner of the Man Booker International Prize
DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD
‘Strange, mordantly funny, consoling and wise, Olga Tokarczuk’s novels fill the reader’s mind with intimations of a unique consciousness. Her latest novel to be translated into English, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead, is simultaneously unsettling and oddly companionable…both a meditation on human compassion and a murder mystery that lingers in the imagination.’ Marcel Theroux, author of Strange Bodies
‘I loved this wry, richly melancholic philosophical mystery. It’s a compelling and endlessly thought-provoking novel, luminous with the strangeness of existence.’ Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From