 Chapter 4 of Abassian and I by Thomas Mann. This Liberwock's recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 The Hunting Grounds Part 1 In the gardens of our small but spaciously arranged colony of villas, there are huge trees, ancient giants which tower above the roofs. They offer a marked contrast to the tender saplings but recently planted. There can be no mistaking the fact that these trees are the original growth, the aboriginal inhabitants of this region. They are the pride and the beauty of this still youthful settlement. They have been carefully preserved and tended as far as this was possible. At those points where they happen to come into conflict with the surveyor's lines or with the fences dividing the various lots or tracts of land, that is to say, where some mossy, silvery, venerable trunk happen to be standing precisely on the lines of demarcation, you will find that the fence has made a little loop around the tree trunk or that a gap has been left in the concrete of the garden wall. In these openings, the old ones and now tower, half privately, half publicly, they're naked branches loaded with snow or bedizoned with their small leafed, late sprouting foliage. These trees are of the species of the ash, a tree which loves dampness as few others do. This quality at the same time offers a very significant commentary upon the essential peculiarity of our strip of country. It is not yet so very long ago that human ingenuity succeeded in turning it into something capable of cultivation and occupation, possibly a decade and a half ago, no longer. Before that it was a wilderness of swamps, a veritable brooding place for gnats and mosquitoes, a waste in which willows, crippled poplars, and such like gnarled and twisted arboreal stuff, mirrored itself in stagnant pools. This region, you must know, is subject to inundation. A few meters under the surface there is a strata of watertight soil. The ground has therefore always been swampy and water stood in every hollow. The draining of this fin was accomplished by lowering the surface of the river. I have no head for engineering, but some such expedient was made use of with the result that the water, which could not see downward, was induced to flow off laterally. Hence there are many subterranean brooks which pour themselves into the river at different spots. Solidity has thus been given to the soil, at least the greater part of it, for if you happen to know the district as Bashin and I know it, you would be able to discover in the thickets downstream many a reedy sinkage which reminds you of pristine conditions. These are places of silence and secrecy, the damp cool of which defies the hottest summer day, spots in which one is glad to rest and draw breath for his face. The region really possesses its own peculiar character and is to be distinguished at first glance from the banks of the usual mountain river with their pine woods and mossy meadows. It has exceeded in retaining this original peculiarity even since it has come into the possession of the real estate company. Even outside the gardens, the aboriginal and original vegetation maintains the upper hand over the imported and the transplanted. It is true that in the avenues and parks the horse chestnut seems to thrive as well as the swift-growing maple, even beaches and all kinds of decorative shrubbery. But all these, including the alien poplar, which towers and ranges in rows of sterile masculinity, are not native to the soil. I said that the ash was an indigenous tree here. It is to be found everywhere, and it is of all ages, from giants hundreds of years old to the soft shoots which, like so many weeds, sprout in masses from the gravel. It is the ash and its companions, the silver poplar and the aspen, the birch and the willow, both as a tree and a bush, which give distinctive character to this landscape. These are all trees with small leaves, and this smallness and trimeness of the foliage, in conjunction with the frequently gigantic masses of the trees themselves, at once attract attention to this neighborhood. The elm, however, is an exception and we find it spreading its spacious leaves fretted as by a jigsaw and shiny and sticky on their upper surface to the sun. And everywhere there are great masses of many plants, which weave themselves around the younger trunks in the woods and in a bewildering way entangle their leaves with these. The slender alders form themselves into small groves in the hollows. The lime is scarcely to be met with at all. The oak never appears, nor does the fir. Yet there are firs upon the eastern declivities, which form the frontiers of our territory. For here the soil changes and with it the vegetation. There they rear black against the heavens and piers sent in a light upon us in our lower levels. From this bluff to the river is not more than a hundred meters. I have paced the distance. It may be that the strip of riverbank widens fan-like a little farther downstream, but this divergence is in no way important. It is, however, remarkable what a diversity of landscape this limited region affords, even though one explore only the playground, which lies along the river, explore it with restraint and moderation, like bastion and myself. Our forerays seldom exceed two hours, counting the advance and the retreat. The manifold nature of the views, however, and the fact that one is constantly able to change once walks and to arrange combinations that are eternally new, without ever becoming bored with the landscape, is due to the circumstance that it is divided into three very different regions or zones. One may devote oneself separately to any of these, or one may combine them by means of slanting cross paths. These three regions are the regions of the river and its immediate bank on one side, the regions of the bluff on the other, and the region of the forest in the middle. The greater part of the breadth is occupied by the zone of the forest, the willow breaks, and the shrubbery of the bank. I find myself hunting for a word which will more perfectly fix and define this wonderful terrain than the word wood, and yet I am unable to find one. There can be no talk of a wood in the usual sense of the term, a kind of great pillard grove with moss and strewn leafage and tree trunks of fairly uniform girth. The trees in our hunting grounds are of different ages and circumference. Huge patriarchs of the willow and popular families are to be found among them, especially along the river, though they are also to be encountered in the inner woods. Then there are others already full grown, which might be 10 or 15 years old, and finally a legion of thin stems, wild nurseries of nature's own crop of young ashes, birches, and elders. These do not, however, call forth any impression of meagerness, because, as I have already indicated, they are all thickly wrapped about with creepers. These give an air of almost tropical luxuriance to the whole. Yet I suspect that these creepers hinder the growth of their hosts. For during the years I have lived here, I do not remember having observed that any of these little stems had grown perceptively thicker. All trees belong to a closely related species. The older is a member of the birch family. In the last analysis the popular is nothing else than a willow. And one might even say that all of them approach the fundamental type of the latter. All foresters and woodmen know that trees are quite ready to accept a certain adaptation to the character of the circumjecent vicinity. A certain imitation or mimicry of the dominant taste in lines and form. It is the fantastic witch-like distorted line of the willow which prevails here. This faithful companion and attendant of still and the flowing waters. With the crooked finger projecting broom-like branching boughs and it is these features which the others obviously seek to imitate. The silver popular crooks itself wholly in the style of the willow. And it is often difficult to tell her from the birch which seduced by the genius loci also frequently affects the most extravagant crookednesses. Though I would not go so far as to say that this dear and friendly tree was not to be found and numerously found in exceedingly shapely specimens. These when the afternoon light is fervent and favorable are even most enchanting to the eye. The region knows it as a small silvery trunk with sparse single leaves in the ground. As a sweet grown-up limber virgin with the prettiest of chalky stems and a trim and languishing way of letting their locks over foliage hang. But it also makes its appearance as a creature of absolutely elephantine proportions with a waist which no man could span with his arms and a rind which has preserved traces of its erstwhile whiteness only higher towards the top. Whilst near the ground it has become a coarse calcined and fissured bark. As to the soil this has little resemblance to that of a forest. It is pebbly full of clay and even sand and no one would dream of calling it fertile. And yet within limits it is fertile even to luxuriance. A tall grass flourishes upon it though this often assumes a dry sharply angular and meager character. In winter it covers the ground like trampled hay. Sometimes it degenerates into reeds. Whilst in other parts it is soft, thick and lush mixed with hemlock, nettles, coltsfoot, all manner of creeping leafy stuff, high, rocket like, thistles and young and tender tree shoots. It is a favorite hiding place for pheasants and quail and the vegetation runs in billows against the gnarled bowls of the tree roots. Out of this chaos of undergrowth and ground thicket the wild vine and wild hop plant go gyrating up in spirals, draping broadleaved garlands upon the trees and even in winter bringing to the trunks with tendrils which resemble hard and unbreakable wire. This domain is neither forest nor park. It