Pictor's Metamorphoses Part 6

And indeed my estimation of the valiant Ma.s.sagetae was by no means too high. Like all countries which have ambitions of being counted among the more advanced, that of the Ma.s.sagetae nowadays sends a reporter to meet each foreigner who approaches its frontier. Except, of course, when they are venerable and distinguished foreigners; for to them, it goes without saying, far greater honor is shown, to each according to his rank. If they are boxers or soccer champions, they are welcomed by the Minister of Hygiene; if they are compet.i.tive swimmers, by the Minister of Cultural Affairs; and if they hold world's records, by the President of the Republic or one of his deputies. Now in my case I was spared having these attentions heaped upon me; I was a man of letters, and thus an ordinary journalist came to meet me at the border, a pleasant young man with a handsome figure, and he requested, before I set foot in his country, that I honor him with a short statement about my philosophy of life, and especially on my views of the Ma.s.sagetae. It seems this charming custom had also been introduced since my last visit.

"My good sir," I said, "allow me, for I have but an imperfect command of your splendid language, to confine myself only to the most essential observations. My philosophy at any given time is obviously that of the country in which I am traveling. Now, my knowledge of your widely renowned country and people stems from the best and most venerable source imaginable; namely, from the book Clio by the great Herodotus. Filled with deep admiration for the valor of her powerful army and for the glorious memory of your heroic Queen Tomyris herself, I have already had the honor of paying a visit to your country on a prior occasion, and now at last I would like to renew my acquaintance."

"Very much obliged," the Ma.s.sagetes replied, somewhat darkly. "Your name is not unknown to us. Our Ministry of Propaganda conscientiously follows all statements about us that appear in the foreign press, and so it has not escaped our notice that you are the author of some thirty lines about Ma.s.sagetic habits and customs, which you published in a newspaper. It would be an honor for me to accompany you on your present journey through our land, and to see that you have a chance to observe just how much many of our customs have changed since you were here last."

His somewhat darker tone warned me that my earlier utterances about the Ma.s.sagetae, whom I nonetheless continued to hold in the highest esteem, had by no means been met with unreserved approbation here in this country. For a moment I considered turning back, remembering how Queen Tomyris had thrust the severed head of the great Cyrus in a skin filled with human blood, along with other fiery manifestations of this lively national spirit. But, after all, I had my pa.s.sport and my visa, and the days of Tomyris were long gone.

"Pardon me," my guide said now in a somewhat friendlier tone, "if I must first insist on putting your faith to the test. Not that there's even the slightest suspicion of your motives, even though you have visited our country once before. No, only for formality's sake, and because you have, somewhat one-sidedly, called upon Herodotus alone. As you know, in the days of that highly talented Ionian, we did not yet have ministries of propaganda or culture, and so his somewhat negligent statements about our country were allowed to pa.s.s. We can no longer allow, however, a present-day author to rely exclusively upon the testimony of Herodotus. -And thus, my esteemed colleague, tell me in a few words your opinion of and feelings for the Ma.s.sagetae."

I gave a little sigh. I could see that this young man was not inclined to make things easy for me; he stood on formalities. All right then, formalities it would be. I began: "Obviously, I am well aware that the Ma.s.sagetae are not only the oldest and most pious, most cultured, and at the same time the bravest people on earth, that their invincible armies are the largest, their fleet the greatest, their character at once the most inflexible and the most amiable, their women the most beautiful, their schools and public buildings the most exemplary in the world, but also that in all the world they possess in the highest degree that virtue which is so highly esteemed and so sorely lacking in many other great peoples: namely, although conscious of their own superiority, they are charitable toward and considerate of foreigners, not expecting each and every poor stranger-coming from an inferior country-to have himself attained the heights of Ma.s.sagetic perfection. And I shall not fail to make mention of this, in strict accordance with the facts, in my report to my homeland."

"Very good," my companion said charitably. "Indeed you have, in your enumeration of our virtues, hit the nail, or more precisely, the nails, on the head. I see that you are better informed than you initially appeared to be, and from the bottom of my faithful Ma.s.sagetic heart, I freely and openly welcome you to our lovely country. To be sure, a few gaps in your knowledge of us require some filling in. In particular, it struck me that in mentioning our great accomplishments, you neglected two critical areas of achievement: namely, Sports and Christianity. It was a Ma.s.sagetes, my good man, who set the international world's record-at 11,098-in hopping backwards while blindfolded."

"Indeed," I smiled politely, "how could I possibly have neglected that! But you also mentioned Christianity as a field in which your people have set records. May I ask you to enlighten me on that score?"

"Well now," the young man said, "I just wanted to point out that it would be gratifying to us, if in writing about your trip, you would add one or two friendly superlatives on this account. For example, in a town on the Araxes we have an old priest who in his lifetime has said no fewer than 63,000 ma.s.ses, and in another town there is a famous modern church in which everything is made of cement, native cement at that: walls, tower, floors, pillars, altars, roof, baptismal font, pulpit, etc., everything down to the last candlestick, down to the collection plates."

Well, I thought, you probably even have a cement minister standing in a cement pulpit. But I held my tongue.

"Let me be frank with you," my guide went on. "We have an interest in promoting as strongly as possible our image as Christians. Although our nation adopted the Christian religion centuries ago, and although there is no longer any trace of the former G.o.ds and cults of the Ma.s.sagetae, there is still a small, all-too-ardent faction in our country bent on reintroducing the G.o.ds from the days of the Persian King Cyrus and Queen Tomyris. This is purely the whim of a few fanatics, mind you, but naturally the foreign press in our neighboring countries seizes upon this ridiculous matter and draws connections between it and the reorganization of our military. We are suspected of wanting to abolish Christianity in our country, so that in the next war, what few restraints remain on the use of weapons of total destruction can more readily be relinquished. This is the reason an emphasis on the Christian nature of our land would be gratifying to us. Of course, nothing is further from our minds than wanting to influence your objective report in the slightest way, and yet for all that, I can tell you in all confidence that your readiness to write some few words on our Christianity could result in a personal invitation from the Chancellor of the Republic. I say this only as an aside."

"I will think the matter over," I said. "Actually, Christianity is not my area of expertise. -But now I would be very happy once again to see the splendid monument that your ancestors erected to the heroic Spargapises."

"Spargapises?" my colleague mumbled. "Now, who would that be?"

"Why, the brave son of Tomyris, who could not bear the disgrace of having been deceived by Cyrus, and who took his own life in prison."

