The Dark Domain (16 page)

Somehow he became aware of me. He read my thoughts from a distance and answered them like an adversary. Some mysterious connection must exist between us then, some spiritual link that makes something like this possible.

But I do not wish this upon myself at all. I do not like to be spied on, even if unconsciously, even if from afar. This person is a great inconvenience, and I will try to remove him at all cost.

At the moment I do not know anything about him. I was already at the editorial office of the newspaper which printed the article, and I demanded to know the name of the author. They replied that they did not know. The manuscript had arrived by mail from someone in the locality, but without a signature – just the initials S.S. The article was interesting, it touched on a topical subject, treated it in an excellent and learned fashion, and could not be faulted. Therefore, it was printed.

Maybe this is true, or maybe that secretive editorial office is lying. But he will not escape me! I will find him sooner or later – if not in the usual manner, then in my own way. I have behind me their help: mysterious, unseen by the eyes of the ‘healthy.’ They visit me almost every day and carry on long, private talks. Their access to me was made easier by my ‘insanity’ … .

How stupid are ‘healthy,’ ‘normal’ people! How I sincerely feel sorry for them! These morons do not know the wonderful other half of existence. They merely hold onto ‘reality’ with both hands, and they don’t see anything else beyond it. They live their entire lives this way until ‘death’ finally bars them from the other side.

I belong to a chosen few who are freely allowed to cross from one side to the other. Thanks to my ‘insanity’ I stand on the border between two worlds. Maybe it is precisely because of this that I am liberated from the superstitions and ‘reasonings’ of the mind. The mind’s prejudices are alien to me and put me under no obligation. The idea of time does not exist for me.

Yet I am still somewhat hampered. I cannot free myself from that strong, commanding voice which speaks to me, or from that mysterious power which pushes aside objects, contemptuous of their size; I am still wearied by endless, monotonous roads that lead nowhere. That is why I am not a perfect spirit, only an ‘insane person,’ someone who arouses in normal people pity, contempt or fear. But I do not complain. Even like this, I am better off than those of healthy mind.

Distant, misty lands unfold before me, enchanting precipices, unknown worlds with gloomy depths. I am visited by the dead, by processions of strange creatures and capricious elemental beings. One appears, the other leaves – ethereal, beautiful, dangerous … .

*        *        *

One of the waves of Duration has cast on the threshold of my home a new figure – as yet I do not know if he is ‘real’ or from that other side.

He comes in the evening; it is unknown how or from where. He stands close by and stares at me for hours without saying a word.

He has the look of antiquity about him. His face is Roman, shaved, without a trace of growth – a face swarthy, almost grey. His age is indeterminate: sometimes he looks fifty years old, sometimes a hundred or more; his features change most oddly. Yet I feel that he must be a very old man.

In his right hand he holds a scythe, in his left, an hourglass that he raises to the light from time to time, examining the position of the sand.

In the beginning he was stubbornly silent and did not answer any of my questions. Only after his tenth visit did he allow himself to be drawn into a conversation. From the start it went ploddingly and hard, for my guest is evidently taciturn and does not possess the appropriate verbal skills.

‘Put aside that scythe,’ I urged him by way of greeting. ‘You have carried it needlessly for so many years. Today it doesn’t make the right impression – it has become a lifeless reminder of the past.’

My visitor’s face twisted itself into a malicious grimace. For the first time a voice issued forth from his lips, a voice wooden, without resonance:

‘You think so? I think otherwise. I am Tempus.’

‘So I guessed. Greetings, Saturn! To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

‘You have been looking for me for some time. So here I am.’

‘You … do not exist. You are an illusion.’

‘I have materialized, as you can see. For too long people have spoken of me – therefore I’ve assumed this body. I have been lured out of non-existence.’

‘Maybe. But this get-up? It’s a little old-fashioned. You’re out of date, my dear sir.’

‘No matter. A typical rigidity of a thrombotic allegory. Besides, mankind can clothe me in new garments. It’s even high time that they did. I am already sick of these rags. They make me look like an anachronism.’

He contemptuously tugged at the flaps of the heavily-frayed toga.

