The Seven Messengers - Dino

Buzzati
This is a translation of Dino Buzzati's short Story - The Seven
Messengers. It is the story of a prince who decides to explore the outer
reaches of his father’s kingdom. He brings with him seven messengers,
whom he dispatches one by one to return to the capital to exchange
news. Since the messengers are able to travel faster than the prince,
they eventually catch up with him even as he becomes increasingly
distant from the capital, but each trip takes longer than the one before
it. The time required for all seven messengers to complete a round trip
grows from five weeks to six months to more than two years to 12 years
to 60 years, the time growing by an exact multiple of five, describable
by a mathematical equation. The story ends during the 60-year round,
which can never be completed because the time exceeds everyone’s life
span. The story is short, so we do not learn much about the prince’s
internal thoughts. The whole thing may have simply been an attempt
to write a compelling algebra word problem.

For those of you who don't know Buzzati, he is one of the most original
Italian authors of the 20th century. All of his stories are fantastical and
bizarre in the most creative way possible. What one likes about him
specifically is that he takes an idea about as far as it can go.
 The Seven Messengers

Dino Buzzati

Having left to explore my father’s kingdom day by day I go further

from the city and the news that reaches me becomes more and more
rare.
I began this voyage at about the age of 30 and more than eight years
have passed, exactly eight years, six months, and fifteen days of
uninterrupted travel. When I departed I believed that I would easily
reach the kingdom confines in a few weeks. Instead I continued to
meet new people and towns; and everywhere, people who spoke my
own language, and who proclaimed to be my subjects.
Sometimes I think that my geographer’s compass has gone mad and
believing that we’re always proceeding southward, in reality maybe
we’re going around in circles, without ever augmenting the distance
that separates us from the capital; this could explain why we still
haven’t reached the border limits.
But more often the doubt that this border doesn’t exist torments me.
That the kingdom extends beyond any limits and that, as much as I
advance, I will never arrive at the end. I started this voyage when I was
a little more than thirty, perhaps too late. My friends, even my
relatives derided the project as a useless waste of the best years of my
life. In reality few of my followers agreed to leave with me.
Although carefree – much more than I am now – I was concerned
with being able to communicate with my loved ones during my
journey, and among the cavalrymen of my escort I chose the seven
best to serve me as messengers.
I believed, unknowingly, that seven would be too many. With the
passing of time I realized that, on the contrary, it was ridiculously too
few; and yet none of them have ever fallen ill, nor run into thieves, nor
worn out their horses. All seven have served me with a tenacity and
devotion that it will be difficult for me to ever repay.

