The Atlas полностью

The night was very black and cold. I had to trust my horse because I could not see. The way was almost terriryingly steep and narrow. I felt the presence of invisible precipices on either side of me. The poor animal panted and snorted and shivered, the sweat on his shoulders now as cold as dew. After a long time I saw the silhouettes of D. and the guide on a high ridge illuminated by starlight. D. called to me lovingly. Before I could answer, the guide continued on, leading her horse away. My horse saw or smelled D.'s mare and cantered to join her, which afforded me some comfort; it seemed to me that I had been travelling alone in the darkness for a very long time, although probably it had been less than an hour. The guide strode so briskly that the horses had to trot, never slowing even when he went up and down cliffsides in that pitch-darkness. D. kept calling his name in terror; but it was as she had said, he was just like an animal. He rushed on without drawing a rapid breath, drawing us along the naked backbones of those unpleasant mountains by habit and instinct. He was one of the strongest men I ever met, and among the least moved by other human beings.

Every time the fever came back, hot sweat oozed from the insides of my ears like drops of boiling oil in a wok. When that happened I became very dizzy, but I knew it would do no good to call out. As for D., she was pregnant, and continually nauseous, so that the jolting of her horse agonized her, and she whispered that she had a great fear that she would fall. Sometimes the guide would be swiftly striding straight down some wall of scree so steep that the blood rushed to my head as my horse picked his way and sometimes stumbled. Ahead of me, I heard D. sobbing in pain and terror. If she screamed his name long enough and loud enough, he'd shake his head as if in surprise, then come running back to her solicitously. He was not callous at all. She'd tell him to please go more slowly for her baby's sake, and he'd nod. A moment later he would be striding just as rapidly into the mountain coldness, smoking a cigarette, with one hand in his pocket. He was not hostile or even intractable. It was only that there was something immovable about him. He was pure and good and wanted to please, but nothing could prick him through his animal dullness. — We are fashioned, so it's said, of dust and clay. And perhaps in abodes of poverty, where health, learning, shelter and security are not birthrights, the soul is not a birthright, either. Could it be that these men I've met who are just like animals own no self, contain nothing in their skulls but brutishness, possess no feelings for other human beings save fear and lust and greed; or, even if they feel love, experience it only as a dog or a horse does, without understanding? In these insensible ones do only dust and clay have life? — It was all that D. and I could do to stay on our mounts. Twice my weary horse grew ill-tempered and threw me. The first time I fell only about seven or eight feet and struck rock, tearing my left arm open. I could hear the guide striding rapidly on, while D. screamed his name. By the time she'd managed to stop him I was back on my horse. The second time, a couple of hours later, I fell about twenty feet and as I was falling I thought that I was going to be seriously hurt but I was caught by a treetop which gave way and dropped me into a thornbush. The thorns broke off inside my raw arm and began to burn right away with some quick-acting nettlish venom. Far down the mountain ahead, I could hear D. weeping and calling the guide's name. He returned at last with that surprised look and helped me back on my horse. D. asked how I was and I said I was OK and she screamed: Why why why you say that? You no OK! Oh, you make me very angry! You talk strong, talk stupid! — But by then her words had faded into a distant wail because she was already far down the mountain again, pulled behind the guide like a balloon on a string. My horse picked his way, carrying me down into the dark. I kept one hand tightly on the wickerwork pommel; the rope that served as reins was wrapped around that hand; my other arm, the one that was swelling now and filling me with warmth, I kept a few inches out from my face, to catch the branches and briers that sometimes leaped for my eyes.

Finally it was very cold and I saw stars far below me on my left and on my right, and then we reached the minefield warning and were inside Burma.

I closed my eyes, but the drops of sweat that oozed out of my skull were so painfully hot that they glowed right through my eyelids, hued like the brownish-orange license plates of Egyptian taxis.