Collected Stories Page 32

  But now the cool light that precedes the rising of the moon spread over the mountain and suddenly the moon itself appeared from beyond one of the restless bushes. I on the other hand had meanwhile been gazing in another direction, and when I now looked ahead of me and suddenly saw it glowing in its almost full roundness, I stood still with troubled eyes, for my precipitous road seemed to lead straight into this terrifying moon.

  After a while, however, I grew accustomed to it and watched with composure the difficulty it had in rising, until finally, having approached one another a considerable part of the way, I felt overcome by an intense drowsiness caused, I assumed, by the fatigue of the walk, to which I was unaccustomed. I wandered on for a while with closed eyes, keeping myself awake only by a loud and regular clapping of my hands.

  But then, as the road threatened to slip away from under my feet and everything, as weary as I myself, began to vanish, I summoned my remaining strength and hastened to scale the slope to the right of the road in order to reach in time the high tangled pinewood where I planned to spend the night that probably lay ahead of us.

  The haste was necessary. The stars were already fading and I noticed the moon sink feebly into the sky as though into troubled waters. The mountain already belonged to the darkness, the road crumbled away at the point where I had turned toward the slope, and from the interior of the forest I heard the approaching crashes of collapsing trees. Now I could have thrown myself down on the moss to sleep, but since I feared to sleep on the ground I crept – the trunk sliding quickly down the rings formed by my arms and legs – up a tree which was already reeling without wind. I lay down on a branch and, leaning my head against the trunk, went hastily to sleep while a squirrel of my whim sat stiff-tailed at the trembling end of the branch, and rocked itself.

  My sleep was deep and dreamless. Neither the waning moon nor the rising sun awoke me. And even when I was about to wake up, I calmed myself by saying: ‘You made a great effort yesterday, so spare your sleep,’ and went to sleep again.

  Although I did not dream, my sleep was not free from a continuous slight disturbance. All night long I heard someone talking beside me. The words themselves I could hardly hear – except isolated ones like ‘bench … by the river,’ ‘cloudlike mountains,’ ‘trains … amidst shining smoke’; what I did hear was the special kind of emphasis placed on them; and I remember that even in my sleep I rubbed my hands with pleasure at not being obliged to recognize single words, since I was asleep.

  ‘Your life was monotonous,’ I said aloud in order to convince myself, ‘it really was necessary for you to be taken somewhere else. You ought to be content, it’s gay here. The sun’s shining.’

  Whereupon the sun shone and the rain clouds grew white and light and small in the blue sky. They sparkled and billowed out. I saw a river in the valley.

  ‘Yes, your life was monotonous, you deserve this diversion,’ I continued as though compelled, ‘but was it not also perilous?’ At that moment I heard someone sigh terribly near.

  I tried to climb down quickly, but since the branch trembled as much as my hand I fell rigid from the top. I did not fall heavily, nor did I feel any pain, but I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one’s guard against them. Yet nothing seemed more natural than to lie here on the grass, my arms beside my body, my face hidden. And I tried to persuade myself that I ought to be pleased to be already in this natural position, for otherwise many painful contortions, such as steps or words, would be required to arrive at it.

  The river was wide and its noisy little waves reflected the light. On the other shore lay meadows which farther on merged into bushes behind which, at a great distance, one could see bright avenues of fruit trees leading to green hills.

  Pleased by this sight, I lay down and, stopping my ears against the dread sound of sobs, I thought: Here I could be content. For here it is secluded and beautiful. It won’t take much courage to live here. One will have to struggle here as anywhere else, but at least one won’t have to do it with graceful movements. That won’t be necessary. For there are only mountains and a wide river and I have sense enough to regard them as inanimate. Yes, when I totter alone up the steep path through the meadows in the evening I will be no more forsaken than the mountains, except that I will feel it. But I think that this, too, will pass.

  Thus I toyed with my future life and tried stubbornly to forget. And all the time I blinked at that sky which was of an unusually promising color. It was a long time since I’d seen it like this; I was moved and reminded of certain days when I thought I had seen it in the same way. I took my hands from my ears, spread out my arms, and let them fall in the grass.

  I heard someone sob softly from afar. A wind sprang up and a great mass of leaves, which I had not seen before, rose rustling into the air. Unripe fruit thudded senselessly from the trees onto the ground. Ugly clouds rose from behind the mountain. The waves on the river creaked and receded from the wind.

  I got up quickly. My heart hurt, for now it seemed impossible to escape from my suffering. I was already about to turn and leave this region and go back to my former way of life when the following idea occurred to me: ‘How strange it is that even in our time distinguished people are transported across a river in this complicated way. There’s no other explanation than that it is an old custom.’ I shook my head, for I was surprised.

  iii THE FAT MAN

  a An Address to the Landscape

  From the thicket on the opposite bank four naked men strode vehemently forth, carrying on their shoulders a wooden litter. On this litter sat, Oriental fashion, a monstrously fat man. Although carried through the thicket on an untrodden path, he did not push the thorny branches apart but simply let his motionless body thrust through them. His folds of fat were so carefully spread out that although they covered the whole litter and even hung down its side like the hem of a yellowish carpet, they did not hamper him. His hairless skull was small and gleamed yellow. His face bore the artless expression of a man who meditates and makes no effort to conceal it. From time to time he closed his eyes: on opening them again his chin became distorted.