is an enchanted garden, nothing less. I will stoutly defend this term even though it refers to a poor, limited and even crippled bit of nature. The glories of which may be exhausted with a few simple botanical names. The ground is undilent. It rises and falls in regular waves. This feature gives a fine completeness to the views. The eye is led into the illimitable, even at the sides. Yes, even if this would were to stretch for miles to the right and left, even if it were to be as broad as it is long, instead of merely measuring a hundred and some odd faces from the center to the extreme edge on either side, one could not feel more secluded, more lost or isolated. Alone the ear is reminded by the regular and rushing sound of waters to the west that the river hovers within a friendly distance near yet invisible. There are little gulches filled to the brim with bushes of elder, common privet, jasmine and black elderberry so that one's lungs on steamy June days are almost overcome by perfume. And then again there are sinkages in the ground, mere gravel pits along the slopes and bottoms of which only a few willow shoots and a little dry sage manage to flourish. All this has not ceased to exert a magic influence upon me, even though the place for many a year has been as a daily haunt to me. In some ways I am fantastically moved and touched by all this, for example by the mast foliage which reminds me somehow of the contours of huge bulls. These creeping vines and reedy thickets this dampness and this drought, this meager jungle to sum up my impressions as a whole, affect me a little like being transported to the landscape of another period of the earth's growth, even to a submarine landscape as though one were wandering at the bottom of the sea. This vision has a certain contact with reality for water once stood or ran everywhere here about, especially in those seepages which have now assumed the shape of square meadow basins surrounded by nurseries of ash trees and serve sheep for drink and pasture. One of these ponds lies directly behind my house. My delectable wilderness is crisscrossed by paths, by strips of trampled grass and also by pebbly trails. Obviously none of these were made, they simply grew through the agency of use. Yet no man could say by whom these paths have been trodden into the soil. It is only now and then and usually as an unpleasant exception that Baschen and I meet anyone here. When such meetings do occur, my companion comes to a sudden halt in startled surprise and gives vent to a single muffled bark which gives a pretty clear expression to my own feelings in connection with the encounter. Even on fine sunny afternoons in the summer when great numbers of pedestrians from the city come pouring into the neighborhood it is always a few degrees cooler here than elsewhere. We too are able to wander quite undisturbed in the inner ways. The public is apparently unaware of these sides. The river is a great attraction and draws them mightily. Hugging its banks as closely as possible, that is, when there is no flooding, the human river wanders out into the countryside and then comes rolling back in the evening. At most we chance to stumble upon a pair of lovers kissing in the bushes with wide shy yet insolent eyes regard us from their power as though firmly bent on challenging us, daring us to say anything against their being there, defying us to give any open disapproval of their remote and guerrilla lovemaking. Intimations which we silently answer in the negative by beating a flank retreat, passion with that air of indifference with which all things that do not bear the scent of the wild about them affect him, and I with a perfectly equitable and expressionless face which allows no trace either of approval or disapproval to be seen. But these paths are not the only means of traffic and communication in my domain. You will find streets there, or to be more precise, preparations that may once have been streets or were once destined to be such. It is like this, traces of the path finding and path clearing act and of a sanguine spirit of enterprise in the realm of real estate reveal themselves for quite a distance beyond the built-up part of the country and the little villa colony. Some speculative soul had appeared deeply into the untold possibilities of the future and had proceeded upon a bold and audacious plan. The society which had taken this tract of territory in hand some 15 years before had cherished plans far more magnificent than those which came to pass, for originally the colony was not to have been confined to the handful of villas which now stand there. Building lots were plentiful for more than a mile downstream, everything had been prepared and is no doubt still prepared for possible buyers and for lovers of a settled suburban manner of life. The councils of this syndicate had been dominated by large and lofty ideals. They had not contented themselves with building proper jetties along the banks, with the creation of riverside walks and keys, and with the planting of parks and gardens. They had gone far beyond all this. The hand of cultivation had invaded the woods themselves, had made clearings, piled up gravel, united the wilderness by means of streets a few lengthways and still more crosswise. They are well planned and handsome streets, or sketches of streets, in a coarse macadam with the hint of a curb and roomy sidewalks. On these however no one goes walking but a bastion and myself, he upon the good and durable leather of his four paws, I upon hobnailed boots because of the macadam. The villas which long ago have risen hospitably along these streets, according to the calculations and intentions of the society, have for the present refused to materialize, even though I have set so excellent an example as to build my own house in these parts. They have remained absent, I say, for ten, for fifteen years, and so it is small wonder that a certain discouragement has settled down upon the neighborhood and that a disinclination for further expenditures and for the completion of that, which was so magnificently begun, should make itself felt in the bosom of the society. Everything had progressed admirably up to a certain point. Things had even gone so far as the christening of the new streets. For these their affairs without inhabitants have right and regular names, just like ordinary orthodox streets in the city or in the civilized suburbs. But I would give much to know what a dreamy soul or retrospective eyebrow of a speculator had assigned them. There is a Goethe and a Schiller, a Lessing and a Heine Street. There is even an Adelbert Stifter Street, upon which I stroll with particular sympathy and reverence in my hobnailed boots. Square steaks are visible such as may be seen in at the corners of the raw and uncompleted streets in the suburbs where there are no corner houses. Little blue enameled shields with white letters are fastened to these states. These shields, alas are not in the best condition. They have stood here far too long, giving a name to adumbrations of streets in which no one cares to live. And they have been singled out to bear the stigmata of disappointment, fiasco and arrested development to which they give public expression. They are wrapped in an air of forlorn disquietude and neglect. Nothing has been done for their upkeep, nor for their renewal, and the weather and the sun have played havoc with them. The enamel, to a great extent, has split and cracked off. The white letters have been eaten away by rust, so that in place of their smooth and glittering whiteness there are only brown spots and gaps with hideous jagged edges. Disfigurements which tear the image of the name asunder and often render it illegible. One of these blue enameled signboards imposed a tremendous strain upon my intellect when I first came hither and penetrated this region on my tours of exploration. It was a signboard particularly long in shape and the words street, strossa, have been preserved without a break. But of the actual name which as I have indicated was very long, or rather had been very long, the letters were nearly all completely blinded or devoured by rust. The reddish-brownish gaps gave one some idea of their number but nothing was decipherable except the half of a capital as and an E in the middle and another E at the end. This riddle was a little too much for my astuteness I was face to face with too many unknown quantities so I stood there for a long time, my hands upon my back, staring at the long signboard and studying it closely. And then I gave it up and went strolling along the rudimentary pavement with passion. But whilst I thought that I was occupying myself with other things, this particular thing kept working within the mnemonic depths of me. My subintelligence kept sending out the destroyed name and suddenly it shot into my consciousness. I stood still as in a fright. I rushed back and once more planted myself in front of the signboard. I counted and compared and tested the elements of my gas. Yes, it fitted. It worked out. We were wandering in the street which had been called Shakespeare. These signboards befit the streets which justify their metallic existence and these streets the signboards which give them a local habitation and a name. Both of them are dreamily and wonderfully lapped in forgetfulness and decay. They pursue their way through the wood which they have invaded but the wood refuses to rest. It refuses to leave these streets in violet for a decade or more until settlers choose to pitch their tents or villas here. So the wood calmly goes to work and makes preparation to close the streets for the green things that grow here have no fear of gravel or macadam. They are used to it and thrive in it and on it. So everywhere upon the streets and upon the pavements the purple headed the blue sage, silvery