Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories Read Free

of the meal we were making of it and the lack of response, we set off walking again, giving free rein to more pleasant exchanges. And the memory, still present to the mind’s eye, not so much of their bodies as of their red and yellow costumes was sufficient consolation.
    Sometimes a branch of the stream, never deep, would widen to cover the whole river bed; and we, the banks being high and impossible to climb, would cross with our feet in the water. We were wearing light shoes, of canvas and rubber, and the water streamed through them: and when we were back on the dry ground our feet squelched inside at every step, wheezing and splashing.
    It grew dark. The white shingle came alive with black spots that leapt: tadpoles.
    They must have only just sprouted legs, tiny and tailed as they were, and it was as if they hadn’t yet come to terms with this new facility which kept sending them flying up in the air. There was one on every stone, but not for long, since the one would jump and another would take his place. And because their jumps were simultaneous and because while pressing on along the great river one saw nothing but the swarming of that amphibious multitude, advancing like a boundless army, I was struck by a sense of awe, almost as if this black and white symphony, this cartoon sad as a Chinese drawing, were fearfully conjuring the idea of the infinite.
    We stopped by a pool of water that seemed to offer sufficient space for us to immerse our entire bodies; even to swim a stroke or two. I went in barefoot, bareskinned: the water was weedy and putrid from the slow decay of river plants. The bottom was slimy and swampy: when you touched it, it sent turbid clouds up to the surface.
    But it was water; and it was good.
    My companion went down into the water with his shoes and stockings, leaving his spectacles on the bank. Then, not fully aware of the religious aspect of the ceremony, he started soaping himself.
    Thus we embarked on that joyful treat washing is when it is rare and hard to come by. The pool, which we could scarcely both fit in, bubbled over with foam and roaring, as though we were elephants bathing.
    On the riverbanks there were willows and shrubs and houses with waterwheels; and so unreal were they, in contrast to the concreteness of this water and these stones, that with the grey of evening filtering through they took on the air of a faded arras.
    My companion was washing his feet, now, in strange manner: without taking off his shoes but soaping the stockings and shoes on his feet.
    Then we dried ourselves and dressed. When I picked up a sock a tadpole jumped out.
    Laid on the bank, my companion’s glasses must have been thoroughly splashed. And—as he put them on—so gay must the muddle of that world have seemed to him, coloured as it was by the last gleams of the sunset, seen through a pair of wet lenses, that he started to laugh, and to laugh, without letting up and when I asked him why he said: ‘It’s such a hell of a mess!’
    And, neat and tidy now, a warm weariness in our bones to replace the dull tiredness of earlier on, we said farewell to our new river friend and set off along a little track that followed the bank, reasoning upon our own affairs and upon when we would return, and keeping our ears open, alert to the distant sounding of a bugle.

Conscience
    Came a war and a guy called Luigi asked if he could go, as a volunteer.
    Everyone was full of praise. Luigi went to the place where they were handing out the rifles, took one and said: ‘Now I’m going to go and kill a guy called Alberto.’
    They asked him who Alberto was.
    ‘An enemy,’ he answered, ‘an enemy of mine.’
    They explained to him that he was supposed to be killing enemies of a certain type, not whoever he felt like.
    ‘So?’ said Luigi. ‘You think I’m dumb? This Alberto is precisely that type, one of them. When I heard you were going to war against that lot, I thought: I’ll go too, that way I can kill Alberto.