On the following nights he took the path to the cliffs and stopped at the point where the mouse-goat had suddenly appeared. He stood there for over an hour on each occasion, but his patience was never rewarded. He even began to think that he’d lost his ability to see the nocturnal movements in the forest. The bark of the holm oaks held nothing more than patches of dry moss and only a few wild goats broke the monotony of the wearisome silence. On those nights, when he came to the end of the path, he would take the track along the clifftop, cobbled with granite. The stones seemed to form a natural lane. He’d constructed a simple lookout on the westernmost end of the lane, with seats made from boulders where he could rest his swollen legs. Almost despairing, he contemplated the dark mass of the sea with a waning moon above its gently stirring waters. Although the Mediterranean was never menacing, he felt a dread of being there alone. Resisting the urge to throw himself down onto the rocks, he continued to observe the cliffs, the blackness of the Mediterranean, and the gentle mist. Given his elephantiasis, what could the future hold for him but immobility?

Dawn was breaking: the cliffs no longer urged him to suicide. He got into the buggy and dozed until they reached the house. Then he ate a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage, asking himself what should be done about the mouse-goat. He bought two hundred kids and ordered the servants to fatten them for several days before freeing the gleaming animals into the estate at nightfall. On five successive nights he went out with Nicanor and a shotgun. Since his adolescence, hunting had been an addiction. He’d killed stags, elephants, roe deer, gazelles, and boar. The kids ran behind the wild nanny goats, attempting to find ones that would feed them, but the goats kicked them away, and very soon there were groups of exhausted young creatures beneath the trees. They also showed a proclivity to follow the humans. After hours hunting for the myotragus, the archduke dispatched each of the kids with a single shot. His dismay deepened with the passing days, and he hosted sumptuous parties in a number of the surrounding villages where roast meat was served to the guests. After his death, rumor spread across the island that the extinction of the myotragus was due to the archduke’s habit of feeding it to the young girls he’d courted.

Notes on the Architecture of Hell

NOTES ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF HELL

I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

—ISAIAH 14:13–14 (K.J.V.)

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