willow shrubs and the green of young ashtray sprouts begin to take root and shoot forth. There can be no doubt these park like streets with the poetic names are running wild. The jungle is once more devouring them. Whether one be disposed to lament the fact or rejoice over it, it is certain that in another ten years the Goethe, Schiller and Heiney streets will no longer be passable and will very likely have banished utterly. At present to be sure there is no cause for complaint. Surely from a pictorial and romantic point of view there are no lovelier streets in all the world than precisely these in precisely their present condition. Nothing could be more grateful to the soul than to ramble through this negligence, this incompleteness, when one is well and sturdily shod and need not fear the coarse gravel. It is edification to the spirit to survey the manifold wild vegetation of the track and the grows of tiny-leaved trees fettered by their soft dampness. Sweet glimpses which frame and shut in these perspectives. Just such a group of trees was painted three hundred years ago by that great master of caves, he who came out of Lorraine. But what am I saying? Such as he painted it was this one and none other which he painted. He was here. He knew the region and if that rhapsodical member of the real estate company who christened at the streets in my park had not so rigidly restricted himself to literature, then one or the other of these rust corroded signs might well cause me to guess the name of Claude Lorraine. I have now described the region of the central wood, but the sloping land towards the east also possesses charms which are not to be despised, at least so far as Bashan and myself are concerned and for reasons which will be revealed later. One might also call it the zone of the brook, for it is a brook which gives it an idyllic landscape quality. With the charm of forget-me-nots, it forms a counterpart on the hither side to the zone of the Poescent River yonder, the roar and rushing turbulence of which one is still able to hear in this spot, but only very faintly and softly and only when the west wind is blowing. There where the first cross street running from the avenue of populars between the meadow ponds and the clumps of trees towards the slope at the foot of this slope, there is a path that leads towards the left. This is used in wetter time as a bot that run by the youth of the region and slants towards the lower lying levels. Where the run becomes level, the brook begins its course and it is here that master and dog love to amble beside it on the right bank or the left which again affords variety and also to make excursions along the slope with its variegated configuration. To the left extend a meadow studded with trees. A country nursery lies not far away and reveals the back of its farm buildings. Sheep are usually at pasture here cropping the clover. They are under the chairmanship, so to speak, of a not very clever little girl in a red frog. This little girl seems to suffer from a veritable passion to rule command. She is constantly crouching low, propping her hands upon her knees and shouting with all her might in a cacophonous voice. And yet she is horribly afraid of the ram who takes on huge and majestic proportions on account of the thickness of his wool and who refuses to be bullied and does whatever he pleases. Whenever bashing's appearance causes a panic among the sheep, the child really raises its hideous outcry and these panics occur quite regularly and quite contrary to bashing's intentions. For if you could appear into his inmost soul, you would discover that sheep are a matter of absolute indifference to him. He treats them like so much empty air, and by his indifference and his scrupulous and even contemptuous carefulness, he even tries to prevent the outbreak of the dunderheaded hysteria which dominates their ranks. Though their scent is certainly strong enough for my own nostrils, yet not unpleasantly so, it is not the scent of the wild that emanates from them and so bashing, of course, has not the slightest interest in hounding them. Nevertheless, a simple sudden motion on his part, or even his mere shaggy appearance, is sufficient to cause the whole herd, which but a moment ago was peacefully grazing, widely separated and bleeding in the quavering treble of the lambs and in the deeper contralto and base of the ews and the ram, to go storming off in a solid mass neck and neck whilst the stupid child, crouching low, shouts after them until her voice cracks and her eyes pop overhead. Passion, however, looks up at me as much as to say, judge for yourself whether I am to blame, have I given them any cause for this? On one occasion, however, something quite contrary happened, something perverse and incomprehensible, something still more extraordinary and unpleasant than the panic. One of the sheep, quite an ordinary specimen of its kind, of average size and average sheepish visage, with a small upward curving mouth, which appeared to smile and gave an expression of almost mocking stupidity to its face, seemed to be spellbound and fascinated by passion and came to join him. It simply followed him, detached itself from the herd, left the pasture, and clung to bashing's heels, quietly smiling in exaggerated foolishness and following him whither soever he turned. He left the path, the sheep did likewise, he ran and it followed at a gallop. He stood still and it stood still, immediately behind him and smiling its mysterious Mona Lisa's smile. Displeasure and embarrassment became visible in Passion's face. The situation into which he had been plunged was really ridiculous. There was neither sense nor significance in it, neither in a good or a bad sense. The whole thing, confounded, was simply preposterous. Nothing of the kind had ever happened to him or to me. The sheep went farther and farther from its vases, but this did not seem to trouble it in the least. It followed the discomforted and irritated Passion farther and farther, visibly determined not to separate from him ever again, but to follow him whither soever he might go. He remained close beside me, not so much out of fear, since there was no occasion for this, as out of shame at the dishonor of the situation in which he found himself. Finally, as though his patience were at an end, he stood still turned his head and growled ominously. This caused the sheep to bleed and its bleeding sounded like a wicked laughter of a human being, which so terrified poor Passion that he ran away with his tail between his legs, and the sheep, straight after him, with comic jumps and curvidings. We were already at a considerable distance from the herd. In the meantime, the half-witted little girl was screaming as though she would burst, still crouching and bending upon her knees, and even drawing these up as high as her face, from a distance she looked like a raving and malformed gnome. And then a farm maid with an apron over her skirts came running up, either in answer to the cries of the obsessed little one, or because she had noticed the happenings from afar. She came running, I say, with a pitchfork in one hand. With the other she supported her bodice, which I surmise was unsupported, and which was visibly disposed to shake a trifle too violently as she ran. She came up panting, and at once proceeded to shy the sheep which was slowly pacing along, like Passion himself, into the proper direction with the fork, though without success. The sheep, it is true, sprang aside with a swift flank movement, but in an instant it was once more on Passion's trail. Nothing seemed to be able to induce it to give up. I then realized that the only thing to do was to turn tail myself, and so I turned round. We all retraced our steps, Passion at my side, beside him the sheep, and behind the sheep the maid with the pitchfork whilst the child in the red frock kept on yelling and stamping. It was not enough, however, that we should go back as far as the herd. It was necessary to finish the job, and to proceed to the final destination. We were obliged to enter the farmyard and then the sheep stable with the broad sliding door, which the maid with muscular arm rolled to one side before us. We thereupon marched in, and after we were all inside, we three were forced to make a swift and adroit escape, so as to be able to shove the stable door too before the very nose of the beguiled sheep, making it a prisoner. It was only after this operation had been gone through that Passion and I were able to resume our interrupted promenade amidst the fervent thanks of the maid. During the entire walk, however, Passion persisted in maintaining a humble and disconsolate air. Chapter 4 of Passion and I by Thomas Mann This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 The Hunting Grounds Part 2 So much for the sheep. Closely adjacent to the farm buildings on the left, there is an extensive colony of small market gardens. These are owned and tended by the clerks and working men of the city, and are the source of much joy, exercise, and considerable supplies of cheap flowers and vegetables. The gardens have a cemetery-like effect with their many arbors and summer houses built in imitation of tiny chapels and with their countless small fenced-in plots. The whole is enclosed by a wooden fence with an ornamental gateway. No one, however, except the small amateur gardeners, is permitted to have admittance through this wooden grill. At times I see some bare armed man there digging up his little vegetable garden, a square rod or so in size, and always it seems to me as though he were digging his own grave. Beyond these gardens lie open meadows which are covered with molehills and which extend to the edge of the central wooded region. Here in addition to the molehills, there are also great numbers of field mice, a fact which