 Chapter 5 of Bastion and I by Thomas Mann This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5 The Chase, Part 2 My first survey of the scene, whilst the door was still open, had at once revealed to me the whereabouts of Bastion, and so I went up to him. He lay behind the bars of his cage upon some loose stuff, which must have been made of tan bark or something similar, and which added its own peculiar aroma to the odor of the animals and of the carbolic acid or lysiform. He lay there like a leopard, though a very weary, very disinterested and disappointed leopard. I was shocked by the sullen indifference with which he greeted my entrance in advance. He merely gave a feeble thump or two upon the floor of his cage with his tail, and only after I had spoken to him, did he dane to raise his head from his paws and only to drop it again almost immediately and to blink moodily to one side. A stoneware vessel full of water stood at the back of his cage. Outside, attached to the bars of his cage, there was a small wooden frame with a card, partly printed, partly handwritten, which contained an account of Bastion's name, breed, sex, and age. Beneath this, there was a fever index curve. Bastard's setter, I read, name, Bastion, male, two years old, brought in on such and such a day and month of the year to be observed for occult hemorrhages, and then followed the curve of Bastion's temperature, drawn in ink and showing no great variations. There were also details in the figures regarding the frequency of Bastion's pulse. So as temperature was being taken and even his pulse counted, nothing was lacking in this respect. It was his frame of mind which occasioned me worry. Is that one yarn? Asked the attendant who implements in hand, had in the meantime approached me. He was a stalky, round-bearded and red-cheeked man, wearing a kind of gardener's apron with brown, somewhat bloodshot eyes, the moist and honest glances of which had something astonishingly dog-like in them. I answered his question in the affirmative, referred to the order I had received to call again today to the telephone conversations I had carried on and declared that I had come to see how everything stood. The man cast a glance at the card. Yes, he said the dog was suffering from occult hemorrhages and that kind of thing always took a long time, especially if one didn't know where the hemorrhages came from. Well, wasn't that always the case? No, one didn't know anything about it as yet, but the dog was there to be observed and he was being observed. The hemorrhages were still occurring, were they? Yes, they came on now and then and they were being observed. Yes, most carefully. Has he any fever? I asked, trying to make something out of the chart hanging on the bars. No, no fever. The dog had quite a normal temperature and pulse about 90 beats in the minute. That was the normal number, that was about right. They ought not to be less, but if they were fewer then he would have to be observed still more sharply. The dog, if it wasn't for these here occult hemorrhages was really in pretty good condition. Of course, he had howled at first a full 24 hours, but after that he got used to things. Of course, he didn't eat much, but then he got very little exercise and it was also a question of how much he was accustomed to eat. What food did they give him? Soup, said the man, but as he had already remarked, the dog didn't eat much of it. He has a very depressed look, I said, affecting an expert air. Yes, and no doubt of that, said the man, but then that didn't really mean much for it wasn't very nice for a dog to have to be cooped up in that way and be observed. They were all depressed more or less, that is to say, the good-natured ones, but there were some as got mean and nasty, but he couldn't say as this here dog had. This dog of mine was a good-natured sort and wouldn't think of biting even though one were to observe him till doom's day. I agreed with what the man said, though indignation and anxiety nod at my heart. How long, I asked him, did one think it was necessary to keep bashing here? The man cast another glance at the chart. Another week, he remarked, would it be necessary to observe him properly? That's what the professor had said. I might come after another week and inquire again. That would to make two weeks and all and then I would be able to get exact information about the dog and about curing his occult hemorrhages. I went after I had made another attempt to cheer up bashing spirits by talking to him, but he was as little affected by my going away as by my coming. He seemed to be oppressed by a feeling of dark hopelessness and contempt. Since you have been capable, his attitude seemed to declare, of having me put into this cage, I expect nothing more from you. And was it not in truth enough to make him despair of all reason and justice? What had he done that this should happen to him? How came it that I not only permitted it, but even took the initial steps? I had meant to act well by him. He had begun to bleed from the nose and though this did not appear to disturb him in any way, I had nevertheless thought at fitting that veterinary science should be consulted as befitted a dog in good circumstances and I had also learned that he was rather anemic and nervous like the daughter of an Earl. How could I know that such a fate awaited him? How could I make him understand that he was having honors and attention bestowed upon him by being locked behind bars like a jaguar in the being deprived of air, sunshine and exercise and instead of being able to enjoy these blessings tormented with a thermometer day after day? Such were the questions which I put to myself as I walked home. Whilst I had up to then only missed Bastion, I now began to be afflicted with a positive anxiety for him for the welfare of his soul and was forced to contend with doubt and self-accusatory thoughts. After all, was it not mere vanity and the egoistic conceit which had induced me to take him to this canine infirmary? Besides, was it not possible that a secret wish had been the wellspring of this action, a wish to get rid of him for a time, a certain ignoble curiosity to free myself from his incessant watching and to see how it would feel to be able to turn calmly to the right or to the left without bringing about emotional cataclysms in the animated world without. Emotional tempests, whether of joy or sorrow or bitter disillusionment, it was not to be