Karlov moodily touched the shoulder of the man on the cot. Stefani
Gregor puzzled him. He came to this room more often than was wise,
driven by a curiosity born of a cynical philosophy to discover what it
was that reenforced this fragile body against threats and thirst and
hunger. He knew what he wanted of Gregor--the fiddler on his knees
begging for mercy. And always Gregor faced him with that silent calm
which reminded him of the sea, aloof, impervious, exasperating. Only
once since the day he had been locked in this room had Gregor offered
speech. He, Karlov, had roared at him, threatened, baited, but his
reward generally had been a twisted wintry smile.
He could not offer physical torture beyond the frequent omissions of
food and water; the body would have crumbled. To have planned this for
months, and then to be balked by something as visible yet as elusive
as quicksilver! Born in the same mudhole, and still Boris Karlov the
avenger could not understand Stefani Gregor the fiddler. Perhaps what
baffled him was that so valiant a spirit should be housed in so weak a
body. It was natural that he, Boris, with the body of a Carpathian bear,
should have a soul to match. But that Stefani, with his paper body,
should mock him! The damned bourgeoisie!
The quality of this unending calm was understandable: Gregor was always
ready to die. What to do with a man to whom death was release? To hold
the knout and to see it turn to water in the hand! In lying he had
overreached. Gregor, having accepted as fact the reported death of Ivan,
had nothing to live for. Having brought Gregor here to torture he had,
blind fool, taken away the fiddler's ability to feel. The fog cleared.
He himself had given his enemy this mysterious calm. He had taken out
Gregor's soul and dissipated it.
No. Not quite dissipated. What held the body together was the iron
residue of the soul. Venom and blood clogged Karlov's throat. He could
kill only the body, as he had killed the fiddle; he could not reach the
mystery within. Ah, but he had wrung Stefani's heart there. There
were pieces of the fiddle on the table where Gregor had placed them,
doubtless to weep over when he was alone. Why hadn't he thought to break
the fiddle a little each day?
"Stefani Gregor, sit up. I have come to talk." This was formula. Karlov
did not expect speech from Gregor.
Slowly the thin arms bore up the torso; slowly the legs swung to the
floor. But the little gray man's eyes were bright and quick to-night.