Death in Venice and Other Stories (34 page)

But let me return to the topic at hand. Winter is the
season when the world most perniciously undermines our autonomous virtue, when it least permits a well-regulated life, that is, a life of seclusion and contemplation. All too often the city draws me back for a second evening visit. Social obligations fall due, and it's late—around midnight if I can catch the train to its penultimate stop out here, or still later if I miss my last chance at public transit and have to walk—before I get home, distracted and buoyed by wine, smoking cigarettes, beyond natural exhaustion, with a false nonchalance toward everything. Often at such times it happens that my home, the quiet life I call my own, rushes up and greets me, not only without recrimination or hurt feelings, but with the greatest joy, bidding me welcome and reintroducing itself—all in the form of Baushan. Surrounded by complete darkness, with the rush of the river in my ears, I turn into the poplar lane, and after a couple of steps I can sense silent dancing and jostling around me. Early on it took me several minutes to figure out what was happening. “Baushan?” I asked the first time it happened, directing my question out into the darkness . . . The dancing and jostling grow faster and faster, ultimately degenerating into something like the wild frenzy of a dervish or berserker, always without a sound. The instant I stop walking, I have those trusty, if damp and dirty, paws all over the lapel of my overcoat, and there'll be a snapping and lapping at my face, forcing me to lean backward as I pat a bony shoulder blade that is also damp from the snow or rain . . . He has picked me up from the tram, the fine fellow. As sensitive as ever to my comings and goings, he set off for the stop when it seemed about time and has been waiting here—probably for quite a while—in the snow and rain. And his joy at finally seeing me again knows no ill-will on account of my coldhearted neglect, though I may have utterly ignored him that day and crushed all his hopes and dreams. I shower him with praise as I pat him on our way home. I tell him he did a good job and give him my word of honor for the morrow, assuring him (and myself) that at noon we'll definitely go hunting, no matter what the
weather. Under the force of such a resolution all my worldly preoccupation dissipates like smoke, my mood once more turns serious and sober, and the prospect of our hunting grounds in their seclusion merges with the thought of more elevated, obscure, preternatural incumbencies . . .

I would like to flesh out my sketch of Baushan's character with some of his other traits, so that interested readers can visualize him as vividly as possible. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to invoke our dearly departed Percy as a counter-example, since a more dramatic contrast between types within a single species is hardly conceivable. For starters we must consider the fact that Baushan is in full possession of his wits, whereas Percy, as mentioned and as is often the case with aristocratic animals, was a blathering idiot his entire life, insane, the very personification of overbred eccentricity. This has already been pointed out earlier in a more general context, and it is only mentioned here to highlight Baushan's earthy common sense. The difference becomes most apparent upon the announcement of walks and during greetings. Baushan's methods of communicating his emotional dispositions on such occasions remain well within the norms of reason and healthy enthusiasm, never even approaching the borders of hysteria that Percy's behavior crossed every time and usually with quite outrageous results.

Yet there's more to the contrast between the two creatures than just this. In reality, each case is more complicated and complex. Baushan is as rugged as the common man, but also just as prone to whining, whereas his aristocratic predecessor combined an infinitely more resolute and prouder spirit with far greater delicacy and tolerance of pain, so that, despite being insane, he utterly surpassed his little peasant counterpart in self-discipline. Not to advance some pro-aristocratic doctrine, but only for the sake of truthfulness, do I underscore the antitheses of coarse but soft, delicate but steadfast. Baushan, for example, is absolutely the one to spend even the coldest winter's night outside on the straw bed
behind the Hessian curtains of his doghouse. Because of a weak bladder, which renders him unable to spend seven consecutive hours inside, we ultimately had no choice but to put him out even in inhospitable weather, rightly trusting his robust good health. After an especially frigid, damp night he may come in with not only a whimsical frosted Van Dyck but a slight cough—one of the abrupt, monosyllabic variety dogs tend to get—but within a few hours he has overcome the affliction and suffers no lasting harm. No one would have even considered exposing silken-haired Percy to the wrath of such a night. On the other hand, however, Baushan is terrified of even the slightest pain and responds with a self-pitying pathos that would be repugnant, if naive rusticity didn't disarm the observer with its humorous appeal. Every time he goes creeping through the underbrush I can hear him break out in loud squeals at a scratching thorn or a flying branch in his face. And if he scrapes his belly or twists an ankle even slightly while jumping over the rail, you get an outcry worthy of Greek tragedy: three-legged hobbling, unrestrained yowls and lamentations of fate. These are all the more piercing the more sympathy you show him, even though after fifteen minutes he is running and jumping just as before.

