Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction by Leena Krohn Page B

so wise and alive . . . But in fact I have seen just such a gaze before, and more than once. I have seen it – do not be shocked – in your eyes, too, different as they are. I have encountered it – or seen it pass me by – among acquaintances and strangers, at parties, in department stores, in my own home, in trains, on stations and in lecture-halls, shops and cafés; in summer, in the great lime trees in the park, where cast-iron benches have been placed for the citizens; and I am sure that at unguarded moments it has also resided in my own eyes.
    That it ever disappears! It was the impossible, and unbearable, thing that, as I turned to look behind me and met Longhorn’s eyes, was relentless in us both, and the strange meal we were following as onlookers offered no solution.
    The soundless glitter of immense treasures – That it could be extinguished and sink into the cold mass of raw material as if it had not been anything more than the moisture of lachrymal fluid on the surface of the cornea . . .
    ‘Come away,’ said Longhorn, with unexpected softness, and we left Hades without looking at each other again.

The Charioteer
    the tenth letter
    I have received a card from my home country. Yes, it was not from you; we know that. The bronze statue on the card is two thousand four hundred years old, but he whom the card shows is a mere youth. His forehead is encircled by an ornamental ribbon, and his hair curls, lightly gilded, over his ears. He holds a pair of reins in his hands, and his eyes are dark stones, glittering, mysterious and surprised.
    But what life and riches shine from them! It is hard for me to believe that what I see is merely coloured light reflected from stone. What a coincidence that it arrived just as I had sent you my last letter! For, don’t you see, he has the same gaze, the one I was talking about, which hurts me, which I recognise everywhere.
    But this young man is astonished at something; even his mouth is astonished, already ajar and about to open. I am sure I am not mistaken in remembering that I once saw a similar expression on the face of someone who was dying; all the tubes had been disengaged, and his eyes were wide open. The same concentration marks both their faces and forces both of them forward in an invisible race.
    Why is it that it is in the form of this young man’s face that I should most like to remember the face of humankind . . .

Tracks in the Dust
    the eleventh letter
    Have I told you that Tainaron has a prince? As a foreigner, I was unexpectedly offered the opportunity to attend his reception. I asked Longhorn for advice as to how I should dress for the occasion and what behaviour was expected. I felt his answer was vacuous, and did not help me one bit.
    ‘You can go in whatever you like,’ he said. ‘You can ask whatever you want.’
    And then he added: ‘It’s not important, after all.’
    ‘Not important?’ I was astonished. ‘Do you just go there as you are, straight off the street, and say whatever comes to mind to the prince?’
    But he did not give me any more clues, and I went there by myself, in my best dress of course, but distinctly nervous.
    The prince lives in the middle of the city, in his palace, which is surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge was down, and there were no guards to be seen. People were going in and out, and no one paid any attention to me. I had been given a piece of paper, a promissory note which I tried to proffer to some of the passersby whom I guessed to be members of the palace staff, but no one wanted to accept it; everyone just waved their hands vaguely: ‘It’s not necessary.’
    ‘Where does the prince hold his reception?’ I asked three different times, and it was only on the third occasion that I was directed to the right place; but no one bothered to come with me as a guide, and the corridors along which I walked were empty. Through doors that had been left open I saw various different rooms: tambours, halls