Free The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach

with Narana.…
    “You could at least speak with Benegoran yourself,” she insisted.
    That was useless. He knew that it was useless. Everything was useless.
    “Then what will you do?” she asked.
    He didn’t know that either. He was silent. Silent, awaiting the sentence of the court. Silent, waiting for the towers of guilt all around him to collapse and bury him beneath them.
    “Borlon? What’s the matter?”
    The words had again forfeited their meaning and become part of the background noise of the night. He turned back to the window and looked out at the dark sky. The small moon was there—it could be seen moving quickly across the firmament toward the big moon, which moved slowly toward it in the opposite direction. Tonight the small moon would pass directly across the bright face of the big moon.
    He heard someone speaking, but he understood nothing, and understanding wasn’t even important. Only the moons were important. He had to stay here and wait until they met one another and touched. A bang, like the slamming of a door, but that, too, was meaningless.
    He sat motionless while the small moon moved. When he sat this way and waited, he could see how the stars in the lesser moon’s path seemed to move closer and closer to the little oval ring of light until they were finally overwhelmed by its brightness and disappeared. And so the two moons drifted, star by star, toward one another across the vault of the heavens until they finally melted together into a single disk of light … while he sat without moving and watched.
    He was tired. His eyes burned. When he finally turned away from the window, the oil lamp had already gone out. No more flame, no fire. That was good. He no longer knew exactly why, but it was good.
    He could go now with his mind at rest. It was time. Out to the entryway to take his cloak from the hook, not because he would need it, but to tidy up, to leave no unwelcome traces behind. He mustn’t trouble anyone with the odds and ends of a failed life. He didn’t need that guilt, too.
    Then open the door and close it slowly behind you. And just let your legs carry you along … along the street to the city gate and beyond, away from the city, farther and farther, and farther still, until your path meets the two moons and you melt away into their light.…

V
    The Peddler Woman
    ON HER TRAVELS between the isolated country houses of the carpet makers, she often saw only women for weeks at a time. The carpet makers’ headwives, subwives, and daughters could hardly wait to invite her into their kitchens. However, it wasn’t for her textiles and household implements that they waited so impatiently, but for the news she could tell about other families and about goings-on in the city. Then she sat there for hours with the women, and it was often difficult and required skillful manipulation of the conversation to bring up the subject of her wares. New recipes. That was her favorite trick. Ubhika knew an extensive number of unusual recipes—both for food and also for beauty aids of all kinds—that all had one thing in common: for each of them, either a special utensil was needed or a special spice, or some other special thing, which had to be purchased from her.
    If she was lucky, she also got a bed for the night, since, with all the chatter and gossip, it often grew late. Today she had not been lucky. And what irked her most especially was that she should have seen it from the beginning. Hospitality had never counted for much in the house of Ostvan—not even in the days of the old Ostvan, and especially not in the house of his son. Shortly before dusk, the young carpet maker had walked sourly into the kitchen and said it was high time for the peddler woman to move on. And he spoke in a tone of voice that made everyone start with fear and wonder what sin they had committed. For a moment, Ubhika had felt like an adulteress instead of an itinerant peddler.
    One of the women, at least, had helped