field somehow had burnt itself out.
Later, he trudged to war, where he was invincible against either an enemy bayonet or a bullet; he received many decorations and medals, but couldn’t make a military career because of another scandal related to gambling. Of course, everyone was enthusiastic about card play, but it was his “luck” that dragged him into such litigations. Taking into account his past merits, they didn’t punish him severely but forced him to leave military service. However, he fulfilled his duty to the army completely.
At first, he tried to hang himself – the rope broke, and he suffered only a painful bruise falling to the floor. Then he wanted to shoot himself: at the first attempt, the gun misfired, at the second it just backfired, injuring his hand. Then he jumped off a bridge, but the good Samaritans promptly fished him out of the cold city canal and brought him to his senses. Further: he tried to stab himself with a dagger, but powerlessness paralyzed his hand, forcing him to drop the weapon in another failed suicide. Then he decided to throw himself under a train, but it derailed shortly before arriving and miraculously avoided a meeting with Lucky. To top it off, he climbed onto the roof of a building with the firm intention of jumping and crashing to the pavement. It seemed that now he had foreseen everything, then no chance happening could save his life; but what he couldn’t foresee was the exact moment before the fatal landing – he just suddenly woke up in his bed, as if it was an ordinary dream. And so, again and again, time after time, something prevented his tragic plans from coming true.
Realizing that he was, in fact, powerless to commit suicide, he despaired even more, although it seemed to him earlier that it was principally impossible. Not knowing where he was going and why, Lucky simply wandered through the streets, whistling a sad song: the words were forgotten, it was just a single tune, and for some reason, it reminded him of the yellowed skeleton of a dead man, freed from the once rotten flesh.
Of course, he could roam around the grim backstreets, pestering all sorts of sinister characters, hoping to get stabbed with someone’s knife. Or bypass the brothels, asking to pick up some terrible infection. Or, at the very least, switch to morphine, alcohol or opium, getting himself into a deadly condition. But he suspected that these ridiculous ventures would end no better than all the other nonsense before.
From the outside, it might seem that the problem was contrived. One way or another it was possible to simply move to a new place, starting over with a clean slate, making new acquaintances, finding a wife and a job, quitting the gambling permanently or, at least, be only interested in games in which the role of luck is insignificant compared to skill and calculation. Naturally, all this came to mind a great many times, but every time he tried to implement the plan, he faced the same difficulties as when trying to take his own life.
Some force not only stopped him from trying to do something that it didn’t like, but also compelled Lucky to behave as it pleased. Having given all the money to the poor and the churches, he remained a villain in the public eye; simply, in addition to all the adjectives, also self-righteous and hypocritical. He could find more money literally on the street around the corner from a gin mill or other den, where the whole caboodle was going to play. And again, an unknown force drew him inside, sweeping away the attempts of the will, as a mighty stream sweeps away a pathetic straw. And it ended the same as any previous re-locations, a flawed reputation in a new place and aggravated depression.
Deep in bitter thoughts, Lucky came across a yard, and he could vouch, he had never been here before, although he knew these places like the back of his hand. Of course, there were such nooks in the city that were off-limits to strangers, but this place wasn’t one of them. Anyway, the wanderer didn’t make guesses but went ahead where his feet took him.
There was an enormous fountain in the middle of the yard. Lifeless and gray, it was dry and cracked in places; and beside it, stood a bearded man (somehow resembling the King of Hearts from the marked deck of one sharper) with a barrel organ (somewhat resembling a die), looking at the raven, who was sitting up at the top of the dead fountain with an air of importance. A timid light glowed behind the windows overlooking the courtyard, and illuminated by a melancholic moon, the snow danced and fell, covering the ground. At the sight of the man, the organ-grinder turned the crank of his instrument, enlivening the evening silence with the sound of unpretentious music. The raven dived from the fountain and landed on a shoulder of the playing man with the first sound of the melody.
“You’re out late, dear man. At this hour, all good people are sitting at home and not hanging around the backstreets. You are lucky that no one stabbed you,” the bird master unexpectedly declared, continuing to rotate the crank slowly.
“It depends on how you look at it,” Lucky remarked with a sad smile and a shade of irony.
Coming closer, Lucky stopped in front of the organ-grinder, listening to the tune, and gave the bird a side glance. The raven squawked. Lucky threw a coin into the slot for donations on the barrel organ and briefly glanced at the fountain. People usually threw coins at working fountains for good luck, which in his case would be an evil mockery. Perhaps, everything should be exactly the opposite with the extinct fountain? In any case, Lucky had never heard of such a belief. But even so, it was unlikely that anyone else in this world had a reason and a desire to verify the validity of this guess.
However, Lucky had nothing to lose. At least, there would be something to remember later, looking back on a passing day. He casually tossed the coin into the dry fountain and sighed with a flow of white steam. That’s just empty superstitions. Good luck and bad luck are relative concepts anyway.
“Places like that have their own charm,” the organ-grinder said in a deep velvety voice. “Fountains, where water no longer spurts; stations where trains no longer arrive; clay beds of dried rivers, where old boats remain and objects once sunk are exposed; the ruins of old houses, overgrown with moss and ivy, where different things like pianos have been left behind and now have birds nesting in them, and so on in the same vein.”
“Perhaps. Probably,” the suicidal failure agreed. He could broadly envisage the bizarre aesthetics of decline and desolation (about which, in Lucky’s opinion, the organ-grinder spoke). “I’ve been in this city for quite some time. But I’ve never met you before. And I don’t remember this fountain either.”
“No wonder,” the stranger nodded with understanding. “This place is found only by those who are not looking for it on purpose. I don’t know what happened to you, but apparently, you didn’t care where you were going. You have neither purpose nor motive.”
“So it turns out,” Lucky agreed once again. Nothing could surprise him anymore.
“All this is very strange of course. But since you are here, I believe, you have your own story, just as unusual as everything around. I have a trained eye – I’ve seen many people alike in my lifetime,” the bearded man stopped his barrel organ and petted the raven. “Come on, come on, say ‘Nevermore!’ Please, entertain our guest! Don’t you want to? Oh well…”
Lucky looked at the organ-grinder with new eyes. For some reason, this man caused associations with the main character of a literary work, who found himself in the wrong story by some ridiculous accident.
“So you think that I can find some answers to my questions here?” Lucky asked. He took some snow from the edge of the fountain and rubbed it in his hands, feeling the moderately pleasant bite of cold.
“I can’t
