the chase
the region is rich in game, and so we go a-hunting it. that is to say, bashan goes hunting and i look on. in this wise we hunt: rabbits, quail, field-mice, moles, ducks and gulls. but we do not by any means fight shy of bigger game; we also track pheasants and even deer—whenever such first-rate quarry—as sometimes happens—strays into our hunting-grounds. this always furnishes an exciting spectacle—when the long-legged, lightly-built animal, the furtive deer, all yellow against the snow and with its white-tufted hindquarters bobbing, goes flying before little old bashan who is straining every nerve. i follow the course of events with the greatest interest and tension. it is not as if anything were ever to result from this chase, for that has never happened and never will happen. but the lack of tangible results does not in the least diminish either bashan’s joy or his passion for hunting, nor does it in any way minimise my pleasure. we pursue the chase for its own sake and not for the sake of prey or booty or any other utilitarian purpose.
bashan, as i have said, is the active member. he does not expect any save a moral support from me, since no personal and immediate experience has taught him a more pronounced and practical manner of co-operation. i lay particular stress upon the words “personal” and “immediate,” for it is more than probable that his ancestors, in so far as they belonged to the tribe of setters, were familiar with more actual methods of hunting. on occasion i have asked myself whether some memory of this might not survive in him and whether this could not be aroused by some accidental impulse. it is certain that on bashan’s plane of existence the life of the individual is less differentiated from the species than in our case. birth and death signify a far less profound vacillation of the balance of being; perhaps the inheritances of the blood are more perfectly preserved, so that it would merely be an apparent contradiction to speak of inborn experiences, unconscious memories which, once aroused, would be able to confuse the creature in the matter of its own personal experiences and cause it to be dissatisfied with these. i once courted this thought, but then rid myself of it, just as bashan had obviously rid himself of the thoughts of the brutal incident of which he had been a witness and which gives me occasion for these deliberations.
when i go forth to hunt with him, it usually chances to be noon—half-past eleven or twelve o’clock—sometimes, especially on very warm summer days, it may even be late afternoon, say six o’clock or later. it may be that this is even our second going-out in any case my mental and spiritual atmosphere is quite different from what it was during our first careless stroll in the morning. the virgin freshness of the early hour has vanished long since. i have worried, and have struggled in the interval with this or that. i have been forced to grit my teeth and overcome one difficulty after the other—i have had a tussle with some person or other. at the same time i have been obliged to keep some diffuse and complicated matter firmly in mind and my head is weary, especially after a successful mastery of the problem. hence this going a-hunting with bashan distracts and enlivens me. it infuses me with new life, putting me into condition for the rest of the day and for triumph over the tasks that are still lowering in my path. it is really largely the impulse of gratitude which forces me to describe these hunting trips.
things, to be sure, are not so neatly arranged that bashan and i could go forth in pursuit of any one special species of the game which i have mentioned—that we should, for instance, specialise on rabbits or ducks. no, on the contrary, we hunt everything that chances to cross our path—i had almost said that chances to come within range of our guns. we need not go very far in order to strike game. the hunt may literally begin immediately outside the garden gate, for there are great numbers of field-mice and moles in the hollows of the meadows close behind the house. to be exact and sportsmanlike—i am aware that these fur-bearing animals cannot, of course, be regarded as game in the strict sense of the term. but their secret, subterranean habits, especially the nimble craftiness of the mice, which are not blind o’ day like their excavating and tunnelling brethren, and often go gambolling upon the surface, and then when danger approaches go flicking into the little black burrow without one’s being able to distinguish their legs or their movements—these things work tremendously upon bashan’s hunting instincts. these are also the only animals of the wild which occasionally become his prey—a field-mouse, a mole—these are titbits which are not to be despised in such lean and meagre days as these—when one often finds nothing more palatable than a thick barley soup in the stoneware bowl beside one’s kennel.