‘So you see, my friend, I was right.’

‘In part, yes, as far as the attire is concerned. But you apparently do not acknowledge my existence at all.’

‘Naturally. You are a fiction of the mind. If I concern myself with the question of your costume, then I act only from the point of view of the “healthy.” You have apparently passed through an evolution, eh? So, at least, I’ve read.’

Saturn’s mask brightened up in a triumphant smile:

‘Ah! So you read the article? Wasn’t it beautifully written? Yes, yes, I have developed. I am already not conceived of today as I once was in the ancient world. I’ve become a changed value, independent, which knowledge attempts to introduce everywhere. I have been divided into minutes, seconds; I influence every moment. I’ve become precise, refined … .’

‘Oh, certainly! You’ve become devilishly lean! To the dimensions of the hands of a clock. You’ve desecrated the sacred mystery of Duration, you’ve marred the wonderful fluidity of the waves – you despoiler of life!’ Crying this out, I sprang up from my seat.

My visitor was already at the threshold.

‘I am stronger than you,’ I heard his measured voice say, calm like the movement of a pendulum. ‘For behind me is reality and people who are healthy and practical. And I am indispensable. Farewell! You will find me in the city in a somewhat more modern form.’

I wanted to forcibly stop him, but he slipped away and disappeared beyond the door … .

In the sky, the sunset was dying out. I sat alone in an empty room … .

*        *        *

Since then, Tempus did not show up at my home anymore. Accomplishing some mission, he withdrew, never to return. But his words gave me no rest and rang in my ears with the intrusive refrain:

‘You will find me in the city.’

What did this mean? Was it a call to battle? Meanwhile, articles dealing with time were appearing in the newspapers, their pointed arguments apparently directed against me. All were signed with the mysterious initials S.S. They dwelled on the profoundness of the notion of time, and endlessly underlined time’s efficiency and its usefulness in regulating life. In a word, they were paeans of worship for my visitor.

Irritated by these sallies, I collected and studied them, while strengthening my treatise with new proofs and arguments. I was preparing myself, while I waited for my opponent to run out of ideas; at that point, I would publish my response.

Simultaneously, I was searching for my antagonist. I roamed about the city until the late evening hours, peeking into cafés, striking up conversations with acquaintances, drawing people into discourses on the subject of time. In this way I became introduced to several professors, to learned philosophers, and to some dozen or so various eccentrics and characters. But I always left dissatisfied from the debates with these gentlemen. Admittedly, the problem seemed to absorb them on a rather high level, but even so, one didn’t sense the same ardour which emerged from the newspaper columns. These were not opponents; not one person took the issue so personally, with so much passion and belief, as that unknown one.

Gradually I’m becoming convinced that I’ve fallen on a false trail, that the sphere in which one should look for him lies a little ‘lower’ … .

*        *        *

It seems that I’m finally on the right track. As of yesterday evening … .

After roaming about all day, I am returning home. I’m going by the old section of the city that stretches up from the river in a system of rough little streets. I cut across them, struggling up the incline. Above me, patches of evening sky, marred by chimney smoke, look over filthy tenements. Pale, consumptive faces and the unkempt heads of old hags lean out of windows; the stagnant, bleary eyes of the aged stare at me … .

Stumbling over the holes and bumps in the pavement, I turn into a narrow street and glance down to its end. There, far in the distance, the river bleeds under the agony of the sunset, its water glittering with melancholic waves. Somewhere overhead, from some crumbling ruin, a flock of crows takes flight and, forming a heavily patterned arch, disappears beyond the roofs of the buildings. I lower my gaze and my weary eyes survey forlorn windows. My glance stops on some sign – on the black letters of someone’s name set against a faded green background. I look blankly, unable to combine the words. Suddenly I formulate them: Saturnin Sektor, Watchmaker.

Most certainly! It is he! I’ve found him at last!

A great peace fills my soul, and slowly I start to return home … .

A strange thing! I live close by.

