“Tatar desert” Buzzati in brief summary
The action takes place at an indefinite time, most reminiscent of the beginning of this century, and the unknown state depicted on its pages is very similar to Italy. It is a novel about time consuming life. Irreversibility of time is the fateful destiny of man, night is the highest point of the tragic tension of human existence.
A young lieutenant Giovanni Drogo, full of bright hopes for the future, receives an appointment in the fortress of Bastiani, located near the boundless Tatar desert, where, according to legend, the enemies came. Or did not come. After long walks, the lieutenant finally finds his way to the Fortress. During the journey, Drogo’s enthusiasm for his first appointment fades, and the sight of the bare yellowish walls of the fort leads to utter discouragement. Major Matti, understanding the mood of a young officer, says that he can file a report about transferring him to another place. In the end, Drogo’s embarrassed decides to stay in the Fortress
Soon, Drogo takes the first watch and watches the change of the guard, performed under the command of the senior sergeant Tronka, who serves in the Fortress for twenty-two years and knows by heart all the subtleties of the serf charter. Servant Tronk does not leave the Fortress even during the holidays,
At night Drogo composes a letter from his mother, trying to convey the oppressive atmosphere of the Fortress, but in the end writes a regular letter with assurances that he is doing well. Lying on his bunk, he hears the sentries echoing mournfully; “… it was on this night that a slow and inexorable countdown began for him.”
Wanting to get an overcoat simpler than the one that was in his luggage, Drogo gets acquainted with the tailor Prodchochimo, who has been saying for fifteen years: he says he will leave from here day after day. Gradually,
– Winter comes, and Drogo begins to prepare for his departure. It remains a trifle to undergo a medical examination and get a paper about unfitness for service in the mountains. However, the habit of a narrow closed world of Fortress with its measured life takes its toll – unexpectedly for itself Drogo remains. “There is still a lot of time ahead,” he thinks.
-Drogo goes on duty to the New Redoubt – a small fort in forty minutes walk from the Fortress, standing on top of a rocky mountain above the Tatar Desert itself. Unexpectedly, a white horse appears from the desert side – and yet everyone knows that the Tatar horses are exceptionally white! You, it’s all much easier – the horse belongs to an ordinary Lazzari, she managed to escape from her master. Wanting to return the mare as soon as possible, Lazzari chooses the walls of the fort and catches it. When he returns, the password has already been changed, but he does not know the new one. The soldier hopes that after learning it, the comrades will let him in again, but those who follow the charter and obey the mute order of the Tronka shoot and kill the unfortunate one.
And soon a black human snake starts moving on the horizon of the Tatar desert, and the whole garrison is confused. However, everything is quickly explained: these military divisions of the northern state mark the border line. In fact, the demarcation signs have been established for a long time, only one unplaced mountain remained, and although strategically it does not represent any interest, the colonel sends a detachment there under the command of Captain Monti and Lieutenant Angustina – to get ahead of the northerners and add a couple of extra meters of territory. In his elegant uniform, the proud Angustin is utterly unfit for a journey through the mountains; he gets cold in the icy wind and dies. He is buried as a hero.
Several years pass; Drogo leaves for the city on vacation. But there he feels like a stranger – friends are busy with business, a beloved girl has lost the habit, from him, the mother internally resigned to his absence, although he advises him to file a petition for transfer from the Fortress. Drogo goes to the general, confident that his request for transfer will be granted. But, to the surprise, the general refuses Drogo, motivating the refusal by saying that the garrison of the Fortress is being reduced and will be transferred primarily to the old and well-deserved soldiers.
In the anguish of Drogo returns to the fortress of Bastiani. There reigns a feverish turmoil – soldiers and officers leave the garrison. Lieutenant Simeoni dispatches Drogo’s grim discouragement: in his telescope he saw some lights on the edge of the Tatar Desert, which then disappear, they reappear and constantly make some sort of movement. Simeoni believes that the enemy is building the road. Before him, “no one has observed such a striking phenomenon, but it is possible that it was before, for many years or even centuries, say, there could be a village or a well to which caravans were pulled – just in the Fortress until now no one used such a strong telescope as Simeoni had. ” But here comes an order that forbids the use of optical devices in the Fortress, not provided for by the statute, and Simeoni hands over his pipe.
In the winter, Drogo clearly feels the destructive power of time. With the onset of spring, he gazes long into the distance with the help of a public pipe and somehow notices in the eyepiece a small fluttering tongue of flame. Soon, even in broad daylight against a whitish desert, you can see moving black dots. And one day someone talks about the war, “and the seeming unrealizable hope once again breathed within the walls of the Fortress.”
And just about a mile from the Fortress there is a pillar – foreigners have reached the road here. Huge work carried out for fifteen years, finally completed. “Fifteen years for the mountains is a mere trifle, and even on the bastions of the Fortress they left no noticeable trace, but for people this way was long, although it seems to them that the years passed by somehow unnoticeably.” The Fortress reigns desolate, the garrison again reduced, and the General Staff no longer attaches any importance to this lost in the mountains of the citadel. The generals do not take seriously the road laid along the northern plain, and life in the fort becomes even more monotonous and secluded.
In one September morning, Drogo, now captain, rises on the road to the Fortress. He had a month’s vacation, but he survived only half the time, and now he comes back: the city became completely alien to him.
“Pages turn over, months and years pass by,” but Drogo is still waiting for something, although his hopes are weakening every minute.
Finally, the enemy army really approaches the walls of the Fortress, but Drogo is already old and sick, and he is sent home to vacate the room for young combat-ready officers. In the way, Drogo overtakes death, and he realizes that this is the main event of his life. He dies looking at the night sky.
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