To distinguish them I gave them names with alphabetically

progressive initials: Alessandro, Bartolomeo, Caio, Domenico, Ettore,
Federico, Gregorio.
 Not used to being far from home, I sent the first one, Alessandro,
during the evening of our second day of travel, when we had already
covered about eighty leagues. The next evening, to reassure myself of
the continuity of communication, I sent the second, then the third,
then the fourth, consecutively, until the eighth evening, when Gregorio
departed. The first had not yet returned.
He reached us the tenth evening, while we were laying out the camp
for the night, in an uninhabited valley. I knew by Alessandro that his
rapidity had been inferior to what I had expected; I had thought that,
proceeding isolated, on the saddle of an excellent steed, he would be
able to cover in the same amount of time, twice our distance; instead
he was only able to go one and a half times as far; in one day, while we
advanced forty leagues, he devoured sixty, but not more.
Thus it was with the others. Bartolomeo, departing for the city on the
third day of travel, reached us on the fifteenth; Caio, departing on the
fourth day, only returned on the twentieth day. Quickly I ascertained
that it was sufficient to multiply by five the days spent until then to
know when the messenger would get back.
Always distancing ourselves further from the capital the messengers’
routes became longer each time. After fifty days of walking, the
interval between the arrival of one messenger and another began to be
spaced out considerably; while before I saw one arrive at camp every
five days, this interval became twenty five; in such a manner the voice
of my city became ever more feeble; entire weeks passed without my
having any news from it.
Six months passed – we had already passed the Fasani Mountains –
the interval between the arrival of one messenger and another
augmented to about four months. They brought me news that was now
remote; the envelopes arrived crumpled, sometimes stained with the
humidity of nights spent in encampments.
We continued on. In vain I tried to persuade myself that the clouds
going by above me were equal to those of my youth, that the sky of the
far away city was not different from the azure dome that towered over
me, that the air was the same, the breeze equal, the birds’ voices
identical. The clouds, the sky, the air, the wind, the birds, in truth
appeared to me as new and diverse things; and I felt myself a stranger.
Ahead, ahead! Vagabonds that we met in the plains told me that the
borders were not far. I incited my men to not rest, I stifled the
discouraging words that were made on their lips. Four years had
already passed since my departure; what long weariness. The capital,
my house, my father, they were all made strangely remote, I almost
couldn’t believe it. A good twenty months of silence and solitude
elapsed now between the messengers’ successive appearances. They
brought me curious letters yellowed with time, and in them I found
forgotten names, uncommon turns of phrase, sentiments that I was
unable to understand. The next morning after only one night of rest,
while we started on the road again, the messenger departed in the
opposite direction, carrying to the city letters that I had been
preparing for a long time.
But eight and a half years have passed. Tonight I was dining alone in
my tent when Domenico entered. Though distorted with fatigue he
was still able to smile. I haven’t seen him for almost seven years.
During this whole long period all he did was run, across prairies,
woods, and deserts, changing horses who knows how many times, to
bring me a package of letters that up to now I haven’t had any desire to
open. He has already gone to sleep and will depart again tomorrow at
dawn.
He will depart for the last time. In my notebook I calculated that, if
everything goes well, continuing on my way as I’ve done until now,
and he continuing on his way, I will not see Domenico for thirty-four
years. Then I will be seventy-two. I already begin to feel tired and it is
probable that death will find me before then. Thus I will never be able
to see him again.
In thirty-four years (before rather, much before) Domenico will
unexpectedly perceive the fires of my encampment, and he will ask
himself why in the meantime I had made so little progress. As he did
tonight my good messenger will enter my tent with letters yellowed by
time, loaded with absurd news of a time already buried; but he will
stop on the threshold, seeing me immobile, laid out dead on my cot,
two soldiers with torches at my side.
Nevertheless go, Domenico, and do not tell me that I am cruel! Bring
my last greetings to the city where I was born. You are the surviving
link with the world that was mine one time. The most recent news has
informed me that many things have changed, that my father is dead,
that the Crown has passed to my older brother, that they consider me
lost, that they have constructed high stone palaces where before there
were oak trees, under which I used to go and play. But it is still my old
homeland. You are the last tie with them, Domenico. The fifth
messenger, Ettore, who will reach me, God willing, in a year and eight
months, will not be able to depart again because he wouldn’t be able to
do it in time to return. Oh Domenico, after you there is silence, unless
I finally find the longed for borders. But the more I proceed, the more
I am convinced that the frontier does not exist.
The frontier does not exist, I suspect, at least in the sense in which
we are used to thinking. There are not walls of separation, nor dividing
valleys, nor mountains that enclose a pass. I will probably cross the
limits without even noticing it, and I will continue on ahead, unaware.
That is why when Ettore and the other messengers after him have
reached me again, I intend for them not to re-take the road to the
capital, but to go ahead preceding me, so that I can know ahead of
time what awaits me.
For some time now an unusual anxiety is ignited within me at night,
and it is no longer the regret of joys left behind, as happened in the
beginning of my voyage; rather it is the impatience of knowing the
unknown lands to which I am headed.
I go on noting – and I haven’t confided this in anyone until now – I
go on noting how day by day, little by little, advancing towards the
improbable destination, in the sky an unusual light radiates as has
never appeared to me before, not even in my dreams; and how the
trees, the mountains, the rivers that we cross, seem made of an
essence different from that of our home and the air carries
premonitions that I do not know how to describe.
A new hope will pull me still farther ahead tomorrow morning,
towards those unexplored mountains that the night shadows are
concealing. Again I will pack up camp, while Domenico will disappear
into the opposite horizon, to carry my useless message to a city far far
away.