"Oh yes, of course," my companion cried, "I see you keep coming back to Herodotus. Yes, this monument was indeed said to have been very beautiful. It has vanished from the face of the earth in a strange manner. Just listen! We have, as you well know, an insatiable interest in science, especially in archaeological research; and when it comes to the number of square meters excavated or tunneled under for the purposes of research, our country ranks third or fourth in the world. These prodigious excavations, predominantly for prehistoric deposits, were also being carried on in the vicinity of that monument from Tomyris times, and precisely because that terrain promised to yield up great treasures-namely, a deposit of Ma.s.sagetic mammoth bones-an attempt was made to dig under the monument to a certain depth. And while this was going on, the monument fell over and was destroyed! Fragments of it, however, should still be on display in the Museum Ma.s.sagetic.u.m."

He took me to a car that was standing ready, and engaged in lively conversation, we drove toward the interior of the country.

King Yu.

A STORY FROM OLD CHINA.

IN THE HISTORY of old China, there are but few examples of regents and statesmen whose downfall came about through the influence of a woman or a romantic involvement. One of these rare examples, and a very remarkable one, is that of King Yu of Dschou and his wife Bau Si.

The kingdom of Dschou ab.u.t.ted, in the west, on the provinces of Mongolian barbarians; its capital, Fong, was situated in the midst of insecure territory, which from time to time was prey to the raids and surprise attacks of those barbarian tribes. Thus, consideration had to be given to the best possible means of strengthening the border defenses, and especially to the better protection of the capital.

By no means a bad statesman, and one who knew when to heed the good advice of his counselors, King Yu, as the history books tell us, was able to compensate for the drawbacks of his border with ingenious devices; but as the history books also tell us, all these ingenious and admirable contrivances eventually came to naught, owing to the capriciousness of a pretty woman.

That same king, with the a.s.sistance of all the princes who owed him fealty, created a fortification along the western frontier, and this, like all political constructs, had two dimensions: to wit, one part moral and the other mechanical. The moral component of the agreement between the king and his princes was a loyalty oath which bound the princes and their officials to dispatch themselves and their soldiers to the king's residence to aid him at the very first sign of distress. The mechanical component, which the king devised, consisted in an elaborate system of watchtowers, built along the western frontier. A guard would be posted day and night in each of the towers, which were furnished with huge drums. Now, should an enemy raid occur anywhere along the border, drumbeats would sound in the nearest tower, and from tower to tower the drum signal would fly with utmost speed throughout the land.

For a long time King Yu was occupied with this clever and meritorious project; he conferred with his princes, heard the reports of the master builders, arranged to have the sentries thoroughly trained. But he had a favorite wife by the name of Bau Si, a beautiful woman who knew how to exert more influence over the heart and mind of the king than is good for a ruler or his realm. Like her lord, Bau Si followed the construction works at the frontier with intense curiosity and interest, just as a lively, clever girl sometimes will look on with eager admiration at boys playing their games. In order to make the matter of the border defenses clear to her, one of the master builders made a fine model of painted and fired clay for Bau Si. There in miniature were the border and the system of towers, and in each of the dainty little clay towers stood an infinitely small clay guard, and a tiny bell hung in place of each drum. This charming toy gave the king's wife infinite pleasure; when she happened, now and then, to be in a bad mood, her maidservants would suggest they play "Barbarian Invasion." Then they would set up all the little towers, pull on the strings of the miniature bells, and soon would grow thoroughly amused and exuberant.

It was a great day in the king's life when at last the construction was complete, the drums installed, and their attendants trained to perfection. And now, on a day previously deemed to be auspicious, the new border defenses were put to the test. Proud of his accomplishment, the king was greatly excited; his court officers stood ready to offer congratulations, but more than anyone, the lovely Bau Si was expectant and excited and could scarcely wait for all the preliminary ceremonies and invocations to be over.

At last, things reached the point where the game of towers and drumbeats, in which the king's wife had so often delighted, would be played out in real life. She could scarcely keep herself from intervening in the game and giving orders-so great was her excitement. With a serious look on his face, the king gave her a sign and she managed to control herself. The hour had come; now the game of "Barbarian Invasion" would be played with real, full-sized towers and drums and people, to see if everything would function properly. The king gave the signal, the head court official pa.s.sed the order on to the captain of the cavalry; the captain rode to the first watchtower and gave the order to sound the drum. The drum boomed forcefully, and its solemn and gripping tone sounded in every ear. Bau Si had grown pale with excitement and began to tremble. Mightily the great war drum sang its harsh earthshaking song, a song full of warning and menace, full of the future, of war and misery, of fear and destruction. Everyone listened to it in awe. Now it began to fade, and the answer came from the next tower, distant and weak and rapidly dying away, until nothing more was heard, and after a while the solemn silence was broken, people began to talk again, to move about and amuse themselves.

In the meantime, the deep, menacing sound of the drum ran from the second tower to the third, to the tenth, and to the thirtieth tower, and as soon as they heard it, every soldier, under strict orders, armed and with his knapsack filled with provisions, immediately had to proceed to the rendezvous; every captain and colonel, without losing a moment's time, had to prepare to march and in all haste had to send certain orders, as previously determined, to the interior of the country. Everywhere within earshot of the sound of the drum, work and meals, games and sleep were interrupted and replaced by packing, saddling, a.s.sembling, marching and riding. As quickly as possible, and from all the neighboring districts, troops hurried on their way to the residence Fong.

In Fong, in the middle of the court, the intense emotion and suspense which, at the sounding of the terrible drum, had seized every heart had soon subsided. People strolled in the gardens of the residence, stimulated and chatting; the whole city had a holiday, and in less than three hours, large and small cavalcades approached from two sides, and from one hour to the next, new ones arrived. This went on all day and for the whole of the following two days, during which time the king, the officials, and the officers were seized by an ever-increasing enthusiasm. The king was piled high with honors and congratulations, the master builders were given a banquet, and the drummer from Tower I, who had been first to beat the drum, was garlanded, carried through the streets, and given presents by all the people.

Utterly enraptured, as if intoxicated, however, was Bau Si, the king's wife. More glorious than she could ever have imagined, her little game of towers and bells had become real. Enveloped in the broad, vast sound wave the drum produced, the command was magical, and it disappeared into the empty land. And alive, large as life, enormously its issue came streaming back out of the distance; out of the heart-gripping howl of that drum an army had grown, a well-equipped army of hundreds and thousands, who came in a steady stream, in a continuous hurrying motion; archers, light and heavy cavalry, lancers came riding and marching from the horizon, and with increasing turmoil they gradually filled all the s.p.a.ce surrounding the city, where they were met and shown their posts, where they were greeted and shown hospitality, where they camped, pitched their tents, and lit their fires. Day and night it went on; like ghosts in a fairy tale, they emerged from the gray ground, distant, minute, veiled in small dust clouds, so that here at last, right before the eyes of the court and the enraptured Bau Si, they stood in formation, overwhelmingly real.

