Serpents and Stairways

Chapter VIII - Part 1

That's Károly—the sunken-eyed fellow from the hotel who had traded him the uniform. He reads terribly, mutters and mumbles, but then, the moment he concludes, explodes with volubility and keeps going on and on, trying to explain whatever he was trying to express.

Michel moaned quietly.

"I know," Georg said with a smile—he always smiled more when tired, "I guess, Fate's punishing me for disobedience."

"Can you, of all people, not anthropomorphize fate? Instead, perhaps, explain what brought you to that spectacular and totally sane idea?"

"That the topic of progressive taxation is a poor fit for poetry?"

"Disobeying fate."

"What I think, is that he seems to revel in his cruelty a tad too much."

"Not going to answer the question? Fine. Let's talk social equity then."

"Let's!"

"Fine. I think it's not that bad—what he's saying. The issue is how he says it. The Titanic wasn't just rich people, you know? But as for the excess of emotions, it's caused by the bottled-up anger, grief, and systematic overwork leading to a disorder of his nervous system. His parents are either dead, disabled, or gone, both of them probably. If they're dead, I'd bet on diphtheria. I think he supports his younger siblings. A large family—no less than five. And he's not handling it well: notice the edema and the twitchiness of his gestures."

"How do you... Ah, right, it's you."

The group applauded the next reader, and their dialogue had to be cut short.

Then happened the third, the fourth and the fifth meeting, and then Georg stopped counting. A few times Pasha approached him, asking whether he had understood anything, whether he had felt it.

"I understood that you take poetry very seriously," Georg would say, his eyes escaping to somewhere else.

"I mean, yeah. Whatever, really. But you do understand WHAT we're trying to say, right?"

"Well, that poem, about a king..."

"A lyrical ballad!"

The poem told of a young ruler that fell in love with an enchanted immortal maiden. In punishment for that (or maybe for something else, the causal relationships weren't this story's strongest suit) the falsegods had cursed him and his entire land with a blanket of eternal sleep.

"Well, yes. A ballad. I liked it."

"Were you even listening?"

"I was."

"So what do you think?"

That same question again—sometimes several times per conversation. If he tried to simply retell the poem, would he be left alone?

"The king gradually becomes covered in moss—"

"Yes!" He wouldn't be. "Fusing with earth, losing speech, memory, it's HORRIBLE! And even the name, even the name is lost!"

"Of king or of the land?"

Moments like that enraged Pasha and made him look up helplessly at Michel in search of support. Perhaps, he imagined that Michel, with his impeccable logical edifice, would eventually invent an oratoric contraption that could get inside Georg's head and drag him out: a sort of snail fork of words.

That never worked out, of course. Michel either remained silent, or would say something neutral, and Pasha, before they'd part ways, would once again quote them rhymes he found especially memorable, his choice falling inevitably on the most pompous stanzas of the evening.