must be solemnly remarked in view of Passion and his multi-form joy in the chase. On the other side, that is to say to the right, the brook and the slope continue, the latter, as I have already indicated, in diverse configuration. At first, covered with fir trees, it displays a dusky and sunless visage. Later it transforms itself to a sandpit which warmly refracts the beams of the sun. Still later it converts itself into a gravel pit and then to a cataract of bricks, just as though a house had been demolished higher up and the debris hurled down the slope. This has imposed temporary difficulties upon the course of the brook. But the brook rises equal to the occasion. Its waters mount a trifle and spread themselves out, stained red by the dust of the broken brick, and also discoloring the grass around the bank. After this they flow the dearer and more gaily on their way with listenings here and there upon the surface. I have a great love for brooks as I have for all bodies of water, from the ocean to the smallest scum covered puddle. When I happen to be in the mountains during the summer and chance to hear the secret splashing and gossip of such a streamlet, then I must follow the liquid call, even though it be distant, and I cannot rest until I've found its hiding place. Then, face to face I make acquaintance with the talkative child of the crags in the ice. Beautiful are the proud torrential brooks which come down in crystalline thunder between pines and steep terraces of stone. Form green, ice-cold pools in rocky baths and basins, and then go plunging to the next step in a dissolution of snowy foam. But I am also fond of looking upon the brooks of the wetland, whether they be shallow, so as scarcely to cover the polished, silvery and slippery pebbles of their beds, or as deep as little rivers, which, protected on both banks by low, overhanging willows, go shouldering themselves forward with a vigorous thrust flowing more swiftly in the middle than at the sides. Who, being free to make his choice, would not follow the course of the waters on his wanderings. The action, which water exercises upon the normal man, is natural and mystically sympathetic. Man is a child of water. Our bodies are nine-tenths water, and during a stage of our prenatal development, we even have gills. As for myself, I gladly confess that the contemplation of water in every shape and form is, for me, the most immediate and poignant joy in nature. Yes, I will even go so far as to say that true abstractedness, true self-forgetfulness, the real merging of my own circumscribed existence in the universal, is granted to me only when my eyes lose themselves in some grand liquid mirror. Thus, in the face of the sleeping, or the charging and crashing of the onrushing sea, I am like to be transported into a condition of such profound and organic dreams of such a remote absence from myself, that all sense of time is lost, and a tedium becomes a thing without meaning, since hour upon hour spent in such identification and communion melt away as though they were but minutes. But I also love to lean upon the rail of a bridge that crosses a brook, and remain fixed to it as with thongs, losing myself in the vision of the flowing, streaming, and whirling element, quite immune to the fear or impatience with which I ought to be filled in the view of that other streaming and flowing that goes on about me, the swift fluid flight of time. Such love of the water and all that water means renders the tight little territory which I inhabit more important and precious to me in that it is surrounded on both sides by water. The local brook is of the simple and faithful species. There is nothing very remarkable about it. Its character is based upon friendly averages. It is of a naivete as clear as glass, without subtlety or deception, without an attempt to simulate depth by means of murkiness. It is shallow and dear and quite innocently reveals the fact that its bottom harbors cast away tin pots and the carcass of a lace boot in a coat of green slime. It is, however, deep enough to serve as a habitation to pretty silvery grey and extremely nimble little fish, which I presume are minnows and which dart away in wide zigzag lines at our approach. My brook widens here and there into ponds with fine willows along the edges. One of these willows I always regard lovingly as I pass by. It grows, I had almost said, she grows close to the bluff, and thus at some distance from the water. But it stretches one of its boughs longingly towards the brook and has really succeeded in reaching the flowing water with the silvery foliage that plumes the tip of this bough. There it stands with fey-like fingers wet in the stream and draws pleasure from the contact. It is good to walk here, lightly assailed by the warm summer wind. The weather is warm, so it is probable that Bastion will go wading into the brook to cool his belly. Only his belly, for he has a distinct aversion to bringing the more elevated parts of his anatomy in contact with the water. There he stands with his ears laid back and an expression of piety and alertness upon his face and lets the water swirl around him and past him. After this he comes sidling up to me in order to shake himself. An operation which, according to his own conviction, must occur in my immediate vicinity. The vigor with which he shakes himself causes a thin spray of water and mud to fly my way. It is no use warding him off with flourished stick and abjugations. Under no conditions will he tolerate any interference with anything that appears to him natural, inevitable and according to the fitness of things. Farther on, the brook in pursuing its course towards the setting sun reaches a small hamlet which commands a view towards the north between the woods and the slope and at the entrance to this hamlet lies the tavern. Here more broadens into a pond. The women of the village kneel at the edge of this and wash their linen. A little foot bridge crosses the stream. Should you venture over, you will set foot upon a road which leads from the village towards the city running between the edge of the wood and the edge of the meadow. Should you leave this road on the right, you will be able to reach the river in a few steps by means of a wagon road that cuts through the wood. We are now within the zone of the river. The river itself lies before us, green and streaked with white and full of liquid roaring. It is actually only a great mountain torrent. Its everlasting rushing sound can be heard with a more or less muffled reverberation everywhere throughout the region. Here it swells and crashes overwhelmingly upon the ears. It might in fact serve as a substitute for the sacred and sounding onset of the sea if no sea is to be had. The ceaseless cry of innumerable land gulls intermingles with the voice of the stream. In autumn and in winter and even during the spring these gulls go circling round and round the mouth of the overflow pipes filling the air with their screams. Here they find their food until the season grows milder and permits them to make their way to the lakes and the hills, like the wild and half-wild ducks which also spend the cool and the cold months in the vicinity of the city. Balance themselves on the waves, permit themselves to be carried by the current which turns them round and rocks them at will, and then just at the moment when some rapid or whirlpool threatens to engulf them with light and vibrant wing and settle down once more upon the water, a little farther upstream. The region of the river is arranged and classified as follows. Close to the edge of the wood there stretches a broad level of gravel. This is a continuation of the Poplar Avenue which I have mentioned so frequently and runs say for about a kilometer downstream. That is to say to the little ferryman's house of which more anon. Behind this the thicket comes closer to the river channel. The purpose of this desert of gravel is clear. It is the first and most prominent of the longitudinal streets and was lavishly planned by the real estate company as a charming and picturesque esplanade for elegant turnouts with visions of gentlemen on horseback approaching Spick and Spann Landau's and Victoria's listening in their enamel and engaging in delicate badanage with smiling and a beautiest ladies reclining at ease under dainty parasols. Close to the ferryman's house there is a huge signboard and a state of advanced decrepitude. This proclaims what was to have been the immediate goal, the temporary termination of the carriage Koso. For there in broad and blatant letters you may read that this corner site is for sale for the erection of a park cafe and a fashionable refreshment establishment. Well the purpose remains unfulfilled and the building site is empty. Or in place of the park cafe with its little tables its hurrying waiters and glass and cup sipping and straw-sucking guests there is only the big wooden signboard a slant, a resigned collapsing bid without a bidder and the Koso itself only a waste of coarsest gravel covered with willow bushes and with blue sage almost as thickly as the Gerta or lessing streets. Alongside the Esplanade nearer to the river there runs a smaller gravel way which is also overgrown with insurgent shrubbery. It is characterized by grass mounds which arise at intervals and from which telegraph poles mount into the air. Yet I am fond of frequenting this road on my walks first because of the change and second because the gravel permits of clean though somewhat difficult locomotion when the clay footpath yonder does not appear passable during the days of heavy rain. This footpath actually the real promenade runs for miles along the river and then finally degenerates into wild haphazard trails along the bank. It is lined along the river side with saplings, maple and birch and on the land side it