 INTRODUCTION AND FORWARD INTRODUCTION AND FORWARD INTRODUCTION This is perhaps the finest study of the mind of a dog ever written. The author is a famous Austrian novelist, a great stylist, and a man of extreme delicacy and subtlety of mind. He studies Bachchan with such insight, and describes what he learned with such art, that one feels that no one can ever again penetrate more deeply into that charming, wistful mystery, the mind of a dog, and his feeling towards mankind. FORWARD It was during the war that Thomas Mann, one of the great modern stylists, wrote this simple little idol as a refuge and relief. It was a flight from the hideous realities of the world to the deeper realities of nature, from the hate and inhumanity of man, to the devotion and lovableness of the brute. This delectable symphony of human and canine psychology, of love of nature and of pensive humor, struck the true note of universality, a document packed with greater potencies in this direction than the deliberate idealistic manifestos of the pacifists. It is for these reasons that the book has acquired a permanent charm, value, and significance not only beyond the confines of the war, and the confines of the author's own land and language, but also beyond those of the period. In every land there still exists the same friendly and primitive relation between man and the dog, brought to its fullest expression of strength and beauty in the environment of the green world, rural or suburban. Simple and unpretentious as a statement by Francis De Cici, yet full of a gentle modern sophistication and humor, this little work will bring delight and refreshment to all who seek flight from the heavy laden hour. It is, moreover, one of the most subtle and penetrating studies of the psychology of the dog that has ever been written, tender yet unsentimental, realistic and full of the detail of masterly observation and description, yet in its final form and precipitation a work of exquisite literary art. End of introduction and forward. Chapter 1 of Bashan and I by Thomas Mann. When spring, which all men agree is the fairest season of the year, comes round again and happens to do honour to its name, I love to go for half-an-hour stroll in the open air before breakfast. I take this stroll, whenever the early chorus of the birds has succeeded in rousing me but times, because I had been wise enough to terminate the preceding day at a seemingly hour, and then I go walking, hapless, in the space of the night, and then I go walking, hapless, in the spacious avenue in front of my house, and sometimes in the parks which are more distant. Before I capitulate to the day's work, I long to draw a few drafts of young morning air and to taste the joy of the pure early freshness of things. Standing on the steps which lead down from my front door, I give a whistle. This whistle consists of two tones. A base tone and a deeper quarter tone, as though I were beginning the first notes of the second phrase of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, a signal which may be regarded as equal intonal value to a name of two syllables. The very next moment, as I go on towards the garden gate, a sound is heard in the distance, a sound at first almost inaudible, then growing rapidly nearer and clearer, a sound such as might ensue if a metal tag were to be set clinking against the brass trimmings of a leather collar. Then, as I turn round, I see Bastian curving in swift career around the corner of the house, and heading for me full tilt, as though he intended to knock me over. His efforts cause him to shorten his underlip a bit, and then to three of his lower front teeth are laid bare. How splendidly they gleam in the early sun! Bastian comes straight from his kennel. This is situated behind the house under the floor of the veranda, which is supported on pillars. It is probable that after a night of diverse and unknown adventures, he had been enjoying a short morning dose in his kennel until my two syllabic whistle roused him to swift activity. This kennel, or miniature hut, is equipped with curtains made of course material, and is lined with straw. Thus it chances that a stray straw or two may be clinging to Bastian's coat, already rather ruffled up from his lying and stretching, or that one of these refractory straws may even be left sticking between his toes. This is a vision which always reminds me of the old Count Moore and Schiller's robbers, as I once saw him in a most vivid and imaginative production coming out of the hunger tower with a straw between two of his toes. Involuntarily I take up a flank position to the charging Bastian as he comes storming onward an attitude of defense for his apparent intention of lunging himself between my feet and laying me low is most amazingly deceptive. But always at the last moment and just before the collision he manages to put on the brakes and to bring himself to something which testifies to his physical as well as his mental self-control. And now, without uttering a sound, for Bastian makes but scant use of his sonorous and expressive voice, he begins to carry out a confused dance of welcome and salutation all about me. A dance consisting of rapid tramplings of prodigious waggings, waggings which are not limited to that member which is intended for their proper expression, but which demand tribute of his entire hindquarters up to his very ribs. Furthermore, an annular contraction of his body as well as darting far-flung leaps into the air also rotations about his own axis, performances which strange to say he endeavors to hide from my gaze for whenever I turn towards him he transfers them to the other side. The very moment, however, I bend down and stretch out my hand he is brought suddenly with a single leap to my side. There he stands like a statue with his shoulder blade pressing against my shin bone. He stands a slant with his strong paws braced against the ground, his face uplifted towards mine so that he peers into my eyes from below and in a reverse direction. His stillness whilst I passed his shoulder and met her words breeze forth the same concentration and emotion as the preceding delirium. He is a short-haired setter, if you will not take this designation too sternly and strictly, but with a grain of salt, for Bastion cannot really claim to be a setter such as are described in books, a setter in accordance with the most meticulous laws and decrees. He is perhaps a trifle too small for this, for he is somewhat under the size of a full-fledged setter, and then his legs are not quite straight but somewhat disposed to bend outward a condition of things which would also be scarcely in accordance with the ideal of a Simon pure breed. The slight disposition to do laps or wattles, that is to those foals of skin about the neck which are capable of lending a dog such a dignified expression, becomes him admirably, though it is certain that this feature would also be objected to as a flaw by implacable experts on breeding, for I am told that in this species of dog the skin should lie close and firm about the throat. Bastion's coloring is very beautiful. His coat is a rusty brown in the ground color, striped with black, but there are also considerable mixtures of white. These predominate on the chest, the paws, and the belly. His entire nose, which is very short, seems to be painted black. This black and rusty brown makes a pretty velvety pattern on his broad skull, as well as on his cool ear laps. One of his most edifying external features is the whorl, tuft or tassel into which the white hair on his chest twists itself and which sticks out like the spike on certain ancient armor. To be sure, one of his rather arbitrary glories, the color of his hair, might also appear a dubious point to those who rate racial laws higher than the values of personality. It is possible that the classic setter should be monochrome or decorated with shaded or toned spots and not like Bastion, with tiger-like stripes. But the most emphatic warning against classifying Bastion in any rigid or ironclad category is a certain drooping manner of the hearsuit appendages about the corners of his mouth and the underside of his jaws. Features which might not incorrectly be designated as a kind of bristling mustache and goatee. Features which, if you will rivet your eye upon him from near or far, will remind you of a griffin or an aridale terrier. But what odds, setter or pointer or terrier, Bastion is a fine and handsome animal. Look at him as he leans rigidly against my knee and looks up at me with a profound and concentrated devotion. His eye, ah, his eye, is beautiful, soft and wise, even though a trifle glassy and protuberant. The iris is a rusty brown of the same color as his coat, though it forms only a small ring in consequence of the tremendous expanse of the black mirrors of the pupils. On the outer periphery the color blends into the white of the eye, swimming in it as it were. The expression of his face, an expression of reasonable cheerfulness, proclaims the fine masculinity of his moral nature, which is reflected physically in the structure of his body. The vaulted chest, beneath whose smooth, supple and cleaning skin, the ribs show powerfully. The drawn-in haunches, the nervous, clear veined legs, the strong and well- shaped paws, all proclaim a brave heart and much virile virtue, proclaim peasant blood, yes, there can be no doubt of it, the hunter and the tracker dominate prodigiously in Bastion's education. He is a bona fide setter, if you must know, even though he may not owe his existence to some snobbish bit of blue-blooded in-breeding, and this perhaps is what I would imply by the rather confused and unrelated words which I addressed to him whilst patting him on the shoulder blade. He stands and stares, listening intently to