  ‘The landscape disturbs my thought,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It makes my reflections sway like suspension bridges in a furious current. It is beautiful and for this reason wants to be looked at.’

  I close my eyes and say: You green mountain by the river, with your rocks rolling against the water, you are beautiful.

  But it is not satisfied; it wants me to open my eyes to it.

  Then I might say to it with my eyes closed: ‘Mountain, I do not love you, for you remind me of the clouds, of the sunset, of the rising sky, and these are things that almost make me cry because one can never reach them while being carried on a small litter. But when showing me this, sly mountain, you block the distant view which gladdens me, for it reveals the attainable at a glance. That’s why I do not love you, mountain by the water – no, I do not love you.’

  But the mountain would be as indifferent to this speech as to my former one so long as I did not talk with my eyes open. This is the only way to please it.

  And must we not keep it well disposed toward us in order to keep it up at all – this mountain which has such a capricious fondness for the pulp of our brains? It might cast on me its jagged shadow, it might silently thrust terrible bare walls in front of me and my bearers would stumble over the little pebbles on the road.

  But it is not only the mountain that is so vain, so obtrusive and vindictive – everything else is, too. So I must go on repeating with wide-open eyes – oh, how they hurt!:

  ‘Yes, mountain, you are beautiful and the forests on your western slope delight me. – With you, flower, I am also pleased, and your pink gladdens my soul. – You, grass of the meadows, are already high and strong and refreshing. – And you, exotic bushes, y
ou prick so unexpectedly that our thoughts start leaping. – But with you, river, I am so delighted that I will let myself be carried through your supple water.’

  After he had shouted this paean of praise ten times, accompanied by some humble shifting of his body, he let his head droop and said with closed eyes:

  ‘But now – I implore you – mountain, flowers, grass, bush, and river, give me some room so that I may breathe.’

  At that moment the surrounding mountains began to shift in hasty obedience, then withdrew behind a curtain of fog. Although the avenues stood firm for a while and guarded the width of the road, they soon merged into one another. In the sky in front of the sun lay a humid cloud with a delicately transparent edge in whose shade the country sank deeper and deeper while everything else lost its lovely outline.

  The sound of the bearers’ steps reached my side of the river and yet I could not distinguish any details in the dark square of their faces. I only saw them bending their heads sideways and arching their backs, for their burden was excessive. I was worried about them, for I realized that they were tired. So it was in suspense that I watched them step into the rushes, then walk through the wet sand, their strides still regular, until they finally sank into the muddy swamp where the two rear bearers bent even lower so as to keep the litter in its horizontal position. I pressed my hands together. By now they had to raise their feet high at every step until their bodies glistened with sweat in the cool air of this unsettled afternoon.

  The fat man sat quiet, hands on his thighs; the long pointed tips of the reeds grazed him as they flipped up in the wake of the bearers in front.

  The bearers’ movements grew more irregular the nearer they came to the water. At times the litter swayed as though it were already on the waves. Small puddles in the rushes had to be jumped over or walked around, for they might possibly be deep.

  At one moment wild ducks rose shrieking, mounting steeply into the rain cloud. It was then that I caught a glimpse of the fat man’s face; it looked alarmed. I got up and in hectic leaps I zigzagged over the stony slope separating me from the water. I paid no heed to the danger, was concerned only with helping the fat man should his servants no longer be able to carry him. I ran so recklessly that I couldn’t stop, and was forced to dash into the splashing water, coming to a halt only when the water reached my knees.

  Meanwhile the servants, with considerable distortions of their bodies, had carried the litter into the river, and holding themselves above the unruly water with one hand, they propped up the litter with four hairy arms, their muscles standing out in relief.

  The water lapped against their chins, then rose to their mouths; the bearers bent their heads back and the litter handles fell on their shoulders. The water was already playing around the bridges of their noses, and yet they did not give up, although they had hardly reached the middle of the river. Then a low wave swept over the heads of those in front and the four men drowned in silence, their desperate hands pulling the litter down with them. Water gushed after them.

  And now the evening sun’s slanting rays broke forth from behind the rims of the great cloud and illuminated the hills and mountains as far as the eye could see, while the river and the region beneath the cloud lay in an uncertain light.

  The fat man turned slowly in the direction of the flowing water and was carried down the river like a yellow wooden idol which had become useless and so had been cast into the river. He sailed along on the reflection of the rain cloud. Elongated clouds pulled and small hunched ones pushed him, creating considerable commotion, the effect of which could even be noticed by the lapping of water against my knees and the stones on the shore.