King Yu was well satisfied, and especially so with his enraptured favorite wife; like a flower she beamed with joy, and never before had she looked so beautiful to him. But all holidays must come to an end. Even this great holiday had to fade and yield to the everyday: no more miracles took place, no fairy-tale dreams came true. To idle and moody people, such disappointment is unbearable. A few weeks after the holiday. Bau Si had lost all her good humor. Once she had tasted the big game, the smaller game with the miniature clay towers and the tiny bells with their strings had become vapid. Oh, how intoxicating it had been! And now everything lay ready for a repet.i.tion of the rapturous game: there stood the towers and there hung the drums, the soldiers were at their posts and the drummers were in uniform, all waiting, all poised for the great command, and all this was dead and useless as long as no order came!

Bau Si lost her laughter, she lost her radiant disposition; and deprived of his most beloved playmate, of his evening consolation, the king grew sullen. He had to give her more and more extravagant gifts in order to bring a smile to her lips. Now would have been the time to acknowledge the situation and to sacrifice this tender affection on the altar of his duty. But Yu was weak. To see Bau Si laugh again seemed more important to him than anything else in the world.

So he yielded to her temptation-slowly and under protest, but he yielded. Bau Si brought him to the point where he became oblivious of his duty. Succ.u.mbing to her entreaties, repeated for the thousandth time, he fulfilled the single great wish of her heart: he acquiesced in giving the signal to the border guards, as if the enemy were in sight. Immediately the deep, agitating voice of the war drum sounded. But this time the king found it terrifying, and even Bau Si was frightened by the sound. But then the whole charming game was reenacted: at the edge of the world little clouds of dust suddenly appeared, the troops came riding and marching, for three whole days the generals bowed, the soldiers pitched their tents. Bau Si was blissful, her laugh was radiant. But these were difficult hours for King Yu. He had to confess that the enemy had not attacked, that everything was peaceful and calm. He tried his best to justify the false alarm, explaining it away as a salutary exercise. He was not contradicted, people bowed and accepted his excuses. But there was talk among the officers; they had been dealt a treacherous blow by the king, he had alarmed the whole border and set everything in motion, all those thousands of people, for the sole purpose of obliging his mistress. And the majority of the officers agreed that never again would they respond to such a command. In the meantime, the king took great pains to appease the disgruntled troops by seeing that they were entertained in a grand fas.h.i.+on. And so Bau Si had attained her goal.

But even before she had time to fall into another one of her bad moods and could again repeat the unscrupulous game, both Bau Si and the king got their punishment. Perhaps by chance, and perhaps because they had gotten wind of this story, one day the barbarians in the west came swarming over the frontier. Instantly the towers gave their signals, the deep drum sound cried its urgent warning and ran even to the farthest border. But this excellent toy, whose mechanism was so greatly to be admired, now appeared to be shattered-certainly the drums sounded, but this time they failed utterly to resound in the hearts of the soldiers and officers of the country. They did not follow the drum, and in vain the king and Bau Si looked out all around them; no dust clouds were rising, no small gray platoons came creeping, no one at all came to the aid of the king.

With what few troops he had on hand, the king hastened toward the barbarians. But these came in great numbers; they killed the king's troops, captured the residence Fong, destroyed the palace and the towers. King Yu lost his kingdom and his life, and things did not go otherwise for his favorite wife, Bau Si, of whose pernicious laugh the history books still tell us today.

Fong was destroyed, the game had been played in earnest. No more would the drums sound, King Yu was no more, and no more was the laughing Bau Si. Yu's successor, King Ping, found no alternative but to abandon Fong and remove his capital far to the east; to insure the future security of his dominion, he had to enter into alliances with the neighboring princes and buy them off by surrendering to them vast tracts of land.

Bird.

A FAIRY TALE.

BIRD LIVED, in times gone by, within the environs of Montagsdorf. His coloration was not especially bright, nor was his song distinctly beautiful, and he was neither large nor imposing; no, those who have seen him with their own eyes call him small, even puny. He was not a lovely bird, but he had in him some measure of the singular and the sublime, something which all animals and creatures have and which is not a function of genus or species. Neither hawk nor fowl, t.i.tmouse nor woodp.e.c.k.e.r nor finch-no others were like him; he was one of a kind. And people had known about him from time immemorial, from the beginnings of recorded time. And even if the only people who really knew him were those from the environs of Montagsdorf, neighbors far and wide had heard of him; and the inhabitants of Montagsdorf, like all people who have something special of their very own, were occasionally teased about him. "The people of Montagsdorf," so it was said, "even have their own bird." From Careno to Morbio and beyond, people knew of him and told stories about him. But as is so often the case, only in more recent times-to be precise, only since his disappearance-have people tried to obtain exact and reliable information about him. Many foreigners came to Montagsdorf to inquire about Bird, and many a native of Montagsdorf allowed himself to be interrogated over a gla.s.s of wine, until he finally confessed that he himself never had seen the bird. But if he had never seen Bird himself, then at least he still knew someone who had seen Bird one or more times, and who told stories about him. All this was now being investigated and recorded, and it was strange to see how much these various accounts disagreed with one another, concerning not only Bird's appearance, voice, and manner of flight, but also his habits and dealings with human beings.

In earlier times, sightings of Bird are said to have been more frequent, and whoever encountered Bird always felt joy; each time it was an event, a stroke of luck, a small adventure, just as for nature lovers it is a little event and a piece of luck when now and then they catch sight of a fox or a cuckoo and have a chance to observe it. For in that moment it seems that either the creature loses its fear of the frightful human race, or else the human himself is drawn back into a state of primitive innocence. There were those who did not think very highly of Bird, just as there are those who belittle the discovery of one of the first gentians, or an encounter with a wily old serpent; but there were others who loved him dearly, and for each of them it was a joy and a distinction to encounter him. Once in a great while one heard the opinion expressed that Bird may formerly have been dangerous or perhaps sinister: whoever looked at him would be upset for a time and would have many disturbing dreams at night and would feel uneasy and nostalgic at heart. Others denied this and maintained that there was no feeling more n.o.ble or exquisite than that which followed each encounter with Bird; for then one's heart felt as it did after Holy Communion, or as after hearing a lovely song; one thought of all that was beautiful and ideal, and deep inside resolved to become a different and a better human being.