the tone of my voice. He finds that this tone is full of accents, which decidedly approve of his existence, something which I am at pains to emphasize in my speech. And suddenly, with an upward lunge of the head, and a swift opening and shutting of his jaws, he makes a snap towards my face as though he intended to bite off my nose, a bit of pantomime, that is obviously meant to be an answer to my remarks, and which invariably throws me backward in a sudden recoil, laughing, as Bastion well knows. He intends this to be a kind of air kiss, half tenderness, half mischievousness, a maneuver which has been peculiar to him from puppyhood on. I had never observed it in the case of any of his predecessors. Moreover, he at once begs pardon for the liberty he has taken by waggings, short, abrupt bows, and an embarrassed air. And then we pass out of the garden gate into the open. We are now invested with the sound of rushing and roaring as of the sea, for my house fronts almost directly on the river Isar, rolling rapidly as in the famous lines by Campbell, and foaming over flat terraces in its bed. We are separated from it only by the rows of poplars, by a strip of fenced-in grass which is planted with young maples, and an elevated road which is fringe by great aspens, giants which conduct themselves in the same bizarre manner as willows, and snow up the whole region with their white seed-bearing fluff at the beginning of June. Upriver, towards the city I see an attachment of pioneers practicing the building of a pontoon bridge, the thudding of their heavy boots upon the boards, and the shouts of their officers echo across the stream. From the farther bank there come sounds of industrial activity for yonder, at some distance downstream from the house, there is a locomotive plant working under increased pressure in accordance with the times. The tall windows of this great brick shed glow through the darkness at all hours of the night. New and beautifully lacquered engines hurry to and fro on their trial trips. A steam siren occasionally lets its heady howl be heard. A dull, thunderous pother makes the air quiver from time to time, and from the throats of several stacks the smoke creams darkly forth. This, however, is driven away by a kindly disposed wind towards the distant tracks of woods, so that it seldom rolls across the river. Thus in the suburban semi-rural solitude of this region the whisperings of contemplative nature mingle with those of human activity. Overall lies the black-eyed freshness of the morning hour. According to the daylight saving law, the time might be half past seven when I take my walk. In reality it is half past six. With arms crossed behind my back I stroll through the tender sunshine down the popular lined avenue barred by the long shadows of the trees. From here I cannot see the river, but its broad and even flow is audible. There is a soft whispering in the trees, the penetrating, twittering, fluting, chirping, and sob-like trill of the songbirds fills the air. Under the moist blue heavens an aeroplane coming from the east, a stark mechanical bird with a roaring voice, now swelling and now softly ebbing away, steers its independent way across the land and river, and Bastion delights my eye with beautiful leaps at full length due and fro across the low fence of the grass plot to the left. Bastion is jumping because he actually knows that I take pleasure in his jumping. Often, by means of calls and knockings upon the fence, have I encouraged him in it and praised him when he had fulfilled my wishes, and now too he comes after almost every jump so that I may tell him that he is a daring and elegant fence-falter at which he also ventures a jump or two towards my face and be slobbers my thrust-out defensive arm with the slaver of his mouth. These exercises, however, he likewise intends to be a kind of gymnastic morning toilette, for he smooths his ruffled coat by means of these athletic movements and rids himself of the straws which had disfigured it. It is good, thus to go walking in the morning, the senses rejuvenated, the spirit purged by the healing bath and the long leafy in the draft of the night. You look upon the day that lies before you regarded with strong serene confidence, but you hesitate lazily to begin it. You are master of an unusually free and unburdened span of time, lying between the dream and the day, your reward for the good use you have made of your time. The illusion that you are leading a life that is constant, simple, undissipated, and benignly introspective, the illusion that you belong utterly to yourself, renders you happy. Man is disposed to regard his case or condition of the moment be this glad or troubled, peaceful or passionate for the true essential and permanent aspect of his life, and above all is infancy inclined to elevate every happy, extempore to a radiant rule and an unbreakable habit, whereas he is really condemned to live by improvisation from hand to mouth, so to speak. So drawing in deep breaths of the morning air, you believe in your freedom and in your worth, though you ought to be aware and at heart are aware that the world is holding its snares ready to entangle you in them, and that in all probability you will again be lying in bed until nine tomorrow morning because you had got into it at two the night before, heated, befogged, and full of passionate debate. Well, so be it. Today you are the man of sobriety and the do-clad early hour, the right royal lord of that mad hunter yonder who is just making another jump across the fence out of sheer joy that you are apparently content to live this day with him and not wasted upon the world you have left behind you. We follow the tree-lined avenue for about five minutes to that point where it ceases to be a road and becomes a coarse desert of gravel parallel to the course of the river. We turn our backs upon this and strike into a broad, finely-graveled street, which, like the popular lined road, is equipped with a cycle path but is still void of houses. This leads to the right and low-lying allotments of wooded land towards the declivity which bounds our river banks, bashing's field of action towards the east. We cross another street of an equally futuristic nature which runs openly between the woods and the meadows and which, farther up in the direction of the city and the tram stop, is lined with a compact mass of flats. A slanting pebble path leads us to a pretty arranged dingle, almost like a corgotton to the eye, but a void of all humanity, like the entire district at this hour. There are benches along the rounded walks, which enlarge themselves here and there, to rondoles or to prim playgrounds for the children, and to spacious plains of grass on which are growing old and well-formed trees with deep, pendant crowns, revealing only a short stretch of trunk above the grass. There are elms, beaches, limes, and silvery willows in park-like groups. I find great pleasure in this carefully groomed park, in which I could not wander more undisturbed if it were my own. It is perfect and complete. The gravel paths which curve down and around the gentle sloping lawns are even equipped with stone gutters, and there are far and pleasing glimpses between all this greenery, the architecture of a few villas which peer in from both sides and form the background. Here for a little while I stroll to and fro upon the walks, whilst bashing his body inclined in a centrifugal plane, and drunk with joy of the fetterless, unlimited space about him, executes gallipades, criss and cross, and head over heels upon the smooth, grassy surfaces. Or else with markings wherein indignation and pleasure makes and mingle, he pursues some bird which, either bewitched by fear, or out of sheer mischief, flutters along always a few inches in front of his open jaws. But no sooner do I sit down upon a bench than he comes and takes up a position on my foot. It is one of the immutable laws of his life that he will run about only when I myself am in motion, and that as soon as I sit down he too should become inactive. The necessity for this is not quite obvious, but to bashing it is as the laws of the meads and perusions. It is quaint, cozy, and amusing to feel him sitting upon my foot, and penetrating it with the feverish glow of his body. A sense of deity and sympathy fills my bosom as always when I am abandoned to him and to his idea of things. His manner of sitting is a bit peasant-like, a bit uncouth, with his shoulder blades turned outward and his paws turned in irregularly. In this position his figure appears smaller and stockier than it really is, and the white whirl of hair upon his chest is thrust into chronic prominence, but his head is thrown back in the most dignified manner and redeems his disregard for a fine pose by virtue of the intense concentrated attention it displays. It is so quiet that both of us remain absolutely still. The rushing of the water reaches us only in a subdued murmur. Under such conditions the tiny secret activities in our immediate world take on a particular importance and preoccupy the senses. The brief rustling of a lizard, the note of a bird, the burrowing of a mole in the ground. Bashin's ears are erected insofar as the muscular structure of flapping ears admits of this. He clocks his head in order to intensify his sense of hearing, and the nostrils of his moist black nose are in incessant and sensitive motion responsive to innumerable subtle reactions. He then lies down once more, being careful, however, to maintain his contact with my foot. He is lying in a profile position in the ancient well-proportioned animalistic, idle-like attitude of the Sphinx with elevated head and breast, his thighs pressed close to his body, his paws extended in front of him. He is overheated, so he opens his jaws, a