i have scarcely taken a dozen steps with my cane along the poplar avenue, and bashan has, as an overture, scarcely got through with his preliminary leaps and lunges, than he is seen to be performing the most extraordinary capricoles towards the right. he is already gripped by the passion for the chase, and is blind and deaf to all things save the exciting but hidden goings-on of the living things about him. with every nerve taut and tense, waving his tail, carefully lifting his feet, he goes slinking through the grass, sometimes pausing in mid-step, with one foreleg and one hindleg in air, then peering with cocked head into the hollows, an action which causes the flaps of his erected ears to fall forward on both sides of his eyes. and then raising both forepaws, he will suddenly jump forward and will stare with dumbfounded expression at a spot where but a moment before there was something and where now there is nothing. and then he begins to dig. . . .
i feel a strong desire to go to him and await the result, but then we should never be able to leave the spot bashan would expend his entire stock of joy-in-the-chase right here in this meadow, and this stock is meant to last him for the entire day. and so i walk on—untroubled by any thought that he might not be able to overtake me—even though he should remain behind for a long time without having observed in what direction i had gone. to him my track and trail are as clear as that of a bit of game. should he have lost sight of me, he is sure, with head lowered between his forepaws, to come tearing along this trail. i hear the clinking of his brass license-tag, his firm gallop behind me—and then he goes shooting past me and turns with wagging tail once more to report himself on duty.
out yonder, however, in the woods or in the broad meadows alongside the brook, i often halt and watch when i catch him digging for a mouse, even though it should be late and i in danger of exceeding the time i have apportioned for my walk. the passionate devotion with which he goes to work is so fascinating to observe, his profound enthusiasm is so contagious, that i cannot but wish him success with all my heart, and naturally i also wish to be a witness of this success. the spot he is attacking may have made quite an innocent impression in its outward aspect—it is, let us say, some mossy little mound at the foot of a birch and possibly penetrated by its roots. but did not my bashan hear the quarry, scent it, perhaps even see it as it switched away? he is absolutely certain that his bit of game is sitting there under the earth in some snug runlet or burrow; all that is necessary is to get at it, and so he goes digging away for all he is worth in absolute devotion to his task and oblivious to the world. he proceeds not ragingly, but with a certain fine deliberation, with the tempered passion of the real sportsman—it is wonderful to see. his small, tiger-striped body beneath the smooth coat of which the ribs align themselves and the muscles play, is hollowed, is concave in the middle; his hindquarters, with the stump of a tail vibrating to quick time, is erected vertically. his head is between his forepaws and thrust into the slant hole he has already dug. with averted face he continues with the rapid strokes of his iron claws to tear up the earth more and more—lumps of sod, pebbles, shreds of glass, and bits of roots fly all about me. sometimes his snortings are heard in the silence of the fields—that is when he has succeeded in penetrating some little distance, and in wedging his snout into the entrance to the burrow in order, by means of his scent, to keep check upon the clever, still, and timid creature within there.
his breathing sounds muffled, he ejects his breath in a blast in order to be able to empty his lungs quickly—and to draw in the delicate, acrid, distant, and yet disguised odour of the mice. what emotions must surge through the breast of the little animal down there when it hears this hollow and muffled snorting? well, that is its own affair, or perhaps god’s affair, who has decreed that bashan shall be the enemy and persecutor of these earth-mice. and then—is not fear only an intensified feeling for life? if no bashan existed the little mouse would very likely be bored to death. and what use or purpose would then be served by its beady-eyed cleverness and its art of swift mining operations, factors that fairly well equalise the conditions of the battle, so that the success of the party upon the offensive always remains highly problematical, even improbable. indeed i feel no compassion for the mouse; inwardly i take sides with bashan, and sometimes i cannot remain content with the role of a mere spectator. i get my walking-stick into play whenever some firmly-bedded pebble, some tough cord of a root is in his way and help him to get rid of these obstacles. then sometimes, in the midst of his hot and furious activity, he will throw up his head and bestow upon me a swift and fervent glance of gratitude and approval. with munching jaws and glinting teeth he goes working his way into the stubborn, fibrous ground,—tears away clods, throws them aside, sends his resonant snorts once more into the depths, and then, fired to renewed action by the provocative scent, sets his claws once more into furious action. . . .
in the great majority of cases this is all love’s labour lost. with the moist earth clinging to his nose and sprinkled about his shoulders, bashan makes another quick and superficial survey of the territory and then gives it up and jogs indifferently on.
