The Palace of Dreams

vi. THE DINNER

At first, so as not to worry his mother, Mark-Alem didn’t mention his doubts, but an hour later, as they were getting into the carriage to go to the Vizier’s, he couldn’t help saying:

“There was a certain amount of agitation at the Palace today.”

“What!” she said, gripping his hand. “Agitation? Why?”

“I couldn’t find out anything definite. But on the way home I passed a lot of patrols.”

He felt his mother’s hand tremble against his own, and was sorry he’d spoken.

“But perhaps it’s nothing at all,” he reassured her. “Perhaps they’re just rumors.”

“But what did you hear?” she asked in a choked voice.

“Oh, silly things!” he said, trying to sound casual. “It seems the Sovereign sent back yesterday’s Master-Dream. But perhaps the story’s not true. There could be quite a different explanation for the unusual activity.”

The noise of the carriage wheels breaking the silence was unbearable.

“If the Sovereign really did send the Master-Dream back, that’s not unimportant,” said Mark-Alem’s mother.

“But there really may be nothing to it.”

“That only makes it worse. It means that what’s going on is more disturbing still.”

I shouldn’t have told her anything, though Mark-Alem.

“But what could it be that’s more disturbing?”

His mother sighed.

“How can we tell? I don’t know much about what you do in that place. You’ve mentioned the possibility of mistaken interpretations and sudden inspections. Mark, tell me the truth—you haven’t got mixed up in anything wrong, have you?”

He tried to laugh.

“Me? I really don’t know anything about all this, I swear. I spent the whole of today down in the Archives. It was only when I came back upstairs that I heard that something was going on.”

Through the noise of the wheels he heard his mother fetch another deep sigh, then murmur, “God help us!”

He could just see, through the carriage windows and in the pallid light of the streetlamps, the dark buildings to the right and the left of the road, and here and there a few pedestrians. What if the dinner has been put off? thought Mark-Alem. The closer they got to the Vizier’s palace, the more the thought obsessed him. But he comforted himself with the reflection that this was all the more unlikely because the occasion was connected with the family epic, and thus with the very foundations of the Quprili dynasty. No, it couldn’t possibly have been put off. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to be canceled or not. Anyhow, when he saw the lights by the palace gate and the guests’ carriages drawn up along the pavement, he felt relieved. It seemed to him his mother sighed too, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. There were the Vizier’s guards standing by the gates as usual, and everything else as it always was on such occasions: lighted torches lining the path from the gate to the steps leading up to the front door; the majordomo standing in the entrance; the hall filled with a pleasant smell of mint. You felt it was impossible for the anxieties of the day just ending to pass through the gates of the palace.

Mark-Alem and his mother went into the main drawing room. From two silver braziers in the middle of the room came a comfortable warmth that consorted well with the dark red of the carpets and the gentle hum of conversation.

The guests included a few close cousins, all in high positions, several old family friends, the Austrian consul’s son—a tall fair youth to whom Kurt was talking in French—and two or three other people whom Mark-Alem hadn’t met before. He heard his mother quietly ask a footman where the Vizier was, and the man said he was upstairs but would be down soon. Mark-Alem felt calmer now. The icy dread that had gripped him all the evening like some dank and baneful mist was fading away.

The footmen were serving raki in silver goblets. Through the buzz of talk Mark-Alem tried to hear what Uncle Kurt and the Austrian were saying in French. After downing a glass of raki in one gulp, he felt a wave of euphoria. When, after a moment, his eyes met those of his mother, he quickly looked away. She seemed to be saying, “What was all that nonsense you were telling me just now?”

The entrance of the Vizier immediately struck a chill into the atmosphere. This wasn’t so much because of his gloomy expression—most of those present were accustomed to that—as because he also looked preoccupied and gazed at his guests as if he were surprised to see them there and were waiting for them to tell him why they had come. After saying good evening he stood by one of the braziers, holding his hands spread over it to warm them. To Mark-Alem the rings around his eyes looked even darker than on the evening of their memorable dinner.

Kurt, evidently feeling it was up to him to try to restore an air of normality to the proceedings, went over to his brother and whispered a few words which Mark-Alem couldn’t hear. But they must have had to do with the Austrian, for the Vizier replied to Kurt and the other young man at the same time, and the Austrian nodded respectfully as Kurt translated his brother’s words. After this, things did seem a little more relaxed. The guests began to converse in pairs, while the Austrian went on talking to the Vizier with Kurt still acting as interpreter. Mark-Alem was tempted to move nearer to listen, but one of his cousins, the bald one who’d had supper with them the day before Mark-Alem started work in the Palace of Dreams, asked in a whisper:

“How are you getting on at the Tabir?”

“Very well,” said Mark-Alem, though his mouth turned down at the corners to indicate only “So-so.”

“Are you working in Interpretation?”

He nodded. A gleam of irony came into his cousin’s expression, but Mark-Alem didn’t care. He had eyes for no one but his favorite uncle, Kurt. He’d never seen him looking so handsome and elegant, in his immaculate white starched collar which cast a magical glow over his face. Mark-Alem was soon convinced that the mainspring of the whole evening was Kurt, who had had the strange idea of inviting the Albanian rhapsodists. Mark-Alem was eager to hear at last the Albanian version of the family epic, until now as unknown to them as the other side of the moon.

Someone who was evidently the last of the guests now entered, apologizing for his late arrival:

“There’s a certain amount of unusual activity outside,” he said. “The forces of law and order are checking people’s identity.”