maneuver which causes the concentrated cleverness of his expression to pass into the purely bestial. His eyes twinkle and narrow to mere slits, and between his white and strong triangular teeth a long rose-red tongue lolls forth. Chapter 2 of Bashin and I by Thomas Mann Chapter 2 How We Acquired Bashin It was a short, buxom-dark-eyed young woman who, with the help of her equally sturdy and dark-eyed daughter, keeps a hillside tavern not far from the Bavarian mountain resort called Taltz, who acted as go-between in the business of our making Bashin's acquaintance and then acquiring him. That is over six years ago, and he was only half a year old at the time. Anastasia, this is the name of my hostess, knew that we had been compelled to have our Percy shot. He was a scotch collie, a harmless, somewhat weak-minded aristocrat who had been visited in his old age by a painful and disfiguring skin disease, and that for over a year we had been without a faithful guardian. She therefore rang us up in the church in the hills and told us that she was boarding a dog who was sure to suit us to a dot, and that he was to be seen at any time. The children coaxed and urged, and as the curiosity of their elders was scarcely less than their own, we all sallied forth the very next afternoon to climb the heights where Anastasia's tavern lay. We found her in her roomy kitchen, which was filled with warm and succulent vapours. She gathered with her round bare forearms and her dress open at the throat, with her face rosy and shiny, preparing the evening meal for her boarders, whilst her daughter, busily but quietly, going to and fro, lent assistance. We were given a pleasant greeting, and the fact that we had not postponed our visit, but had come to attend to business without delay, was favourably commented upon. In an answer to our inquisitive glances, Rezzi, the daughter, steered us toward the kitchen table. Here she bent down, placed her hands upon her knees, and directed a few flattering and encouraging words under the table. There, tied to a table-leg with a frazzled rope, stood a creature of whom we had until then been unaware in the smoldering half-light of this kitchen. It was a vision, however, which would have induced anyone to burst into the heels of pitying laughter. There he stood, on long, not-need legs, his tail between them, his forefeet close together, his back arched. He was trembling. It is possible that he was trembling out of fear, but one had the impression that it was due to a lack of flesh and fat. For the little apparition before us was a mere skeleton, a chest with a spinal column covered with rough air, and supported on four sticks. He had drawn back his ears, a muscular manoeuvre which, of course, immediately extinguishes every gleam of intelligent cheerfulness and a dog's physiognomy. This effect on his still so childish face was so extreme that it expressed nothing but stupidity and misery, as well as an insistent plea for consideration. There was also the fact to consider that the appendage, which one might now call his goatee, was, at that time, still more developed in relation to the rest of his face, something which gave to the aggregate woe-begone-ness of his appearance a trace of sour hypochondria. We all bent down to address comforting and coaxing words to this picture of misery. Anastasia, from her post in front of the stove, mingled her remarks with the various impeding exclamations of the children and retailed information as to the personality of her border. His name, she declared in her pleasant and even voice, was for the time being Lux. He was the son of most respectable parents. She was personally acquainted with his mother, and as for his father, she had heard nothing but good of him. Lux was born on a farm at Huffling, and it was only owing to special circumstances that his owners were willing to sell him so cheaply. For that reason, they had brought him to the tavern in view of the lively traffic there. They had come in a small wagon, and Lux had gallantly trotted the whole twenty kilometers between the hind wheels. She had at once thought of us, for she knew we were looking for a good dog, and she felt certain that we could not help taking him. If we could decide upon taking him at once, it would be a fine thing all around. She was sure that we would have great joy of him, and as for him, he would no longer be alone in the world, but have a cozy birth, and she, Anastasia, would cease to worry about him. We ought, however, not to be prejudiced against him because of the faces he was now making. He was a bit cowed at end, and not sure of himself, because of the strange surroundings, but we would soon see that he had a fine pedigree that his parents were excellent stock. Yes, we objected, but it was clear, was it not, that these parents of his had not been well matched. Oh, yes they had, and both of them were a fine breed too. She, Anastasia, would guarantee that his points were all good. He was also spoiled and very moderate in his demands, something which was worth a good deal in such lean times as these. Up to the present he had supported himself entirely on potato skins. She suggested that we take him home first on probation, as it were. We were under no obligation at all. In case we did not like him, she would take him back and return the small sum we had paid. She was not afraid to say this, not afraid that we might take her at her word. For knowing us as she did, and knowing him too, both parties to the bargain, she was convinced that we should learn to love him and never think of ever giving him up again. She said a good deal more in this vain, quietly, glowingly, and amiably, the while she negotiated things on the stove with the flames at times shooting up magically in front of her. And finally she came herself and with both hands opened Luxe's mouth in order to show us his fine teeth, and for some mysterious reason also the rosy and riffled roof of his mouth. Upon our asking, with professional air, whether he had already had the mange, she replied with a slight show of impatience that she did not know, and as to his size, when he had finally stopped growing. Well, she declared with a smart promptness this would be exactly that of our deceased Percy. There was a good deal more of talk to and fro, a good deal of warm hearted encouragement on the part of Anastasia, reinforced by pleas from the children, and a good deal of half-conquered irresolution on our part. We finally begged leave to be permitted to consider the matter for a short time, and this was graciously granted us, and so we ascended to the valley, thoughtfully rehearsing and ruminating upon our impressions. That bit of four-legged misery under the table had naturally captured the hearts of the children, and we grown-ups attempted in vain to smile away their lack of taste and judgment. We too felt a tugging at our hearts and realized all too clearly that we should be hard put to it to banish the vision of the unfortunate Luxe from our memories. What was to become of him, if we turned away incontumely? Into whose, into what, hands would he fall? A terrible and mysterious figure arose in our fantasies. The knacker in his flaying house, from whose loathsome attentions we had once saved Percy by means of a few chivalrous bullets from the rifle of a gamekeeper and the honorable burial-place we had given him at the edge of our garden. If we were minded to leave Luxe to an unknown and possibly ghastly fate, we should not have been so careless as to make his acquaintance and to look upon his childish face with a goatee. But now that we were aware of his existence, a responsibility seemed laid upon us, which we could dispute only with difficulty and with forced half-hearted denials. Thus it came about that the other day following saw us once more climbing up that gentle spur of the lower Alps. It was not that we had already decided upon the acquisition of Luxe, but we saw that things being as they were, it was not likely that the matter would have any other outcome. This time we found Anastasia and her daughter sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table and drinking coffee. Between them in front of the table there was a lady who bore the preliminary name of Luxe. Sad as he is still accustomed to sit today, his shoulder blades twisted like a yokel's. His paws turned in. Under his warm leather collar there was a little nose-gay of wild flowers which decidedly augmented his appearance and lent it something festive, like that of an enterprising village youth on a Sunday or the bridegroom at a country wedding. The young mistress, who herself made a neat and pretty appearance in her peasant costume with its laced velvet bodice, had furbished him out in this fashion in order to celebrate his entry into his new home, as she put it, and mother and daughter both assured us that they had been absolutely certain that we should come again to fetch Luxe and that they knew that we should come today. Thus all further controversy and debate proved to be impossible. In fact, precluded almost before we had entered. In her own pleasant way, Anastasia thanked us for the purchase money which we handed to her and which amounted to ten marks. It was clear that she had imposed this prize upon us more in our own interests than in hers or those of the farmer folk who had Luxe to sell. That is she felt that it was necessary to give a positive valuable value to poor Luxe in our eyes. This we understood and gladly paid the tribute. Luxe was detached from his table leg, the end of the rope handed over to me, and thus we passed over the threshold of Anastasia's kitchen, our procession attended by the most friendly wishes and congratulations. It was, however, not a triumphal procession which proceeded on the hour's march towards home with