“there was nothing doing, bashan,” i remark to him, when he chances to look at me. “nothing doing,” i repeat, shaking my head and raising my brows and my shoulders, so as to make the message plainer. but it is not at all necessary to comfort him; his failure does not depress him for a moment. to hunt is to hunt, the titbit of game is the least of all considerations. it was, take it all in all, a magnificent effort he thinks—in so far as he still happens to think of this violent business he has just been through. for now he is already on new adventure bent—adventures of which there is, indeed, no lack in the three zones of this domain.
sometimes, however, he happens to catch the mouse. and then something occurs which never fails to strike me with horror—for bashan devours his prey alive, with hide and hair. perhaps the unfortunate creature had not been properly advised by its instincts of self-preservation and had chosen a spot for its burrow which was too soft, too unprotected and too easily excavated. perhaps the little creature’s tunnels had not been sunk deep enough, or it had been paralysed by fright and prevented from burrowing to deeper levels. or it had perchance lost its head and, crouching a few inches under the surface with its little beady eyes popping out of their sockets with horror, listened to that terrible snorting coming nearer and nearer. no matter, the iron claws disinter it, uncover it, fling it into the air, into the pitiless glare of the day! hapless little mouse! you had good cause to be frightened, and it is well that this immense and comprehensible fright has already reduced you to a kind of semi-unconsciousness. for now the tiny rodent is to be converted into pap and pulp.
bashan has caught it by the tail; he tosses it upon the ground twice or thrice; a very faint squeak is heard, the last that is vouchsafed to the god-forsaken little mouse. and then bashan snaps it up, and it disappears between his jaws and the white, gleaming teeth. he stands there with legs four square and forepaws braced. his neck is lowered and thrust forth as he chews—he catches at the titbit again and again and throws it into the proper position in his mouth. the tiny bones are heard to crack, a shred of fur hangs for a moment from the corner of his mouth; he draws it in and then all is over. bashan then executes a kind of dance of joy and triumph, circling around me as i stand leaning on my cane with cold shudders rushing up and down my spine. “you’re a fine fellow!” i say to him in a kind of gruesome recognition of his victory. “you scoundrel! you murderer! you cannibal!”
these words cause him to dance still more wildly, and, one might say, almost to laugh aloud. so i proceed on my way, somewhat chilled in the limbs owing to the tragedy i have just witnessed, and yet inwardly enlightened by the brutal humour of life. the thing, after all, is quite in order, in nature’s order. a mouselet which had been ill-advised by its faulty instincts has simply been converted into pap and pulp. nevertheless i am inwardly gratified when in such instances as the foregoing, it did not become necessary for me to help along the natural order of things with my cane, but remained a simple and passive spectator.
startling and even terrifying is it when some pheasant suddenly bursts from the thicket in which, sleeping or waking, it had hoped to remain undiscovered, some coign of concealment from which bashan’s delicate and unobtrusive nose had after a little searching managed to rouse it. thumping and flapping, with frightened and indignant cries and cacklings, the large, rust-red and long-tailed bird lifts itself a-wing, and with all the silly heedlessness of a hen, goes scattering upon some tree from which it begins to scold, whilst bashan, erect against the trunk, barks up at the fowl, stormily, savagely. the meaning behind this barking is clear. it says plainly enough: “get off! get off that perch! tend to business. fly off, so i can have my bit o’ fun. get off—i want to chase you!” the pheasant cannot, apparently, resist this powerful voice, and off it scuds, making its way with heavy flight through the branches, still cackling and complaining, whilst bashan, full of manly silence, pursues it smartly along the level ground.