Some of the guests tried to catch the Vizier’s eye, but he seemed quite unaffected by the latecomer’s words. He must know what’s going on, thought Mark-Alem. Otherwise he wouldn’t take the news with such indifference. The Vizier didn’t seem to have noticed his nephew either; it was as if he’d completely forgotten the disjointed conversation they’d had that evening a few weeks before. Only an hour ago Mark-Alem had been wondering whether he oughtn’t to tell the Vizier what had happened at the Tabir Sarrail. Hadn’t the moment come for him to be on his guard? But now, seeing his uncle so unconcerned, Mark-Alem felt reassured too.

That being so, he began to examine the patterns in the huge Persian carpet, the largest and most beautiful he’d ever seen, a birthday present to the Vizier from the Sovereign. It was one of the few things that still seemed to him as lovely as ever, though since he’d started working in the Palace of Dreams the rest of the world had grown pale and dull.

He only raised his eyes from the carpet when he realized that everyone had suddenly fallen silent. The Vizier was preparing to speak. He told his guests that they were about to hear the rhapsodists from Albania; then, during and after dinner, as was the custom, the Slav rhapsodists would sing passages from the Quprili epic.

“Show them in,” he told the majordomo.

After a while the rhapsodists entered, amid a complete silence. There were three of them, dressed in typical native costume. Two of them were middle-aged, one of them slightly younger, and each was carrying his fragile stringed instrument. Mark-Alem’s attention was immediately captured by these instruments—lahutas, as they were called. They were very like the guslas of the Slav rhapsodists, and Mark-Alem felt the same surprise, not to say disappointment, as he’d experienced when he first saw the guslas. Having heard so much about the famous epic, he’d imagined that the instruments accompanying it would somehow be as strange, weighty, majestic, and imposing as the chant itself, and that the rhapsodists would have to drag them along behind them. But the gusla was merely a simple wooden instrument with a single string, and could easily be carried in one hand. It had seemed incredible that this wretched thing could bring the vast ancient epic to life. And now Mark-Alem had seen the lahuta, his disappointment was even more acute. Ever since he’d heard Kurt talking about the Albanian version of their epic, he’d for some reason thought the Albanian lahuta would cure the shock that the gusla had administered to his imagination. He’d expected it to be not only heavy and impressive but also steeped in the blood he associated in his mind with the cruelty of their epic. But it had turned out to be as rudimentary as the gusla—just a wooden sounding box with an opening on top and one solitary string.

By now the rhapsodists were standing between the two groups into which the guests had of their own accord divided themselves. The bards had fair hair, and their bright eyes seemed to express not so much scorn as complete rejection of anything that might be offered them.

The footmen had served them raki in the same kind of silver goblets as those they’d handed round to the other guests, but the Albanians merely touched them with their lips.

“Well, you can begin,” said the Vizier in Albanian.

One of the rhapsodists sat down on a stool which the majordomo had brought. He laid his lahuta on his lap, then sat for a moment looking at the string. Then he lifted his bow in his right hand and laid it across the string. The first sounds were faint and monotonous, tending obstinately back to their point of departure. It was like a long, too long, stifling lament. If it goes on like this, thought Mark-Alem, everyone will be gasping for air. When was the fellow going to start on the words? Everyone else was obviously wondering the same thing. This kind of music needed to be padded with words; otherwise this string would scrape their souls raw.

When the rhapsodist finally opened his mouth and began to sing, Mark-Alem was at first relieved. But there was something inhuman about the man’s voice, too. It was as if some strange operation had been performed on it, removing all everyday tones and leaving only eternal ones. It was a voice in which the throat of man and the throat of the mountains seemed, over ages, to have attuned themselves to one another and merged. And so with other voices, ever more distant, until they all joined in the lament of the stars. Words and voice alike might as easily have come from the mouth of the dead as of the living. Another accord—the closest and the most perfect—had been made with the shades of the dead.

Mark-Alem couldn’t take his eyes off the slender, solitary string stretched across the sounding box. It was the string that secreted the lament; the box amplified it to terrifying proportions. Suddenly it was revealed to Mark-Alem that this hollow cage was the breast containing the soul of the nation to which he belonged. It was from there that the vibrant age-old lament arose. He’d already heard fragments of it; only today would he be permitted to hear the whole. He now felt the hollow of the lahuta inside his own breast.

Then another rhapsodist started to sing “The Ballad of the Bridge,” and through the hush that surrounded it, Mark-Alem seemed to hear the blows of the masons, building in the cold sunshine a bridge sullied with the blood of sacrifice. A bridge that would not only give the Quprili family its name but would also mark them with its own doom.

Though his chest was constricted with tension, Mark-Alem suddenly felt an almost irresistible desire to discard “Alem,” the Asian half of his first name, and appear with a new one, one used by the people of his native land: Gjon, Gjergj, or Gjorg.

Mark-Gjon, Mark-Gjergj Ura, Mark-Gjorg Ura, he repeated, as if trying to get used to his new half name, every time he heard the word “Ura,” the only one of the rhapsodist’s words he could understand.

Suddenly there came back to him the dream of a certain merchant, about a musical instrument heard in the middle of some wasteland. He couldn’t remember the details—only that he’d felt like throwing it into the wastepaper basket at first but then had let it pass. And now it seemed to him that the musical instrument described in the dream bore a strange resemblance to the lahuta.

The rhapsodist went on singing in the same resonant voice. Kurt gazed fixedly at him; his eyes were shining feverishly. Every so often, in a whisper, he translated a passage, a few verses, to the Austrian, who was also listening intently. The Vizier stood motionless, the rings under his eyes darker than ever, his hands folded in front of him. Mark-Alem could get the drift of a few lines here and there, but most of them were unintelligible.

