Nobody on the quay troubled about the newcomers; even when they lowered the bier to wait for the boatman, who was still occupied with his rope, nobody went nearer, nobody asked them a question, nobody accorded them an inquisitive glance.
The pilot was still further detained by a woman who, a child at her breast, now appeared with loosened hair on the deck of the boat. Then he advanced and indicated a yellowish two-storeyed house that rose abruptly on the left near the water; the bearers took up their burden and bore it to the low but gracefully pillared door. A little boy opened a window just in time to see the party vanishing into the house, then hastily shut the window again. The door too was now shut; it was of black oak, and very strongly made. A flock of doves which had been flying around the belfry alighted in the street before the house. As if their food were stored within, they assembled in front of the door. One of them flew up to the first storey and pecked at the windowpane. They were bright-hued, well-tended, lively birds. The woman on the boat flung grain to them in a wide sweep; they ate it up and flew across to the woman.
A man in a top hat tied with a band of black crêpe now descended one of the narrow and very steep lanes that led to the harbor. He glanced around vigilantly, everything seemed to distress him, his mouth twisted at the sight of some offal in a corner. Fruit skins were lying on the steps of the monument; he swept them off in passing with his stick. He rapped at the house door, at the same time taking his top hat from his head with his black-gloved hand. The door was opened at once, and some fifty little boys appeared in two rows in the long entry hall, and bowed to him.
The boatman descended the stairs, greeted the gentleman in black, conducted him up to the first storey, led him around the bright and elegant loggia which encircled the courtyard, and both of them entered, while the boys pressed after them at a respectful distance, a cool spacious room looking toward the back, from whose window no habitation, but only a bare, blackish-gray rocky wall was to be seen. The bearers were busied in setting up and lighting several long candles at the head of the bier, yet these did not give light, but only disturbed the shadows which had been immobile till then, and made them flicker over the walls. The cloth covering the bier had been thrown back. Lying on it was a man with wildly matted hair, who looked somewhat like a hunter. He lay without motion and, it seemed, without breathing, his eyes closed; yet only his trappings indicated that this man was probably dead.
The gentleman stepped up to the bier, laid his hand on the brow of the man lying upon it, then kneeled down and prayed. The boatman made a sign to the bearers to leave the room; they went out, drove away the boys who had gathered outside, and shut the door. But even that did not seem to satisfy the gentleman, he glanced at the boatman; the boatman understood, and vanished through a side door into the next room. At once the man on the bier opened his eyes, turned his face painfully toward the gentleman, and said: "Who are you?" Without any mark of surprise the gentleman rose from his kneeling posture and answered: "The Burgomaster of Riva."
The man on the bier nodded, indicated a chair with a feeble movement of his arm, and said, after the Burgomaster had accepted his invitation: "I knew that, of course, Burgomaster, but in the first moments of returning consciousness I always forget, everything goes around before my eyes, and it is best to ask about anything even if I know. You too probably know that I am the Hunter Gracchus."
"Certainly," said the Burgomaster. "Your arrival was announced to me during the night. We had been asleep for a good while. Then toward midnight my wife cried: 'Salvatore' — that's my name — 'look at that dove at the window.' It was really a dove, but as big as a cock. It flew over me and said in my ear: 'Tomorrow the dead Hunter Gracchus is coming; receive him in the name of the city.' "
The Hunter nodded and licked his lips with the tip of his tongue: "Yes, the doves flew here before me. But do you believe, Burgomaster, that I shall remain in Riva?"
"I cannot say that yet," replied the Burgomaster. "Are you dead?"
"Yes," said the Hunter, "as you see. Many years ago, yes, it must be a great many years ago, I fell from a precipice in the Black Forest — that is in Germany — when I was hunting a chamois. Since then I have been dead."
"But you are alive too," said the Burgomaster.
"In a certain sense," said the Hunter, "in a certain sense I am alive too. My death ship lost its way; a wrong turn of the wheel, a moment's absence of mind on the pilot's part, the distraction of my lovely native country, I cannot tell what it was; I only know this, that I remained on earth and that ever since my ship has sailed earthly waters. So I, who asked for nothing better than to live among my mountains, travel after my death through all the lands of the earth."
"And you have no part in the other world?" asked the Burgomaster, knitting his brow.
"I am forever." replied the Hunter, "on the great stair that leads up to it. On that infinitely wide and spacious stair I clamber about, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, always in motion. The Hunter has been turned into a butterfly. Do not laugh."
"I am not laughing," said the Burgomaster in self-defense.
