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

run becomes level the brook begins its course, and it is here that master and dog love to amble beside it on the right bank or the left⁠—which again affords variety⁠—and also to make excursions along the slope with its variegated configuration. To the left extend meadows studded with trees. A country nursery lies not far away and reveals the back of its farm buildings. Sheep are usually at pasture here, cropping the clover. They are under the chairmanship⁠—so to speak⁠—of a not very clever little girl in a red frock. This little girl seems to suffer from a veritable passion to rule and command. She is constantly crouching low, propping her hands upon her knees and shouting with all her might in a cacophonous voice. And yet she is horribly afraid of the ram, who takes on huge and majestic proportions on account of the thickness of his wool and who refuses to be bullied and does whatever he pleases.

Whenever Bashan’s appearance causes a panic among the sheep, the child invariably raises its hideous outcry, and these panics occur quite regularly and quite contrary to Bashan’s intentions⁠—for, if you could peer into his inmost soul, you would discover that sheep are a matter of absolute indifference to him. He treats them like so much empty air, and by his indifference and his scrupulous and even contemptuous carefulness he even seeks to prevent the outbreak of the dunderheaded hysteria which dominates their ranks. Though their scent is certainly strong enough for my own nostrils (yet not unpleasantly so), it is not the scent of the wild that emanates from them, and so Bashan, of course, has not the slightest interest in hounding them. Nevertheless, a simple sudden motion on his part, or even his mere shaggy appearance, is sufficient to cause the whole herd, which but a moment ago was peacefully grazing, widely separated and bleating in the quavering treble of the lambs and in the deeper contralto and bass of the ewes and the ram, to go storming off in a solid mass neck and neck, whilst the stupid child, crouching low, shouts after them until her voice cracks and her eyes pop out of her head. Bashan, however, looks up at me as much as to say: Judge for yourself whether I am to blame. Have I given them any cause for this?

On one occasion, however, something quite contrary happened, something perverse and incomprehensible⁠—something still more extraordinary and unpleasant than the panic. One of the sheep, quite an ordinary specimen of its kind, of average size and average sheepish visage, with a small upward curving mouth which appeared to smile and gave an expression of almost mocking stupidity to its face, seemed to be spellbound and fascinated by Bashan and came to join him. It simply followed him⁠—detached itself from the herd, left the pasture and clung to Bashan’s heels, quietly smiling in exaggerated foolishness, and following him whithersoever he turned. He left the path⁠—the sheep did likewise; he ran and it followed at a gallop; he stood still, and it stood still⁠—immediately behind him and smiling its mysterious Mona Lisa smile.

Displeasure and embarrassment became visible in Bashan’s face. The situation into which he had been plunged was really ridiculous. There was neither sense nor significance in it⁠—neither in a good or a bad sense. The whole thing, confound it⁠—was simply preposterous⁠—nothing of the kind had ever happened to him⁠—or to me. The sheep went farther and farther from its basis, but this did not seem to trouble it in the least. It followed the discomfited and irritated Bashan farther and farther, visibly determined not to separate from him ever again, but to follow him whithersoever he might go. He remained close beside me, not so much out of fear, since there was no occasion for this, as out of shame at the dishonour of the situation in which he found himself. Finally, as though his patience were at an end, he stood still, turned his head, and growled ominously. This caused the sheep to bleat, and its bleating sounded like the wicked laughter of a human being, which so terrified poor Bashan that he ran away with his tail between his legs⁠—and the sheep straight after him, with comic jumps and curvetings.

We were already at a considerable distance from the herd. In the meantime the half-witted little girl was screaming as though she would burst, still crouching and bending upon her knees and even drawing these up as high as her face, so that from a distance she looked like a raving and malformed gnome. And then a farm-maid, with an apron over her skirts came running up, either in answer to the cries of the obsessed little one or because she had noticed the happenings from afar. She came running, I say, with a pitchfork in one hand. With the other she supported her bodice, which, I surmise, was unsupported and which was visibly disposed to shake a trifle too violently as she ran. She came up panting and at once proceeded to shy the sheep, which was slowly pacing along, like Bashan himself, into the proper direction with the fork, though without success. The sheep, it is true, sprang aside with a swift flank movement, but in an instant it was once more on Bashan’s trail. Nothing seemed to be able to induce it to give up.

I then realised that the only thing to do was to turn tail myself, and so I turned round. We all retraced our steps, Bashan at my side, behind him the sheep, and behind the sheep the maid with the pitchfork, whilst the child in the red frock kept on yelling and stamping. It was not enough, however, that we should go back as far as the herd⁠—it was necessary to finish the job and to proceed to the final destination. We were obliged to enter the farmyard and then the sheep-stable with the broad sliding-door which the maid