Almost imperceptibly he moved nearer to where his young uncle and the Austrian were. Kurt was just trying to translate that line. Mark-Alem, who understood a little French, listened.

“It’s extremely difficult to translate,” Kurt was saying. “Almost impossible, in fact…”

Mark-Alem did his best to follow the text of the epic, partly through what he could make out for himself and partly by listening to Kurt’s translation.

“It’s about a man trying to challenge his dead enemy to a duel on his grave,” Kurt explained to the Austrian. “Rather macabre, eh?”

“Magnificent!” replied the other.

“The dead man can’t get up, and he struggles and groans,” Kurt went on.

My God, thought Mark-Alem suddenly, it’s all quite clear! And indeed it couldn’t be plainer. The sounding box of the lahut a was the grave in which the dead man was struggling. His groans, arising from below, were uniquely terrifying.

“And now here are the owls, birds of ill omen,” whispered Kurt.

The Austrian nodded agreement as his friend spoke.

“This is the knight, Zuk, treacherously blinded by his mother and her lover, who wanders over the snowy mountains on his blinded steed.”

“Blinded by his mother! My God!” exclaimed the Austrian. “But it’s like the Oresteia! Das ist die Orestiaden! ”

Mark-Alem was now quite close to them, so as not to miss a word of what they said. Kurt was just about to go on with his commentary when there was a sudden noise. Heads turned in all directions, some toward the doors, some toward the windows. Then the noise came again, mingled with shrill cries, and then amid all the din there was a loud banging at the outer door.

“What is it? What’s happening?” cried anxious voices. Then all were silent. The rhapsodist stopped singing. There was another knocking, louder than before.

“My God, what can it be?” gasped someone.

Everyone turned toward the Vizier, whose face had suddenly turned deathly pale. There was a distant sound of a door opening, then a brief cry, followed by the tramp of approaching footsteps. The guests stood petrified, gazing at the drawing-room doors. These were finally shoved open roughly, and a group of armed men appeared on the threshold. Something—perhaps the lights in the room, or the sight of the guests, or the cry that issued from some unknown throat—seemed to stop them in their tracks for a moment. Then one of them came forward, scanned the room apparently without finding what he was looking for, and said:

“The Sovereign’s police!”

No one said anything.

“Vizier Quprili?” said the officer, having now evidently found the person he sought. He took a couple of steps toward the Vizier, bowed deeply, and said:

“Excellency, I have orders from the Sovereign. Allow me to execute them.”

Then he brought out from his breast a decree, which he proceeded to unfold as the Vizier looked on. His white face didn’t change now; it had changed as much as it could already.

The officer took his impassiveness as permission.

“Your papers!” he shouted, turning suddenly to the guests and nodding to his men to enter.

There were about half a dozen of them, all armed, and wearing the badges of the imperial police on their caps and collars.

“I’m a foreign citizen,” the voice of the Austrian could be heard protesting amid the rising hubbub.

Mark-Alem looked around in vain for his mother. A voice that was meant to be severe but which tried to avoid brutality was saying at intervals: “This way! This way!”

Someone had opened a side door leading into the adjoining salon, and a group of guests was being herded into it.

“Kurt Quprili!” shouted one of the policemen, pointing Kurt out to his chief. “He’s the one.”

The officer went over to him, taking some handcuffs out of his pocket on the way.

Mark-Alem saw the officer grab Kurt’s wrists adroitly with one hand and fix the handcuffs on them with the other. Strangely enough, Kurt didn’t offer the slightest resistance. All he did was look at the handcuffs in surprise. Mark-Alem, like some of the other guests, turned to the Vizier, expecting him to put an end to this absurd scene. But the Vizier’s face remained expressionless. Anyone else might have thought the powerful Vizier’s failure to respond to an outrage committed under his own roof had something to do with fear. But Mark-Alem guessed there was another reason for his resignation. This was the ancient reflex of the Quprilis, who in similar circumstances, scores of times in the history of their family, assumed the mask of unreality. Its features reflected fatalism, abstraction, and weariness.

Mark-Alem felt like shouting, “Wake up, Uncle, pull yourself together!—don’t you see what’s happening?” But in the eyes of the Vizier, even while with everyone else he watched Kurt being led out, there was a trace of what looked like submission. You suspected he was really looking into the distance, into some mysterious depths where the official machine that had engendered this misfortune might have been set in motion.

I only hope he’s thinking of a way to stop it, thought Mark-Alem, approaching the Vizier in an attempt to see if this were so. And perhaps because he was so close, perhaps by mere chance, their eyes briefly met. In that short time, in the look that sprang as through a rift in his uncle’s brow, it seemed to Mark-Alem that he understood the meaning of their previous incomprehensible interview. And suddenly, painfully, he was transfixed by the thought that all this had to do with the Palace of Dreams and with himself, Mark-Alem; and that this time the Quprilis had probably been caught out….

He felt two hands pushing him roughly toward the door into the other room. As he went in he caught a glimpse of the rhapsodists, still standing alone amid a small crowd of guests.

“Mark!” He heard his mother’s gentle voice as soon as he entered the smaller salon. He would have expected a cry or a sob, but she sounded almost calm. “What’s happening in the other room?”

He shrugged and didn’t answer.

“I was worried about you,” she whispered. “What misfortune has befallen us now?”

He could see that most of the guests had now moved into this room. Every so often a voice could be heard asking, “What’s going on in there? How much longer is this going to last?”

“Have they taken Kurt away?” asked Mark-Alem’s mother.

“I think so.”