our new household companion. The less so since our bridegroom soon lost his nose-gate. It is true that we read amusement and also mocking and derogatory depreciation in the glances of the people we met, the opportunities for which became multiplied as we made our way through the marketplace longitudinally. To cap everything, we soon discovered that Luxe was suffering from a disorder of the bowels, apparently a chronic one, something which forced us to make frequent halts under the cynical eyes of the downspeople. We formed a protective circle and hid his internal misery from rude eyes, and solemnly asked ourselves whether it was not, after all, the mange which was thus displaying its most sinister symptoms. But this anxiety was uncalled for, as the future proved to us, for we soon saw that we had to deal with a sound and arty constitution which has proved itself proof against plagues and extempers up to this very moment. As soon as we reached home, the servant maize were called forth so that they might make acquaintance with this new addition to the family and also deliver their humble judgment upon him. We saw that they had been prepared to express admiration, but after they had caught sight of him and read our own of oscillating and uncertain looks, they broke into rude laughter, turned their backs upon him of a rueful countenance, and made motions of rejection in his direction. Confirmed by this, in our doubt, as to whether they would fully appreciate the humanitarian nature of the small fee which Anastasia had demanded, we declared that the dog had been presented to us. And then we led Luxe to the lambda and set before him a welcoming feast composed of liberal scraps of considerable content. But his timidity caused him to reject all this. He sniffed, to be sure, at the tit-bits which he was invited to consume, but stood aside, shy and incapable, of bringing himself to the pitch of believing that all these cheese-rinds and chicken-bones were really intended for him. On the other hand he did not reject the sack which we had stuffed with seaweed and which we had made ready upon the floor for his comfort, and there he lay down with his paws tucked under him whilst we retired to the inner rooms and consulted as to the name which he was finally to bear through all the years to come. He still refused to eat on the following day, then followed a period during which he devoured indiscriminately everything that came from the radius of his jaws until he attained the necessary degree of quiet regularity and critical dignity in matters of diet. The process of his domiciling and civic avatation should be described in some bold and spacious manner. I shall not lose myself in a too meticulous portrayal of this process. It suffered an interruption through the temporary sub-passion. The children had led him into the garden and they had taken off the rope in order to give him freedom of action. During an unguarded moment he had escaped into the vastness of the outer world through the gap left between the lower part of the gate and the gravel path. His disappearance aroused grief and consternation, at least among the master and mistresses of the house, for the servants were disposed to make light of the loss of a gift dog, if they really regarded it as a loss at all. The telephone began to play tempestuously between our domain and Anastasia's mountain caravansary at which we hopefully adjudged him to be, but in vain he had not shown himself there. Two days heavy with care went by, and then Anastasia reported that she had received tidings from hopefully that Lux had feared at the parental farm an hour and a half ago. He was there, no denying it, the realism of his instinct had drawn him back to the world of potato parings, and in lonely one-day marches, facing all kinds of wind and weather, he had covered the twenty kilometers which he had once traveled between the wheels of the farm wagon, and so his former owners were obliged to hitch up this vehicle in order to deliver the fugitive home-comer into Anastasia's hands once more. Two more days rolled by, and then we again went forth to bring home the errant one. We found him fastened as before to the table-leg, unkempt and gaunt and splashed with the mud of the country roads, to be sure he gave signs of recognition and of joy as he caught sight of us, but why then had he left us? There came a time when it was clear that he had rid his mind of the charms of the farm, but had not yet fully taken root with us, so that his soul was masterless and like to a leaf that is set tumbling about by the wind. During this period it was necessary to keep a sharp eye on him whilst out walking, for he was all too prone to tear asunder unperceived the weak band of sympathy that bound us and in a grand burst of independent living to lose himself in the woods, where he would certainly have reverted to the condition of his savage forebears. Our solicitude preserved him from this sinister destiny. We strove to keep him on that high moral level which his kind had achieved at the sight of man during thousands of years of association in common, and then a radical change of residence, our removal to the city, or rather its suburbs, led it to his becoming wholly dependent upon us and entering upon an intimate connection with our household life. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Bastion and I by Thomas Mann This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. A few items regarding Bastion's character and manner of life. Part 1 A man in the valley of the Isar had told me that dogs of this species might become obnoxious, for they were always anxious to be with the master. I was therefore warned against accepting the tenacious faithfulness which Bastion soon began to display towards me as all too personal in its origin. On the other hand, this made it easier for me to discourage it a little, in so far as this may, in self-defense, have been necessary. We have to deal here with a remote and long-derived patriarchal instinct of the dog which determines him, at least so far as the more manly open-air loving breeds are concerned, to regard and honour the man, the head of the house and the family, as the master, the protector of the home, the Lord, and to find the goal and meaning of his existence in a peculiar relationship of loyal, vassal friendship, and in the maintenance of a far greater spirit of independence towards the other members of the family. It was this spirit that Bastion manifested towards me from the very beginning. His eyes followed me about with a manly trustfulness shining in them. He seemed to be asking for commands which he might fulfil, but which I chose not to give, since obedience was my point. He clung to my heels with a visible conviction that his inseparability from me was something firmly rooted in the sacred nature of things. It went without saying that in the family circle he would lie down only at my feet and never at anyone else's. It went equally without saying that in case I should separate from the others when out walking and pursue my own ways, he would join me and follow my foot steps. He also insisted upon my company when I was working and when he chanced to find the door that gave upon the garden closed, he would come vaulting in through the window with startling suddenness, whereby a good deal of gravel would come rattling in upon the floor, and then, with a sob and a sigh, he would throw himself under my desk. But there is a reverence which we pay to life and to living things which are lent and keen not to be violated even by a dog's presence when we feel the need of being alone, and it was then that Bastion always disturbed me in the most tangible fashion. He would step up to my chair, wag his tail, look at me with devouring glances, and keep up an incessant trampling. The slightest receptive or approving movement on my part would result in his climbing up on the arm rests of the chair, and gluing himself against my chest, in order to force me to laugh by the air kisses which he kept lunging in my direction. And then he would proceed to an investigation of the top of my desk, assuming, no doubt, that something edible was to be found there since I was so often caught bending over it, and then his broad and hairy paws would smear or blur the wet ink of my manuscript called sharply to account he would lie down once more and fall asleep, but no sooner was he asleep than he would begin to dream, during which he would execute the movements of running with all his four feet stretched out at the same time giving vent to a clear yet subdued ventriloquistic barking which sounded as if it came from another world, that this had a disturbing and distracting effect upon me need surprise no one, for first of all it was eerie and then it stirred and aburred into my conscience. This dream life was all too clearly an artificial substitute for the real chase, the real hunt, and was prepared for him by his nature, because in his common life with me the happiness of unrestrained movement in the open did not devolve upon him in that measure which his blood and his instincts demanded. This came home to me very strongly, but as it was not to be altered it was necessary that my moral disquietude should be dispelled by an appeal to other and higher interests. This led me to affirm that he brought a great deal of mud into the room during bad weather, and moreover that he tore the carpets with his claws. Hence as a matter of principle he was forbidden to remain in the house, or to bear me company as long as I chanced to be in the house, even though occasional exceptions were made. He understood this law at once and submitted to the unnatural prohibition since it was precisely this which expressed in itself the inscrutable will of the master and lord of the house. For