denied. Since Bastion's internment, I was enjoying a definite feeling of independence such as I had not known for a long time. When I glanced through the glass door of my study, there wasn't no one there to annoy me with the spectacle of his martyrdom of patience. No one came with paw hesitatingly raised so that, giving away to a burst of pitying laughter, I should be forced to deny my own fixed resolution and go forth earlier than I had intended. No one questioned my right to go into the house or into the park just as the spirit moved me. This was a comfortable condition of things, quieting and full of the charm of novelty. But as the accustomed incentive was lacking, I almost ceased to go walking at all. My health suffered in consequence and whilst my condition grew to be remarkably like that of Bastion in his cage, I indulged in the moral reflection that the fetters of sympathy would have been more conducive to my own comfort than the egoistic freedom for which I had panted. The second week elapsed in good time and so on the day appointed, I and the bearded attendant stood once more in front of Bastion's barred appetite. The inmate lay upon his side, stretched out in a posture of absolute indifference upon the tan bark of his cage, bits of which flecked his coat. He was staring backward at the chalky wall of his prison with eyes that were glassy and dull. He did not move. His breathing was scarcely perceptible. Only from time to time his chest, which displayed every rib, rose in a sob which he breathed forth with a soft and heart-rending tremolo of his vocal cords. His legs seemed to have grown too long. His paws huge and unshapely due to his horrible emaciation. His coat was extremely rough and disheveled and crushed and, as already remarked, soiled from wallowing in the tan bark. He paid no attention to me and it seemed that he would never again be able to summon up enough energy to take an interest in anything. The hemorrhages, said the attendant, had not quite disappeared. They still happened now and then. Their origin was not as yet quite clear, but in any case they were of a harmless nature. I was free to leave the dog there for a still longer period of observation in order to make quite sure. Or I might take him home with me where he would no doubt get rid of the evil, all in good time. I then drew out the plated leather leash from my pocket and said that I would take Bastion with me. The attendant thought that would be very sensible. He opened the barred door and we both called Bastion by name, alternately and both together, but he did not stir. He merely kept staring at the whitewashed wall opposite. He made no resistance when I thrust my arm into the cage and pulled him out by the collar. He gave a kind of convulsive flounce about and landed on his legs on the floor. There he stood with his tail between his legs, his ears retracted and a very picture of misery. I picked him up, gave the attendant a tip and left the ward of this canine hospital. I then proceeded to pay my bill in the office of the institution. This bill at 75 Finigs a day and the veterinary's fee for the first examination amounted to 12 marks, 50 Finigs. I then led Bastion home, clothed in the stern yet Swedish atmosphere of the clinic which still permeated my companion's coat. He was broken in body and in soul. Animals are more unrestrained and primitive, less subject to inhibition of all kinds and therefore in a certain sense more human in the physical expression of their moods than we. Forms and figures of speech which survive among us only in a kind of mental or moral translation or as metaphors are still true and valid when applied to them. They live up to the expression in the fullest freshest sense of the term and in this there is something wonderfully enlivening to the eye. Bastion as one would say, let his head hang or had a hang dog look. He did actually hang his head hung at low like some rack of a worn out cab horse which with abscesses on its legs and periodical shivers undilent along its sides stands at its post with a hundred weight of woe pulling its four nose swarming with flies towards the pavement. These two weeks at the veterinary high school as I have already said had reduced him to the very condition in which I had first found him in the foothills. Perhaps I ought to say that he was only the shadow of himself if this would not be an insult to the proud and joyous Bastion. The smell of the dog hospital which he had brought with him vanished in the wash trays after several ablutions with soap and hot water vanished all save a few floating and rebellious whiffs. A bath maybe said to exercise a spiritual influence maybe said to possess a symbolic significance to us human beings but no one would dare to say that the physical cleansing of poor Bastion meant the restoration of his customary spirit. I took him to the hunting grounds on the very first day of his own coming but he went slinking at my heels with silly look and walling tongue and the pheasants were jubilant over a closed season. At home he would remain lying for days as I had last seen him stretched out in his cage at the hospital and staring with glassy eyes inwardly limp and without a trace of his wholesome impatience without making a single attempt to force me to go forth for a walk. On the contrary I was forced to fetch him from his birth at the tiny door of his kennel and to spur him on and up. Even the wild and indiscriminate way in which he wolfed his food reminded me of his sordid youth and then it was a great joy to see how he found himself again how his greeting gradually took on the old warm-hearted playful impetuosity how instead of coming towards me with a sullen limp he would once more come storming upon me in swift response to my morning whistle so that he might put his forepaws on my chest and snap at my face. It was wonderful to see how the joy in his mere body and in his senses returned to him in the wide spaces and the open air and to observe those daring and picturesque positions he would assume those swift plunging pounces with drawn-up feet which he would make upon some tiny creature in the high grass. All these things came back and refreshed my eyes. Bastion began to forget that hateful incident of his internment an incident so absolutely senseless from Bastion's point of view sank into oblivion, unredeemed to be sure, unexplained by any clear understanding something which after all would have been impossible. But time