She’s keeping herself under control, he thought. She’s not a Quprili for nothing. But he noticed she was as white as a sheet.

All of a sudden, through the communicating doors between the two drawing rooms, they could hear piercing cries, followed by a scuffle and a groan.

Mark-Alem made to join those of the guests who were rushing toward the doors, but his mother held him back.

From the other room came more cries, then the sound of a body falling to the floor.

“Was ist los?” said the Austrian.

“The doors are locked.”

Every face was pale with fear.

Mark-Alem felt his mother’s fingers gripping his arm like a vise. From beyond the door came another heartrending cry, cut off short.

“Who was that?” someone asked. “That voice…”

“It wasn’t the Vizier.”

They heard the sound of a body falling heavily, and a terrifying “Ah!”

“My God, what’s going on?”

For a few moments everyone was silent. Then, through the silence, a voice said:

“They’re murdering the rhapsodists.”

Mark-Alem buried his face in his hands. From the other room came the clatter of boots receding in the distance. Someone started twisting the door handles.

“Open up, for the love of God!”

The door into the main drawing room was still locked. But another one opened, onto an inner corridor, and a voice shouted: “This way!”

The guests filed out like shadows, except one who had fainted and slumped onto a chair. The corridor was feebly lighted and full of the sound of footsteps. “Have they killed Kurt?” asked someone. “No—but they took him away.” “This way, ladies and gentlemen,” said a valet. “You can get out this way.” “Wo ist Kurt?”

The little procession of guests came out into the main corridor by the larger drawing room, in which some vague figures could be seen through the frosted glass in the doors. Mark-Alem wrenched free from his mother’s grasp and went over to find out what was happening. One of the doors was ajar, and through the gap he could see part of the drawing room. Everything was turned upside down. Then he caught sight of the lifeless bodies of two rhapsodists stretched out close together on the floor. A third corpse lay a little way farther off, near an overturned brazier; its face was half covered with ashes.

The policemen had gone. Only the footmen were left, walking silently over a carpet strewn with broken glass. Mark-Alem caught a glimpse of a motionless image of the Vizier hanging on the wall, and by pushing the door a bit farther open he could see the Vizier himself, still in the same rigid attitude as before. My God, it all happened in front of his very eyes! thought Mark-Alem. And it seemed to him the Vizier’s eyes had something in common with the splinters of glass scattered all over the floor.

Suddenly he felt his mother’s hand seize him and pull him resolutely toward her. He hadn’t the strength to resist. He felt like vomiting.

The hall was almost empty. Through the open front door he could see the lights of the carriages driving away one after the other.

“Everyone else has gone,” breathed his mother almost inaudibly. “What are we going to do?”

He didn’t answer.

One of the footmen put out the center lights. Beyond the doors of the main drawing room, still the same silent coming and going. After a few minutes the footmen brought out the corpses of the rhapsodists, carrying them by their arms and legs. The face of the third, the one that was half covered with ashes, looked particularly horrible. Mark-Alem’s mother turned her head away. He himself was hard put to it not to vomit, but despite everything, he felt he couldn’t leave. The last footman came out with the musical instruments. Soon afterward all the servants went back into the drawing room.

“What shall we do?” whispered Mark-Alem’s mother.

He didn’t know what to answer.

The drawing-room doors were now wide open, and they could see the footmen rolling up the bloodstained carpet.

“I can’t go on looking at this much longer,” she said. “It’s too much for me.”

They were putting out the lights in the drawing room, too, now. Mark-Alem looked around, incapable of making any decision. The other guests must all be gone by now. Perhaps he and his mother would do well to leave too? But perhaps they ought to stay, as near relatives usually do when there’s a misfortune in the family. Even if they wanted to go home they couldn’t have done so. They lived a long way away—too far to walk, especially on a night like this. As for finding a cab, there was no point in even thinking about it.

Most of the lights were out now. Just a few lamps were left burning here and there on the stairs and in the corridors. The huge house grew full of whispers. A few flunkeys came and went like shadows, carrying candlesticks which cast yellow gleams along the passages.

Mark-Alem’s mother groaned from time to time. “My God—what was that ghastly business?”

After a while a door creaked and the Vizier emerged out of the shadows of the drawing room. Moving slowly, like a sleepwalker, he went straight up the darkened staircase.

Mark-Alem’s mother touched his hand.

“The Vizier! Did you see him?”

A few moments later a footman hurtled down the stairs and out of the front door. Almost at once they heard the sound of a carriage driving rapidly away.

Mark-Alem and his mother stayed for some time in the semidarkness, watching the little flames of candles being carried hither and thither. No one bothered about them. In silence they went out of the front door, which had been left ajar, and made their way to the tall iron gate. The sentries were still on duty. Mark-Alem didn’t have a very clear idea of the way home. His mother remembered even less, having always made the journey in a closed carriage.

After an hour they were still walking, and beginning to wonder if they were lost. Soon they heard the sound of carriage wheels approaching fast. They flattened themselves against the wall to let the vehicle pass, and as it did so Mark-Alem thought he saw a Q carved on one of its doors.

“I believe that was the Vizier’s carriage,” he whispered. “Perhaps the same one that set out a little while ago.”

His mother didn’t answer. She was shivering in the cold and damp.

A short time later another carriage brushed by them equally impetuously, and although there were no street lights, Mark-Alem thought he saw the letter Q again. Despite the darkness he even waved his arms in the hope that the carriage would stop and drive them home. But it galloped off into the mist. Mark-Alem concluded it was foolish to expect help from anyone tonight, this night of anguish full of capital Qs swooping by like birds of ill omen.