is flanked by the mighty primitive inhabitants of the region willows, aspens and silver poplars all of them colossal in their dimensions the escarpment plunges steeply and sheerly towards the riverbed. It is protected by ingenious works woven willow widths and by a concrete armor along its lower parts against the mounting floodwater which once or twice a year comes rolling hither when the snows melt in the mountains or the rain overdoes itself. Here and there the slope hospitably offers one the use of wooden steps half ladders and half stairs by means of which one may with a fair degree of comfort descend upon the actual riverbed which is usually quite dry. It is the reserve gravel bed of the big wild brook and is about six meters wide. The stream behaves like all other members of its family the small as well as the smallest that is to say according to the weather and the water conditions in the upper mountain regions sometimes its course will be a mere green flowing tunnel with the rocks scarcely covered and with the gulls appearing to stand still legged on the very surface itself and then again it will assume a most formidable character swelling into a wide stream filling its bed with grey watery fury and tumult and bearing along in its headlong course all kinds of unseemly objects such as old baskets pieces of wooden crates bushes and dead cats in its circling wrath and showing a great disposition to flooding and to deeds of violence. The reserve or overflow channel is also armored against high water by the same parallel slanting and hurdle like arrangements of willow branches. It is covered with beach grass and wild oats as well as with the show plant of the neighborhood the dry omnipresent blue sage. It offers good walking thanks to the strip of key formed of tooled and even stone runs along the extreme limit of the water. This gives me a further and in fact favorite possibility of adding variety to my promenades. It is true that the unyielding stone is not particularly good going but one is fully recompensed by the intimate proximity of the water. Then one is also able now and then to walk in the sand beside the key. Yes there is real sand there between the gravel and the beach grass sand that is a trifle mixed with clay and not so sacredly pure as that of the sea but nevertheless real sand that has been washed up. I am thus able to fancy myself strolling upon a real strand down there inscrutably drawing my foot along the perilous edge of the salt flood. There is no lack of surging even if there is of surges nor of the clamor of gulls nor of that kind of space annihilating monotony which lulls one into a sort of narcotic absent-mindedness. The level cataracts are rushing and roaring all around and halfway to the ferryman's house the voice of a waterfall joins the chorus from over yonder where the canal debouching at a slant pours itself into a river. The body of this fall is arched smooth, glassy like that of a fish and a never-lasting boiling tumult goes on at its face. It is beautiful here when the sky is blue and the flat ferry decorated with a pennant in honor of the weather or some other festival occasion. There are other boats in this spot but the ferry is fastened to a wire rope which in turn is fastened to another and thicker wire cable. This is stretched across the river in such a way as to let a pulley run along it. The current itself furnishes the motive power for the ferry boat and a pressure from the ferryman's hand upon the rudder does the rest. The ferryman lives in the ferry house with his wife and child and this house lies a short distance from the upper footpath. It has a little garden and a hen house and is evidently an official dwelling and therefore rent-free. It is a kind of villa of lily-pushy and proportions lightly and whimsically built with little bays and gables and appears to boast of two rooms below and two above. I love to sit on the bench in front of the garden close to the upper footpath. Bastion then squats upon my foot. The hens of the ferryman amble about me and give their heads a forward jerk with every step and usually the cock comes to perch upon the back of the bench the green bursa gliriff feathers of his tail hang down behind sitting beside me thus and measuring me luridly from the side of his red eye. I watch the traffic on the ferry. It could scarcely be called strenuous nor even lively for it consummates itself at large and liberal intervals. So I find all the more pleasure in the scene when a man or a woman with a blanket basket appears on the further bank and demands to be carried across the river. For the poetic element in that fine call, ferry ahoy, remains full of human captivation as in ancient days even though the action fulfills itself as here in new and progressive forms. Double steps of wood for the coming and departing traveller lead down the escarpment on both sides of the river and to the landing places and on both sides there is an electric button affixed to the rail. A man appears on the other bank, stands still and appears across the water. No longer however as in former times does he hollow his hands into a trumpet and shout through them. He walks towards the push button, stretches out his arms and performs a slight pressure with his thumb. There is a clear thin tinkle in the house of the ferryman. This is the modern ferry ahoy and it is poetic even thus. There stands the prospective passenger and watches and waits. And almost at the very moment at which the bell tinkles the ferryman comes out of his little house just as though he had stood or sat behind the door merely waiting for the signal. The ferryman I repeat comes out and in his walk there is something which suggests that it has been set in motion directly by the pressure upon the push button just as one may shoot at a door in a tiny hut upon the targets in the shooting galleries. If you chance to make a bullseye it flies open and a tiny figure comes out, say a milkmaid or a soldier. Without showing the slightest sign of undue haste the ferryman walks with swinging arms through his little garden, crosses the foot path, descends the wooden steps to the river, pushes off the ferry and holds the rudder whilst the pulley runs along the taut wire. And the boat is driven across by the current. The boat bumps against the other bank the stranger jumps in upon reaching the hither bank he hands the ferryman a nickel coin and leaps up the wooden steps with alacrity. He has conquered the river and turns either to the right or to the left. Sometimes when the ferryman is prevented from being at his post, either through illness or more urgent household affairs, then his wife or even his child will come out of the house and fetch the stranger across. They are able to perform this office as well as he, even I could attend to it. The job of the ferryman is an easy one and requires no special capacity or training. Surely he is a lucky man, this ferrymaster, in having such a job and able to live in the neat dwarf villa. Any fool would at once be able to step into his place and the knowledge of this keeps him modest and grateful. On the way back to his house he greets me very politely with gruskot as I sit there on the wooden bench between the dog and the rooster. It is clear that he wishes to remain on a good footing with everyone. A smell of tar, a wind brushing across the waters plashing sound against the wooden sides of the boats. What more could I desire? Sometimes I am seized by another memory of home. It comes upon me when the water is deep and still and there is a somewhat musty odor in the air and then these things take me back to the Laguna, back to Venice where I spent so many years of my youth. And then again there is storm and there is flood and the everlasting rain comes pouring down. Wrapped in a rubber coat with wet and streaming face I brace myself against the stiff west wind along the upper way. A wind that tears the young poplars from their poles and makes it clear why the trees here incline away from the west and have crowns which grow only from one side of the branches. When we go walking in rains such as these, Bashan frequently stands still and shakes himself so that he is the dark center of a dull gray flurry of water. The river at such times is a different river swollen, murky yellow, it comes rolling on, wearing upon its face, an ominous catastrophic look. This storm flood is full of a lurching, crowding, tremendous haste and insensant hurry. It usurps the entire reserve channel up to the very edge of the land and leaps up against the concrete walls, the protective works of willow boughs so that one involuntarily utters thanks to the wise forethought which established these defenses. The eerie thing about these flood waters is that the river grows quiet, much quieter than usual. In fact, it becomes almost silent. The customary surface rapids are no longer visible. The stream rolls too high for these, but the spots where these rapids were are to be recognized by the deeper hollows and the higher waves and by the fact that the crest of these waves curl over backwards and not forwards like the waves of the current. The waterfall no longer plays apart. Its glistening, curved body is now flat and meagre and the pother at its base has vanished through the height of the water level. Far as passion is concerned, is astonishment at such a change in the aspect of things is beyond expression. He remains in a state of constant amazement. He is unable to realize that the places in which he has been accustomed to trot and run should have vanished, should have utterly vanished. Think of it and that there should be nothing there but water, water. In his fright he scampers up the escarpment in a panic away from the plunging, spattering flood and looks around at me with waggings of his tail after which he casts further dubious glances at