CHAPTER 6. LA CIOTAT STATION.

January 6, 1896.

Having made several leaps before slowly soaring upward, a dark-haired raven, who at that moment was the personification of loneliness—something that was now residing in his being, something invisible and ethereal, and truly, was unable at this hour not to awaken in every non-reckless and intuitive human consciousness all kinds of thoughts about the freedom-loving and independent Lucifer!—looked very intently at that very area, which for many centuries had been nothing but a good and cozy home for his blood, which was a little less dark than his current plumage: with a considerable interval, flapping his long matte wings, that raven, Lucifer, seemed to be looking for the last time with his thoughtful gaze at the truly nothing more and nothing less than blessed spaces of the French port city of La Ciotat—in his eyes, countless scenes from the 18th century flashed, when in that city with exceptional ruthlessness ruled... no, not the plague, as a natural phenomenon!... but revolution and war... the plague, as a human phenomenon! What nature had not given to his ancestors—man gave to them! Having managed to find a happy deliverance from the plague, the inhabitants of that city could not find a suitable deliverance from another person—the ancestors of this raven could not fail to appreciate that! Lucifer understood this perfectly well, and therefore was perfectly content! The blood of the inhabitants of that city flowed in his blood as well—he owed his remarkable physical characteristics and features, which he was given from birth, to man, or rather to human flesh, which was once devoured with unspeakable delight by his predecessors. Emitting a broken, loud sound, Lucifer, without wishing to, involuntarily expressed his satisfaction—he felt a certain flame, which had rapidly originated within his dark-gray head, hastily, with an unspeakable and pleasant alacrity, descend further and further down, to his swamp-colored legs. Another moment... and now, in his soul, it seemed that an inexpugnable cold reigned—Lucifer was once again lost in thought: would he, like his ancestors, be able to give this world nothing less than healthy and, importantly, sensible offspring?

The world had changed. In La Ciotat, there was no more war, no more revolution, and accordingly, there was no more hunger, poverty, and, importantly... corpses! But would it always be so? One should not forget that in La Ciotat, as in any other city in France, as in any other city in the world, man still, still remains! No, such reflections, such thoughts could no longer, were no longer able to keep Lucifer in the celestial expanses—at this very second, it was high time to fall, to plummet down with all the speed inherent in him: the heavens had become a bore to him, they did not give him, unlike his ancestors, significant pleasure—his food, his strength, and accordingly his offspring, he could, he was able to find only on earth, only below, only among people!

Immediately returning to where he had previously soared up, Lucifer looked around—snow was idle everywhere. Lucifer let out a discontented cry—a wind that appeared from nowhere very wildly directed countless particles of "heavenly sand," as he mentally called the snow, right into his significantly open eyes: the heavens do not tolerate, the heavens do not like, the heavens do not want disobedience! Free spirit! Independent spirit! Unwavering spirit! You cannot be broken, you cannot be bowed, you cannot be ruined by the authoritarian foundations of this world! You showed your own opinion to that world and were immediately punished! You showed your free will in that world and were immediately punished! But did you change first? Did you immediately, at the first difficulty, at the first danger, at the first gust, give up? Did you, having realized the power of mad and unrestrained authority, bow before its face? No, you remain on earth, although you were born to remain in the sky! Lucifer! Did you, did you go against your nature—yes, against your nature, but not your essence?

Unable to endure the unbridled self-will of the heavens any longer, Lucifer nimbly jumped into a certain, of correct shapes and contours, of course, man-made, depression, which, as soon as this raven found himself within its limits, involuntarily awakened distant memories in his memory—memories of events that had already passed. Immediately looking at that very space that bordered his extraordinarily sharp claws, Lucifer discerned something dark—it was a small spot: "Maybe that something is something edible?"—the creature in whose veins human blood and, importantly, the thirst for human blood naturally flowed, that very raven, which, in turn, once gave considerable assistance to Marcus Valerius Corvinus in overcoming a certain Gallic chieftain, instantly asked himself the aforementioned question.

Lucifer's instinct prevailed over his mind—he was no longer able to be in a state of doubt: having irrevocably aimed at that something, that something dark, Lucifer, with unspeakable ruthlessness, delivered to it a truly nothing more and nothing less than an extremely crushing blow. A sound, barely discernible to the human ear, but extraordinarily sonorous to the ear of a creature like Lucifer, immediately notified the surroundings of a certain action: his beak unintentionally collided with an unwavering, solid metal—Lucifer did not flinch... he did not feel pain... this part of his flesh was, truly, unbreakable! At this hour, as before, Lucifer was immeasurably grateful to his blood ancestors—it was thanks to the satiety of the aforementioned, that his life at those moments did not undergo even the slightest metamorphoses: with the loss of the integrity of his beak, he would have also lost his own life, for the well-being, and accordingly the satiety, of a raven is entirely connected with the well-being of this very component of his body.