this remoteness from me, which often continues, especially in the winter, for the greater part of the day, is merely a matter of being away, no actual separation or lack of connection. He is no longer with me by my orders, but then that is merely the carrying out of an order, after all a kind of negative being with me, as he would say. As for any independent life which Bashin might lead without me during these hours, that is not to be thought of. Through the glass doors of my study I see him disporting in a clumsy uncle-like manner with the children on the small patch of grass in front of the house. But constantly he comes running up to the door, and as he cannot see me through the muslin curtain which stretches across the pane, he sniffs at the crack between the door and the jam so as to assure himself of my presence, and then sits down on the steps with his back turned towards the room, mounting guard. From my writing table I can also see him moving at a thoughtful trot between the old aspens on the elevated highway yonder. But such promenades are merely a tepid pastime, devoid of pride, joy, and life. And it would be unutterably unthinkable that Bashin should take to devoting himself to the glorious pleasures of the chase upon his own account, even though no one would hinder him from doing this. And my presence, as will be shown later, would not be particularly favorable towards such an objective. He begins to live only when I go forth, though alas he cannot always be said to begin life even then. For after I leave the house the question is whether I am going to turn towards the right, that is down the avenue that leads into the open and to the solitude of our hunting grounds, or towards the left in the direction of the tram station in order to ride to the city and into the great and spacious world. It is only in the first instance that Bashin finds that there is any sense in accompanying me. At first he joined me after I had chosen the great and spacious world, regarded with vast astonishment the car as it came thundering on, and forcibly suppressing his shyness made a blind and loyal jump upon the platform directly amongst the passengers. But the storm of public indignation swept him off again, and so he resolved to go galloping alongside the roaring vehicle, which bore so little resemblance to the farm wagon between the wheels of which he had once trotted. Faithfully he kept step as long as this was possible, and his wind would no doubt have held out too. But being a son of the upland farm he was lost in the traffic of the metropolis. He got between people's legs, strange dogs made flank attacks upon him, a tumult of wild odours such as he had never before experienced, vexed and confused his senses. House corners impregnated with the essences of old adventures lured him irresistibly. He remained behind, and though he once more overtook the wagon on rails, this proved to be a wrong one, even though it exactly resembled the right one. Bashin ran wildly in the wrong direction, lost himself more and more in the disconcerting strangeness of the world. And it was more than two days before he came home, starved and limping, to that last house along the river to which his master had also been sensible enough to return in the meantime. This happened two or three times, then Bashin finally gave up accompanying me when I turned towards the left. He knows instantly what I intend to do as soon as I emerge from the doorway of the house, make a trip to the hunting grounds, or a trip to the great world. He jumps up from the doormat upon which he has been awaiting my coming forth under the protecting arch of the entrance. He jumps up, and at the same moment he sees what my intentions are. My clothing betrays these to him, the cane that I carry, also my attitude and expression, the cool and preoccupied look I give him, or the irritation and challenge in my eyes. He understands. Had long he plunges down the steps and goes dancing before me, in swift and sudden bounds and full of excitement towards the gate when my going forth seems to be certain. But when he beholds hope vanish, he subsides within himself, lays his ears close to his head, and his eyes take on that expression of shy misery which is found in contrite sinners, that look which misfortune begets in the eyes of men and also of animals. At times he is really unable to believe what he sees and knows that it is all up and that there is no use hoping for a hunt. His desires have been too intense. He repudiates the signs and symbols, chooses not to see the city walking stick, the careful acidified clothes I am wearing. He pushes through the gate with me, switches around outside in a half turn, and seeks to draw me towards the right by starting to gallop in this direction, and by turning his head towards me, forces himself to overlook the fateful no which I oppose to his efforts. He comes back when I actually do turn towards the left, accompanies me, snorting deeply, and calculating short confused high notes which seem to arise from the tremendous tension in his interior as I walk along the fence of the garden, and then he begins to jump back and forth over the pickets of the adjacent public park. These pickets are rather high, and he groans a little in his flight through the air out of fear lest he hurt himself. He makes these leaps impelled by a kind of deliberate gaiety, scornful of all hard facts, and also to bribe me to work upon my sympathies by his cleverness. For it is not yet quite impossible, however improbable it may seem, that I may nevertheless leave the city path at the end of the park. Once more turns toward the left and lead him on to liberty, even if only by way of the slightly roundabout way to the postbox. This happens it is true, but it happens only rarely. Once this hope has dissolved into empty air, Bastion settles down upon his haunches and lets me go my way. There he sits now in yokel-like, ungraceful attitude in the very middle of the road, and stares after my retreating form down the whole long vista. If I turn my head he pricks up his ears, but he does not follow me. Nor would he follow me if I should call or whistle. He knows this would all be to no purpose. Even from the very end of the avenue I can see him still sitting there, a small, dark, awkward shape in the middle of the high road. A pang goes through my heart. I mount the tram with an uneasy conscience. He has waited so long and so patiently, and who does not know what torture waiting can be? His whole life is nothing but waiting for the next walk in the open, and this waiting begins as soon as he has rested after his last run. During the night too he waits for his slumbers are distributed throughout the entire 24 hours of the sun's revolution, and many a siesta upon the smooth lawn, whilst the sun beats upon his coat, or behind the curtains of his hut, must help to shorten the door and empty spaces of the day. His nocturnal rest is therefore dismembered and without unity. He is driven by blind impulses hither and thither in the darkness through the yard and the garden. He runs from place to place and waits. He waits for the recurrent visit of the local watchman with the lantern, the heavy thud of whose footfall he accompanies against his own better knowledge, with a terrible burst of dust. He waits for the pailing of the heavens, the crowing of the cock in the nearby nursery garden, the stir of the morning wind and the trees, and for the unlocking of the kitchen entrance so that he may slip in and warm himself at the white tiled range. But I believe that the torture of this nightly vigil is mild compared to that which bastion must endure in the broad of day, particularly when the weather is warmer or summer, when the sun lures into the open and the desire for violent motion tugs in every muscle, and his master without whom, of course, there can be no real enjoyment persistently refuses to leave his seat behind the glass door. Bastion's mobile little body, through which life pulsates so swiftly and feverishly, has been, so to speak, exhausted with rest, and there can be no thought of sleep. Up he comes to the terrace in front of my door, drops himself in the gravel with a sob, which comes from the very depth of his being, and lays his head upon his paws, turning up his eyes with a martyr's expression towards heaven. This, however, lasts only a few seconds, the new position irks him at once, he feels it to be untenable. There is still one thing he can do. He may descend the steps and pay attention to a small tree, primed in the shape of a rose tree, and flanking the beds of roses, an unfortunate tree, which, owing to these visits of Bastion, dwindles away every year and must be replanted. There he stands on three legs, melancholy and contemplative, the slave of a habit, whether urged by nature or not. Then he reverts to his four legs and is no better off than before. Dumbly he gazes aloft into the branches of a group of ash trees. Two birds are flitting from bow to bow with lively twitterings. He watches feathered ones dashing away, swift as arrows, and turns aside, seeming to shrug his shoulders at so much childish elan of life. He stretches and strains as though he intended to tear himself asunder. This undertaking, however, seems to be a little too much. This undertaking, for the sake of thoroughness, he divides into two parts. First of all, he stretches his front legs, lifting his hind quarters into the air, and then exercises these by stretching his hind legs far behind him. He yawns tremendously both times, with wide red gaping jaws and up curled tongue. Well, now he has also achieved this. The performance cannot be carried on any further, and having once stretched herself according to all the rules of the game, it is inconceivable that you should immediately repeat the