swallowed it up and enveloped it even as time must heal these things where human beings are concerned and so we went on with our lives as before whilst the inexpressible things sank deeper and deeper into forgetfulness. For some weeks longer it happened that Bastion would occasionally sport an incarnateened nose then the phenomenon vanished and became a thing of the past. And so after all it mattered little whether it had been a case of epistaxis or of hemothemesis. There I have told the story of the clinic against my own better resolution. May the reader forgive this lengthy digression and return with me to the chase in the hunting grounds which we had interrupted. Ah, have you ever heard that tearful yowling with which a dog mustering his utmost forces takes up the pursuit of a rabbit in flight? That yowling in which fury and bliss longing and ecstatic despair mix and mingle. How often have I heard Bastion give vent to this? It is a grand passion, desired, sought for and deliriously enjoyed which goes ringing through the landscape and every time this wild cry comes to my ear from near or far I am given a shock of pleasant fright and the thrill goes tingling through all my limbs. Then I hurried forwards or to the left or right rejoicing that Bastion is to get his money's worth today and I strive mightily to bring the chase within my range of vision. And when this chase goes storming past me in full and furious career I stand band and tense even though the negative outcome of the venture is certain from the beginning and I look on whilst an excited smile draws taught the muscles of my face. And what of the rabbit, the timid, the tricky? He switches his ears through the air, crocks his head backwards at an angle and runs for dear life in long lunging leaps throwing his whitish yellow scut into the air. Thus he goes scratching and scutting in front of Bastion who is howling inwardly and yet the rabbit in the depths of his fearsome and flighty soul ought to know that he is in no serious danger and that he will manage to escape just as his brothers and sisters and he himself have always managed to escape. Not once in all his life has Bastion managed to catch a single rabbit and it is practically beyond the bounds of possibility that he ever should. Many dogs, as the old proverb goes bring about the death of the rabbit a clear proof that a single dog cannot manage it. For the rabbit is a master of the quick and sudden turn about a feat quite beyond the capacity of Bastion and it is this feat which decides the whole matter. It is an infallible weapon and an attribute of the animal that is born to fight with flight. A means of escape which can be applied at any moment and which it carries in its instincts in order to put it into use at precisely that moment when victory is almost within Bastion's grasp and the last Bastion is then betrayed and sold. Here they come shooting diagonally through the woods flash across the path on which I am standing and then go dashing towards the river the rabbit dumb and bearing his inherited trick in his heart Bastion yammering and high and heady tones No howling now I say or think to myself you are wasting strength strength of lung strength of breath which you ought to be saving up and concentrating so that you can grab him. I am forced to think of us because I am on Bastion's side because his passion is infectious imperatives which force me to hope fervently that he will succeed even at the peril of seeing him tear the rabbit to pieces before my eyes. Ah how he runs how beautiful it is how edifying to see a living creature unfolding all its forces in some supreme effort. My dog runs better than this rabbit his muscular system is stronger the distance between them has visibly diminished ere they are lost to sight. I leave the path and hurry through the park towards the left going in the direction of the riverbank I emerge upon the gravelly street just in time to see the mad chase come ravining on from the right the hopeful infinitely thrilling chase for Bastion is almost at the heels of the rabbit he is silent now he is running with his teeth set the close proximity of the scent urges him to the final effort one last plunge Bastion I think and would like to shout to him just one more aim well keep cool and beware of the turnabout but these thoughts have scarcely flashed through my brain then the turnabout the hook the volte facce has taken place the catastrophe is upon us my gallant dog makes the decisive forward lunge but at the self same moment there is a short jerk and with pert and limber swiftness the rabbit switches aside at a right angle to the course and Bastion goes shooting past the hind quarters of his quarry shooting straight ahead howling desperate and with all his feet stemmed as breaks so that the dust and gravel go flying by the time he has overcome his momentum flung himself right about and gained leeway in the new direction whilst I say he has done this in agony of soul and with wailings of woe the rabbit has won a considerable handicap towards the woods yes he is even lost to the eyes of his pursuer for during the convulsive application of his four breaks the pursuer could not see whether the pursuit had turned it's no use I think it may be beautiful but it is surely futile the wild pursuit vanishes in the distance of the park and in the opposite direction there ought to be more dogs five or six a whole pack of dogs there ought to be dogs to cut him off on the flank dogs to cut him off ahead dogs to drive him into a corner dogs to be in at the death and in my mind's eye in my excitement I behold a whole pack of foxhounds with lawling tongues go storming upon the rabbit in their midst I think these things and dream these dreams out of a sheer passion for the chase for what has the rabbit done to me that I should wish him to meet with so terrible an end? it is true that fashion is closer to me than the long-eared one and it is quite in order that I should share his feelings and accompany him with my good wishes for his success but then the rabbit is also a warm furry breathing bid of our common life he has played his trick upon my hunting dog not out of malice but out of the urgent wish to be able to nibble soft tree shoots a little longer and to bring forth young nevertheless my thoughts continue to weave themselves about the matter and about as for example it would of course be quite another matter if this and I lift and regard the walking stick