It was long past midnight when they reached home at last. Loke, who’d had a presentiment that something was wrong, was still up. They gave her a brief account of what had happened and asked her to make some coffee to warm them up. There were still some embers left in the brazier, covered with ashes so that Loke could use them to start the fire up again in the morning. But the embers weren’t enough to warm their shivering limbs.

Mark-Alem lost no time going up to bed; but he couldn’t get to sleep.

When he got up at daybreak he found his mother and Loke just where he’d left them, huddled around the almost dead coals.

“Where are you going, Mark?” said his mother in a terrified voice.

“To the office,” he answered. “Where do you think?”

“Are you out of your mind? On a day like this!”

She and Loke both tried to persuade him not to go that day—just that day—to his wretched work; to say he wasn’t well; to give some more serious reason for his absence; but at all costs to stay away. But he wouldn’t be persuaded. They both implored him again, especially his mother, kissing his hands and bathing them in tears, and saying that on such a day the Tabir Sarrail might not even be open. But the more she begged, the more he insisted on going. Finally he managed to tear himself away and leave the house.

Outside it was more than usually cold. He walked briskly along the street, which as usual at this hour was almost empty. The few passersby, their faces muffled up in shawls, still looked drowsy. His own head was no clearer than theirs. He still hadn’t got over the scene of the night before. Just as certain marine creatures secrete a protective cloud around them, so his brain seemed to have invented a way of avoiding lucid thought. Sometimes he even wondered if anything had really happened at all. It might just have been one of those wild imaginings that filled so many files in the Tabir Sarrail. But the truth finally pierced his brain like a needle, after which his mind fell back into a daze, followed by a lull, which in turn was followed by the shooting pain once more. He’d noticed that in attacks of this kind, the awakening after the first night was particularly disagreeable. He felt as if he were in some fluid intermediate state between sleeping and waking. And his own state seemed to be reflected in the world around him—in the walls of the buildings patched with damp, and the ashen faces of the passersby. These grew more numerous as he approached the middle of the town. He could tell by the way they hurried along—perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they all had the same office hours—which were the ones who worked in ministries and other government offices.

And when he got to the Palace of the Sheikh-ul-Islam he saw there were more soldiers of the Guard on duty than the day before. Their helmets, wet with dew, glinted dully. There were soldiers posted at the crossroads by the bank. Apparently the state of emergency hadn’t been lifted. No, none of this was an illusion. And Kurt was in prison. Perhaps even… The bloodstained carpet that the footmen had rolled up kept enveloping his own thoughts. How would he ever be able to set foot on a carpet again without feeling faint? He felt the desire to vomit rising again….

So the Palace of Dreams is open, he said to himself when he saw the entrances from a distance. The employees were flocking around the doors. Most of them didn’t know one another and didn’t greet, let alone talk to, their colleagues. But in the corridor by the Interpretation Department Mark-Alem did see some familiar faces. And luckily his neighbor was already sitting at his desk.

“So,” he said as soon as Mark-Alem had sat down beside him. “Have you found out anything?”

“No, I don’t know a thing,” lied Mark-Alem. “I’ve only just arrived. What’s happened?”

“I don’t know anything definite myself, but it’s obvious something important has been going on. Did you see the soldiers in the street?”

“Yes—last night and today.”

The other, while pretending to be busy with his file, leaned nearer to Mark-Alem and whispered:

“It seems something has happened to the Quprilis, but no one knows what exactly.”

Mark-Alem felt his heartbeats slacken.

Idiot, he said to himself. You know all about it, so why do you let yourself be affected by what anyone else says? Nevertheless he asked:

“What do you mean?”

His voice had grown faint, as if he feared that to hear what had happened might make it real.

“I don’t know anything definite. It’s only a rumor, perhaps mere gossip.”

“Maybe,” said Mark-Alem, bending over his file and saying to himself, You silly idiot—do you think it’s all going to be sorted out as easily as that?

His eyes were incapable of taking anything in. There in front of him was a senseless dream that he was supposed to explain, while he was ten times more crazy himself. The other clerks were all poring over their files. Every so often you could hear the rustle of pages being turned.

“Even today you can feel a kind of uneasiness everywhere,” muttered his neighbor. “Something’s bound to happen.”

What else can happen? thought Mark-Alem. His head felt as heavy as lead. It seemed to him he might easily fall asleep over his open file and drop a dream on it, like a hen laying an egg. What nonsense, he thought, rubbing his brow. My mind must be wandering. Perhaps after all I’d have done better to stay at home.

Never before had he looked forward so eagerly to the bell for break. His eyes were half closed over the sleep of someone else, as described in the file. Before long his own sleep would merge with the other, as sometimes two human destinies blindly join.

The bell for break startled him. He slowly followed the others down to the basement. The usual hubbub reigned there, as if nothing had happened. Of course, for the others nothing had happened. He tried to catch bits of the conversations going on around him, but none of them had anything to do with what had occurred. Anyway, he thought, what’s the point? No one knew as much as he did about what had taken place. He couldn’t learn anything from their senseless comments.

He had a coffee and started slowly up the stairs again. Beside him the others went on chatting about this and that. Two or three times he thought he caught the word “siege,” and people asking, “Did you see the sentries last night?” But he walked on, asking himself what concern it was of his.

He really thought he didn’t want to find out anything, even out of curiosity. But when he sat down at his desk he realized he was eagerly awaiting his neighbor’s return.

Finally he appeared in the doorway. Mark-Alem could tell by the way he walked that he had news.

“Apparently it’s a dream that’s behind it all,” the other man whispered as soon as he got near enough.