this is sufficient for bashan’s bliss; his wish and his will go no farther. what would have happened had he caught the bird? nothing, i assure you, absolutely nothing. i once saw him with a bird between his claws. he had probably come upon it whilst it lay in deep sleep, so that the clumsy thing had had no time to lift itself from the ground. on that occasion bashan had stood over the fowl, an utterly bewildered victor, and did not know what to do next. with one wing raked wide open and with its head drawn aside to the very limit of its neck, the pheasant lay in the grass and screamed, screamed without a single pause—a passer-by might have thought that some old woman was being murdered in the bushes. i hurried up, bent upon preventing something horrible. but i was soon convinced that there was nothing to fear. bashan’s all-too conspicuous confusion, the half-curious, half-disgusted mien with which, head aslant, he looked down upon his prisoner, assured me of that. this old wives’ screeching and dinning in his ears, very likely got upon his nerves—the whole affair apparently caused him more embarrassment than triumph. was it in victory or in shame that he pulled a couple of feathers out of his victim’s dress, very, very cautiously with his mouth, refraining from all use of his teeth, and then threw them aside with an angry toss of his head?
he followed this tribute to his predatory instincts by taking his paw off his victim and letting it go free—not out of magnanimity, to be sure, but simply because the situation bored him, and because it really had nothing in common with the stir and gaiety of the chase. never had i seen a more astonished bird! it had closed its account with life, and for a brief space it seemed that it no longer knew what use to make of life, for it lay in the grass as though dead. it then tottered along the ground for a bit, swung clumsily upon a tree, appeared about to fall from it, summoned its strength, and then with heavily-dragging feathery raiment went fluttering off into the distance. it no longer squawked, but kept its bill shut. silently the bird flew across the park, the river, the forest beyond the river, away, away, as far as its short wings could carry it. it is certain that this particular pheasant never returned to this particular spot.
there are, however, a good many of his breed in our hunting-grounds, and bashan hounds and hunts them in an honourable sportsmanlike manner and according to the rules of the game. the only real blood-guilt that lies heavy upon his head is the devouring of the field-mice, and this, too, appears as something incidental and negligible. it is the scenting-out, the drive, the pursuit, which serve him as a noble end in themselves—all who were able to observe him at this brilliant game would come to the same conclusion. how beautiful he grows, how ideal, how perfect to the end and purpose! it is thus that the awkward and loutish peasant lad of the hills becomes perfect and picturesque when you see him standing amidst the rocks and cliffs as a hunter of the gemsbock. all that is noble, genuine, and fine in bashan is driven to the surface and achieves a glorious efflorescence in such hours as these. that is why he pants for these hours with such intensity and why he suffers so poignantly when they pass unused.
bashan is no toy spaniel; he is the veritable woodsman and pathfinder, such as figure heroically in books. a great joy in himself, in his own existence cries from every one of the martial, masculine, and striking poses which he assumes and which succeed one another with almost cinematographic rapidity. there are few things which are able so to refresh my eyes as the sight of him, as he goes sailing through the underbrush in a light, feathering trot and then suddenly stands at gaze, with one paw daintily raised and bent inward, sagacious, vigilant, impressive, with all his faculties in a radiant intensification. and then amidst all this imposing statuesqueness it is possible that he may give vent to a sudden squeak, or yelp, occasioned, very likely, by having caught his foot in something thorny. but this too, is all in order with the course of nature and with the perfection of the picture—this cheery readiness to be splendidly simple. it is capable of diminishing his dignity only as a breath dims a mirror; the superbness of his carriage is restored the very next moment.