A man by the name of Schalaster, a cousin of the well-known Sehuster who for many years was the mayor of Montagsdorf, was all his life deeply and especially preoccupied with Bird. Every year, so he tells us, he would encounter Bird on one or two or several occasions. For days after each encounter he would find himself in strange spirits; he was not exactly cheerful, but rather oddly moved and full of expectation and surmise. On such days his heart beat in a different way from the usual, it almost hurt a little; in any case, he could feel it in his breast, whereas otherwise he was scarcely aware that he had a heart. When he came to speak of it, Schalaster opined that it was no mere trifle to have this bird in the neighborhood; one ought to be proud of this rara avis, and one ought to think: a person to whom this enigmatic bird had revealed himself more often than to others had no doubt something special and exalted in him.

(Better-educated readers will be interested in the following particulars about Schalaster. He was the star witness and the often-quoted authority in that eschatological treatise on the Bird phenomenon, which meanwhile has once again sunk into oblivion; moreover, after Bird's disappearance, Schalaster was the spokesman for that small faction in Montagsdorf which believed unconditionally that Bird was still alive and would reappear at some future time.) "When I saw him for the first time," Schalaster relates,* "I was a little boy who had not yet entered school. In the orchard behind our house the gra.s.s had just been cut, and I was standing near a cherry tree, one of whose lower branches hung down almost to my height, looking at the hard, green cherries, when Bird came flying down from the tree. I realized at once that he was different from all the other birds I had seen, and he landed amid the gra.s.s stubble and hopped all around. With curiosity and admiration I ran after him through the garden; several times he looked at me out of his l.u.s.trous eyes and hopped farther away, it was as when someone dances and sings for himself alone, and it was quite clear to me that in doing so he meant to entice me and cheer me. There was a white patch on his neck. He went dancing over the lawn as far as the back fence where the nettles grow, soared over them and landed on one of the fence posts, where he twittered and gave me another friendly look, then he disappeared so suddenly and unexpectedly that I was quite alarmed. Even on subsequent encounters I often remarked this: no other animal can appear and disappear at such lightning speed as Bird-and always when one is least prepared for it. I ran indoors to my mother and told her what had happened; directly she told me that it was the bird with no name, and it was good that I had seen him; it brought good luck."

Departing somewhat from many other accounts, Schalaster describes Bird as small, scarcely larger than a wren, the smallest part of him being his head, a wonderfully clever and nimble little head. His appearance was unremarkable, but one recognized him right away by his gray-blond crest and by the way he looked at one, which other birds never do. The crest was, even if quite a bit smaller, like that of a jay, and it often bobbed up and down in a lively fas.h.i.+on; Bird was in general very animated, in flight as well as on foot. His movements were supple and very expressive; with his eyes, with the nodding of his head, with the bobbing of his crest, he always seemed to have something to communicate, something to remind you of, like a messenger always on an errand; and whenever you saw him, you had to stop for a while and think about him, what he might have wanted and what he signified. He did not like to have anyone spy on him or lie in wait for him, and no one ever knew where he had come from. Quite suddenly he would just be there, sitting nearby and acting as if he had always sat there, and then he would have this friendly look. And yet we know that birds, as a rule, have hard, shy, gla.s.sy eyes and do not look at people, but Bird looked at people quite cheerfully, and to a certain degree benevolently.

Even in olden times there were many and varying reports and legends about Bird. Today one hears less and less about him, people have changed and life has become harder; almost all young people go to work in the city, families no longer sit together on the outside stairs on summer evenings or around the hearth on winter evenings; no one has time for anything any more, a young person today scarcely knows a few wildflowers or a b.u.t.terfly by name. Nonetheless, even today one occasionally hears an old woman or a grandfather telling stories about Bird to children. One of these legends about Bird, perhaps the oldest one, goes as follows.

Bird from Montagsdorf is as old as the world, he was there when Cain slew his brother Abel, and he drank a drop of Abel's blood; then he flew away with the tidings of Abel's death and he tells of it to people even today, so that they do not forget this story, and so they are constantly reminded of the sanct.i.ty of human life and the importance of living together as brothers.

This Abel legend had already been written down in olden times and there are songs about it. But the scholars say that although the legend of the Abel bird is indeed very old and has been told in many countries and many languages, its application to the Bird of Montagsdorf is fallacious. They would have people bear in mind that it would be completely absurd for this Abel bird, many thousands of years old, to settle down in this one region without ever having shown himself elsewhere.

Now, for our part, we certainly could bear in mind that in fairy tales things don't always necessarily happen as rationally as they do in the academies, and we could ask if it is not the scholars themselves who are responsible for so much uncertainty and so many contradictions in the matter of Bird; because before their time, to the best of our knowledge, there had never been disputes about Bird and his legends. If someone told a tale about Bird different from that of his neighbor, his version was calmly accepted; in fact, that people could think and tell so many diverse things about Bird only served to honor him. One could go even further and rebuke the scholars: not only should they have the extirpation of Bird on their conscience, but also in their present investigations they are guilty of endeavoring to efface all memory of him and his legends until nothing further remains, for it certainly seems that explication into nothingness is the special province of scholars.h.i.+p. But who among us would have the sad courage so grossly to attack the scholars, to whom knowledge owes, if not everything, so very much?

No, let us turn back to those legends told of Bird in former times, fragments of which are still being told today by the country folk. In most of them Bird is taken for an enchanted, transformed, or cursed being. The legend that Bird was an enchanted Hohenstaufen, the last great emperor or magus of the line that ruled in Sicily, who knew the secrets of Arabian wisdom, may well be due to the influence of those who made the Journey to the East, in whose history the region between Montagsdorf and Morbio plays a decisive role, and whose tracks one comes upon throughout the region. Generally it is said that Bird was once a prince, or even (as, for example, Sehuster believes he heard) a sorcerer, who lived in a red house on the Hill of Snakes and was held in high esteem by all who lived in the region. But then the new law of Flachsenfingen went into effect, which resulted in many going hungry, because sorcery, spell-casting, self-transformation, and other such arts were forbidden and marked with infamy. In those days the sorcerer had planted blackberries and acacias all around his red house, which soon disappeared in a thicket of thorns; he left his house and land and, accompanied by long trains of snakes, disappeared into the woods. As Bird, he returns from time to time to ensnare human souls and again to practice sorcery. Naturally, magic is the only explanation for the peculiar influence he exerted over so many; the storyteller is silent as to whether the sorcerer practiced magic of the white or the black variety.