“All what?”

“What do you mean, what? Behind the disgrace that’s fallen upon the Quprilis.”

“Oh! So it’s true?”

“Yes, it’s been confirmed. They’ve been hit very hard. I suspected as much! People had a presentiment here yesterday evening….”

“What sort of dream was it?”

“A strange one, dreamed by a street merchant. You always think that at first—you believe it’s about innocent things like vegetables or grassy plains, and then you find out there’s some great disaster behind it all. It was that kind of dream, with a bridge and a flute, or a violin—some kind of musical instrument, anyway.”

“A bridge and a musical instrument?” gasped Mark-Alem all in one breath. “And then what? What else was there?”

“Some animal going around in circles—but the main thing was the bridge, and the violin.”

Mark-Alem felt as if an elephant were treading on his chest. He’d held the wretched dream in his hands, twice. “What’s the matter? You don’t look well….”

“It’s nothing. I felt rather off-color yesterday evening, and I was vomiting all night.”

“You look like it. But what was I talking about?”

“The dream.”

“Oh yes… So it was the dream that acted as a clue. They deciphered its meaning, and everything was clear. The bridge stood for the Quprilis, you see—Qupri means bridge. And after that the whole thing unraveled of its own accord.”

So that’s what it was! Mark-Alem felt his mouth go dry. He remembered now how he had tried in vain to find a link between the bridge and the raging bull, which certainly symbolized destructive force, and how he had put the dream in the file of those that remained undeciphered.

Now that someone else had elucidated it—and so successfully!—perhaps he would be asked to explain why he had failed to do so? Perhaps he’d be suspected of setting it aside deliberately in order to cover things up. What could be more natural, seeing he himself was a Quprili? True, he could defend himself by saying that as he was working in Selection at the time, he could have eliminated the dream altogether if he’d wanted to, whereas in fact he’d sent it on to Interpretation. But he couldn’t help feeling that such excuses were likely to fall on deaf ears.

“And then,” his neighbor went on, “the violin, or whatever it was, was connected to an epic they sing about the Quprilis in the Balkans. But hey, what’s up with you now? Are you feeling ill?”

He nodded, unable to speak. To avoid arousing suspicion rather than because he really wanted to listen, he signed to the other to go on. Now that his neighbor had mentioned the epic, he lost all hope that this trouble might be the product of an unruly imagination. Kurt’s arrest and the murder of the rhapsodists were further reasons for thinking the epic had something to do with what had happened, and that the dream was at the root of it all. The meaning of the dream now seemed as clear as day: The Quprilis (the bridge), through their epic (the musical instrument), were engaged in some action against the State (the angry bull). Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? It had been in his power to avert the disaster, and he had done nothing. There had been nothing accidental about that dinner with the Vizier, or about his uncle’s vague warnings and exhortations to be on the alert. But he had been incapable of seeing the clue, he had gone to sleep over his files, and misfortune had descended on his nearest and dearest.

“Do you feel a bit better now?” asked his colleague.

“Yes, a bit.”

“Good. Don’t worry—it’ll pass. As I was saying, the epic was apparently the cause of friction between the Quprilis and the Sovereign in the old days. The family’s supporters have been urging them for a long time to renounce it, but apparently they’ve always refused, although they’ve often had to suffer for it. And there’s something else; as if the Slav epic wasn’t enough, they invited some Albanian rhapsodists to come and perform their version! I ask you! They were digging their own graves. That was what really made the Sovereign fly off the handle. He decided to put a stop to the business once and for all—to root out the confounded epic altogether. It seems a group of officials is even being organized to rush to the Balkans and eliminate the Albanian epic, which is regarded as the cause of the whole trouble.”

“Really? Really?” Mark-Alem kept interjecting. He was really thinking, How on earth does he know all this?

“Feeling better now?” said the other again. “I told you it’d pass. Where was I? Oh yes—on top of all the rest they expect this to bring about a deterioration in relations with Austria and a rapprochement with Russia. The Russian ambassador could scarcely conceal his satisfaction at the reception last night.”

Mark-Alem remembered the terror in the face of the Austrian consul’s son the previous evening. God, it must all be true! he thought. But he said to his neighbor:

“But what’s Russia got to do with those wretched epics?”

“Russia? I wondered that too, but things are a little more complicated than they look, my lad. This is not just a matter of poetry and song, as it might appear at first blush. If it was only that, our great Sovereign wouldn’t deign to bother with it. But in fact it’s an exceedingly complex business, to do with settlements and transfers of population in the Balkans, and the relations between Slav peoples and non-Slav peoples, like the Albanians. In short, it directly concerns the whole map of the Balkans. For this epic, as I said, is sung in two languages, Albanian and Slav, and is connected with questions of ethnic frontiers inside the Empire. I too wondered at first what Austria, not to mention Russia, had to do with it. But it seems both of them are involved. Austria supports the non-Slav peoples, whereas the Slavs’ ‘little father,’ the Tsar, is always on at our Sultan about the way the people of his race are treated. He has informers everywhere. And this epic deals precisely with the relations between the peoples of the Balkans. Apparently the Albanese rhapsodists were murdered at the Quprili house, and their instruments smashed with them. Do you still feel ill?”

Mark-Alem blinked.

“Never mind, it’ll pass. I’ve suffered from the same thing myself. Yes, old boy, things are always more complicated than they seem. Those of us who work here think we’re well informed, but in reality all that we know amounts to a handful of dreams, a few clouds….”