the water. A kind of embarrassment comes upon him and he gives way to a trick of his, opening his mouth obliquely and thrusting his tongue into the corners, a play of feature which affects one as being as much human as it is animal. As a means of expression it is somewhat unrefined and subservient but thoroughly comprehensible. The whole effect is about the same as would be conveyed by a rather simple-minded yokel in the face of an awkward situation provided he went so far as to scratch his head as bashing, scratches his neck. Having occupied myself in some detail with the zone of the river and described the whole region, I believe that I have succeeded in giving my readers a picture of it. I rather like my own description of the place or rather the place as presented in my description but I like it still better as a piece of nature for there is no doubt that as a piece of living nature it is still more diversified and vivid just as bashing himself is in reality warmer, more lively and lovable than in this counterfeit presentment. I am attached to this stretch of landscape and grateful to it and so I have described it with somewhat of the meticulosity with which the old Dutch masters painted. It is my park and my solitude and it is for this reason that I have sought to conjure it up before the reader's eye. My thoughts and my dreams are mingled and intergrown with its scenes like the leaves of its creepers with the stems of its trees. I have looked upon it at all hours and at all seasons in autumn when the chemical smell of the fading leaves fills the air, when the white legions of the thistle down have all been blown to the winds, when the great beaches of the cool-gotten spread a rust-colored carpet of leaves about them on the meadows, and when afternoons dripping with gold merge into theatrically romantic twilight with the crescent of the moon swimming in the skies with a milky brew of mist hovering over the levels and the afterglow of the sunset smoldering through the dark silhouettes of the trees. And also in winter when all the gravel is covered with snow and soft and smooth so that one may walk upon it in one's rubber overshoes and when the river goes shooting black between the pale frostbound shores and the cry of hundreds of hills fills the air from morning to evening. Nevertheless the easiest and most familiar intercourse with this landscape is during the mild months when no special equipment in the way of defensive clothing is necessary, and one may go for a quick stroll for a quarter of an hour, betwixt and between two showers of rain and in passing bend aside the branch of a black alder tree and cast a look into the waves. It is possible that visitors have been to call upon me and I have been left behind stranded as it were within my own four walls crushed by conversation and with the breath of the strangers apparently still hanging in the air. It is good then to go at once and loaf for a while along the heiny or shillers street to draw a breath of fresh air and to anoint myself with nature. I look up to the heavens peer into the green depths of the world of tender and delicate leaves my nerves recover themselves and grow quiet, peace and serenity return to my spirit. Bastion is always with me on such forays he had not been able to prevent an invasion of the house by the outer world in the shape of the visitors even though he had lifted up his voice in loud and terrible protest but that had done no good so he had stepped aside and now he is jubilant that he and I are once more together in the hunting grounds with one ear turned carelessly inside out and loping obliquely as is the common habit of dogs that is with his hind legs moving not directly behind his front legs but somewhat to the side he goes trotting on the gravel in front of me and suddenly I see that some tremendous emotion has seized him body and soul his short bobbed tail begins to wave furiously his head lunges forward and to one side his body stretches and extends itself he jumps hither and thither and the next moment with his nose still glued to the ground he goes darting off he has struck a scent he is on the spore of a rabbit End of chapter 4 part 2 Chapter 5 The Chase Part 1 The region is rich in game and so we go hunting it that is to say a bastion goes hunting and I look on in this wise we hunt rabbits, quail, field mice moles, ducks, and gulls but we do not by any means fight shy of bigger game we do not by any means fight shy of bigger game we do not by any means fight shy of bigger game we also track pheasants and even deer whenever such first rate quarry as sometimes happens strays into our hunting grounds this always furnishes an exciting spectacle when the long leg lightly built animals the furtive deer yellow against the snow and with its white tufted hindquarters bobbing goes flying before who is straining every nerve I followed the course of events with the greatest interest and tension it is not as if anything were ever to result from this chase for that has never happened and never will happen but the lack of tangible results does not in the least diminish either bastion's joy or his passion for hunting nor does it in any way minimize my pleasure we pursue the chase for its own sake and not for the sake of prey or booty or any other utilitarian purpose bastion as I have said is the active member he does not expect any save a moral support from me since no personal and immediate experience has taught him a more pronounced and practical manner of cooperation I lay particular stress upon the words personal and immediate for it is more than probable that his ancestors insofar as they belong to the tribe of setters were familiar with more actual methods of hunting on occasion I have asked myself whether some memory of this might not survive in him and whether this could not be aroused by some accidental impulse it is certain that on bastion's plane of existence the life of the individual is less differentiated from the species than in our case birth and death signify a far less profound of the balance of being perhaps the inheritance of the blood are more perfectly preserved so that it would merely be an apparent contradiction to speak of inborn experiences unconscious memories which once aroused would be able to confuse the creature in the matter of its own personal experiences and cause it to be dissatisfied with these I once courted this thought but then rid myself of it just as bastion had obviously rid himself of the thought of the brutal incident of which he had been a witness and which gives me occasion for these deliberations when I go forth to hunt with him it usually chances to be noon half past 11 or 12 o'clock sometimes especially on very warm summer days it may even be late afternoon say 6 o'clock or later it may be that this is even our second going out in any case my mental and spiritual atmosphere is quite different from what it was during our first careless stroll in the morning the virgin freshness of the early hour has vanished long since I have worried and have struggled in the interval with this or that I have been forced to grit my teeth and overcome one difficulty after the other I have had a tussle with some person or other at the same time I have been obliged to keep some diffuse and complicated matter firmly in mind and my head is weary especially after a successful mastery of the problem hence this going out hunting with bastion distracts and enlivens me it infuses me with new life putting me into condition for the rest of the day and for triumph over the tasks I have been doing in my path it is really largely the impulse of gratitude which forces me to describe these hunting trips things to be sure are not so neatly arranged that bastion and I could go forth in pursuit of any one special species of the game which I have mentioned that we should for instance specialize on rabbits or ducks no on the contrary we hunt everything that chances to come within range of our guns we need not go very far in order to strike game the hunt may literally begin immediately outside the garden gate for there are great numbers of field mice and moles in the hollows of the meadows close behind the house to be exact and sportsman like I am aware that these fur bearing animals cannot of course be regarded as game in a strict sense of the term but their secrets are subterranean habits especially the nimble craftiness of the mice which are not blind of day like their excavating and tunneling brethren and often go gambling upon the surface and then when danger approaches go flicking into the little black burl without ones being able to distinguish their legs or their movements these things work tremendously upon bastions hunting instincts these are also the only animals of the wild which occasionally become his prey a field mouse, a mole these are tidbits which are not to be despised in such lean and meager days as these when one often finds nothing more palatable than a thick barley soup in the stoneware bowl beside one's kennel I have scarcely taken a dozen steps with my cane along the popular avenue and Vashen has as an overture scarcely got through with his preliminary leaps and lunges then he is seen to be performing the most extraordinary capricoles towards the right he is already gripped by the passion for the chase and is blind and deaf to all things save the exciting but hidden goings on of the living things about him with every nerve taught and tense waving his tail carefully lifting his feet he goes slinking through the grass sometimes pausing in mid-step with one foreleg one hind leg in air then peering with cocked head into the hollows an action which causes the flaps of his erected ears to fall forward on both sides of his eyes and then raising both four paws he will suddenly jump forward and will stare with dumbfounded expression at a spot where