in my hand if this cane here were not so useless and benign an instrument but a thing of more serious construction and constitution pregnant with lightning and operative at a distance by means of which I could come to the assistance of the gallant fashion and hold up the rabbit so that he would remain a flop upon the spot after doing a fine a solto mortale then there would be no need of other hounds and the fashion would have done his duty if he had merely brought me the rabbit the way things shape themselves however it is fashion who sometimes goes tumbling head over heels when he tries to meet and counter that damnable quick turn and sometimes it is also the rabbit who does the somersault though this is a mere trifle to the latter something quite in order and inconsequential and certainly by no means identified with any feeling of abject misery for bashing however it means a severe concussion which might some time or other lead to his breaking his neck often a rabbit chase comes to an end in a few minutes that is to say when the rabbit succeeds after a few hot lengths of running in ducking into the underbrush and hiding or in throwing his pursuer off his trail by means of faints and quick double turns so that the four-legged hunter sorely puzzled and uncertain jumps hither and thither whilst I shout bloodthirsty advice to him and with frantic gesticulations of might gain try to point out to him the direction in which I saw the rabbit escape sometimes the hunt extends itself throughout the length and breadth of the landscape so that bashing's voice wildly yowling sounds like a hunting horn ringing through the regions from afar now nearer and now farther away whilst I awaiting his return calmly go my ways and great heavens in what a condition he does return foam drips from his jaws his thighs are lax and hollow his ribs flutter his tongue hangs long and loose from his maw inordinately gaping something which causes his drunken and swimming eyes to appear distorted and slant Mongolian the while his breathing goes like a steam engine lie down bashing I command him take a rest or you'll have apoplexy of the lungs I halt so as to give him time to recover in winter when there is a cold frost and I see him pumping the icy air with horse pantings into his overheated interior and then puffing it forth in the form of white steam or else swallowing whole handfuls of snow in order to cool his thirst I grow quite terrified nevertheless whilst he lies there gazing up at me with confused eye now and again snapping up his driblings I cannot refrain from poking a bit of fun at him because of the unalterable futility of his efforts bashing wears that rabbit aren't you going to fetch me that rabbit then he begins to thump the ground with his tail and interrupts for a moment whilst I'm speaking the spasmodic pumping machinery of his sides he snaps in embarrassment for he does not know that my ridicule is intended merely to conceal from him and from myself an accretion of shame and guilty conscience because I on my part was not man enough to hold up the rabbit as is the duty of a real master he is unaware of all this and so it is easy for me to make fun and to put the matter as though he were in some way to blame strange things sometimes occur during these hunts I shall never forget how the rabbit once ran into my very arms it happened along the river or rather upon the small and clayy bank above it bashing was in full cry after his quarry and I was approaching the zone of the river bank from the direction of the wood I broke through the thistle stalks along the gravel slope and sprang down the grass covered declivity onto the path at the very moment that the rabbit with bashing some 15 paces behind him was coming towards me and long bounds from the direction of the ferryman's house towards which I was turning money came running along the middle of the path straight towards me my first hunter-like and hostile impulse was to take advantage of the situation and to bar his way driving him if possible back into the jaws of his pursuer who came on helping in poignant joy there I stood as though rooted to the spot and the slave that I was to the fever of the chase I simply balanced the stick in my hand whilst the rabbit came nearer and nearer I knew that a rabbit's vision is very poor that alone of the sense of hearing and the sense of smell are able to convey warnings to him he might therefore possibly mistake me for a tree as I stood there it was my plan and my lively desire that he should do this and so succumbed to a fatal error the consequences of which were not quite clear to me but of which I nevertheless thought to make use whether the rabbit really made such an error during the course of his advance is not quite clear I believe that he noticed me only at the very last moment for what he did was so unexpected that all my schemes and deliberations were at once reduced to nothing and a deep sudden startling change took place in my state of mind was the little animal beside itself with mortal fear enough it leaped upon me just like a little dog ran up my overcoat with this tiny paws and still upright struggled to bore itself into the depths of my chest the terrible chest of the master of the chase with upraised arms and my body bent backwards I stood there and looked down upon the rabbit who on his part looked up at me we stood thus for only a second perhaps it was only the fraction of a second but thus ended there we stood I saw him with such strange disconcerting minuteness saw his long ears of which one stood upright whilst the other hung down saw his great clear pro-tuberant short-sighted eyes his rough lip and the long hairs of his whiskers the white on his breast and the little paws I felt or seemed to feel the pounding of his harried little heart it was very strange to see him thus plainly and to have him so close to me the little familiar spirit of the place the secret throbbing heart of the landscape this ever evasive creature which I had seen only for a few brief moments in its meadows and downs as it went scudding comically away and now in the extremity of its need and helplessness it was nestling up against me and clutching my coat clutching at the very breast of a man not the man it seemed to me who was Bastion's master but the breast of one who was also the master of the rabbit and of Bastion and of Bastion's master this lasted as I have said only a brief moment or so and then the rabbit had dropped