Those remarkable fragmentary folktales which point toward a kind of matriarchal culture, and in which the "Foreign Woman," also called Ninon, plays a role, also indubitably exhibit the influence of those who made the Journey to the East. Many of these tales relate that she succeeded in catching Bird and holding him captive for years, until the village finally became indignant and set its bird free. There is also the rumor that the foreign woman Ninon had known Bird long before he had a.s.sumed the shape of a bird, while he was still a magus, and further that she lived with him in the red house, where they bred and raised long black snakes and green lizards with blue peac.o.c.k's heads. Even today the Blackberry Hill above Montagsdorf is full of snakes, and even today one can distinctly see how every snake and every lizard, when it comes to the spot where the threshold of the sorcerer's workshop had been, pauses a moment, raises up its head, and then bows. Now long deceased, a very old woman from the village, Nina by name, is said to have told and sworn to the following tale. Very often, while out looking for herbs on the Hill of Thorns, she would see the vipers bow down at that place where even now the stump of a small rosebush, many hundreds of years old, marks the entrance to the former House of Magic. Yet other voices a.s.sert most definitely that Ninon had nothing whatsoever to do with the magus; she came to the region only much later, in the distant wake of those who made the Journey to the East, long after Bird had become a bird.

AN ENTIRE GENERATION has not yet gone by since the last time Bird was seen. But old people pa.s.s away so unexpectedly, even the "Baron" is gone now, and it has been a long time since the cheerful Mario walked without stooping, as we knew him to, and one day there will suddenly be no one left who experienced the days of Bird at first hand; that is why we want to write down the details of Bird's story, however confused they may seem, to record what happened to him and how he met his end.

Even if Montagsdorf lies rather far off the beaten path and relatively few people know the quiet little wooded ravines that surround it, where the kite rules the woods and the cuckoo's cry is heard everywhere, nonetheless it was there that the strange bird was often seen, and it was there that the legends about him sprang up. There it is said the painter Klingsor lived for many years in his n.o.ble old ruin; the gorge of Morbio became known through Leo's Journey to the East (moreover, in an even more absurd variant of the tale, it is said that Ninon obtained from Leo the recipe for bishop's bread, on which she fed Bird, and in doing so tamed him). In short, our region-which for centuries was utterly unknown and utterly irreproachable-was now under discussion throughout the world; far away in cities and at universities, people wrote dissertations on Leo's path to Morbio, and these people took an intense interest in the various stories of the Bird of Montagsdorf. And so all sorts of rash statements were made and written, statements which the more serious scholars of folklore are now at pains to suppress. Among others there arose more than once the absurd contention that Bird was identical with the famed Bird of Pictor, who had dealings with the painter Klingsor, and who possessed the gift of transformation as well as a great deal of secret knowledge. But that bird, famous through Pictor, that "Bird red and green; lovely, daring," is so precisely described in the literature* that one can scarcely comprehend the possibility of such a mistake.

And finally the learned world's interest in us natives of Montagsdorf and our Bird reached a climax, just as the story of Bird reached its own climax in the following way. One day, into the hands of our former mayor, the aforementioned Sehuster, there came a letter from the office immediately superior to his own. Addressing himself to the Current Occupant of the Office of Mayor of the Said Locality, His Grace the Amba.s.sador of the Ostrogoth Empire, writing on behalf of Privy Councillor Ltzkenstett the Erudite, sends the following communique to the mayor with the urgent request that he make known to his community the following proclamation: A certain bird with no name, commonly referred to as "the Bird of Montagsdorf," under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, is being researched and sought after by Privy Councillor Ltzkenstett. Whosoever has anything whatsoever to communicate with respect to the bird, its habits, its diet, the maxims and proverbs, the legends and tales, etc., pertaining to it, should direct same through the Mayor's Office to the Imperial Ostrogothian Emba.s.sy in Bern. Further: whosoever shall deliver the bird in question, alive and in good health, to the aforementioned Office of the Mayor, shall receive from the Emba.s.sy a consideration in the sum of one thousand gold ducats; while, for the delivery of the dead bird or its skin, only one hundred ducats will be offered in payment.

For a long time the mayor sat studying this official doc.u.ment. It seemed to him that the authorities were up to their old tricks again, and their request was uncalled for and ridiculous. Had this same request been addressed specifically to him, Sehuster, on behalf of the learned Goth, or even on behalf of the Ostrogothian Emba.s.sy, he would have dismissed it out of hand, without extending the courtesy of a reply, or he would have intimated in a few words that such foolishness would not be tolerated by Mayor Sehuster, and the gentlemen could all go jump in the lake. But, alas, this request came from his own superior; it was an order and he had to obey it. Even farsighted old Balmelli, the town clerk, after reading the letter to himself at full arm's length, and suppressing the scornful smile which such affairs seemed to merit, attested: "We must obey, Herr Sehuster; there's nothing we can do. I will post it as an official notice."

After a few days' time, the whole community had read the poster on the notice board of the Town Hall: Bird was free as a bird, he was wanted abroad, and a price had been put on his head; the Swiss Confederation and the Canton had declined to offer asylum to the legendary Bird; as usual, they didn't give a d.a.m.n about the common man and that which he loved and cherished. This, at least, was the opinion of Balmelli and numerous others. Whoever wanted to catch the poor bird or shoot him to death did so at the bidding of a large sum of money, and whoever succeeded in doing it would be a wealthy man. Everyone talked about it, everyone stood near the Town Hall, crowding around the notice board, expressing himself in a lively manner. The young people were most pleased of all; they decided immediately to set traps and to prepare twigs with birdlime. Old Nina shook her gray, sparrow-hawk head and said: "It's a sin, and the Bundesrat ought to be ashamed. These people would turn in the Saviour Himself for a price. But they will not get him, G.o.d be praised, they will not get him!"

As he read the poster, Schalaster, the mayor's cousin, remained completely silent. Without uttering a word, he read it over very carefully a second time, neglected to go to church, where he had meant to go on that Sunday morning, slowly walked toward the mayor's house, went into its garden, changed his mind quite suddenly, turned around, and ran home.

