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

world of potato-parings. And in lonely one-day marches, facing all kinds of wind and weather, he had covered the twenty kilometres which he had once travelled between the wheels of the farm wagon. And so his former owners were obliged to hitch up this vehicle in order to deliver the fugitive home-comer into Anastasia’s hands once more. Two more days rolled by and then we again went forth to bring home the errant one. We found him fastened as before to the table-leg, unkempt and gaunt and splashed with the mud of the country roads. To be sure, he gave signs of recognition and of joy as he caught sight of us. But why then had he left us?

There came a time when it was clear that he had rid his mind of the charms of the farm, but had not yet fully taken root with us, so that his soul was masterless and like to a leaf that is set tumbling about by the wind. During this period it was necessary to keep a sharp eye on him whilst out walking, for he was all too prone to tear asunder unperceived the weak band of sympathy that bound us, and in a grand burst of independent living to lose himself in the woods⁠—where he would certainly have reverted to the condition of his savage forbears. Our solicitude preserved him from this sinister destiny. We strove to keep him on that high moral level which his kind had achieved at the side of man during thousands of years of association in common. And then a radical change of residence⁠—our removal to the city, or rather its suburbs⁠—led to his becoming wholly dependent upon us and entering upon an intimate connection with our household life.

III A Few Items Regarding Bashan’s Character and Manner of Life

A man in the Valley of the Isar had told me that dogs of this species might become obnoxious, for they were always anxious to be with the master. I was therefore warned against accepting the tenacious faithfulness which Bashan soon began to display towards me as all too personal in its origin. On the other hand, this made it easier for me to discourage it a little⁠—in so far as this may, in self-defence, have been necessary. We have to deal here with a remote and long-derived patriarchal instinct of the dog which determines him⁠—at least so far as the more manly, open-air loving breeds are concerned⁠—to regard and honour the man, the head of the house and the family, as the master, the protector of the home, the lord, and to find the goal and meaning of his existence in a peculiar relationship of loyal vassal-friendship, and in the maintenance of a far greater spirit of independence towards the other members of the family. It was this spirit that Bashan manifested towards me from the very beginning. His eyes followed me about with a manly trustfulness shining in them. He seemed to be asking for commands which he might fulfil but which I chose not to give, since obedience was not one of his strong points. He clung to my heels with the visible conviction that his inseparability from me was something firmly rooted in the sacred nature of things.

It went without saying that in the family circle he would lie down only at my feet and never at anyone else’s. It went equally without saying that in case I should separate from the others when out walking and pursue my own ways, he should join me and follow my footsteps. He also insisted upon my company when I was working, and when he chanced to find the door that gave upon the garden closed, he would come vaulting in through the window with startling suddenness, whereby a good deal of gravel would come rattling in upon the floor, and then with a sob and a sigh he would throw himself under my desk.

But there is a reverence which we pay to life and to living things which is too vigilant and keen not to be violated even by a dog’s presence when we feel the need of being alone, and it was then that Bashan always disturbed me in the most tangible fashion. He would step up to my chair, wag his tail, look at me with devouring glances, and keep up an incessant trampling. The slightest receptive or approving movement on my part would result in his climbing up on the armrests of the chair, and glueing himself against my chest, in order to force me to laugh by the air-kisses which he kept lunging in my direction. And then he would proceed to an investigation of the top of my desk, assuming, no doubt, that something edible was to be found there, since I was so often caught bending over it. And then his broad and hairy paws would smear or blur the wet ink of my manuscript.

Called sharply to account, he would lie down once more and fall asleep. But no sooner was he asleep than he would begin to dream, during which he would execute the movements of running with all his four feet stretched out, at the same time giving vent to a clear yet subdued ventriloquistic barking which sounded as if it came from another world. That this had a disturbing and distracting effect upon me need surprise no one, for, first of all, it was eerie, and then it stirred and burdened my conscience. This dream-life was all too clearly an artificial substitute for the real chase, the real hunt, and was prepared for him by his nature, because in his common life with me, the happiness of unrestrained movement in the open did not devolve upon him in that measure which his blood and his instincts demanded. This came home to me very strongly, but as it was not to be altered, it was necessary that my moral disquietude should