He droned on for a while, his voice getting lower and lower until in the end he was mumbling more or less to himself. Mark-Alem’s brain felt ground to bits by what he’d just heard. If only he’d destroyed the dream in Selection, while he had it in his power—nipped it in the bud as one crushes the head of a young viper to stop it from growing up and doing mischief! But he’d let it escape, let it glide from file to file, from section to section, growing and accumulating venom until at last it turned into a Master-Dream. He suffered pangs of remorse. Every so often he would try to console himself: Perhaps the dream would have made its way to its goal whatever happened, since it was in the interests of such powerful factions, even whole states, that it should do so. And even if he had destroyed it, mightn’t means have been found to fabricate another? Hadn’t the Vizier given him clearly to understand that dreams were fabricated, even Master-Dreams? No, he’d been right, absolutely right not to get mixed up in it. Otherwise there might have been an inquiry afterward, they might have found out that he’d suppressed that bit of evidence, and then the punishment (which he was afraid of incurring anyway for not having deciphered the dream) would have been terrible, and fallen not only on him but also on all his family. Perhaps that was why the Vizier hadn’t given him precise instructions about what to do. And if his uncle had hesitated, perhaps it was because he himself didn’t know what was the best course to follow. Oh, groaned Mark-Alem inwardly, why did I ever set foot in this cursed place?

“We’re expecting the official eulogy today,” he heard his neighbor’s voice say.

“Eulogy? What for?”

“What for? Because of the dream, of course—the dream is at the root of everything. You are in the clouds. What have we been talking about all this time?”

“Of course… Whatever am I thinking of?”

“Oh well, you’ve got an excuse—you’re not feeling well. Yes, the people in Selection were congratulated this morning. And the other sections, starting with Reception, have probably been commended. Perhaps the official eulogy, and the reward that goes with it, has already been sent to the greengrocer…. But what I can’t understand is why Interpretation hasn’t received any congratulations yet.”

“Hasn’t it?”

“I haven’t mentioned it before, but there’s a feeling of nervousness in this section this morning. And perhaps that’s the reason: The congratulations haven’t arrived.”

“Why not?”

“Who knows? I’ve been watching the boss; he’s looking worried. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.”

“He’s got reason to worry. Interpretation deserves congratulations more than anyone. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless its interpretation had turned out to be wrong.”

“But in that case, how would it have been corrected? There’s no other section that deals with deciphering after Interpretation. The Master-Dream officials deal only with the choice of dreams, don’t they?”

“Yes,” said the other, somewhat surprised to see Mark-Alem reviving slightly. “It’s hard to puzzle it out. But we still don’t know why the congratulations are late….”

They both plunged back briefly into their files. But neither could read the lines in front of them. What if he knows about my connection with the Quprilis? thought Mark-Alem. But he’d find out about it sooner or later anyway. And the boss must know already, even if he was for the moment concealing the fact that the Quprilis’ downfall was the event of the day. But perhaps the boss had troubles of his own? Come what might, Mark-Alem was sure everyone would soon be looking askance at him, if he wasn’t simply dismissed outright.

“They’ve just sent for the boss again,” whispered his neighbor. “He’s as white as a sheet; have you noticed?”

“Yes, yes…”

“I told you—this delay’s a bad sign. It’s clear there won’t be any congratulations now. Let’s hope there aren’t any…”

“Any what?” asked Mark-Alem in a choked voice.

“Punishments.”

“But why… why should there be any punishments?”

He felt a faint stirring of hope revive deep down inside him. But his face was ashen, and he looked as if he might faint.

“How should I know?” answered the other. “It’s completely beyond me.”

The fellow was getting more and more edgy. The idea that something was going on that he didn’t know about was more than he could bear. He kept looking impatiently either at the inner door, or at the one through which their boss had disappeared, or at the one that opened on to the corridor.

“There’s something going on….’’he muttered. “No doubt about it. It’s awful, awful….”

He was showing his exasperation quite openly now, but it was impossible to tell whether what was awful was what was happening or the fact that he couldn’t find out anything about it.

Mark-Alem had never wished so fervently that his neighbor’s words might be true. He who until now had shuddered at the news that something was going on now prayed with all his heart that something really might be happening. If the congratulations for the wretched dream still hadn’t arrived, and they really were expecting to be reprimanded, this might mean the situation had been reversed at the last minute.

… Out of superstition he dismissed such optimistic conjectures, in case merely thinking of them prevented them from coming true. It certainly would be a miracle….

“It’s as plain as a pikestaff—you’d have to be blind not to see it….” his neighbor hissed angrily, as if it were Mark-Alem who was preventing his theories from proving correct.

Here and there at their desks the clerks were whispering among themselves. Those who were near the windows craned their necks to see outside. Apparently repercussions of what was going on had managed to reach as far as there.

Mark-Alem thought of the carriages with the letter Q on them driving about wildly through the darkness, and for the first time he was really sure something further must have happened since last night. The Vizier wouldn’t have just stood there doing nothing. The way he had controlled his fury when he left the fatal room; the way he had gone upstairs like a sleepwalker—all this suggested he might hit back. And what about the carriage that had driven off into the night, and those his mother and he had seen in the darkness without knowing where they were going to or where they were coming from… ? God, if only it was true!

“I can’t stand it any longer,” said his neighbor. “I’m off to find out what’s what. If anyone asks for me, say I’ve gone down to the Archives.”

He slipped out as quietly as a shadow. As he watched him, Mark-Alem felt a surge of relief. At least he was going to find out something now.

He sat for some time staring at his file, unable to make out a word. He was anxious to hear the latest news, but if his neighbor didn’t come back at once, it must be because he was collecting lots of information. But Mark-Alem made superhuman efforts to stifle unfounded hopes. He knew that another disappointment would finish him off.

