Bashan and I by Thomas Mann (best black authors .TXT) 📕

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 waterfowl, 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 goodbye.

“Tomorrow, 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 hobnailed boots, for the soup has been served and stands smoking on the table.

Colophon

Bashan and I
was published in 1919 by
Thomas Mann.

It was translated from German in 1923 by
Herman George Scheffauer.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Anonymous,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2020 by
An Anonymous Volunteer
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Dog Guarding Dead Game,
a painting completed in 1753 by
Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 3, 2020, 12:00 a.m.
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Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

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