"You should be dead by now," he said, still under the effects of alcohol, but with a flicker of fear in his voice. "Your heart shouldn't have survived that climb."
Veronika gave him a long, lingering kiss.
"Look at my face," she said. "Remember it with the eyes of your soul, so that you can reproduce it one day. If you like that can be your starting point, but you must go back to painting. That is my last request. Do you believe in God?"
"I do."
"Then you must swear by the God you believe in that you will paint me."
"I swear."
"And that after painting me, you will go on painting."
"I don't know if I can swear that."
"You can. And thank you for giving meaning to my life. I came into this world in order to go through: attempted suicide, ruining my heart, meeting you, coming up to this castle, letting you engrave my face on your soul. That is the only reason I came into the world, to make you go back to the path you strayed from. Don't make me feel my life has been in vain."
"I don't know if it's too early or too late, but, just as you did with me, I want to tell you that I love you. You don't have to believe it, maybe it's just foolishness, a fantasy of mine."
Veronika put her arms around him and asked the God she did not believe in to take her at that very moment.
She closed her eyes and felt him doing the same. And a deep, dreamless sleep came upon her. Death was sweet; it smelled of wine and it stroked her hair.
Eduard felt someone prodding him in the shoulder. When he opened his eyes, day was breaking.
YOU CAN go and shelter in the town hall, if you like," said the policeman. "You'll freeze if you stay here."
In a second Eduard remembered everything that had happened the previous night. There was a woman lying curled in his arms.
"She...she's dead."
But the woman moved and opened her eyes.
"What's going on?" asked Veronika.
"Nothing," said Eduard, helping her to her feet. "Or rather a miracle happened: another day of life."
As soon as Dr. Igor went into his consulting room and turned on the light--for daylight still arrived late and winter was dragging on far too long--a nurse knocked at his door.
THINGS HAVE started early today, he said to himself.
It was going to be a difficult day because of the conversation he would have to have with Veronika. He had been building up to it all week, and had hardly slept a wink the previous night.
"I've got some troubling news," said the nurse. "Two of the inmates have disappeared: the ambassador's son and the girl with the heart problem."
"Honestly, you're a load of incompetents, you are; not that the security in this hospital has ever been up to much."
"It's just that no one's ever tried to escape before," said the nurse, frightened. "We didn't know it was possible."
"Get out of here! Now I'll have to prepare a report for the owners, notify the police, take steps. Tell everyone I'm not to be disturbed; these things take hours!"
The nurse left, looking pale, knowing that a large part of that major problem would land on his own shoulders, because that is how the powerful deal with the weak. He would doubtless be dismissed before the day was out.
Dr. Igor picked up a pad, put it on the table, and began making notes; then he changed his mind.
He switched off the light and sat in the office precariously lit by the incipient sunlight, and he smiled. It had worked.
In a while he would make the necessary notes, describing the only known cure for Vitriol: an awareness of life. And describing the medication he had used in his first major test on patients: an awareness of death.