Kaschar's Quarter Read Online Free Page A

in the cellar. Almost without thinking, he retraced his own footsteps through time and down a stone passageway to the bulky wooden door. It opened and closed again heavily, creaking on its thick iron hinges.
    He paced the floor as was his habit when much was on his mind, leather shoes scuffing across stones laid down nearly two centuries before. Witty parries to his father’s verbal thrusts flitted about his thoughts, yet he knew that they would all go unsaid. It was not truly his manner to be as short as he had been earlier, yet in this case enthusiasm and anger had come to the fore. As much as he told himself that he had been in the right to say what he had, the regret began as an ache in the back of his mind and grew steadily, a trickle of light streaming into him like the gentle glow of the lamp out in the hall until it dominated his thoughts.
    With this came more doubts, more regrets of words ill spoken and deeds undone. Though the anger at his father had now passed, what replaced it was just as virulent and aimed directly at his own heart. The entire predicament he had placed himself in was exactly that: his own doing and no one else’s. All this time spent on chasing a girl he had hardly spoken to or employment in a bureaucracy that bothered him little at all amounted to nothing if he could not govern himself as a man.
    Was he really even a man if he still ran to the cellars like a child? The question ate at him, driving home all that his father had said earlier: Matthieu had not been changed by it at all. Yes, he had learned much from his studies, and had taken advantage of every boon granted him by parents and God, yet he was still as miserably alone in his thoughts as ever. He hated himself to his very core. What could a creature perfect as Beate want with one who loathed himself so? Why would a father continue to do so much for a son who gave only impudence in return? What would his mother say if given the power to respond to him when he called out to her through candles and paintings? If there indeed was a God in that heaven to which Anna Sartonné had fled, how stood Matthieu in Its all-knowing gaze? His mind cried out that a just God would see him for the man he wanted to be rather than just the man he was, but even his doubting heart knew that to be a lie. That perfect eye would fix him in Its gaze and burn him to annihilation of body and soul.
    Frantic pounding on the heavy door roused him from his imaginings. A voice raggedly called his name: it was his father’s.
    “Hide, Matthieu! For the love of God, hide!” With that, his father was heard no more. It took only a moment before he came to himself, leaping from the musty corner he had been sitting in and running towards the largest of the wine barrels in the back of the cellar. He had always wished to hide inside one as a child, picturing himself floating down the river in one of the greatest barrels, off to find adventure and buried treasure or some such thing. Right now, however, they could very well save his life.
    He found the largest he could: it was an ancient Northern vintage, half empty from generations of entertaining visitors to his family's home. It had even been there when his father bought the house before Matthieu was born. However, now was not the time for him to consider the value of the barrel's contents, only to do what he could to survive. He clambered up the side, using the uneven bricks of the cellar wall to aid his climb onto the top of the container. His hands were unsteady as he flicked back the latch and threw open the lid; taking care not to fall off, he slid inside—sloshing in expensive wine halfway to his knees—then reached up and slammed the opening shut. He cursed to himself as he heard the tiny iron latch click back into place, flung forward again by the force of the door closing. It mattered not; he would not be escaping from this place soon.
    There was shouting outside the cellar door: several men, later a woman