i look upon him—my bashan—and i am reminded of a time during which he lost all his pride and his gallant poise, and was once more reduced to that condition of bodily and mental dejection in which we first saw him in the kitchen of that tavern in the mountains, and from which he so painfully lifted himself to a faith in his own personality and in life. i do not know what ailed him—he began to bleed from the mouth or the nose or the ears—even to-day i have no clear idea of his particular malady. but wherever he went in those days, he left marks of blood behind him—in the grass of the hunting-grounds, in the straw of his kennel, on the floor of the house when he entered it—and yet there was no external injury anywhere visible. at times his entire nose seemed to be covered with red paint. whenever he sneezed he would send forth a spray of blood, and then he would step in the drops and leave brick-red impressions of his paws wherever he went. careful examinations were made, but these led to no results and thus brought about increased anxieties. were his lungs attacked? or was he afflicted by some mysterious distemper of which we had never heard?—something to which his breed was subject? since the strange as well as unpleasant phenomena did not cease after some days, it was decided that he must go to the dog’s hospital.
kindly but firmly bashan’s master imposed upon him on the day following—it was about noon—the leathern muzzle—that mask of stubborn meshes which bashan loathes above all things and of which he always seeks to rid himself by violent shakings of his head and furious rubbings of his paws. he was fastened to the braided leash and thus harnessed was led up the avenue—on the left-hand side—then through the local park and a suburban street into the group of buildings belonging to the high school. we passed beneath the portal and crossed the courtyard. we then entered a waiting-room, against the walls of which sat a number of persons all of whom, like myself, held a dog on a leash—dogs of different breeds and sizes, who regarded one another with melancholy eyes through their leather muzzles. there was an old and motherly dame with her fat and apoplectic pug, a footman in livery with a tall and snow-white russian deerhound, who emitted from time to time a dry and aristocratic cough; a countryman with a dachshund—apparently a case for orthopedic science, since all his feet were planted upon his body in the most crooked and distorted manner, and many others. the attendant at this veterinary clinic admitted the patients one after the other into the adjoining consulting-room. at length the door to this was also opened for me and bashan.
the professor was a man of advanced age, and was clad in a long, white operating coat. he wore gold-rimmed spectacles, his head was crowned with gray curls and his whole manner was so amiable and conveyed such an air of wise kindliness that i would immediately have entrusted myself and my family to him in any emergency. whilst i gave him my account of things, he smiled paternally upon his patient, who sat there in front of him and turned up to him a pair of humble and trustful eyes.
“he’s got fine eyes,” said the doctor, without allowing bashan’s hybrid goatee to disturb him, and declared that he was ready to make an investigation at once. bashan, quite helpless with astonishment, was now, with the aid of the attendant, spread upon the table. it was moving to see how the old doctor applied the stethoscope to the breast of the tiger-striped little manikin and performed his auscultation, just as i had seen it done in my case more than once. he listened to the swift workings of the tiny canine heart, and sounded his entire organic internal functions from different points of his exterior. hereupon, tucking his stethoscope under his arm, he began to examine bashan’s eyes with both hands, his nose as well as the roof of his mouth, and then ventured upon delivering a preliminary prognosis.
the dog, said he, was a trifle nervous and anæmic, but otherwise in good condition. it might be epitaksis or hæmathemesis. but it might also be a case of tracheal or pharyngeal hemorrhage—this was by no means precluded. for the present one would be most inclined to call it a case of hæmoptysis. it was necessary to keep the animal under careful observation. i should do best to leave him here and then call and inquire again in the course of a week.
thus instructed, i expressed my thanks and gave bashan a farewell pat on the shoulder. i saw how the attendant led bashan across the courtyard towards the entrance to a building at the rear, and how bashan, with a bewildered and anxious expression on his face, looked back at me. and yet he should have felt flattered, just as i could not help feeling flattered by hearing the professor declare him to be nervous and anæmic. no one who had stood at his cradle would ever have imagined that it was written in his horoscope that he was one day to be said to be suffering from two such fashionable ailments, or that medical science would be called in to deliberate over him with such gravity and solicitude.