It was altogether different with Percival. He gritted his teeth through everything. Like Baushan, he feared the leather strap and had the misfortune of tasting its wrath far more often. Not only was I younger and more hot-tempered during his lifetime than I am now; there was also something insolent and malicious about his foolishness that cried out for and indeed provoked disciplinary measures. Whenever he pushed me too far, so that I had no choice but to take down the lash from its hook, he slunk under table and chair and hid there cringing. Yet no cry of pain ever escaped his lips as first one blow, then the next, came whistling down upon him. At most he let out a grave sigh if some blow struck him too directly. Old Baushan, on the other hand, starts squealing and howling in rank cowardice as soon as I raise my arm. In short, Baushan has no sense of honor,
no mastery of self. Happily, his conduct hardly ever gives occasion for such punitive measures, especially since I forgot long ago about demanding a level of performance from him that isn't in his nature and would lead to conflict if I insisted upon it.

Tricks, for example, are something I don't ask him to perform—it would be pointless. He's no scholar, no sideshow genius or silly court poodle: he's an athletic young hunter, not a professor. Earlier I stressed the fact that he's an accomplished jumper. When it's really necessary, he can overcome any obstacle—if it's too high to be surmounted with a single continuous leap, he clambers up one side and drops himself down the other. In any case he conquers it. But the obstacle must be genuine, that is, one that cannot be slipped through or ducked under. In that case Baushan finds jumping irrational. A wall, a ditch, a gate, a solid fence—these are genuine obstacles. A horizontal pole or an outstretched stick is
not
, and one cannot jump over them without lapsing into ridiculous inconsistency vis-à-vis oneself and the world. Baushan refuses to do this. He simply refuses. Just try to make him jump over such imaginary barriers! In your anger you would have no choice but to grab the squealing animal by the scruff of the neck and toss him over the pole or stick, whereupon he would behave as if your command had been carried out and celebrate the occasion with dances and enthusiastic barks. Cajole him, beat him. A well-reasoned antipathy to all purely artificial tricks holds the reins here, and you will never break it. It's not that he doesn't want to oblige. As his master, my satisfaction is indeed of paramount importance to him: he will jump a hedge, for instance, not only at his own whim, but also on command, then bask in my praise and expressions of gratitude. But before he'd jump over a pole or a stick, instead of just crawling under it, I'd have to beat him to death. Thousandfold he would plead for forgiveness, understanding, even mercy, since he fears pain to the point of being a sissy, but no amount of fear or pain can compel him to perform a trick that, physically, would be child's play, but for which, in mind and
soul, he lacks the necessary capacity. To demand such a trick of him is not to confront him with the question of whether he will jump or not—that is a foregone conclusion. The command itself is tantamount to a beating, for to demand something incomprehensible and—in its incomprehensibility—impossible from him is the same in his eyes as to seek pretense for a conflict, a disruption of friendship, a thrashing. Such a command is, in fact, the first step toward all the above. This is Baushan's perspective, as far as I can tell, and I doubt we can speak of obstinacy in his case. Obstinacy must, indeed demands, to be broken. His antipathy to all purely artificial tricks, however, would be sealed with his death if need be.