off had once more taken to his unequal legs and jumped down the escarpment to the left whilst Bastion had now arrived in his place Bastion with horrible hue and cry and with all the heady tones of his frenetic hunting owls all of which suffered swift interruption on his arrival for a well-aimed blow of the stick delivered with malice pre-pence by the master of the rabbit sent him yelping with smarting hindquarters down the slope to the right of which he was forced to climb with a limp before he was once more able after considerable delay to take up the trail of the no longer visible quarry end of chapter five part two chapter five of the Bastion and I by Thomas Mann this Liberbox recording is in the public domain the chase part three and then finally there is the hunt after water foul to which I must also dedicate a few lines this hunt can take place only during winter in the colder part of the spring before the birds migrate from their quarters near the city to the lakes the suburbs here serving them merely as a kind of emergency halting place in obedience to the demands of the stomach this hunt is less exciting than the rabbit hunt is likely to be but like this it has something that is attractive both to hunter and to hound or rather to the hunter and his master the master is captivated by these forays after the wild foul chiefly in consideration of the landscape since the friendly nearness of the water is connected with them but also because it diverts and edifies him to study the form of life practiced by these swimmers and flyers thus emerging a little out of his own rut and experimenting with theirs the attitude towards life assumed by the docks is more amiable more bourgeois and more comfortable than that of the gulls nearly always they appear to be full and contented little troubled by the cares of subsistence no doubt because they always chance to find what they see and because the table so to speak is always set for them for as I observe they eat nearly everything worms snails insects or even green ooze from the water and enjoy vast stretches of leisure which enable them to sit and sun themselves on the stones with bills tucked comfortably under one wing for a little siesta or preening and oiling of their plumage so that it does not come into contact with the water at all but rather causes this to pearl off from the surface in a string of nervous drops or you may catch them going for a mere pleasure ride or swim upon the racing stream lifting their pointed tails into the air and turning and twisting and shrugging their shoulders in bland self-satisfaction but in the nature of the gulls there is something wild and hectic dreary and sad and monotonous they are invested with an air of desperate and hungry depredation almost all day long they go crying around the waterfall in beveys and in slant transfers flight or a curving about the place where the brownish waters pour from the mouths of the great pipes into the stream for the swift darting plunge for fish which some of these gulls practice is scarcely sufficiently rich in results to still their raw and raging mass hunger and the tip bits with which they are frequently forced to content themselves as they swoop above the overflows and carry away mysterious fragments in their bent peaks must sometimes be far from appetizing they do not like the banks of the river but when the water is low they stand and huddle in close crowds upon the rocks which are then free of water and these they cover with their white feathery masses just as the crags and islets of the northern seas squirm and writhe with untold numbers of nesting iderducks when bashing barking from the shore across the intervening flood threatens their security then it is a fine sight to see them all rise simultaneously into the air with loud cries and cause but there is no need of their feeling themselves menaced there is no real danger for quite apart from his inborn aversion to water bashing harbors of very wise and entirely justifiable fear of the current of the river he knows that his strength could not possibly cope with this and that it would infallibly bear him off God no swither or to what distances presumably as far as the Danube where he would arrive however in an extremely disfigured condition this is a contingency of which we have already had ocular evidence in the shape of bloated cadavers of cats which were enroute to those faroff parts he will never venture into the river farther than the first submerged stones that line the bank even though the fierce and ecstatic lust of the chase should be tugging at his limbs even though he should wear a mean as though he were about to plunge himself into the waves yes the very next moment full confidence however may be placed in his caution which remains active and vigilant beneath all this external show of passionate abandon there is a distinct purpose behind all these mimetic concepts these spectacular preparations for action they are empty threats which in the last analysis are not really dictated by passion at all but are calculated with the utmost sang foie merely to intimidate the webfooted foe but the gulls true to their names are far too poorly equipped in the head and heart to be capable of mocking his efforts passion cannot get at them but he can send his works against them send his voice thundering across the water this voice has the effect of something material an onset which flutters them and it cows them and which they are unable to resist for long true they make the attempt to do so they remain seated but an uneasy movement goes through the writhing mass they turn their heads ever and anon one of them will lift its wings upon a chance until suddenly the whole crew like a whitish cloud from the core of which come bitter and fatalistic cause goes rustling and rushing up into the air with bashing jumping about hither and thither on the stones in order to scare and scatter them and keep them in motion for that is the thing to do to keep them in motion they must not be permitted to rest they must fly upstream and downstream so that he may chase them bashing go scouring along the banks nosing along their entire length for everywhere there are ducks at rest with bills tucked cunningly and comfortably under their wings and wherever he chances to go they fly up in front of his nose so that his progress is like a gay sweeping clean and whirling up of the entire strip of sand they glide and plump into the water which