from that day on my walks were to me what unsalted food is to the palate—they gave me little pleasure. no silent tumult of joy burst upon me when i went out—under way no proud, high, mad helter-skelter of the chase surrounded me. the park seemed to me desolate—i was bored. i did not fail to make inquiries by telephone during the interval of waiting. the answer, communicated from some subordinate quarter, was to the effect that the health of the patient was as good as could be expected under the circumstances—circumstances which, for good reasons or for bad, one did not trouble to designate more clearly. as soon as the day arrived on which i had taken bashan to the veterinary institution, and the week was up, i once more made my way to the place.
guided by numerous signboards with inscriptions and pointing hands, liberally affixed to walls and doors, i managed, without going astray, to negotiate the door of the clinical department which sheltered bashan. in accordance with the command upon an enamelled plate on the door, i forbore to knock, and walked in. the rather large room in which i found myself gave me the impression of a wild-beast house in a menagerie. the atmosphere incidental to such a house also prevailed here, with the exception that the odour of the menagerie seemed to be mingled here with all kinds of sweetish medicinal vapours—a cloying and rather disturbing mixture. cages with bars were set all around the walls, and nearly all of them were occupied. resolute barks saluted me from one of these. a man, evidently the keeper, was busy with a rake and a shovel before the open door of one of these cages. he was pleased to respond to my greeting without interrupting his work, and then left me for the present entirely to my own impressions.
my first survey of the scene, whilst the door was still open, had at once revealed to me the whereabouts of bashan, 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 odour of the animals and of the carbolic acid or lysoform. 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 and 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 deign to raise his head from his paws, but 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 hand-written, which contained an account of bashan’s name, breed, sex, and age. beneath this there was a fever-index curve.
“bastard setter,” i read. name: bashan. 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 bashan’s temperature, drawn in ink and showing no great variations. there were also details in figures regarding the frequency of bashan’s pulse. so his 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 yourn?” asked the attendant who, implements in hand, had in the meantime approached me. he was a stocky, 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 to-day, 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 ninety 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 twenty-four hours, but after that he had 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, 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 doomsday. i agreed with what the man said, though indignation and anxiety gnawed at my heart. how long, i asked him, did one think it was necessary to keep bashan here? the man cast another glance at the chart. another week, he remarked, would be necessary to observe him properly—that’s what the professor had said. i might come after another week and inquire again—that would make two weeks in 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 bashan’s 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 it fitting that veterinary science should be consulted, as befitted a dog in good circumstances, and i had also learned that he was rather anæmic 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 honours and attention bestowed upon him by being locked behind bars—like a jaguar—in 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 bashan, 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 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 bashan’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 was no one there to annoy me with the spectacle of his martyrdom of patience. no one came with paw hesitatingly raised, so that, giving way 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 bashan 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 bashan’s barred habitation. 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 heartrending tremolo of his vocal chords. his legs seemed to have grown too long, his paws huge and unshapely—due to his terrible emaciation. his coat was extremely rough and dishevelled 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 plaited leather leash from my pocket and said that i would take bashan with me. the attendant thought that would be very sensible. he opened the barred door and we both called bashan 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, 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 seventy-five pfennigs a day and the veterinary’s fee for the first examination, amounted to twelve marks, fifty pfennigs. i then led bashan home, clothed in the stern yet sweetish 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 inhibitions 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. bashan, as one would say, “let his head hang,” or “had a hang-dog look.” he did actually hang his head—hung it low like some wrack of a wornout cab-horse which, with abscesses on its legs and periodical shivers undulant along its sides, stands at its post with a hundredweight of woe pulling its poor 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 foot-hills. 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 bashan. 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 may be said to exercise a spiritual influence, may be said to possess a symbolic significance to us human beings—but no one would dare to say that the physical cleansing of poor bashan, meant the restoration of his customary spirits. i took him to the hunting-grounds on the very first day of his home-coming. but he went slinking at my heels with silly look and lolling tongue, and the pheasants were jubilant over a close 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 berth 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. bashan began to forget. that hateful incident of his internment, an incident so absolutely senseless from bashan’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 thing sank deeper and deeper into forgetfulness. for some weeks longer it happened that bashan would occasionally sport an incarnadined 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 epistaksis or of hæmathemesis. . . .
