Dark Night, A

Robert clicked his tongue and whipped the reins across the horses'
backs. They jumped into gallop and Robert, who was still standing up on
the front of the carriage, was thrown onto the seat. He would have
fallen had he not managed to wedge his foot under the seat.

It was a dark night, no stars in the sky, the moon hiding behind thick
layers of clouds. Soon it was going to rain and Robert knew that with
the rain there would be thunder and lightning. It had been a hot, humid
day and the dry earth was yearning for water. In the early evening
thick black clouds had emerged in the east but the skies denied the
earth the drink it desired, teasing it by increasing the almost
unbearable temperatures even more.

Robert's shirt, crumpled and stained, stuck to his chest and back. He
had lost his coat but was only distantly aware of it. What was a coat
on a night like this! He had lost far more than that. He had paid for
the drink he had consumed, the sweet red wine, the champagne he had
shared with the whore. He had paid for the room at the inn where he
spent a little time with her. He had paid her, of course, not only for
her services but also for the dress he had ripped, and for her silence.
The latter was the most expensive. But he still had to pay what he owed
the Baron.

He had been stupid to accept the game. He was already far too drunk
when the Baron invited him to join his table. Tricked him into joining.
He could have refused had he been sober, rejecting the Baron's
challenge with a witty remark, turning the insults against him and
gaining the spectators' admiration by claiming a merciless victory over
the old man. But drunk, his wit almost as sluggish as his tongue, the
Baron triumphed with a sly grin over his long-time opponent, now his
helpless victim. Robert had joined the game knowing that no good was
going to come from it.

Game after game he had lost. The Baron kept filling his glass and
raising the stakes, and Robert, drunk, had been unable to stop when
there was still time. There had been others at the table, but the game
was between him and the Baron. Everybody without exception stood in a
tight circle around them, watching with baited breath while the Baron
humiliated Robert, not one of them friend enough to end the cruel
contest.

Eventually the Baron had enough. Robert was destroyed, both
financially and socially. He had lost everything, his estates, every
penny he had owned now belonged to the Baron. His acquaintances had
swiftly recognised the shift in power and had turned their backs on
him. Without money, there was no influence, without influence, there
was no need to seek his alliance.

He had staggered out of the inn alone. His carriage was waiting for
him. The Baron's carriage. There was no question that Robert would pay
his debt. He was a spoilt aristocrat, enjoying the lazy life of the
upper class, drinking too much, sleeping around too much, wasting money
on luxuries he would dispose of just as quickly as he had acquired them
when they bored him. But he would never allow the Baron to dishonour
him by refusing to pay what he owed, even if it was obtained by
deception.

Robert had pushed the driver off the carriage's box seat and driven
off. Tomorrow, he would arrange for the Baron to receive his winnings.
Tonight, he just wanted to get away.

He yelled at the horses, pushing them to an even faster gallop through
the forest. Branches from the trees were whipping Robert's arms and his
face, drawing blood in several places without him noticing. It was
madness to drive this fast, any second a stone on the path or the root
of a tree could get under the wheel of the black, imposing carriage,
overturning it and sending Robert falling to his certain death. He made
the horses go faster and faster, unable to see the path before him, not
caring whether the animals' instincts would send them the right way or
straight into a tree. His life, maybe not physically but without a
shred of doubt socially, was over. One drunken night had lost him
everything.

Miraculously, he emerged from the forest unscathed, cursing his
fortune. The path ahead was winding but even, and his horses knew it
well, having taken their drunken master home on numerous occasions. He
did not allow them to slow down, whipping them, yelling at them, hoping
to outrun his fate by going faster and faster. A bend came up and he
realised too late that he would not be able to turn with it, but
instead plough straight on and into the wheat field ahead of him. He
pulled hard on the reins but he knew that he would never slow down
enough to take the corner.

