Excerpt from Crossings by Alex Landragin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I turned a corner to face the railway station, wading miserably through one ankle-deep puddle after another, I heard the echo of a stately carriage in a nearby street ahead of me. It turned the corner and was suddenly careening toward me. In my rush to remove myself from its path, my left ankle twisted on a protruding paving stone and, thrown off balance, I landed face-first in the slush with the two horses bearing down on me. Intending to dive toward the gutter, I was getting back to my feet when a wheel collided with my right shoulder, throwing me askance once more and spinning me around, so that I landed—this time on my back—in yet another puddle. Needless to say, the carriage continued on its way, turning left into Rue des Colonies, the driver in all likelihood oblivious to the fact that he had just now bowled over, and very nearly finished off, the greatest lyric poet of the age.

Lying on my back in the filth, icy water seeping through my coat, I was convinced my life was finally nearing its pitiable conclusion. It occurred to me that I ought to have jumped in the other direction, under the horses rather than away from them. As I lay there in that puddle, on those slick paving stones, in that strange city, on that icy evening, all my hopes extinguished, I found the prospect of my imminent demise unexpectedly consoling. In the cold and the damp, I began to shiver with a violence that would not be brought into abeyance. Presently the pain of my injuries began to recede, the wild beating of my heart slowed and my breathing became less frantic. I realized I would not be dying there and then. My accursed existence would continue, at least for now. At the dawning of this thought, I began to scream, abusing that tenacity of life that seems to override every wiser instinct. And once I had begun, I continued, wholeheartedly cursing, stringing beads of curses together to make garlands of curses, which I hurled at Victor Hugo and Madame Hugo, at her sons and her guests. I cursed the Grand Miroir and Brussels and Belgium and the Belgians. I cursed the King of Belgium and for good measure I cursed the Emperor of France. I cursed men and women, mankind and womankind too. I cursed poetry and literature and art and love, and when I had finished cursing all those things I cursed life and God Himself. And it was while I was cursing God that I noticed, standing above me, the silhouette of a man's body, wearing a round hat and a cape. A gaunt whiskered face leaned down to study me closer. "Are you in pain, monsieur?"

"I hardly know," I said, "but it seems I cannot raise myself."

"Here," he said, "let me help you to your feet." He bent down and put his gloved hands behind my shoulders and under my arms. He smelled of black soap. "On the count of three," he said, "un, deux, trois." I was lifted to my feet and the stranger released his grip slowly so that I might bear the weight of my body. I felt a sharp pain in my left ankle and let out a strangled cry. The stranger had to catch me to stop me from falling again. "You are injured, sir, and your wounds must be treated. Allow me to take you back to my mistress's quarters so that you may receive the rest and medical attention you require."

Naturally, my first inclination was to refuse him, to insist on continuing to the tavern. But a wave of weariness descended upon me, and all I wanted to do was sleep. "Yes," I said, swaying on my feet until I sank into his arms, "rest and attention. That is precisely what I need."

{175}

A Touching Reunion

EVER SINCE I WAS a young man, I have been prone to bouts of a kind of nocturnal dementia, awoken by the terrors of my dreams, finding myself sitting upright in the dark, my entire body moist with perspiration. As soon as I open my eyes, the offending dream invariably retreats, leaving only the subtlest traces—the white sand of a distant tropic, a great volcano, a storm-tossed sea, overripe flowers, a ship under full sail … And, above all, eyes. Eyes the color of obsidian, eyes I have dreamed of so often I can see them with perfect clarity even when I am awake. Normally this occurs while sleeping in my own bed and, quickly recognizing my familiar surrounds, I can pull myself together, light a candle, perhaps open a book or write until I am lulled back into the arms of Morpheus. In a bygone time, I would have found Jeanne lying beside me, her beguiling black eyes open, awoken by my commotion, and she would have asked me what I had dreamed, and once I'd told her, she would have interpreted my visions according to some far-fetched, pagan mythology of her own devising, in which she and I were the reincarnated souls of an ancient bird-god, until I would once again sink into sleep.

Excerpted from Crossings by Alex Landragin. Copyright © 2020 by Alex Landragin. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.