All his life, Schalaster had had a special relations.h.i.+p with Bird. He had seen him more frequently and observed him more closely than others had; he belonged, if one may say so, to those who believed in Bird, who took him more seriously and who ascribed to him a higher significance. Thus, the proclamation pulled him violently in several directions at once. At first, he felt just as old Nina and the majority of the elder citizens who followed the old ways did: he was shocked and indignant that, at the request of outsiders, his Bird, the treasure and trademark of the village and the region, was to be turned in as a prisoner, or else killed! How could it happen that this rare and mysterious guest from the forests, this fabulous being known from time immemorial, through whom Montagsdorf had become both famous and ridiculed, and about whom so many different stories and tales had come down-how was it that now, for the sake of money and knowledge, this bird should be sacrificed to the cruel inquisitiveness of a scholar? It seemed scandalous and absolutely beyond belief. One was being asked to commit a sacrilege. And yet, on the other hand, if one weighed the matter carefully, putting each thing now into one, now into the other, pan of the scale-wasn't an extraordinary and radiant fate promised to the man who committed that sacrilege? And wasn't the capture of the exalted Bird presumably a task that required a special man, one chosen and predestined, one who had lived in a most secret and intimate relation to Bird since childhood, one whose fate was entwined with Bird's? And who could this chosen and unique man be, who else but he, Schalaster? And if it was a sacrilege and a crime to take Bird by force, a sacrilege comparable to Judas Iscariot's betrayal of the Saviour-hadn't even that betrayal, hadn't the Saviour's death and sacrifice been necessary and holy, predestined and prophesied from the most ancient times? Would it have, Schalaster asked himself and all the world, would it have availed in the least, could it have altered or hindered in the slightest G.o.d's decree and His work of salvation if that same Iscariot, on moral or rational grounds, had shunned his role and failed to go through with the betrayal?

Such were the paths Schalaster's thoughts took, and they upset him enormously. In that very same orchard behind his house, where once as a small boy he had seen Bird for the first time and had felt the tremor of joy of that adventure, he now paced back and forth in agitation, to the goat stall, to the kitchen window, to the rabbit coop and beyond, his Sunday coat grazing the hayrakes, pitchforks, and scythes hanging on the back wall of the barn-upset and confused, almost intoxicated with thoughts, wishes, and resolutions, heavyhearted, thinking of Judas, a thousand heavy dream-ducats in the bag.

Meanwhile, the excitement continued to spread through the village. Since the notice had been posted, practically the whole community had gathered in front of the Town Hall; from time to time, someone would walk up to the notice board and take another hard look at the poster. All came equipped with their own opinions and, using a few well-chosen words from personal experience, common sense, and the Holy Scriptures, they forcefully aired them. The proclamation had split the village into two opposing camps; there were only a few people who did not, immediately upon reading it, make up their minds one way or the other. No doubt there were those who, like Schalaster, considered the actual hunting of Bird a frightful thing, but who, nonetheless, would have liked to have the ducats, and not everybody was capable of carefully sorting out this complicated contradiction. The young men took it least seriously. Considerations, moral or conservational, could not in the least curb their spirit of adventure. In their opinion, if traps were set, someone might be lucky enough to catch Bird, even if there was little chance of it, since no one knew what bait to use to attract Bird. And if someone managed to spot Bird, he would be well advised to shoot on sight, because, after all, one hundred ducats in one's wallet would be better than one thousand in one's imagination. Loudly they agreed among themselves, and looked forward to what they were going to do, but they quarreled over the particulars of the bird hunt. One of them cried out for someone to give him a good rifle, he would put down one half ducat on account, he'd be ready to start out at once and willing to sacrifice his whole Sunday to the task. The opposition, however, whose ranks included almost all of the old people, found the whole thing shocking. They cried aloud or muttered words of wisdom and maledictions on the people of today, to whom nothing was sacred any more, who had lost all fidelity and belief. Laughing, the young people retorted that this was not a matter of fidelity or belief; rather, it was a matter of marksmans.h.i.+p-of course, all virtue and wisdom would continue to reside in those whose half-blind eyes no longer could take aim at a bird, and whose gouty fingers no longer could hold a rifle. And so it went back and forth, with brio, and people exercised their wit on this new problem, so much so that they almost completely forgot to eat. Pa.s.sionately and eloquently, they told stories of good and bad times in their families, stories more or less relating to Bird; urgently they reminded everyone of holy grandfather Nathanael, of old Sehuster, of the fabulous pilgrimage of those who made the Journey to the East; they quoted verses from the psalm book and relevant pa.s.sages from operas, found one another intolerable and yet could not leave one another's company, called upon the mottos and dicta of their forebears, delivered monologues on times gone by, on the dead bishop, on illnesses survived. A seriously ill old farmer, for example, who lay on his sickbed, looked out of his window and caught sight of Bird, only for a moment, but from that instant he began to recover. They spoke, partly to themselves-addressing an inner vision-and partly to their fellow villagers, imploring or accusing, concurring or deriding; in discord as in accord, they had a pleasant feeling of the strength, the endurance, the endlessness of their solidarity. The old and wise came forward, the young and clever came forward, teased one another, ardently and rationally defended the good old ways of their fathers, ardently and rationally questioned the good old ways of their fathers, boasted of their ancestors, smirked about their ancestors, celebrated their age and experience, celebrated their youth and their arrogance, let it almost come to blows, bellowed, laughed, a.s.sayed their common goals and disagreements, every one of them seemingly up to his neck in the conviction that he was right and that he had said something clever to the others.