buoys and turns them about in security or they go flying over his head with bills and necks outstretched whilst bashing running along the bank measures the power of his legs with that of their penions he is ravished and grateful if they will but fly if they will only deign to give him an opportunity for a bit of glorious coursing up and down the river they are no doubt aware of these wishes of his and are even capable of utilizing them for their own benefit I saw a mother duck with her brood it was in the spring and the river was already void of birds this one alone had remained behind with her young who were not yet able to fly and she was guarding them and a slime covered puddle which had been left by the last floodwater and which filled a depression in the dry bed of the stream it was there that bashing chanced upon them I observed the scene from the upper way he sprang into the puddle sprang into it with markings and its savage truculent motions and ducks in a most deplorable fashion to be sure he did no harm to any member of this family but he frightened them all beyond expression and the ducklings flapping their stumps of wings plunged wildly in all directions the mother duck however was seized by that maternal heroism which will hurl itself blindly and full of mad courage even against the most formidable foe in order to protect the brood and which frequently knows foe by a delirious courage which apparently exceeds the limits of nature with every feather ruffled and with bill horribly agape the bird fluttered repeatedly against Bastion's face in attack after attack making one heroic offensive after another against him hissing portentously the while and actually her wild and uncompromising aspect brought about a confused retreat on the part of the enemy without however inducing him to quit the field of battle for good for with a great hullabaloo on clamor he still persisted in advancing anew the duck mother thereupon changed her tactics and chose the part of wisdom since heroism had shown itself to be impractical it is more than likely that she knew Bastion from some previous experience was fully acquainted with his weaknesses and childish desires so she abandoned her little ones that is she apparently abandoned them she took refuge in the cunning flew up flew across the river pursued by Bastion pursued as was his firm belief whilst in reality it was she who led him led him by the fools tether of his dominant passion she flew with the stream then against it farther and farther whilst Bastion raced beside her so far downstream and away from the puddle with the ducklings that I lost side of both the duck and the dog as I walked on later on my good dolt came back to me quite winded and panting furiously but when we again passed that puddle it was empty of its erstwhile tenets such were the tactics of the mother duck and the Bastion was sincerely grateful but he abominates those ducks who in the sleek placidity of their bourgeois like existence refused to serve him as objects of the hunt and who whenever he comes tearing along simply let themselves slip into the water from the stones along the banks and then in ignoble security rocked themselves before his nose not impressed in the least by his mighty voice and not in the least deceived like the nervous gulls by his theatrical lunges towards the river there we stand on the stones side by side Bastion and I and there two paces from us in insolent security the duck sways lightly upon the waves with her bill pressed in pretentious dignity against her breast and though stormed at by Bastion's maddened voice absolutely undisturbed in her serenity soberness and common sense she keeps rowing against the current so that she remains approximately in about the same spot for all that she has drawn a little downstream only a yard or two from her there is a whirlpool a beautiful foaming cascade towards which she turns her conceited and upstanding tail Bastion barks and braces his forefeet against the stones and inwardly I bark with him for I cannot forbear sharing some of his feelings of hatred against the duck and her cool insolent matter of factness and so I hope that evil may overtake her pay at least some attention at her and not to the rapids so that you may be drawn by accident into the whirlpool and thus expose yourself to danger and discomfort here before our eyes but this angry hope of mine is also doomed to remain unfulfilled for precisely at the moment when she nears the edge of the cascade in the stream the duck flutters a bit and flies a few yards upstream and sits down in the water once more that shameless hussy I am unable to think of the vexation with which we both contemplate the duck under the circumstances without recalling to mine an adventure which I shall recount at the close it was attended by a certain satisfaction for me and my companion and yet there was something painful in it something disturbing and confusing yes it even led to a temporary chill in the relationship between passion and myself and could I have foreseen this I would rather have avoided the spot where it was a good distance out and downstream and beyond the ferryman's house there where the wilderness of the riverbank approaches close to the upper road along the river we were going along this I with a leisurely step and to bash in a trifle in front of me with an easy and a somewhat lopsided lope he had been chasing a rabbit or if you prefer had permitted himself to be chased by and it was now graciously minded to pay a little attention to me so that his master might not feel utterly neglected a small bevy of ducks with extended necks and in triangular formation flew over the river they were flying pretty high and closer to the other bank than two hours so that we could not consider them as game at all so far as hunting purposes were concerned they flew in the direction in which we were walking without regarding us aware of our presence and we too merely cast a desultory and intentionally indifferent glance at them it then came to pass that on the farther bank which was of the same steepness as our own a man came beating out of the bushes as soon as he had stepped upon the scene of action he assumed a pose which caused both of us bashing as well as myself to halt and to turn round and face him rather tall fine figure of a man somewhat rough and ready so far as his externals were concerned he had drooping moustaches and wore patees a small green alpine hat which was