maneuver. Sebastian stands and gazes at the ground. Then he begins to turn himself slowly and searchingly about his own axes as though he wished to lie down and were not as yet certain as to the way in which this should be done. He changes his mind, however, and goes with lazy step to the middle of the lawn, where, with a sudden, almost convulsive movement, he hurls himself upon his back in order to cool and scour this by a lively rolling hither and thither upon the mown surface of grass. This must induce a mighty feeling of bliss, for stiffly he draws up his paws as he rolls and snaps into the air in all directions in a tumult of joy and satisfaction. All the more passionately he drains this rapture to the very dregs, in that he knows that it is purely a fleeting rapture, and that one cannot very well wallow in this fashion more than ten seconds, and that that manifest weariness which comes to one, after such honest and happy efforts, will not follow, but merely disillusion and twofold disquietude. The price paid for this delirium, this drug-like dissipation. For a moment he lies with twisted eyeballs upon his side as though he were dead. Then he rises and shakes himself. He shakes himself as only his kind is able to shake itself without having to fear a concussion of the brain. He shakes himself to a crescendo of flappings and rattlings, and his ears go slapping against his jawbone and his loose lips part from his white bare triangular teeth. And then, then he stands motionless in stark abstraction. He has reached the ultimate limit and no longer has a single idea as to what he shall do with himself. Under such circumstances as these he has recourse to something extreme. He climbs up to the terrace, approaches the glass door, scratches only once and very feebly, but this soft and timidly lifted paw, this soft, solitary scratching upon which he had resolved, after all other counsel had failed, work mightily upon me, and I arise to open the door for him in order to let him in, although I know that this can lead to no good. For he immediately begins to leap and cavort as a call to engage in manly enterprises. He pushes the carpet into a hundred folds, spreads confusion through the room, and my peace and quiet are at an end. But now, judge whether it is easy for me to sail off in the tram, after seeing Bastian wait thus and leave him sitting as a melancholy little heap of misery deep within the converging lines of the avenue of poplars. When the summer is on and the daylight is long and lingering, this misfortune may not be so overwhelming. For then there is always a good chance that at least my evening promenade will take me out into the open, so that Bastian, even though the period of waiting be arduous, may nevertheless still meet with his reward, and provided one has a certain amount of luck, be able to chase a rabbit. But in winter it is all up for this day, and Bastian must very all hope for a full twenty-four hours. For then the night will have already fallen upon the hour of my second going forth. The hunting grounds are buried in impenetrable darkness, and I must direct my steps towards regions artificially lighted upstream, through streets and public parks, and this is not suit Bastian's nature and simplicity of soul. It is true that at first he followed me even here, but soon gave this up and remained at home. It was not only that visible chances for getting about were lacking, the half-dark made him hesitant. He shied in confused alarm at man and bush. The sudden flapping of a policeman's cape caused him to jump aside with a howl, and with the courage of horror to make a sudden dash at the policeman, who was also scared half to death, and strove to even up the fright he had received by a torrent of harsh and threatening words directed at me and Bastian. And there were many other uncomfortable encounters whenever he went forth with me through the night and the mist. At propos of this policeman I will remark that there are three kinds of human beings to whom Bastian has a wholehearted aversion, namely policemen, monks, and chimney sweeps. He cannot tolerate them and will sally forth against them with furious sparks whenever they go past the house or wherever they may chance to cross his path. Moreover, winter is that season in which the world lies most vigilantly and insolently in ambush against our liberties and our virtues, and least willingly grants us a uniform and serene existence, an existence of seclusion and of quiet preoccupation. And so it happens that often the city draws me to itself a second time in one day, in the evening, when society demands its rights. Then, late at midnight, the last tram deposits me far out at its penultimate stop. Or I come jogging along on foot, long after the last tram has returned to town. I come wandering, distraught, tempered with wine, smoking, having passed the born of natural fatigue, and wrapped in a sense of false security in relation to all things mundane. And then it happens that the embodiment of my own domesticity, as it were, my very retirement, comes to meet me and salutes and welcomes me, not only without reproach or touchiness, but with extreme joy, and reintroduces me to my own fireside, all in the shape of Bastion himself. It is pitch dark, and the river goes by with a rushing sound as I turn into the popular avenue. A few steps more, and I feel that I am be capered and be switched by pause and tail, and have no clear idea of what is happening to me. Bastion, I ask of the darkness, and then the capering and the switching are intensified to the utmost. They pass into something dervish and bursak-er-like, though the silence continues. The very moment I stand still, I feel too homely and wet and muddy pause upon the lapels of my overcoat, and there are such violent snappings and lappings close to my face that I bend backwards whilst I pat those lean shoulders wet with rain or snow. Yes, the dear fellow has waited for me at the tram stop, well aware of my comings and goings and doings. He had gone forth when the hours seemed to have arrived, and waited for me at the station, waited perhaps a long and weary while in the snow or rain, and his joy at my arrival is devoid of all resentment at my cruel faithlessness, even though I had utterly neglected him to-day, and reduced all his hopes and expectances to not. So I am loud in my praise of him as I pat his shoulders, and we turn towards home. I tell him that he has acted nobly and deliver myself of momentous promises with regard to the day which is already underway. I assure him, that is to say not so much him as myself, that we shall go hunting together tomorrow without fail, no matter what the weather. Amidst resolutions such as these, my mood of universality evaporates, seriousness and sobriety slink back into my soul, and my fancy, now full of the hunting grounds and their loneliness, is seized by apperceptions of higher, secret and wondrous obligations. End of Chapter 3 Part 1 Chapter 3 of Bastion and I by Thomas Mann This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 A Few Items Regarding Bastion's Character and Manor of Life. Part 2 But I am moved to add further details to this transcript of Bastion's character so that the willing reader may see it in the nth degree of vivid versimilitude. I might perhaps proceed with more or less skill by drawing a comparison between Bastion and the lamented Percy for a contrarity more sharply defined than that which distinguished their respective natures is scarcely conceivable within one and the same species. As a basic consideration, one must remember that Bastion enjoys perfect mental health, whilst Percy, as I have already intimated, was, as is not uncommon with dogs of blue-blooded pedigrees, a perfect fool his whole life long, crazy, a very model of overbred impossibility. Mention of this has been made in a more momentous connection in a previous chapter. I would merely mention here, as a contrast, Bastion's simple and popular ways, as these manifest themselves when going for walks or when making salutations, occasions upon which the annunciation of his emotions remains within the bounds of common sense and a sound heartiness without ever touching the limits of hysteria, limits which Percy often transgressed on these occasions and that in the most disconcerting fashion. But the whole antithesis between the two creatures is by no means exhausted in this, for this antithesis is in truth a mixed and complicated one. Bastion, you must know, is somewhat crude, like the common people themselves, but like them also soft and sentimental, whilst his noble predecessor combined more delicacy and possibilities of pain with an incomparably prouder and firmer spirit, and despite his silliness, he felt that old yokel Bastion in a matter of self-discipline. It is not in defense of an aristocratic cult of values that I call attention to this mixture of opposite qualities, of coarseness and tenderness, of delicacy and resolution, but purely in the interests of life and actuality. Bastion, for example, is just the man for spending even the coldest winter nights in the open, that is, on the straw behind the coarse burlap curtain of his kennel. A slight affection of the bladder prevents him from spending seven hours uninterruptedly in a locked room without committing a nuisance, a weakness of his which causes us to lock him out during the inhospitable time of the year, setting a justifiable faith in his robust health. Only once, after a particularly icy and foggy day, did he make his appearance with moustaches and goatee miraculously frosted and iced, and with that jerky one-celabic cough peculiar to dogs, but a few hours and low he had conquered the cold and was none the worse for it. But never would we have dared to expose the silken-haired Percy to the