In the midst of these verbal exercises and all this taking of sides, during which the ninety-year-old Nina adjured her blond grandson to heed her forebodings and not ally himself with these cruel and G.o.dless people in their dangerous hunt for Bird, and during which the young people disrespectfully acted out a pantomime of the hunt before her h.o.a.ry countenance-placing imaginary rifles to her cheeks, squinting their eyes and taking aim, screaming pop! bang!-something quite unexpected happened, and young and old alike fell dumb in mid-sentence and stopped, as if turned to stone. Old Balmelli cried out, and all eyes turned to follow his outstretched arm and pointing finger, and-suddenly amid deep silence-they saw Bird, the much-discussed Bird himself, soar down from the roof of the Town Hall and land on the edge of the notice board, rub his wing against his round little head, whet his beak and chirp out a brief melody; batting his agile little tail up and down and trilling, he ruffled up his crest. And he-known only by hearsay to many of the villagers-groomed himself a little while right before everyone's eyes, showed himself, and bent down his head, as if he, too, were curious about the proclamation of the authorities, wanting to know how many ducats were being offered for him. He may only have paused there for a few moments, but to everyone present the visit seemed solemn and like a challenge; now no one cried out "pop, bang"; instead, they all stood and stared, as if spellbound, at the daring visitor who had come flying to them and who had chosen to appear at this place and this moment with the sole intention of making fun of them. Astonished and embarra.s.sed, they stared at him who had taken them so by surprise; with delight and satisfaction they looked at the fine little fellow, about whom there had recently been so much talk and because of whom their region was famous, he who had been witness to Abel's death, or who had been a Hohen-staufen or a Prince or a Magus, and had lived in a red house on the Hill of Snakes, where even now vipers lived, at him who had aroused the curiosity and greed of foreign scholars and governments, at him for whose capture a reward of one thousand gold pieces was offered. They all loved and admired him, even those who just a few moments later would curse and stamp their feet in annoyance, because their hunting rifles were not at hand; they loved him and were proud of him, he belonged to them, he was their honor and their glory; batting his tail and ruffling his crest, he sat very close by, above their heads, on the edge of the notice board, like their prince or their coat of arms. And only now, when he suddenly disappeared and the spot everyone had been staring at was empty, did they slowly awaken from the spell cast over them. They laughed at one another, cried out "bravo," sang Bird's praises, called out for their rifles, asked in which direction he had flown, remembered that this was the same bird that had healed the old farmer, the one the grandfather of the ninety-year-old Nina had known, felt something strange, something like happiness and the desire to laugh, but at the same time something mysterious, magical, awe-inspiring; and suddenly they scattered in all directions, went home to their soup, at last to make an end of this exciting a.s.sembly in which the intense emotions of the whole village had been raised to the boiling point, emotions over which Bird obviously reigned king. In front of the Town Hall it grew still, and a while later, when the midday bells began to toll, the square lay utterly empty and lifeless. On the whiteness of the sun-lit poster, a shadow then began to fall, the shadow of the molding of the notice board, on which not a moment ago Bird had been sitting.

In the meantime Schalaster, lost in thought, was pacing up and down behind his house, past the rakes and the scythes, past the stalls for the rabbits and the goats; his steps gradually became less agitated and more uniform, his theological and moral ponderings coming closer and closer to equilibrium and stasis. The midday bells aroused him; startled and sobered, he returned to the present, recognized the call of the bells, knew that in a moment his wife would call him to the table, was a little ashamed at his self-absorption, and stepped more firmly in his boots. And now, just as his wife's voice was raised, confirming the call of the village bells, all at once something seemed to swim before his eyes. A whirring sound whizzed close by and went past him, something like a brief gust of air, and in the cherry tree sat Bird; light as a blossom on a branch he sat and playfully batted his feathered crest, turned his little head, peeped gently, looked into the man's eyes-Schalaster had known Bird's look since childhood-and already he hopped away again and vanished in the branches and the breezes, even before the staring Schalaster had time to properly perceive the faster beating of his own heart.

After that Sunday noon when Bird appeared in Schalaster's cherry tree, only once more was he ever seen by human eyes; and, in fact, on that occasion again by that very same Schalaster, cousin of the former mayor. He had firmly made up his mind to seize Bird and get the ducats; and since he, the old bird specialist, knew for certain that Bird would never be captured, he had readied an old rifle and procured a store of shot of the finest caliber, the kind known as bird shot. If things went according to his plans and he were to shoot at Bird with this fine shot, it was plausible that Bird would not fall down dead, and blasted to pieces, but rather that one of the tiny little grains of shot would wound him only slightly and that he would be stunned with terror. In that way it would be possible to take Bird alive. The prudent man got everything ready in advance, including a little songbird cage in which to lock up the prisoner, and from that moment on he tried his utmost never to be far from his perpetually loaded rifle. Wherever he could, he took it with him, and where he could not take it-to church, for example-he was loath to go.

In spite of all these preparations, when the moment came and he met up with Bird again-it was in the autumn of that same year-he did not quite have his rifle at hand. It happened very near to Schalaster's house. As was his wont, Bird had appeared without a sound, and after landing, he greeted Schalaster with his familiar chirping; Bird sat cheerfully on the gnarled stump of a bough of an old willow tree, a tree from which Schalaster always cut branches to use to espalier the wall fruit. There Bird sat, not ten paces away, chirping and chattering, and his foe once again felt that strange sensation of joy in his heart (blessed and wretched at once, as if he were being asked to live a life he was not yet capable of living), even while the sweat ran down his neck, for he was worried and anxious about how he could get to his gun in time. He rushed into the house, came back with his rifle, saw that Bird was still sitting in the willow, and now he stalked him; slowly and stepping lightly, he came closer and closer. Bird was unsuspecting, worried neither by the rifle nor by the strange deportment of the man-an agitated man with a fixed stare, ducking movements, and a bad conscience-who evidently was taking great pains to pretend disinterest. Bird let him come closer, looked at him confidingly, tried to cheer him up, gave him a roguish look, while the farmer raised his rifle, squinted one eye, and took a long time aiming. At last the shot cracked, and scarcely had the cloud of smoke dispersed than Schalaster was on his knees searching under the willow. From the willow to the garden fence and back, to the beehives and back, to the bed of beans and back, he scoured the gra.s.s, every handsbreadth of it, twice, three times, for an hour, for two hours, and again and again on the next day. He could not find Bird, he could not find a single one of his feathers. Bird had taken to his heels, things had gone off too clumsily, the report of the gun had been too loud, Bird loved freedom, he loved the peace and quiet of the woods, he was no longer happy here. He was gone, and on this occasion too, Schalaster had not been able to see in which direction he had flown. Perhaps he had returned to his house on the Hill of Snakes, where the blue-green lizards would bow down to him at the threshold. Perhaps he had flown even farther back in s.p.a.ce and time, to the Hohen-staufen, to Cain and Abel, into Paradise.

From that day on, Bird was never seen again. There was still a lot of talk about him; even today, after so many years, it has not yet been silenced; and in an Ostrogothian university town a book about him was published. If in the old days all sorts of legends about him were told, since the time of his disappearance Bird himself has become a legend, and soon there will be no one left who can attest that Bird ever actually existed, that he was once the benevolent spirit of the region, that a high price was put on his head, that he had been shot at. At some time in the future, when still another scholar researches this legend, all this will perhaps be labeled an invention of the popular imagination, accounted for, feature by feature, by the laws of mythmaking. For it cannot be denied that all over the world and in all ages there are beings who are perceived to be extraordinary, charming, and appealing, and whom many honor as benevolent spirits, because they make one think of a more beautiful, a freer, a more winged life than the one we lead. And the same thing always happens: the grandsons deride the good genies of their grandfathers, one day the extraordinary beings are hunted and shot dead, prices are put on their heads or their hides, and not long afterwards their existence turns into a legend, which with the wings of a bird flies ever further away.