  I crept quickly up the slope so as to be able to accompany the fat man on his way, for I truly loved him. And perhaps I could learn something about the dangers of this apparently safe country. So I walked along a strip of sand to the narrowness of which one had to grow accustomed, hands in my pockets and my face turned at right angles to the river so that my chin rested almost on my shoulder.

  Swallows sat on the stones by the shore.

  The fat man said: ‘Dear sir on the shore, don’t try to rescue me. This is the water’s and the wind’s revenge; now I am lost. Yes, revenge it is, for how often have we attacked them, I and my friend the supplicant, amidst the singing of our swords, the flash of cymbals, the great splendor of trumpets, and the leaping blaze of drums!’

  A tiny mosquito with stretched wings flew straight through his belly without losing its speed.

  The fat man continued:

  b Beginning of a Conversation with the Supplicant

  There was a time when I went to a church day after day, for a girl I was in love with used to kneel there in prayer for half an hour every evening, which enabled me to watch her at my leisure.

  Once when the girl failed to appear and in dismay I was watching the other people praying, my eye was caught by a young man who had flung his long emaciated figure on the ground. From time to time he clutched his skull with all his strength and, moaning loudly, beat it in the palms of his hands on the stone floor.

  In the church there were only a few old women who kept turning their shawled heads sideways to glance at the praying man. This attention seemed to please him, for before each of his pious outbursts he let his eyes rove about to see how many people were watching him. Finding this unseemly, I decided to accost him on his way out of the church and ask him outright why he prayed in this manner. For since my arrival in this town clarity had become more important to me than anything else, even though at this moment I felt only annoyance at my girl’s failure to appear.

  Yet an hour passed before he stood up, brushed his trousers for such a long time that I felt like shouting: ‘Enough, enough! We can all see that you have trousers on,’ crossed himself carefully, and with the lumbering gait of a sailor walked to the font of holy water.

  I placed myself between the font and the door, determined not to let him pass without an explanation. I screwed up my mouth, this being the best preparation for resolute speech, and supported myself by standing on my right leg while resting the left one on its toes, for this position as I have often experienced gives me a sense of stability.

  Now it is possible that this young man had already caught sight of me while sprinkling his face with holy water; perhaps my stare had alarmed him even earlier, for he now quite unexpectedly rushed to the door and out. I involuntarily jumped to stop him. The glass door slammed. And when I passed through it a moment later I could not find him, for the narrow streets were numerous and the traffic considerable.

  During the following days he failed to appear, but the girl came and again prayed in a corner of a side chapel. She wore a black dress with a transparent lace yoke – the crescent of her chemise could be seen through it – from the lower edge of which the silk hung down in a finely cut frill. And now that the girl had returned I was glad to forget about the young man, ignoring him even when he continued to appear regularly and to pray in his usual fashion.

  Yet he always passed me by in sudden haste, his face averted. While praying, on the other hand, he kept glancing at me. It almost looked as though he were angry with me for not having accosted him earlier and was thinking that for my first attempt to talk to him I had actually taken upon me the duty to do so. One day as I was following the girl out as usual after a service, I ran into him in the semidarkness and thought I saw him smile.

  The duty to talk to him, needless to say, did not exist, nor had I much desire to do so anymore. And even when I hurried up to the church one evening while the clock was striking seven and found, instead of the girl who of course had left long ago, only the young man exerting himself in front of the altar railings, I still hesitated.

  At last I tiptoed to the door, slipped a coin to the blind beggar sitting there, and squeezed in beside him behind the open wing. And there for about half an hour I looked forward to the surprise I was planning to spring upon the supplicant. But this feeling did not last
. Before long I was morosely watching spiders creeping over my clothes and finding it tiresome to have to bend forward every time someone came breathing loud out of the darkness of the church.

  But finally he came. The ringing of the great bells which had started a little while ago did not agree with him, I realized. Each time before taking a step he had to touch the ground lightly with his foot.

  I straightened myself, took a long stride forward, and grabbed him. ‘Good evening,’ said I, and with my hand on his coat collar I pushed him down the steps onto the lighted square.

  When we had reached ground level he turned toward me while I was still holding on to him from behind, so that we stood breast to breast.

  ‘If only you’d let go of me!’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you suspect me of, but I’m innocent.’ Then he repeated once more: ‘Of course I don’t know what you suspect me of.’

  ‘There is no question here of suspicion or innocence. I ask you not to mention it again. We are strangers; our acquaintance is no older than the church steps are high. What would happen if we were immediately to start discussing our innocence?’

  ‘Precisely what I think,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, you said “our innocence.” Do you mean to suggest that if I had proved my innocence you would have to prove yours, too? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘That or something else,’ I said. ‘I accosted you only because I wanted to ask you something, remember that!’

  ‘I’d like to go home,’ he said, and made an effort to turn.

  ‘I quite believe it. Would I have accosted you otherwise? Don’t get the idea that I accosted you on account of your beautiful eyes.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a little too sincere?’

  ‘Must I repeat that there’s no question of such things? What has it to do with sincerity or insincerity? I ask, you answer, and then goodbye. So far as I’m concerned you can even go home, and as fast as you like.’