"That is very good of you," said the Hunter. "I am always in motion. But when I make a supreme flight and see the gate actually shining before me I awaken presently on my old ship, still stranded forlornly in some earthly sea or other. The fundamental error of my onetime death grins at me as I lie in my cabin. Julia, the wife of the pilot, knocks at the door and brings me on my bier the morning drink of the land whose coasts we chance to be passing. I lie on a wooden pallet, I wear — it cannot be a pleasure to look at me — a filthy winding sheet, my hair and beard, black tinged with gray, have grown together inextricably, my limbs are covered with a great flowered-patterned woman's shawl with long fringes. A sacramental candle stands at my head and lights me. On the wall opposite me is a little picture, evidently of a bushman who is aiming his spear at me and taking cover as best he can behind a beautifully painted shield. On shipboard one often comes across silly pictures, but that is the silliest of them all. Otherwise my wooden cage is quite empty. Through a hole in the side the warm airs of the southern night come in, and I hear the water slapping against the old boat. "I have lain here ever since the time when, as the Hunter Gracchus living in the Black Forest, I followed a chamois and fell from a precipice. Everything happened in good order. I pursued, I fell, bled to death in a ravine, died, and this ship should have conveyed me to the next world. I can still remember how gladly I stretched myself out on this pallet for the first time. Never did the mountains listen to such songs from me as these shadowy walls did then.
"I had been glad to live and I was glad to die. Before I stepped aboard, I joyfully flung away my wretched load of ammunition, my knapsack, my hunting rifle that I had always been proud to carry, and I slipped into my winding sheet like a girl into her marriage dress. I lay and waited. Then came the mishap."
"A terrible fate," said the Burgomaster, raising his hand defensively. "And you bear no blame for it?"
"None," said the Hunter. "I was a hunter; was there any sin in that? I followed my calling as a hunter in the Black Forest, where there were still wolves in those days. I lay in ambush, shot, hit my mark, flayed the skins from my victims: was there any sin in that? My labors were blessed. 'The Great Hunter of the Black Forest' was the name I was given. Was there any sin in that?"
"I am not called upon to decide that," said the Burgomaster, "but to me also there seems to be no sin in such things. But then, whose is the guilt?"
"The boatman's," said the Hunter. "Nobody will read what I say here, no one will come to help me; even if all the people were commanded to help me, every door and window would remain shut, everybody would take to bed and draw the bedclothes over his head, the whole earth would become an inn for the night. And there is sense in that, for nobody knows of me, and if anyone knew he would not know where I could be found, and if he knew where I could be found, he would not know how to deal with me, he would
not know how to help me. The thought of helping me is an illness that has to be cured by taking to one's bed.
"I know that, and so I do not shout to summon help, even though at moments — when I lose control over myself, as I have done just now, for instance — I think seriously of it. But to drive out such thoughts I need only look around me and verify where I am, and — I can safely assert — have been for hundreds of years."
"Extraordinary," said the Burgomaster, "extraordinary. And now do you think of staying here in Riva with us?"
"I think not," said the Hunter with a smile, and, to excuse himself, he laid his hand on the Burgomaster's knee. "I am here, more than that I do not know, further than that I cannot go. My ship has no rudder, and it is driven by the wind that blows in the undermost regions of death."
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
The Hunter Gracchus: A Fragment
Is IT TRUE, Hunter Gracchus, that you have been cruising about in this old boat for hundreds of years?
For fifteen hundred years.
And always in this ship?
Always in this bark. Bark, I believe, is the correct expression. You aren't familiar with nautical matters?
No, I never gave them a thought until today, until I heard about you, until I boarded your ship.
Don't apologize. I'm from the interior, too. Never been a seafarer, never wanted to be one, mountains and forests were my friends, and now — most ancient of seafarers, Hunter Gracchus, patron saint of sailors, Hunter Gracchus — the cabin boy shivering with fear in the crow's-nest in the stormy night prays to me with wringing hands. Don't laugh.
Me laugh? Certainly not. With a beating heart I stood before your cabin door, with a beating heart I entered. Your friendly manner has calmed me a little, but I'll never forget whose guest I am.
You're right, of course. However it may be, I am Hunter Gracchus. Won't you drink some wine? I don't know the brand, but it's sweet and heavy, the master does me proud.
Not just now, I'm too restless. Later perhaps, if you can bear with me that long. Besides, I wouldn't dare drink out of your glass. Who is the master?
The owner of the bark. They are excellent men, these masters. Except that I don't understand them. I don't mean their language, although of course I often don't understand their language, either. But this is beside the point. Over the centuries I've learned enough languages to act as interpreter between this generation and their ancestors. What I don't understand is the way the masters' minds work. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
I haven't much hope. How could I explain anything to you, compared with whom I am but a babbling babe?
Don't, don't talk like that. You'd do me a favor if you'd be a little more manly, more self-assured. What am I to do with a mere shadow of a guest? I'll blow him through the porthole into the lake. I need several explanations. You who roam around outside can give me them. But if you sit trembling at my table here and by self-deception forget the little you know, then you may as well clear out at once. What I mean, I say.
There's something in that. In fact, I am superior to you in some ways. So I'll try to control myself. Ask away!
Better, far better that you exaggerate in this direction and that you fancy yourself to be somehow superior. But you must understand me properly. I am a human being like you, I'm as many centuries more impatient as I am older than you. Well, let's talk about the masters. Listen! And drink some wine, to sharpen your wits. Don't be shy. Take a good swig. There's another large shipload there.