It even seems that here, next door – only I’ve come up to my home from a different direction than I usually take, a direction I haven’t ever taken until now. After thirty years of residence in the city! Remarkable! And yet it happens at times that a person returns home one way for many years, walking continually the same route day after day, until finding himself on a different path at a certain moment, he discovers with amazement that it also leads to his home – the amazement of a person who has been dreaming for many long years, until one day he awakens on an unknown road leading to his own interior … .

So this is the name of my opponent, and he is a watchmaker. Of course it is he, only he and no one else. I only wonder why I haven’t come upon him before. The name is known to me from somewhere; it is so familiar. I cannot, admittedly, recall from where – but this doesn’t in any way affect my deep, firm conviction that I know this person. I realized immediately that he is my oppressor, the mysterious stranger whom I’ve been seeking for so long.

The very name is significant! It says so much about itself! Let us first analyse his forename. Saturnin! Doesn’t it strike a clear connection with Saturn-Time? Doesn’t this name immediately cast a vision of the old man with the scythe and hourglass? So the name is obviously symbolic.

And the surname Sektor – it’s odd, isn’t it? No, it’s exquisitely chosen! Sektor – in actuality Sector – that’s something cut up, shredded into sections, segments, divisions. How much hidden self-irony is in this nickname! But does it not perfectly suit his work? Indeed, he has deformed the wonder of Duration into mathematical abstractions; he has chopped up the flowing, undivided wave of life into a multitude of dead divisions. Sektor – a symbol of years, months, days, minutes, seconds. He has enclosed in two words the essence of his untruthful, negative activity. A dangerous person – a symbol! As long as he lives, mankind will not shake off the fallacy of time and follow me. That’s why one should erase this name from the memory of the living and replace it with mine. Mine?! … What a remarkable thought! My name! … My name … . What is my name? … I cannot remember … . This is funny, this is very funny! This is humiliating! … I’ve forgotten, completely forgotten my name. I am anonymous – yes – anonymous – as a wave in the ocean – a wave that is eternally flowing into another wave – and another wave – and another … .

*        *        *

After a long, sleepless night, I am on my way to meet him. Rotting, squeaky stairs, their boards full of holes, lead me on. I open the door and enter.

The snug old room murmurs with the voices of clocks. And there are an endless number of them: black ebonies creeping along the walls like large scarabaei, round antiques on ivory columns, French baroques under glass bells, playful, loudly ticking alarms. In a niche covered with green fabric whisper the half-century prayers of small ‘pocket-watches,’ golden, marvellously enamelled ‘turnips,’ silver, inlaid ‘repeaters,’ expensive miniatures adorned in ruby and emerald.

In the middle of the room is a small table with a watchmaker’s tools: a chisel, pincers, a group of screws, springs as thin as hairs, ringlets, metal plates. On a patch of green woollen cloth lie a pair of damaged watchcases, several newly-extracted diamonds … .

On a stool, leaning over some clock, he sits – the master of time. Through the dust whirling in the shaft of sunlight falling through the window, I can make out his face. It is somehow well known to me. I’ve seen it somewhere, where – I can’t remember. Maybe in a mirror. A grey, old head with ginger side-whiskers and sharp, vulture-like features.

He raises his bright, piercing eyes, and he smiles at me. A strange, strange smile.

‘I would like to have a watch repaired.’

‘You are lying, my friend – you haven’t used a watch for ten years. Why these subterfuges?’

His voice pierces me to the core; I’ve heard it somewhere, and I know it well – the voice is very familiar.

‘I know why you have come. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.’

Now, I smile.

‘If so, then the matter is greatly simplified.’

‘Naturally. Before you fulfil your purpose – sit down. We’ll have a talk. Why, we have plenty of time.’

‘Of course. I’m in no hurry.’

I sit down and listen intently to the conversation of the clocks. They run uniformly to the minute, to the second.

‘You’ve regulated time perfectly here,’ I remark casually.

Sektor is silent, his eyes fixed on me.

I take up the thread of the conversation with difficulty. ‘So you are prepared for everything?’

‘Yes. I will not defend myself.’

‘Why? You have a right to, as does every person.’

‘It would be pointless. I feel that shortly your era will arrive, no matter what. As an ideal symbol of an age about to pass, I yield before inevitability. An unpicked fruit eventually falls off a tree by itself.’