inclemency of such a night. On the other hand Bastion stands in great fear of even the most pain, and every twinge rings from him a response, the whining complaint of which would arouse aversion if its naive, folkish quality did not disarm one and set the springs of gaiety afloat. Again and again, during his prowlings in the underwood, I have heard him squeal aloud. A thorn had chance to prick him, or a resilient branch had switched him across the face, and if he happened to have scratched his belly a little and balting over the fence or sprained his foot, I have been treated to an antique hero's chorus, a three-legged limping approach, an uncontrollable wailing and self-lamentation. And the more sympathetically I talked to him, the more insistent his clamor became, though in a quarter of an hour he would be swooping and running about as madly as before. Percy was of a different metal. Percy would grit his teeth and keep mum. He feared the rawhide whip, just as Bastian fears it, and unfortunately he got a taste of it oftener than Bastian. For, first of all, I was younger and more hot-tempered during his epic than I am at present, as secondly his heedlessness often assumed a wanton and sinister aspect which simply clamored for chastisement and urged me to it. When, driven to extremities, I would take down the whip from the nail, then it is true he would crawl under the table or bench and make himself small, but never a howl passed his lips when the blow, and perhaps yet another, came humming down upon his back. At most he gave a low moan in case the whip bit too hard, but bully Bastian begins to shriek and whimper when I merely raise my arm. In short, he is without pride or dignity, without self-restraint or self-discipline, but his activity seldom call for armed punitive intervention. The less so since I have long ago ceased to demand achievements from him, which are contrary to his nature, and insistence upon which might lead to a collision. Tricks, for instance, I never expect from him, it would well. He is no savant, no marketplace miracle monger, no poodle-like valet, no professor, but a hunter-lad full of go and vitality. I have already emphasized the fact that he is a splendid valter. If it be necessary he will balk at no obstacle. If it be too high he will simply take a running jump and climb over it, letting himself drop down on the wall. But take it, he will. But the obstacle must be a real obstacle, that is, not one under which one may run or crawl, for then Bastion would consider it sheer insanity to jump over it. Such obstacles present themselves in the shape of a wall, a ditch, a barred gate, a fence without a hole. A horizontal bar, a stick held out is no obstacle, and so of course one cannot well go over it without bringing oneself into a silly contrariness to things as well as to one's reason. Bastion refuses to do this. He refuses. Should you attempt to persuade him to jump over some sham obstacle you would finally, in your wrath, be forced to take him by the scruff of the neck and to hurl him over it, barking and yapping. He will hereupon assume a mean as though magnanimously permitted you to attain your wishes and will celebrate the result by caperings and rapturous marks. You may flatter him, beat him, but here you will encounter a resistance of sheer reason against the trick, pure and simple, which you will never be able to overcome. He is not unabliging gratifying his master means a great deal to him. He will vault over a hedge at my wish or command and not only from his own impulses and gladly will he reap his mead of praise and thanks for this. But even though you should beat him half to death he will not jump over a pole or a stick, but run under it. He will beg a hundred times for forgiveness, for consideration, for mercy, for he fears pain, fears it to the point of utter pusillanimity. But no fear and no pain can force him to do something which from a physical point of view would be mere child's play for him but for which all mental capacities are obviously lacking in him. To demand this act of him is not to confront him with the question as to whether he should or should not jump. This question is already settled for him in advance and the command simply means a clubbing. To demand the incomprehensible and therefore the impossible from him is in his eyes merely a pretext for a quarrel, for a disturbance of friendship and a chance to inflict a whipping and is in itself the very inauguration of these things. This is Bastion's conception of things as far as I can see and I doubt whether one can speak of mere ordinary stubbornness in this connection. Abdurescy may finally be broken yes it even demands to be broken but Bastion would seal his refusal to perform a trick or feat with his very life. A wonderous soul, so friendly and intimate and yet so alien in certain traits so alien that our language is incapable of doing justice to this canine logic. What relation has this for example with that terrible circumstantiality always so underving for the spectator with which the meeting, the acquaintance or the mere recognition of dog and dog fulfill themselves. My Pickaroon forays with Bastion have made me the witness of hundreds of such meetings or rather I should say forced me to be an unwilling embarrassed witness and every time as long as the scene lasted his usually transparent behavior became inscrutable to me. I found it impossible to effect a sympathetic penetration into the feelings, laws and tribal customs which formed the basis of his behavior. In reality the meetings in the open of two dogs strange to each other belongs to the most poignant, arresting and pathetic of conceivable happenings. It takes place in an atmosphere of humanry and strangeness and inhibition operates here for which there is no exacter term. The two cannot pass each other. A terrible embarrassment prevails. I need scarcely speak of cases in which the one party is locked inside some allotment behind a fence or a hedge. Even then it is not easy to see what humor the two may be in but the affair is comparatively less ticklish. They sent each other from vast distances. A fashion suddenly appears at my side as though seeking protection and gives way to whimperings which proclaim an indefinite grief and perturbation of soul. Whilst at the same time the stranger the prisoner starts a furious barking to which he seems anxious to give the character of vigilance energetically announcing itself but which, now and again, impulsively reverts to tones which resemble those of Bastion's yearning, a tearfully jealous, a distressful whining. We approach the spot, drawing nearer and nearer. The strange dog has been awaiting us behind the fence. There he stands, scolding and lamenting his impotence and makes wild leaps against the fence and pretends, no one can tell just how much he pretends, that he would infallibly tear Bastion to pieces if he could but reach him. In spite of this, Bastion, who might easily remain at my side and walk past, goes towards the fence. He must go. He would go even contrary to my orders. Not to go would violate some imminent law, far more deeply rooted, more inviolable than my own prohibition. So he walks up to the spot and, with a humble and inscrutable mean, fulfills that act of sacrifice which, as he well knows, always brings about a certain pacification and temporary reconciliation with the other dog, so long as he too performs the same act, even though it be in another spot and accompanied by low growlings and wines. Then both begin to chase wildly alongside the fence, the one on this, the other on the opposite side, dumb and always keeping parallel to each other. Both simultaneously face about at the end of the fence and race back towards the other end, turn about and race back once more. Suddenly, however, in the very middle, they remain as if rooted to the ground, no longer longitudinal to the fence, but at right angles with it and touch the branches through the rails. They stand to thus for a considerable time, and then once more resume their strange and ineffectual race, shoulder to shoulder on either side of the fence. Finally, however, my dog makes use of his liberty and races off. This is always a terrible moment for the imprisoned one. This sudden lighting out is to him something unendurable. It is villainy, unutterable to think that the other dog, his racial colleague, should really think of abandoning him. So he raves, howls, acts like one possessed, races up and down his territory, all by himself, threatens to jump over the fence and strangle the traitor and keeps on hurling the vilest curses after him. Bastion cannot help hearing all this father, and he is most disagreeably affected by it, as his guilty and diffident air proclaims. Still, he refuses to look back and jogs easily along. During this, the terrible maledictions to our rear gradually decline in intensity and slowly die away into low whinings and thin yowls. Such is the customary course of events when one of the party's concern happens to be under duress, but the strange entrarity of things reaches its apex when the long entre takes place under equal conditions and both happen to be free of foot. It is extremely unpleasant to be obliged to describe this. Really it is the most oppressive, embarrassing, and ticklish situation conceivable. However Bastion, who has just been blithely gambling about, comes to me, simply forcing himself upon my emotion with that peculiar sniffling and whining which arise from the very profounds of his nature. These sounds cannot be interpreted as the expression of any particular emotion, though I at once recognize them as an attempt to tell me of the approach of a strange dog. I peer sharply about me. No mistake, there he comes, and it is clear, even from afar, as proclaimed by his cautious and