For a split second, he saw the terrified look in the woman's eyes as
she appeared in front of his carriage. It was so dark that he had not
seen her until his horses trampled over her. The carriage made a sick
little jump as the wheels drove over the body of the woman and with
shocking clarity Robert heard the sound of her bones breaking under his
carriage. Then the carriage was in the field, the wheat slowing down
the horses and eventually, several lengths after the bend, coming to a
halt.

Robert sat in the box seat, unable to move. His thoughts were racing
and he had never in his entire life felt as sober as at this moment. He
was breathing quick, shallow breaths. He dropped the reins and slowly
climbed off the carriage. When he turned back toward the road he saw a
bundle laying close to the point where the carriage had left the path
and ploughed into the field. Robert bent forward and vomited onto the
hot, dry ground. He kept heaving and dropped to his knees, exhausted,
disgusted and terrified.

Eventually, he managed to get to his feet again. He walked back to the
bend, not wanting to see what the bundle was, not being able to stay
away. When he got to the road he retched again. The woman he had run
over was a mess. She was a peasant woman, her dress, now torn and
covered in blood, was simple, the headscarf that was lying on the
ground typical for a farmer's wife. Her body was twisted into positions
Robert would not have thought possible. Her severed hand was lying a
few feet away from her arm in a puddle of blood, blood as black as the
night around her. Her head was split open and Robert could see a
pulsing mass inside it, blood rushing from it, blood as black as the
night. The woman was still alive. The baby she had carried in her arms
was not.

The woman opened her eyes and looked straight at Robert. She managed
to speak, but Robert had to move closer to hear her, as her voice was
little more than a whisper.

"Help," she said, and her broken eyes pleaded for Robert's mercy.
"Please, sir, help my baby. He is ill, I am taking him to the doctor,
please help him&;#8230;" Her voice trailed off, she was dying from
her injuries and needed all her energy to keep her dark eyes fixed on
Robert's, begging him to take care of her baby when she was dead.

Slowly' Robert stood up. He took a step backwards, then another one.
The look in the woman's eyes changed to sheer panic. "No," she
whispered. "Don't go, don't leave us here, please, sir, be merciful,
help my baby, I beg of you!" Robert raised his hands and covered his
ears, not able to bear to hear the woman plead for the life of her dead
baby. He turned and ran to the carriage, incapable of drowning out the
woman's voice who kept repeating her plea again and again in his mind.
He jumped onto the carriage and whipped the horses into a fast trot in
the wheat field, only slowly turning them back towards the road. When
he was back on the path he yelled at them to run, and his voice sounded
alien even to him. He kept yelling until his voice broke.

His mind was blank. All he could see and think of was the eyes of the
woman he had killed. He let the horses run until they were exhausted.
He dropped the reins and the horses gradually slowed down and
eventually stopped. Robert was shaking. Sobbing noises escaped his
throat but no tears would come. He dropped his head into his hands. The
brutal reality of what he had done seemed to crush him like the wheels
of the carriage had crushed mother and baby. Distantly he remembered
the Baron's triumph over him and it seemed like a hundred years ago.
The despair he had felt then seemed like heaven compared to the hell he
was in now.

He got off the carriage and started walking. He had no idea where he
was or which direction he was heading. At some point, the heavens
opened and the rain the earth had been longing for came down in sheets,
drenching Robert instantly and turning the dusty road into a mud path.
Thunder kept crashing and lightning illuminated the path in front of
him. Robert kept walking, undeterred. He did not notice the rain
stopping after a few hours like he had not noticed it starting. All
sense of reality escaped him as he kept on walking until his feet
refused to carry him any further. He fell to the ground where he was
and slept. When he awoke he continued to walk. His eyes were glazed; he
stared straight ahead as he walked, aimlessly, in any direction that
would lead him away from what he had done.

He was found a week later wandering into a village. His carriage had
been discovered a few miles from where the peasant woman had been
killed and men with dogs had been looking for him, desperate to hunt
him down and be the first to find him. He was returned to London but he
never knew it. His eyes were blind to the world around him. His vision
was taken by the image of the woman's eyes, and all his ears could hear
were her pleas. It was the last he ever saw or heard.