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 bashan 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 hurry forwards, or to the left or right, rejoicing that bashan is to get his money’s worth to-day, 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 banned and tense, even though the negative outcome of the venture is certain from the beginning, and i look on whilst an excited smile draws taut 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 scudding in front of bashan, 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 bashan 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 bashan, 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 bashan’s grasp. and alas, bashan 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, bashan yammering in 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 thus, because i am on bashan’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 river-bank. i emerge upon the gravelly street just in time to see the mad chase come ravening on from the right—the hopeful, infinitely thrilling chase—for bashan 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, bashan,” 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 than the “turnabout,” the “hook,” the volte-face, has taken place—the catastrophe is upon us. my gallant dog makes the decisive forward plunge—but . . . at the selfsame moment there is a short jerk, and with pert and limber swiftness the rabbit switches aside at a right angle to the course—and bashan goes shooting past the hindquarters of his quarry—shooting straight ahead, howling, desperate and with all his feet stemmed as brakes—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 brakes, the pursuer could not see whither the pursued had turned.
“it’s no use,” i think, “it may be beautiful, but it is surely futile.” the wild pursuit vanishes in the distances 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 fox-hounds with lolling 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 bashan 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 bit 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 bashan and hold up the rabbit, so that he would remain flop upon the spot—after doing a fine salto mortale. then there would be no need of other hounds, and bashan would have done his duty if he had merely brought me the rabbit.”
the way things shape themselves, however, it is bashan 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 bashan, 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 feints 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 my cane 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 bashan’s voice, wildly yowling, sounds like a hunting-horn ringing through the region 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, bashan!” 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 hoarse 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 dribblings, i cannot refrain from poking a bit of fun at him, because of the unalterable futility of his efforts.
“bashan! where’s 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 am 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 clayey bank above it. bashan 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 on to the path at the very moment that the rabbit, with bashan some fifteen paces behind him, was coming towards me in long bounds from the direction of the ferryman’s house, towards which i was turning. bunny 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 yelping in poignant joy. there i stood, as though rooted to the spot, and, 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 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 succumb 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, and 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 its 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 and 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, protuberant, 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 breast of a man—not the man, it seemed to me, who was bashan’s master, but the breast of one who is also the master of the rabbit and of bashan and of bashan’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 bashan had now arrived in his place—bashan with horrible hue-and-cry and with all the heady tones of his frenetic hunting-howls—all of which suffered swift interruption on his arrival. for a well-aimed blow of the stick delivered with malice prepense by the master of the rabbit, sent him yelping with smarting hindquarters down the slope to the right, up 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.
and then finally there is the hunt after water-fowl to which i must also dedicate a few lines. this hunt can take place only during winter and 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 fowl 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 practised 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 ducks 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 seek, 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 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 bevies and in slant transverse flight, or 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 practise is scarcely sufficiently rich in results to still their raw and ranging mass-hunger, and the titbits with which they are frequently forced to content themselves as they swoop above the overflows and carry away mysterious fragments in their bent beaks, must sometimes be far from appetising. 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 eider-ducks.
when bashan, 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 caws. but there is no need of their feeling themselves menaced; there is no real danger. for quite apart from his inborn aversion to water, bashan harbours a 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 knows whither 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 en route to those far-off 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 mien 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 onsets, 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 sangfroid merely to intimidate the webfooted foe.
but the gulls, true to their names, are far too poorly equipped in head and heart to be capable of mocking his efforts. bashan cannot get at them, but he can send his barks against them, send his voice thundering across the water. this voice has the effect of something material—an onset which flutters them and 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 caws, goes rustling and rushing up into the air—with bashan 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 up-stream and down-stream, so that he may chase them.
bashan goes 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 bashan, running along the bank, measures the power of his legs with that of their pinions.
