Benedikt was driving to the watchtower, that's where. He'd never been up in the watchtower before. Who would have let a Golubchik up there, anyway? It was forbidden, it belonged to the government, only guards and Murzas are allowed on the tower. And why is that? Because you can see far and wide from there, and that's governmental business, it's not meant for just anyone! An ordinary Golubchik has no call to be looking off far and wide: it's not fitting. Maybe there are warriors approaching off in the distance! Maybe a ferocious enemy wants to take a bite out of our bright homeland, so he's sharpened his sticks and marched off toward us. That's governmental business! It's forbidden! But no one would ever stop Benedikt, since he was a Saniturion.
No one stopped him. Naturally.
The watchtower was higher than the highest terem, higher than the trees, higher than the Alexander column. There was a room on the very top. In the room, set in the walls, were four small windows, four slits facing the four sides of the world. Above it sat a slanted four-sided roof, like a hat. Like the one the Murzas wear. When you look up from below-way, way up, under the clouds, the government workers and guards swarm like little ants. They crawl from one place to another, fiddling around with something. Down on the ground the guards have poleaxes. Benedikt rose heavily from the sleigh, one part of him at a time, his awful eyes looking through the crimson slits. He raised his hood-and the guards fell prostrate onto the hard, frozen snow crust. He stepped into the tower. There was a strong doggy smell from dirty coats and the acrid odor of cheap rusht: they were smoking damp, uncleaned rusht with twigs and straw. The wood steps clunked and clattered under his feet. There was a spiral staircase covered with yellow ice-this was where they relieved themselves and stamped out butts. On the walkways, sparkling with frost, someone had scratched curse words, the usual stuff. Not a whiff of spirituality… He climbed slowly, leaning on the hook, stopping on the landings to rest. Steam came out of his mouth and hung there, hovering in clouds in the foul, frosty air.
On the top landing the guards jumped in surprise when they saw the red robe of a government worker.
"Out!" ordered Benedikt.
The workers took off, tearing down the stairs, pushing one another, all eight legs thundering down.
From the tower you could see far away. Far away… There wasn't even a word in the language to say how far you could see from the tower! And if there was a word like that, you'd be scared to say it out loud. Ooooh, so far away! To the farthest of far, the edge of the edge, to the limit of limits, all the way to death! The round pancake of the earth, the whole heavenly vault, the entire cold December, the whole city with all its settlements, with its dark, lopsided izbas-empty and wide open, gone over with the fine-tooth comb of the Saniturions' hooks and still inhabited, still swarming with scared, senseless, stubborn life!
O world, roll up into a single block, A cracked and broken sidewalk, A fouled and filthy warehouse, The burrow of a mouse!
A thin strip of horrible yellow sunset filled the western window, and the evening star Alatyr twinkled in the sunset. The pushkin stuck out like a small black stick in the confusion of streets, and from that height the rope looped around the poet's neck and hung with laundry looked like a fine thread.
The sunrise lay hidden in a dark-blue blanket in the other window, covering the woods, rivers, more woods, and secret fields where red tulips sleep under the snow, where Benedikt's eternal bride hibernates, dressed in frosty lace, inside an icy, decorated egg, with a smile on her luminous face, my unfound love, the Princess Bird, and she dreams of kisses, of silky grass, golden flies, and mirrored waters where her unspeakable beauty is reflected, shimmers, ruffles, multiplies. In her sleep the Princess Bird sighs a happy sigh and dreams of her beautiful self.
To the south, lit by a terrible double light-the yellow from the west and the dark blue from the sunrise side-in the south, blocking the impassable snowy steppe with its whistling whirlwinds and stormy columns, in the south, which runs, runs ever onward toward the dark blue, windy Ocean-Sea, in the south, beyond the ravine, beyond the triple moat, covering the whole width of the window, spread the red, adorned, embellished, ornamented, painted, many-towered, many-storied terem of Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live.
"Ha!" laughed Benedikt.
Joy spurted from him like foamy, sparkling kvas.
Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning, Daughter of Elysium.
Suddenly, everything became as limpid as a spring brook. It was all right in front of him, clear as day. That's what it was! There!… There, right before him, unspoiled, unspent, a treasure trove full to the brim, a magical garden blooming and fruitful in its pink-white froth, a garden flowing with the sweetest juice, like a billion blind firelings! There, packed tight from its sonorous cellars to its aromatic attics, was the pleasure palace! Ali Baba's cave! The Taj Mahal, for cryin' out loud!
Of course! In the south, that's right! So the west did help! The light was from the west, the star was a beacon. It illuminated everything! He guessed, he figured it out, he understood the clues, he understood the fable-and everything fit together!
He squinted from happiness, squeezed his eyelids tight, and shook his head. He stuck his head through the window slit to feel it better; he inhaled the aroma of frost and wood, the sweet smoke curling up from the chimneys of the Red Terem. He seemed to see things better with his eyelids closed, he heard more clearly, and felt more acutely; there, there, right nearby, very close, just beyond the gully, beyond the ditch, behind the triple wall, beyond the high pike fence-but you can jump over a wall and slip under a pike fence. If only he could jump from the tower right this minute, softly softly, unheard and unseen, and be swept away in the blizzard's whirlwind, carried like weightless dust across the gully, like a snowspout right into the attic window! Crawling and leaping, limber and long, but just so he didn't miss it, didn't lose the trail; closer, still closer to the terem, without leaving traces on the snow, scaring dogs in the yard, or disturbing any creatures in the house!
And then to drink, drink his fill, drink in the letters, words, and pages with their sweet, dusty, acrid, inimitable smell! O my beauteous poppies! O my imperishable, ever-shining gold!
"Oooooooh!" Benedikt squealed blissfully.
"So, son, are you ready now?" came a quiet laugh behind him, just above his ear. Benedikt started and opened his eyes.
"Goodness gracious, Papa! You scared me!"
Father-in-law stole up quietly, the floorboards didn't even tremble. You could tell he'd pulled his claws in. He, too, wore a red robe and hood over his head, but by the voice and the smell you could tell that yes, it was Father-in-law, Kudeyar Kudeyarich.
"So what now?" whispered Father-in-law. "Shall we do a bit of tumbling?"
"I don't understand."
"Feel like doing a bit of overturning? Fyodor Kuzmich, that is, Glorybe? Ready to knock off the evil tormentor? That damned dwarf?"
"I'm ready," Benedikt whispered with conviction. "Papa! I'd do it with my own hands!"
"Oh, heart of mine!…" said Father-in-law joyfully. "Well? Finally!… Finally! Let me hug you!"
Benedikt and Kudeyar Kudeyarich embraced and stood looking down on the city from the heights. Bluish lights began to flicker in the izbas, the sunset went out, the stars emerged.
"Let's swear an oath to each other," said Kudeyar Kudeyarich.
"An oath?"
"Yep. For eternal friendship."
"Well… all right."
"I gave you everything. I gave you my daughter-if you want, I'll let you have my wife."