but a moment before there was something and where now there is nothing and then he begins to dig I feel a strong desire to go to him and await the result but then we should never be able to leave the spot Vashenna would expend his entire stalk of joy in the chase right here in this meadow and this stalk is meant to last him for the entire day and so I walk on untroubled by any thought that he might not be able to overtake me even though he should remain behind for a long time without having observed in what direction he had gone to him my track and trail are as clear as that of a bit of game should he have lost sight of me he is sure with head lowered between his four paws to come tearing along this trail I hear the clinking of his brass license tag his firm gallop behind me and then he goes shooting past me and turns with wagging tail once more to report himself on duty out yonder however in the woods or in the broad meadows alongside the brook I often halt and watch when I catch him digging for a mouse even though it should be late and I in danger of exceeding the time I have apportioned for my walk the passionate devotion with which he goes to work is so fascinating to observe his profound enthusiasm is so contagious that I cannot but wish him success with all my heart surely I also wish to be a witness of this success the spot he is attacking may have made quite an innocent impression in this outward aspect it is let us say some mossy little mound at the foot of a birch and possibly penetrated by its roots but did not my passion hear the quarry sent it perhaps even see it as it switched away he is absolutely certain that his bit of game is sitting there under the earth in some snug runlet or burrow all that is necessary is to get at it and so he goes digging away for all he is worth in absolute devotion to his task and oblivious to the world he proceeds not raging way but with a certain fine deliberation with the tempered passion of the real sportsman it is wonderful to see his small tiger striped body beneath the smooth out of which the ribs align themselves and the muscles play is hollowed is concave in the middle his hind quarters with the stump of a tail vibrating to quick time is erected vertically his head is between his four paws and a thrust into the slant hole he has already dug with averted face he continues with the rapid strokes of his iron claws to tear up the earth more and more lumps of sod pebbles shreds of glass and bits of roots fly all about me sometimes his snortings are heard in the silence of the fields that is when he has succeeded in penetrating some little distance and in wedging his snout into the entrance to the burrow in order by means of his scent to keep check upon the clever still and timid creature within there his breathing sounds muffled he ejects his breath in a blast in order to be able to empty his lungs quickly and to draw in the delicate acrid distant and yet disguised odor of the mice what emotions must surge through the breast of the little animal down there when it hears this hollow and muffled snorting well that is its own affair or perhaps God's affair who has decreed that bashing should be the enemy and persecutor of these earth mice and then is not fear only an intensified feeling for life if no bashing existed the little mouse would very likely be bored to death and what use or purpose would then be served by its BDI to cleverness and its art of swift mining operations factors that fairly well equalize the conditions of the battle so that the success of the party upon the offensive always remains highly problematical even improbable indeed I feel no compassion for the mouse inwardly I take sides with passion and sometimes I cannot remain content with the role of a mere spectator I get my walking stick into play whenever some firmly bedded pebble some tough cord of a root is in his way and help him to get rid of these obstacles then sometimes in the midst of his hot and furious activity he will throw up his head and bestow upon me a swift and fervent glance of gratitude and approval with munching jaws and glinting teeth he goes working his way into the stubborn fibrous ground tears away plods throws them aside sends his resonance snorts once more into the depths and then fired to action by the provocative scent sets his claws once more into furious action in the great majority of cases this is all loves labor lost with the moist earth clinging to his nose and sprinkled about his shoulders bashing makes another quick and superficial survey of the territory and then gives it up and jogs in differently on there was nothing doing bashing I remarked to him when he chances to look at me nothing doing I repeat shaking my head and raising my brows and my shoulders so as to make the message planer but it is not at all necessary to comfort him his failure does not depress him for a moment to hunt is to hunt the tidbit of game is the lease of all considerations it was take it all and all a magnificent effort he thinks in so far as he still happens to think of this violent business he has just been through for now he is already on new adventure vent adventures of which there is indeed no lack in the three zones of this domain sometimes however he happens to catch the mouse and then something occurs which never fails to strike me with horror for bashing devours his prey alive with hide and hair perhaps the unfortunate creature had not been properly advised by its instincts of self-preservation and had chosen a spot for its burrow which was too soft too unprotected and too easily excavated perhaps the little creature's tunnels had not been sunk deep enough or it had been paralyzed by fright and prevented from burrowing to deeper levels or it had perchance lost its head and crouching a few inches under the surface with its little beady eyes popping out of their sockets with horror listened to that terrible snorting coming nearer and nearer no matter the iron claws disinter it, uncover it fling it into the air into the pitiless glare of the day hapless little mouse you had good cause to be frightened and it is well that this immense and comprehensible fright has already reduced you to a kind of semi-consciousness for now the tiny rodent is to be converted into pap and pulp fashion has caught it by the tail he tosses it upon the ground twice or thrice a very faint squeak is heard the last that is out-safed to the god-forsaken little mouse and then a fashion snaps it up and it disappears between its jaws and the white gleaming teeth he stands there with legs four square and four paws braced his neck is lowered and thrust forth as he chews he catches at the tidbit again and again and throws it into the proper position in his mouth the tiny bones are heard to crack a shred of fur hangs for a moment from the corner of his mouth he draws it in and then all is over fashion then executes a kind of dance of joy and triumph circling around me as I stand leaning on my king with cold shutters rushing up and down my spine you're a fine fellow I say to him in a kind of gruesome recognition of his victory you scoundrel you murderer you cannibal these words cause him to dance still more wildly and one might say almost to laugh aloud so I proceed on my way somewhat chilled in the limbs owing to the tragedy I have just witnessed and yet inwardly enlightened by the brutal humor of life the thing after all is quite an order in nature's order a mouselette which had been ill-advised by its faulty instincts has simply been converted into pap and pulp nevertheless I am inwardly gratified when in such instances as the foregoing it did not become necessary for me to help along the natural order of things with my gain but remained a simple and passive spectator startling and even terrifying is it when some pheasant suddenly bursts from the thicket in which sleeping or waking it had hoped to remain undiscovered some a coin of concealment from which bashing's delicate and unobtrusive nose had after a little searching managed to rouse it thumping and flapping with frightened and indignant cries and cacklings the large and long-tailed bird lifts itself a wing and with all the silly heedlessness of a hen goes scattering upon some tree from which it begins to scold whilst bashing erect against the trunk marks up at the fowl stormily, savagely the meaning behind this barking is clear it says plainly enough get off get off that purge tend to business fly off so I can have my bit of fun I want to chase you the pheasant cannot apparently resist this powerful voice and off its scuds making its way with heavy flight through the branches still cackling and complaining whilst bashing full of manly silence pursues it smartly along the level ground this is sufficient for bashing's bliss his wish and his will go no farther what would have happened had he caught the bird nothing I assure you absolutely nothing I once saw him with the bird between his claws he had probably come upon it whilst it lay in deep sleep so that the clumsy thing had had no time to lift itself from the ground on that occasion that bashing had stood over the fowl and utterly bewildered victor and did not know what to do next with one wing raked wide open and with its beak drawn aside to the very end of its neck the pheasant lay in the grass and screamed screamed without a single pause a passerby might have thought that some old woman was being murdered in the bushes I hurried up bent upon preventing something horrible but I was soon convinced that there was nothing to fear bashing's all too conspicuous confusion the half curious half disgusted demean with which had a slant he looked down upon his prisoner assured me of that this old wife's reaching and dinning in his ears very likely got upon his nerves the whole affair apparently caused him more embarrassment than triumph was it in victory