hesitant minds, that he has become conscious of the other. My own anxiety is scarcely less than that of the other two. I have premonitions that this meeting is going to be precarious and highly undesirable. Go away, I say to Bastion, what do you mean by clinging to my leg? Can't you two carry on negotiations amongst yourselves and at a distance? I try to push him away with my stick, or if it should come to a battle which, whether there be a reason for it or not, is extremely probable, it is sure to take place around my feet, and I shall become the center of a most unedifying tussle. Go away, I repeat horsely. But Bastion does not go away. He continues to cling to me, tightly and helplessly. Only for a moment does he deign to move aside to sniff at a tree, an operation as I observe out of the corner of my eye is also performing yonder. The distance between the two is now only twenty paces. The tension is fearful. The stranger has now assumed a crouching position like a tiger-cat with head thrust forward and in this highwayman-like pose he awaits Bastion's approach, apparently in order to seize him by the throat at the proper moment. This, however, does not take place, nor does Bastion appear to expect it. At all events he continues to advance straight towards the lowering one, though with palpitant hesitancy and an alert, though tragic, mean. He would do so, would in fact be forced to do so, even though I were to leave him and pursue my path, abandoning him to all the perils of the situation. No matter how upsetting the situation may be, no thought can be given to Evasion or Escape. He goes as one that is under a spell, a ban. Both are bound to each other by some secret and tenebrous tie, and neither dares belie this. We have now approached within two paces. And then the other dog gets up quietly, just as though he had never assumed the looks or attitude of a lion-couchant, and stands closely as Bastion stands, both with hang-dog look, miserable and deeply embarrassed, and both incapable of yielding an inch or of passing each other. They would like to be free of all this. They turn away their heads, squint sadly aside. Thus they shove and slink towards each other side by side, tense and full of a troubled watchfulness, flank to flank, and began to the other sides. It is during this procedure that the growlings begin. Sotovoce I call Bastion by name and warn him, for this is the fateful moment which is to decide whether a tussle and biting match is to take place, or whether I am to be spared this calamity. But the battle of bites of tooth and claw is upon us in a flash. No one could say how or why. In this moment both of them are merely a tangle, a raving chaotic tumult out of which arise horrible guttural cries as of dragons of the prime tearing each other. In order to avert a tragedy I am forced to interpose my stick, to seize Bastion by his collar or by the scruff of his neck, and to hoist him into the air with one arm, with his antagonist hanging to him and terror may be awaiting me, terror which I am then fated to feel in every nerve during the greater part of the walk. But it also happens that the entire affair may pass off quite uneventfully, and as it were, ebb away. Nevertheless, in both contingencies it is difficult to get away from the spot. For even if these twain do not happen to clamp themselves together by the bearded by a tenacious inner bond. In this case things proceed as follows. You imagine that the two dogs have already passed each other, for they are no longer hesitating flank to flank, but are aligned almost in keel formation, the one with his head turned in one direction, the other with his in the opposite direction. They do not see each other, they scarcely turn their heads, leaving the eyeball back as far as possible. Even though they are already separated by some short distance, the tenacious sinister tie still holds, and neither of them is sure whether the moment of liberation has arrived. Both would like to move off, but some inscrutable conscientious anxiety prevents them from leaving the spot. Until, at last, at last, an embassion, redeemed and with the air of having just been granted a new lease of life goes bounding off. I mention these things in order to indicate how strange an alien so close a friend may appear under certain circumstances, times when his entire nature reveals itself as something eerie and obscure. I brood upon this mystery and find no answer save a shake of the head. It is only by intuition and not by reason that I am able to identify myself with it. Otherwise, I am well acquainted with Bastion's inner world, and I am able to meet its every manifestation with sympathy and with cheerfulness to understand his play of features and his whole behavior. How well, for example, a solitary example, do I know that chirping has gone to which he has recourse whenever he has been disappointed in the results of a walk. It may be that the walk was all too short, or else barren of events in a sporting sense, as sometimes happens when I have begun my day's work a little later than usual and have gone into the open air with Bastion for a brief quarter of an hour before sitting down at my desk. He walks beside me then and yawns. It is a shameless, impolite, wide-angle yawning, the yawning of the beast, of the brute, and it is accompanied by a whistling guttural note and by a hurt and bored look. It says, as clearly as words, what nice sort of master I've got, I went and fetched him from the bridge last night, and now he goes and sits behind that glass door, and I've got to wait till he goes out and me with impatience. And then at last, when he does go out, he turns round again and starts back home before I've had a sniff at a single bit of game, a fine sort of master I, and what a mean trick to play on a hound, why I ain't fit to be called a master at all. Such are the sentiments expressed with rude clarity by these yawns of his, and there is no mistaking them. I am also aware that he is perfectly right in cherishing such sentiments, and that in his eyes I am guilty. And so my hand stills toward his shoulder for a pat or two, or I proceed to stroke the top of his skull. But he has no use for caresses under such circumstances. He refuses to acknowledge or accept them. He gives another yawn, and this still more rudely than before, if that be possible, and withdraws himself from my viatory hand. He withdraws himself, even though he is extremely fond of such caresses in accordance with his earthy, all-to-earthy sentimentality, and in contradistinction to the impervious percy. He particularly appreciates being scratched upon the throat, and he has acquired a droll but a droid energy and guiding one's hand to the proper place by means of short movements of the head. That he ignores all tendernesses at present is due not only to his disillusion and disappointment, but also to the fact that he has no interest in such fondlings when in a state of movement, that is, a state of movement coordinated with mine. He is then obsessed by a masculine mood and spirit, and scorns all feminine touches. But an immediate change takes place as soon as I sit down. Then his heart expands, and he becomes receptive to all friendly advances, and his manner of responding to them is full of rapturous and awkward insistence. Often, when I chance to be seated on my chair in the angle of the garden wall or in the grass with my back against some favorite tree, reading a book, I am happy to interrupt my literary discussion. I repeat to speak with him. And what do I find to say? Well, the conversation is usually limited to repeating his name to him, his name, those two syllables which concern him more than all others since they designate nothing but himself, and thus have an electrifying effect upon his entire being. I thus stir and fire his consciousness of his ego during him in different tones and in different degrees of emphasis to consider the fact that he is called fashion and that he is fashion. By keeping this up for a short time, I am able to throw him into a state of veritable ecstasy, a kind of drunkenness of identity, so that he begins to rotate upon his own axis and to send loud barks towards heaven, all out of sheer inner triumph and the proud compulsion of his heart. Or we amuse each other in that I flick him upon the nose while he snaps at my hand as at a fly. This forces both of us to laugh. Yes, even fashion must laugh. This laugh of his to which I must instinctively respond, is for me the most wonderful and touching thing in the world. It is unutterably moving to see how his haggard canine cheek corners of his mouth quiver and jerk to the excitement of the teasing. How the dusty mean of the dumb creature takes on the physiomic expression of human laughter, or how a troubled helpless and melancholy reflection of this appears and vanishes again to give way to the stigmata of fear and embarrassment, and then how it once more makes its rye appearance. But it is best to pause here not to involve myself deeper in detail. I must not allow my descriptions to exceed the limits which I have set. I merely wish to show my hero in all his glory and in his natural elements and in that position in life in which he is most himself and which casts the most favorable light upon his various gifts and accomplishments, that is to say, the hunt or chase. I must however, as a preliminary, make the reader more closely acquainted with the scene of these joys, our hunting grounds, my landscape along the river. For there is a strange affinity between this and the person of passion. This strip of land is as dear to me as it is to him. It is intimate and full of meaning, like himself. Therefore without further ado, or novelistic preciosity, let the following suffice in the way of description. End of chapter 3, part 2.