Gracchus, that's an excellent wine. Long live the master!
Pity that he died today. He was a good man and he went peacefully. Healthy, grown-up children stood at his deathbed, his wife had fainted at the foot, but his last thought was for me. A good man, a Hamburger.
Heavens above, a Hamburger! And you down here in the south know that he died today?
What? I not know when my master dies? You're really a bit simple-minded.
Are you trying to insult me?
Not at all, I do it without meaning to. But you shouldn't be so surprised. Drink more wine. As for the masters, it's like this: originally, the bark belonged to no one.
Gracchus, one request. First, tell me briefly but coherently how things are with you. To be truthful: I really don't know. You of course take these things for granted and assume, as is your way, that the whole world knows about them. But in this brief human life — and life really is brief, Gracchus, try to grasp that — in this brief life it's as much as one can do to get oneself and one's family through. Interesting as the Hunter Gracchus is — this is conviction, not flattery — there's no time to think of him, to find out about him, let alone worry about him. Perhaps on one's deathbed, like your Hamburger, this I don't know. Perhaps the busy man will then have a chance to stretch out for the first time and let the green Hunter Gracchus pass for once through his idle thoughts. But otherwise, it's as I've said: I knew nothing about you, business brought me down here to the harbor, I saw the bark, the gangplank lay ready, I walked across — but now I'd like to know something coherent about you.
Ah, coherent. That old, old story. All the books are full of it, teachers draw it on the blackboard in every school, the mother dreams of it while suckling her child, lovers murmur it while embracing, merchants tell it to the customers, the customers to the merchants, soldiers sing it on the march, preachers declaim it in church, historians in their studies realize with open mouths what happened long ago and never cease describing it, it is printed in the newspapers and people pass it from hand to hand, the telegraph was invented so that it might encircle the world the faster, it is excavated from ruined cities, and the elevator rushes it up to the top of the skyscraper. Railway passengers announce it from the windows to the countries they are passing through, but even before that the savages have howled it at them, it can be read in the stars and the lakes reflect it, the streams bring it down from the mountains and the snow scatters it again on the summit, and you, man, sit here and ask me for coherence. You must have had an exceptionally dissipated youth.
Possibly, as is typical of any youth. But it would be very useful, I think, if you would go and have a good look around the world. Strange as it may seem to you, and sitting here it surprises even me, it's a fact that you are not the talk of the town, however many subjects may be discussed you are not among them, the world goes its way and you go on your journey, but until today I have never noticed that your paths have crossed.
These are your observations, my dear friend, other people have made others. There are only two possibilities here. Either you conceal what you know about me, and do so with a definite motive. In which case let me tell you frankly: you are on the wrong track. Or you actually think that you can't remember me, because you confuse my story with someone else's. In that case I can only tell you: I am — no, I can't, everyone knows it and of all people I should be the one to tell you! It's so long ago. Ask the historians! Go to them, and then come back. It's so long ago. How can I be expected to keep it in this overcrowded brain?
Wait, Gracchus, I'll make it easier for you, I'll ask you some questions. Where do you come from?
From the Black Forest, as everyone knows.
From the Black Forest, of course. And was it there, around about the fourth century, that you used to hunt?
Man alive, do you know the Black Forest?
No.
You really don't know anything. The helmsman's little child knows more than you, probably far more. Who on earth sent you in here? It's fate. Your obtrusive modesty was indeed only too well justified. You are a nonentity whom I'm filling up with wine. Now you don't even know the Black Forest. And I was born there. I hunted there until I was twenty-five. If only the chamois had not led me astray — well, now you know it — I'd have had a long pleasant hunter's life, but the chamois led me on, I fell down a precipice and was killed on the rocks. Don't ask any more. Here I am, dead, dead, dead. Don't know why I'm here. Was loaded onto the death ship, as befits a
miserable dead man, the three or four ministrations were performed upon me, as on everyone, why should they make an exception of the Hunter Gracchus? Everything was in order, I lay stretched out in the boat.
Translated by Tania and James Stern
The Great Wall of China
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA was finished off at its northernmost corner. From the southeast and the southwest it came up in two sections that finally converged there. This principle of piecemeal construction was also applied on a smaller scale by both of the two great armies of labor, the eastern and the western. It was done in this way: gangs of some twenty workers were formed who had to accomplish a length, say, of five hundred yards of wall, while a similar gang built another stretch of the same length to meet the first. But after the junction had been made the construction of the wall was not carried on from the point, let us say, where this thousand yards ended; instead the two groups of workers were transferred to begin building again in quite different neighborhoods. Naturally in this way many great gaps were left, which were only filled in gradually and bit by bit, some, indeed, not till after the official announcement that the wall was finished. In fact it is said that there are gaps which have never been filled in at all, an assertion, however, that is probably merely one of the many legends to which the building of the wall gave rise, and which cannot be verified, at least by any single man with his own eyes and judgment, on account of the extent of the structure.