Bashan and I - Thomas Mann (best e book reader .txt) 📗

in a tumult of joy and satisfaction. All the more passionately he drains this rapture to the very dregs in that he knows that it is purely a fleeting rapture, and that one cannot very well wallow in this fashion more than ten seconds, and that that beneficent weariness which comes to one after such honest and happy efforts will not follow⁠—but merely disillusion and twofold disquietude⁠—the price paid for this delirium, this drug-like dissipation. For a moment he lies with twisted eyeballs upon his side as though he were dead. Then he rises and shakes himself. He shakes himself as only his kind is able to shake itself⁠—without having to fear a concussion of the brain. He shakes himself to a crescendo of flappings and rattlings, and his ears go slapping under his jawbone and his loose lips part from his white, bare triangular teeth.

And then? Then he stands motionless, in stark abstraction. He has reached the ultimate limit and no longer has a single idea as to what he shall do with himself. Under such circumstances as these, he has recourse to something extreme. He climbs up to the terrace, approaches the glass door⁠—scratches only once and very feebly. But this soft and timidly lifted paw, this soft, solitary scratching, upon which he had resolved, after all other counsel had failed, work mightily upon me, and I arise to open the door for him in order to let him in, although I know that this can lead to no good. For he immediately begins to leap and cavort, as a call to engage in manly enterprises. He pushes the carpet into a hundred folds, spreads confusion through the room, and my peace and quiet are at an end.

But now judge whether it is easy for me to sail off in the tram, after seeing Bashan wait thus, and leave him sitting as a melancholy little heap of misery deep within the converging lines of the avenue of poplars!

When the summer is on and the daylight is long and lingering, this misfortune may not be so overwhelming, for then there is always a good chance that at least my evening promenade will take me out into the open, so that Bashan, even though the period of waiting be arduous, may nevertheless still meet with his reward and, provided one has a certain amount of luck, be able to chase a rabbit. But in winter, it is all up for this day and Bashan must bury all hope for a full twenty-four hours. For then the night will have already fallen upon the hour of my second going-forth; the hunting grounds are buried in impenetrable darkness, and I must direct my steps towards regions artificially lighted, upstream, through streets and public parks, and this does not suit Bashan’s nature and simplicity of soul. It is true that at first he followed me even here, but soon gave this up and remained at home. It was not only that visible chances for gadding about were lacking⁠—the half-dark made him hesitant, he shied in confused alarm at man and bush. The sudden flapping of a policeman’s cape caused him to jump aside with a howl, and with the courage of horror to make a sudden dash at the policeman, who was also scared half to death and strove to even up the fright he had received by a torrent of harsh and threatening words directed at me and Bashan. And there were many other uncomfortable encounters whenever he went forth with me through the night and the mist. Apropos of this policeman, I will remark that there are three kinds of human beings to whom Bashan has a wholehearted aversion⁠—namely policemen, monks, and chimney-sweeps. He cannot tolerate them, and will sally forth against them with furious barks whenever they go past the house, or wherever they may chance to cross his path.

Moreover, winter is that season in which the world lies most vigilantly and insolently in ambush against our liberties and our virtues, and least willingly grants us a uniform and serene existence, an existence of seclusion and of quiet preoccupation, and so it happens that often the city draws me to itself a second time in one day⁠—in the evening⁠—when Society demands its rights. Then, late, at midnight, the last tram deposits me far out at its penultimate stop. Or I come jogging along on foot, long after the last tram has returned to town⁠—I come wandering distrait, tempered with wine, smoking, having passed the bourne of natural fatigue and wrapped in a sense of false security in relation to all things mundane. And then it happens that the embodiment of my own domesticity, as it were, my very retirement, comes to meet me and salutes and welcomes me not only without reproach or touchiness, but with extreme joy, and reintroduces me to my own fireside⁠—all in the shape of Bashan himself. It is pitch dark, and the river goes by with a rushing sound as I turn into the poplar avenue. A few steps more and I feel that I am be-capered and be-switched by paws and tail⁠—and have no clear idea of what is happening to me.

“Bashan?” I ask of the darkness.

And then the capering and the switching are intensified to the utmost. They pass into something dervish- and Berserker-like, though the silence continues. The very moment I stand still I feel two homely and wet and muddy paws upon the lapels of my overcoat, and there are such violent snappings and lappings close to my face, that I bend backward, whilst I pat those lean shoulders, wet with rain or snow.

Yes, the dear fellow has waited for me at the tram-stop, well aware of my comings and goings and doings; he had gone forth when the hour seemed to have arrived, and waited for me at the station⁠—waited, perhaps, a long and weary while in the snow or rain. And his joy at my arrival is