well pulled over his forehead wide loose trousers which were made of a kind of hard velveteen or so called corderoy or Manchester cloth and a jacket to match this was be hung with all kinds of belts and leather contraptions for he carried a rucksack strapped to his back and a gun which also hung from a strap or it would be more proper to say that he had carried this for scarcely had he come into view that he drew the weapon towards him and leaning his cheek a slant against the butt raised the barrel obliquely towards the heavens he had set one be putteed leg in front of the other the barrel rested in the hollow of his extended left hand with the elbow bent under this the other elbow however that of the right arm the hand of which rested on the trigger was extended very sharply towards the side it revealed his face with squinting aiming I much foreshortened and boldly exposed to the clear light of the skies there was something most decidedly operatic in this apparition of the man as he stood reared against the skies amidst this open air scenery of bushes river and sky our intense and respectful regard however endured for only a moment then there came the dull flat report from over yonder something which I had attended with great inner tension and which therefore caused me to start a tiny jet of light pale in the broad of day blazed forth at the same time and was followed by a tiny cloudlet of smoke that puffed after it the man then inclined himself forward and once more his attitude and his action were reminiscent of the opera and with the gun hanging from the strap which he clutched in his right fist he raised his face towards the sky something was going on up there whether we too were now staring there was a brief confused scattering the triangle of ducks flew apart a wild panic stricken fluttering ensued as when a puff of wind that sets loose sails a snapping an attempt at a glide as of an airplane followed then suddenly the body which had been struck became a mere inanimate object and fell swift as a stone upon the surface of the water near the opposite bank this was only the first half of the proceedings but I must interrupt my narrative here in order to turn the living light of my memory upon bashing there are a number of coined phrases and ready-made figures of speech which I might use describing his behavior current terms terms which in most cases would be both valid and appropriate I might say for example that he was thunderstruck but this term does not please me and I do not wish to use it big words the big well-worn words are not very suitable for expressing the extraordinary one may best achieve this by intensifying the small words and forcing them to ascend to the very at me of their meaning so I will say no more than that bashing started at the report of the gun and the accompanying phenomena and that this starting was the same as that which is peculiar to him when confronted with something striking and that all this was well-known to me though it was now elevated to the nth degree it was a start which flung his whole body backward wobbling to right and left a start which jerk his head in rash recoil against his chest and which in recovering himself almost tore his head from his shoulders a start which seemed to cry from every fiber of his being what what what was that hold in the name of a hundred thousand devils how was that he listened to he regarded everything with a kind of indignation such as extremes of surprise are apt to cause drank everything in as it were and there in his heart of hearts these things were already existing there and some form or other they had always been no matter what astounding novelties may have been sprung upon him here yes whenever these things came upon him causing him to leap to the right and the left and turn himself half round his own axis it always seemed to me as though he were attempting to catch a glimpse of himself and inquiring what am I who am I am I really I at the very moment in which the corpse of the duck fell upon the water bashing that made a leap forward towards the edge of the escarpment as though he wished to go down into the river bed and plunge himself into the water but then he thought of the current clamped the brakes upon this sudden impulse grew ashamed and once more confined his efforts to staring I regarded him with anxiety after the fall of the duck I was of the opinion that we had seen enough and proposed that we should go on but he had already sat himself down upon his haunches his face with ears erected to their utmost extent was addressed towards the other bank and when I said to him well bashing shall we go on he merely gave a flirt of his head in my direction as though one should say not without a certain rudeness please do not disturb me and kept on looking and so I gave in crossed my feet leaned on my stick and also went on watching to see what might now take place the duck one of those very ducks which had so often an impudent security rocked itself on the water before our very noses was driving on the water a wreck no one could tell which part of the bird was bow and which stern the river is quieter here the fall is not so great as farther upstream nevertheless the carcass of the duck had been seized at once by the current world about its axis and was beginning to float off it was clear that if our good man was not merely concerned with having made a good pot shot and a killing but also with a more practical purpose then he would be obliged to put his best leg forward this he did without losing a moment everything happened with immense rapidity no sooner had the duck landed in the water than the man leaped scrambled almost tumbled down the escarpment he carried the shotgun in his outstretched arm and once more I was reminded of the opera and the romantic novel as he went leaping down over the stage like setting of the stone slope like some robber chieftain or smuggler bold in a melodrama with careful calculation he kept a little to the right in an oblique direction for the drifting duck was being carried away from him and it was necessary to head it off this he actually succeeded in doing with the butt of his double barrel gun extending this towards his kill with his body bent far forward and with his feet in the water he managed to halt it and it's downward course and then carefully and not without much effort he steered and piloted did against the stones with the guiding gun butt and so drew it ashore the