No one can predict what forms all this Information about Bird will a.s.sume in the future. That Schalaster perished in a terrible manner, most probably a suicide, should be reported for the sake of completeness, but we will not permit ourselves to append any further commentary on this incident.

Nocturnal Games.

DECADES HAVE Pa.s.sED since I made a consistent practice of recalling my nightly dreams, mentally reproducing them, at times even writing them down; and using the method I learned back then, I would examine them for their meaning, or at least listen to them and track them down until something like a reminder, a sharpening of my instincts, a warning, or encouragement would result, depending on the circ.u.mstances, but in all cases a greater intimacy with the realms of dream, a better exchange between the conscious and the unconscious than one, as a rule, possesses. My acquaintance with a few books on the subject and my firsthand experience of undergoing psychoa.n.a.lysis were more than a mere sensation, they were encounters with forces that were very real.

But just as happens with even the most intensive pursuit of knowledge, the most ingenious and most thrilling course of instruction through men or books, so, too, it happened, as the years pa.s.sed, with this encounter with the world of dream and the unconscious: life went on, always making new demands and posing new questions; the highly unnerving and sensational nature of that initial encounter lost its novelty and its demand for commitment, the totality of the a.n.a.lytical experience could not go on being cultivated as an end in itself, it was put in its place, to some extent it was forgotten or else superseded by life's new demands, but without ever entirely losing its quiet efficacy and power; just as perhaps in the life of a young man, the first books he reads by Hlderlin, Goethe, Nietzsche, his first experiences with the opposite s.e.x, his first awakening to social or political consciousness must be coordinated with his past body of experience.

SINCE THAT TIME I have grown old, but the ability to address myself through dreams and at times gently to be instructed or guided by them has never left me completely; but neither has the dream life ever again regained the pressing urgency and importance it once had for me. Since then, there have been times when I have remembered my dreams, alternating with others in which I have lost all trace of them by morning. Nonetheless, time and again, dreams continue to surprise me-and, to be sure, the dreams of others no less than my own-because of their indefatigability and the inexhaustibility of their creative and playful imagination, because of their simultaneously childlike and ingenious way of combining disparate elements, and because of their often enchanting humor.

As an artist I have also been influenced by a certain intimacy with the dream world and much brooding over the artistic aspects of the art of dreaming (yet another one of the arts which psychoa.n.a.lysis has not yet properly understood, or dealt with more than in pa.s.sing). In art I have always enjoyed playfulness; even as a boy and as a young man, I frequently and with great pleasure practiced a kind of surrealistic method of composition, mostly for myself alone; I still do so today-for example, in the early morning hours when I cannot sleep-but of course I don't write down these soap-bubble creations. By playing these games, and by reflecting on the dream's nave sleights of hand and on surrealistic art's unnave ones-the partaking in which and the practice of which gives so much pleasure and requires so little effort-it has also become clear to me why, as a poet, I may have to forgo the practice of this kind of art. I allow myself to do it with a clear conscience only in the private sphere-during the course of my life I have made thousands of surrealistic verses and p.r.o.nouncements, and still go on doing so, but the kind of artistic ethics and responsibility I have arrived at over the years would no longer allow me to employ this private and irresponsible technique in my serious oeuvre today.

Now, these raisonnements cannot be enlarged upon here. If once again I am concerning myself with the world of dreams, it is not with intentions, designs, and intellectual goals, but simply because within the last few days I have been stimulated by encounters with several peculiar dreams.

I had the first dream on the night of a day on which I had pains and great fatigue. I was severely depressed, my life worthless; and hindered in my repose by shooting pains in my limbs, I lay down and slept. And in this bad, sullen sleep I dreamed precisely what I in actuality was doing: I dreamed that I was lying in bed, sleeping heavily and badly, but in an unknown place, in a strange room and bed. I went on dreaming that in the strange room I awakened from my sleep; slowly, reluctantly, and fatigued I awakened, and through the veils of tiredness and a feeling of dizziness it took me a long time to become aware of my situation. Slowly my consciousness struggled and spiraled upward, slowly and grudgingly I conceded that I was now awake, unfortunately after a counterfeit, difficult, profitless sleep which had worn me out more than it refreshed me.

And so now (in the dream) I was awake, slowly opened my eyes, slowly raised myself up a little on my arms, which had gone to sleep and lost all sensation; through the strange window I saw gray daylight fall, and suddenly I was jolted, something disquieting went through me, something like anxiety or a bad conscience, and I hastily made a grab for my pocket watch to see what time it was. Sure enough, confound it, it was past ten, almost ten-thirty, and indeed for months now I had been a student or a guest at a Gymnasium, where I was diligently and heroically trying to make good on some old omission, and I wanted to attend the last cla.s.ses. My G.o.d, it was ten-thirty, and I should have been in school at eight o'clock; and even if I could once again present my excuses to the headmaster as I had done just the other day, attributing my failure to the increasing impediments of old age-yes, his understanding was something I could count on-still, I had just missed the morning lecture and was not at all certain that I'd be well enough to attend school in the afternoon; and all the while the cla.s.s went on, and the possibility of my going to it grew more and more doubtful. And now there suddenly appeared to be some kind of startling explanation for the fact that in these last couple of months since I had reenrolled in the Gymnasium, much to my dismay, I still had not had a single Greek lesson, and in my heavy briefcase, which was often so laborious to carry, I had never been able to find a Greek grammar. Oh, perhaps there was nothing in my n.o.ble resolution to make amends for my neglected duties to the world and to school, and to still make something of myself; and perhaps even the headmaster, who had always shown me so much understanding, and who also knew me, to some extent, from reading a few of my books, had for a long time or even from the outset been convinced of the absurdity of my undertaking. In the end, would it not perhaps be better to lay the watch aside, close my eyes again, and spend the entire morning in bed, perhaps the afternoon as well, and thereby admit that I had set out to do something impossible? In any case, there was no longer any point in pulling myself together for the morning, it was already wasted. And scarcely had I thought these thoughts than I awakened in reality, saw a thin ray of light coming from the window, and found myself in my own room and my own bed, knew that breakfast and a lot of mail were waiting for me downstairs, and reluctantly I got up from this sleep and this dream, i