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 utilising 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 in a slime-covered puddle which had been left by the last flood-water and which filled a depression in the dry bed of the stream. it was there that bashan chanced upon them—i observed the scene from the upper way. he sprang into the puddle, sprang into it with barkings and savage truculent motions, and scattered the family of 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 how to bewilder and fluster this 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 bashan’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 and clamour he still persisted in advancing anew. the duck-mother there-upon changed her tactics and chose the part of wisdom since heroism had shown itself to be impracticable. it is more than likely that she knew bashan 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 cunning, flew up, flew across the river, “pursued” by bashan—pursued, as was his firm belief—whilst in reality it was she who led him, led him by the fool’s tether of his dominant passion. she flew with the stream, then against it, farther and farther, whilst bashan raced beside her, so far down-stream and away from the puddle with the ducklings that i lost sight 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 tenants.
such were the tactics of the mother-duck, and bashan was sincerely grateful. but he abominates those ducks who in the sleek placidity of their bourgeois-like existence, refuse 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 rock 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, bashan 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 bashan’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 is drawn a little down-stream. only a yard or two from her there is a whirlpool, a beautiful foaming cascade towards which she turns her conceited and upstanding tail. bashan 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 to our barking,” is the mental speech i hurl 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 discomfiture 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—the shameless hussy!
i am unable to think of the vexation with which we both contemplate the duck under these circumstances without recalling to mind 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 bashan and myself, and could i have foreseen this, i would rather have avoided the spot where this adventure awaited us.
it was a good distance out and down-stream, and beyond the ferryman’s house—there where the wilderness of the river bank approaches close to the upper road along the river. we were going along this, i with a leisurely step, and bashan, a trifle in front of me, with an easy and somewhat lop-sided lope. he had been chasing a rabbit, or, if you prefer, had permitted himself to be chased by him. he had also routed out three or four pheasants and 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 to ours, 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 or even being 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, bashan as well as myself, to halt and to turn round and face him and watch what he would do. he was a rather tall, fine figure of a man, somewhat rough and ready, so far as his externals were concerned. he had drooping moustaches and wore puttees, 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 corduroy or manchester cloth, and a jacket to match. this was behung 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, than he drew the weapon towards him and leaning his cheek aslant 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 eye, 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 skies. something was going on up there, whither 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 sets loose sails a-snapping, an attempt at a glide—as of an aeroplane—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 bashan. there are a number of coined phrases and ready-made figures of speech which i might use for describing his behaviour—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 acme of their meaning. so i will say no more than that bashan 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 jerked 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 fibre 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, in 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 around 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, bashan 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, bashan, 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 in 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 up-stream. nevertheless the carcass of the duck had been seized at once by the current, whirled 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 shot-gun 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-barrelled gun—extending this towards his kill with his body bent far forward and with his feet in the water. he managed to halt it in its downward course. and then carefully and not without much effort he steered and piloted it 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 shut 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 covert.
“well, he’s got his bit of roast game for to-morrow,” i thought approvingly, yet not without envy. “come, bashan, let’s go—there’s really nothing more to see.” but bashan 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 refused 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 this exceedingly painful journey homeward, bashan refrained 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 wont when he was not in the right mood for trailing and beating-up the game. he walked a little behind me, keeping 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 thirty or fifty 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, “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 in that business of his. he is, of course, only a plain man in corduroys and no particular class, but in your eyes, no doubt, he is the finest gentleman in the world—a real master for you. and 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 others 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.
“the 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 puttees, 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 hemorrhages, perhaps you are under the delusion that once you were his dog, you would also have a chance to be nervous and anæmic. 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 gun-bearing persons have a very sharp nose, natural merits or demerits—or, to make my allusions clearer, very awkward questions regarding 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 bashan 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 main line of my argument. in short, 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 life,—we continue to live on. bashan, 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 water-fowl, 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 forepaws against the front door, so that i can pat his shoulder and say good-bye.
“to-morrow, bashan,” i remark, “we’ll 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 hob-nailed boots, for the soup has been served and stands smoking on the table.