or in shame that he pulled a couple of feathers out of his victims dress very very cautiously with his mouth refraining from all use of his teeth and then threw them aside with an angry head he followed this tribute to his predatory instincts by taking his paw off his victim and letting it go free not out of magnanimity to be sure but simply because the situation bored him and because it really had nothing in common with the stir and gaiety of the chase never had I seen a more astonished bird it had to close its account with life and for a brief space it seemed that it no longer knew what used life for it lay in the grass as though dead it then tottered along the ground for a bit swung clumsily upon a tree appeared about to fall from it summoned its strength and then with heavily dragging feathery raiment went fluttering off into the distance it no longer squawked but kept its bill shut silently the bird flew across the park the river the forest beyond the river away away as far as its short wings could carry it it is certain that this particular pheasant never returned to this particular spot there are however a good many of his breed in our hunting grounds and bashing hounds and hunts them in an honorable sportsman like manner and according to the rules of the game the only real blood guilt that lies heavily upon his head is the devouring of the field mice and this too appears as something incidental and negligible it is the sending out the drive the pursuit which serve him as a noble end in themselves all who were able to observe him at this brilliant game would come to the same conclusion how beautiful he grows how ideal how perfect to the end and purpose it is thus that the awkward and lautish peasant lad of the hills becomes perfect picturesque when you see him standing amidst the rocks and cliffs as a hunter of the Gemshaw all that is noble genuine and fine in bashing is driven to the surface and achieves a glorious efflorescence in such hours as these that is why he pants for these hours with such intensity and why he suffers so poignantly when they pass unused bashing is no toy in Spanish he is the veritable woodsman and pathfinder such as figure heroically in books a great joy in himself in his own existence cries from every one of the Marshall masculine and striking poses which he assumes and which succeed one another with almost cinematographic rapidity there are few things which are able so to refresh my eyes as the sight of him goes sailing through the underbrush in a light feathering and then suddenly stands at gaze with one paw daintily raised and bent inward sagacious vigilant impressive with all his faculties in a radiant intensification and then amidst all this imposing statuettesness it is possible that he may give then to a sudden squeak or yell occasioned very likely by having caught his foot in something thorny but this too is all in order with the course of nature and with the perfection of the picture this cheery readiness to be splendidly simple it is capable of diminishing his dignity only as a breath dims a mirror the superbness of his carriage is restored the very next moment I look upon him my bashing and I am reminded of a time during which he lost all his pride and his gallant poise and was once more reduced to that condition of bodily and mental dejection in which we first saw him in the kitchen of that tavern in the mountains and from which he so painfully lifted himself to a faith in his own personality and in life I do not know what ailed him he began to bleed from the mouth or the nose or the ears even today I have no clear idea of his particular malady but wherever he went in those days he left marks of blood behind him in the grass of the hunting grounds in the straw of his kennel on the floor of the house when he entered it and yet there was no external injury anywhere visible at times his entire nose seemed to be covered with red paint whenever he sneezed he would send forth a spray of blood and then he would step in the drops and leave brick red of his paws wherever he went careful examinations were made but these led to no results and thus brought about increased anxieties were his lungs attacked or was he afflicted by some mysterious distemper of which we had never heard something to which his breed was subject since the strange as well as unpleasant phenomena did not cease after some days it was decided that he must go to the dogs hospital kindly but firmly bashings master imposed upon him on the day following it was about noon the leather muzzle that mask of stubborn meshes which bashing loathes above all things and of which he always seeks to rid himself by violent shakings of his head and furious rubbings of his paws he was fastened to the braided leash and thus harnessed up the avenue on the left hand side then through the local park and a suburban street into the group of buildings belonging to the high school we passed beneath the portal and across the courtyard we then entered a waiting room against the walls of which sat a number of persons all of whom like myself held a dog on a leash dogs of different breeds and sizes who regarded one another with melancholy eyes through leather muzzles there was an old and motherly dame with her fat and apoplectic pug a footman in livery with a tall and snow white Russian deer hound who emitted from time to time a dry and aristocratic cough a countryman with a dog soon apparently a case for orthopedic science since all his feet were planted upon his body in the most crooked and distorted manner and many others the attendant at this veterinary clinic admitted the patients one after the other into the adjoining consulting room at length the door to this was also open for me in bastion the professor was a man of advanced age and was clad in a long white operating coat he wore gold rims spectacles his head was crowned with gray curls and his whole manner was so amiable and conveyed such an air of wise kindness that I would immediately have entrusted myself and my family to him in any emergency whilst I gave him my account of things he smiled paternally upon his patient who sat there in front of him and turned up to him a pair of humble and trustful eyes he's got fine eyes said the doctor without allowing bastion's hybrid goatee to disturb him and declared that he was ready to make an investigation at once bastion quite helpless with astonishment was now with the aid of the attendant spread upon the table it was moving to see how the old doctor applied the stethoscope to the breast of the tiger striped a little mannequin and performed his auscultation just as I had seen it done in my case more than once he listened to the swift workings of the tiny canine heart and sounded his entire organic internal functions to the exterior here upon tucking his stethoscope under his arm he began to examine bastion's eyes with both hands his nose as well as the roof of his mouth and then ventured upon delivering a preliminary prognosis the dog said he was a trifle nervous and anemic but otherwise in good condition it might be epitaxis or hematothermosis but it might also be tracheal or pharyngeal hemorrhage this was by no means precluded for the present one would be most inclined to call it a case of hemoptysis it was necessary to keep the animal under careful observation I should do best to leave him here and then call and inquire again in the course of a week thus instructed I expressed my thanks and gave bastion a farewell pat on the shoulder I saw how the attendant led bastion across the courtyard towards the entrance to a building at the rear and how bastion with a bewildered and anxious expression on his face looked back at me and yet he should have felt flattered just as I could not help feeling flattered by hearing the professor declare him to be nervous and anemic no one who had stood at his cradle could ever have imagined that it was written in his horoscope that he was one day to be said to be suffering from two such fashionable ailments or that medical science would be called in to deliberate over him with such gravity and solicitude from that day on my walks were to me what unsalted food is to the ballot they gave me little pleasure no silent tumult of joy burst upon me when I went out under way no proud high mad helter-skelter of the chase surrounded me the park seem to me desolate I was bored I did not fail to make inquiries by telephone during the interval of waiting the answer communicated from some subordinate quarter was to the effect that the health of the patient was as good as could be expected under the circumstances circumstances which for good reasons or for bad one did not trouble to designate more clearly as soon as the day arrived on which I had taken bashing to the veterinary institution and the week was up I once more made my way to the place guided by numerous signboards with inscriptions and pointing hands liberally affixed to walls and doors I managed without going astray to negotiate the door of the clinical department which sheltered bashing in accordance with the command upon an enameled plate on the door I for board to knock and walked in. The rather large room in which I found myself gave me the impression of a wild beast house in a menagerie the atmosphere incidental to such a house also prevailed here with the exception that the odor of the menagerie seemed to be mingled here with all kinds of sweetish medicinal vapors a cloying and rather disturbing mixture cages with bars were set all around the walls and nearly all of them were occupied Resulet Barks diluted me from one of these a man evidently the keeper was busy with a rake and a shovel before the open door of one of these cages he was pleased to respond to my greeting without interrupting his work and then left me for the present entirely to my own impressions End of chapter 5 part 1