Now not only those near the windows kept looking out, but—and this had never happened before—other clerks from nearby tables crowded around to look out, too. There was no denying it; something out of the ordinary was in the air. Mark-Alem looked alternately at the windows, and at the door through which he expected his neighbor to reappear. Could the Sovereign have sent back the Master-Dream as if it were a young bride who turned out not to be a virgin?

He didn’t want to be too hopeful, but what was happening now was simply inconceivable. All the clerks, not only those in the middle of the room but also those on the far side, were crowding around the windows. He saw people get up and go over to look out who had never stirred from their places before, who had seemed to be riveted to their desks, and who not only had never dreamed of going and looking out of the windows, but had probably never even realized that the room they worked in actually had windows.

Mark-Alem was consumed with impatience. He waited and waited, and then did what an hour before would have struck him as ridiculous. He crossed the room and joined the others at one of the windows.

His heart couldn’t have beaten faster if he’d been standing on the brink of an abyss. As a matter of fact, that was what the darkness outside suggested. Various clerks leaned on the window ledges, peering out.

“What’s happening?” whispered Mark-Alem.

Someone turned around and looked at him in amazement.

“Can’t you see what’s going on down in the courtyard?”

Mark-Alem looked where the other was looking. For the first time he realized that these windows looked out on one of the inner courtyards of the Palace of Dreams. The courtyard was swarming with soldiers. From above they looked foreshortened and thin, but their helmets glinted dangerously.

“I can see some soldiers,” said Mark-Alem.

The other didn’t answer.

“But what are they there for?” asked Mark-Alem.

But the other had disappeared.

Mark-Alem glanced down again at the armed men, who looked as if they were made of lead. He was dazed, and thought confusedly of the carriages with the letter Q carved on the doors, which for some reason always made him think of night birds. Because of this confusion he found himself thinking of them sometimes as vehicles and sometimes as owls winging through the dark.

“What’s the matter?” said a voice nearby, in a brief respite between asthmatic wheezings.

“Can’t you see—down in the courtyard?” Mark-Alem answered.

The other man’s breath was making the icy windowpanes mist over. Mark-Alem’s mind seemed to drift away for a moment; then the cold cleared the glass again, and Mark-Alem’s thoughts too. He went slowly back to his desk. His neighbor had returned.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked Mark-Alem. “I’ve been waiting ages for you.”

Mark-Alem nodded toward the window.

“Nonsense! How can you find anything out from up here? But wait till you hear my news. Sensational! They say some of the staff of Interpretation are going to be arrested. Starting with the head of the section.”

Mark-Alem swallowed painfully.

“The courtyard’s swarming with soldiers,” he muttered.

“Yes, but they’re there for something else. It seems that even some of the high-ups in the Tabir are going to be arrested. ”

“My God—what can it mean?”

“The Quprilis have struck back. It was only to be expected.”

“Struck back?” stammered Mark-Alien. “Who? How? Against whom?”

“Hold on—don’t be in such a hurry! I’m just going to explain. Only come a bit closer—we don’t want to end up like them!… The whole of the Tabir Sarrail is in a turmoil. Last night, or early this morning rather, something very strange happened…”

The carriages that seemed like owls… thought Mark-Alem. He also remembered there was a bird, the eagle owl, known as the grand duke….

“After the blow fell on them, the Quprilis didn’t just sit idly by. They acted at once, during the night, and in some way neither you nor I nor anyone else can guess at, at least for the moment. It was apparently at dawn that they managed to carry out their plan. But as I say, it’s still all shrouded in mystery. Some confrontation, some secret and terrible exchange of blows has taken place in the darkest depths of the State. We’ve felt only the surface repercussions, as you do in an earthquake with a very deep hypocenter…. So, as I was saying, during the night a terrible clash took place between the two rival groups, the two forces that counterbalance one another within the State. The entire capital is in an uproar, but no one knows anything definite. After all, even we, who’re at the very source of the mystery, are still in the dark.”

Mark-Alem was tempted to say he had handled the beastly dream twice himself, but a moment’s reflection was enough to remind him that this would be folly.

“Even before daybreak,” his neighbor prattled on, “carriages were seen coming and going between the embassies and the Foreign Ministry. But that’s not all. Apparently the Empire’s leading banks and the big copper mines are implicated too. There’s even talk of devaluation.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mark-Alem.

“So that’s how things are. Very confused, and very different from what they appear. As if they were taking place down a bottomless pit… And as I said, all we have to guide us is a handful of dreams, a few scraps of cloud….”

All that day the Palace of Dreams was racked by deep anxiety. Early in the afternoon the head of Interpretation and a number of the Tabir’s other senior officials were indeed arrested. Other arrests were expected to follow immediately. But evening came without any further developments.

Mark-Alem went home, eager to tell his mother all he knew. He was surprised that she didn’t look more delighted.

They sent someone to the Vizier’s house, hoping he might bring back some good news about Kurt, but the messenger returned saying no one knew anything about him.

Although he’d had very little rest the previous night, Mark-Alem couldn’t sleep a wink. At one point he thought he was about to drop off, but a noise in the distance brought him wide awake. He got up and went to the window, but couldn’t see anything. Then he noticed a faint red glow on the horizon, and he thought in a flash, What if the Palace of Dreams is on fire? But he soon realized the fire lay in a completely different direction. Back in bed, he tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep. He woke before dawn, got up straightaway, shaved carefully, and prepared, much earlier than usual, to set off for the Tabir Sarrail.