job was done and the man drew a breath of relief he laid his gun upon the bank beside him pulled his rucksack from his shoulder stuffed his booty into it drew the sack shot by its cords slung it upon his shoulders then supporting himself on his gun as on a cane and thus pleasantly laden he climbed complacently up the loose stone of the slope and made for the cover well he's got his bitter roast game for tomorrow I thought approvingly yet not without envy come bashing let's go there's really nothing more to see but bashing simply stood up and turned himself once around himself then sat down and stared after the man even after he had already left the scene of action and vanished among the bushes I did not again ask him to come along I refuse to do this as a matter of principle he knew where we were living and if he thought it reasonable to sit here still longer and stare after everything was over and there was absolutely nothing more to see well that was his own affair it was a long way back and I for my part was going to return and then at last he gave ear and came during the succeedingly painful journey homeward bashing refrain from all further inclination to indulge in the sport of the chase he did not canter on ahead of me in a diagonal direction as was his want when he was not in the right mood for trailing and beating up the game he walked a little behind me keeping a regular step and drew down his mouth in a way which I would be bound to notice when I turned around to look at him this might have been tolerated and I was not going to let it ruffle or upset me on the contrary I was disposed to laugh and shrug my shoulders but then every 30 or 50 steps he began to yawn and it was this which embittered me it was this shameless wide angle rudely bored yawning accompanied by a little piping guttural sound which clearly said my God talk about a master why he isn't a master at all he's simply rotten this insulting sound nearly always disturbs me but this time it was sufficient to shake our friendship to its very foundations go I said to go away go to your master the man with the thunder club and join up with him he does not appear to own a dog and so he might give you a job he may need you and that business of his he is of course only a plain man and corduroy's and no particular class but in your eyes no doubt he is the finest gentleman in the world a real master for you so I honestly advise you to go and make up to him now that he has put a flea in your ear to keep the other's company yes I went to such extremes as this we need not inquire whether he has a hunting permit or not and it's quite possible that you might get into difficulties when you happen to be caught some fine day whilst engaged in your shady work but then that is your business and the advice which I have given you is as I have already remarked most sincere that devil take your hunting I went on did you ever bring me a single rabbit for our table out of all those which I permitted you to chase is it my fault that you don't know how to do a quick turn and go pounding into the gravel with your nose like a fool at the very moment you should be showing your agility or have you ever brought me a pheasant which would have been just as welcome in these lean times and now you are yawning go to that fellow with the patees I say you will soon see whether he is the sort of man who will scratch your throat and get you to laugh I'd be surprised if he can laugh himself at best I am sure his laugh must be a very coarse one perhaps you are under the impression that he would call in the aid of science and permit you to be observed in case you decide to have occult amrages perhaps you are under the delusion that once you were his dog you would also have a chance to be nervous and anemic if so you had better go to him and yet it is possible that you are making a great mistake with regard to the degree of respect which this kind of master would display towards you there are for example certain fine points and differences for which such gunbearing persons have a very sharp nose natural merits or demerits or to make my allusions clearer very awkward questions concerning pedigree and breed if I must express myself with superlative clearness then I must say that these are things which not everybody is disposed to ignore with that delicacy and humanity to which you have been accustomed and should your husky master upon your first difference of opinion with him reproach you with that goatee of yours and call you an unpleasant name then think of me and of the words which I am now addressing to you it was in such bitter irony that I spoke to Bastion as he slunk behind me on the way home and even though I spoke inwardly and did not permit my words to be heard so as not to appear eccentric I am nevertheless convinced that he understood perfectly well what I meant and that he was capable of following at least the mainline of my argument in short that the quarrel was serious and having reached home I purposely let the garden gate fall to close behind me and he was forced to run and clamber over the fence without casting a single glance behind me I went into the house and heard him give a squeak as a sign that he had prodded his belly on one of the pointed pickets something which merely produced a mocking shrug of the shoulders on my part but all this happened long ago more than half a year ago and the same thing occurred as in the matter of the clinical interim time and oblivion have buried it deep and upon the floating surface of these which constitute the base of all wife we continue to live on Bastion to be sure appeared to be rather contemplative for a few days but he has long ago recovered his full and undiminished joy in hunting mice, pheasants, rabbits and waterfowl and our return home means to him merely attendance upon the next going forth whenever I reach my front door I turn round and face him once more and that is the signal for him to come jumping up the steps in two great leaps in order that he may raise himself on his hind legs and stem his fore paws against the front door so that I can pat his shoulder and say goodbye tomorrow Bastion I remark will go out again in case I don't have to make a trip into the big outside world and then I hurry into the house to rid myself of my obnailed boots for the soup has been served and stands smoking on the table end of chapter 5 part 3 end of Bastion and I by Thomas Mann translated by Herman George Schoepfer