What a strange soul! So intimate a friend, yet so alien, so different in some respects that our language cannot adequately express his logic. What relation have words, for example, to that laborious ceremony, so unnerving for participants and observers alike, by which two dogs exchange greetings, introduce themselves or perhaps do little more than register each other's presence? A hundred times over, my walks with Baushan have made me witness—unwilling witness—to such encounters, and every time, for the duration of the scene, Baushan's otherwise so familiar behavior becomes utterly inscrutable. I have found it impossible to penetrate with any sympathy the sensibilities, rules and customs that underlie this ceremony. The meeting of two unacquainted dogs out in the open is truly one of the most embarrassing, tense, dire spectacles that can be imagined: it's surrounded by an aura of the diabolical and the weird. There's a connection at work there for which no exact names exist. Two creatures are simply unable to pass one another by—what could be more disconcerting?

What I'm saying hardly applies when one of the parties finds itself confined to its estate, restricted by a fence or a hedge. Even then, it's difficult to comprehend both sides' motivation, but at least the whole situation is less inflammatory. They catch scent of one another from afar, long in advance of making eye contact. Baushan hurries over to me as though seeking protection and lets
out a whimper to articulate some obscure, utterly ineffable sense of pain and urgency deep within, while the other, incarcerated party sends up a sudden flurry of barks, probably intended to sound like energetic watchfulness but lapsing every so often into tones similar to Baushan's, into the same ardent, simpering, jealous, immensely needful whimper. We draw closer, approach the spot. The other dog sits waiting behind the fence, cursing and lamenting his helplessness, lunging wildly at the barrier and acting—one can't tell if he's serious—as though he would rip Baushan to shreds right then and there, if only he could get at him. Nonetheless Baushan, though he could just as well remain by my side and keep walking, always approaches the fence. He has to; he would even if I ordered him not to, for to keep his distance would be to transgress against internal laws far more basic and inviolable than my restraining authority. He approaches and, assuming an attitude of humility and placid reserve, makes that special offering which, as he well knows, will serve to end the standoff and effect a temporary and conditional truce, his adversary doing the same, albeit under the odd curse and whine. They then start to chase each other, one here, one there, keeping pace in silence with one another. They turn simultaneously at the end of the stranger's estate and bolt back in the other direction, turn round again and take off once more. Then, suddenly, they stop and stand in the middle as though rooted, no longer parallel but perpendicular to the fence, through which their noses are pressed. They stand there like that for some time, only to resume their bizarre indecisive footrace, shoulder to shoulder, opposite one another. Finally mine avails himself of his freedom and breaks off. What a terrible moment for the one confined! He can't accept it—he sees it as an incomparable humiliation that his counterpart should simply decide to leave on a whim. He throws a fit, foams at the mouth, goes seemingly mad with rage, bolts back and forth over the entire length of his estate, threatens to jump the fence and strangle his betrayer, and hurls the most vulgar epithets at his back. Baushan
hears this and takes it quite personally, as I can see from the stony yet insulted expression on his face, but makes no move to turn around. He goes on his merry way, while to his rear the terrible streak of cursing eventually subsides to a whimper and slowly ceases.

That's how the scene plays itself out whenever one of the parties finds itself in custody. Such encounters are only truly awkward when they take place out in the open and on equal terms—the results can be quite unpleasant to describe. It's the most oppressive, insidious and potentially explosive encounter in the entire world. Baushan, who until a moment ago has been frolicking carefree, runs to my side and forces himself against my leg with one of those sniffling whimpers from the depths of his soul, a whimper in which the specific emotional disposition to be conveyed remains unclear yet is nonetheless all too familiar. This leads me to conclude that another dog is headed our way. I may have to peer quite far into the distance, but, yes, I was right, here he comes, and even from here it's apparent from his tentative and tense posture that he, too, is aware of the other's presence. My own distress on such an occasion is hardly less than that of the two parties involved. The incident is most unfortunate. “Go away!” I tell Baushan. “Why always beside my leg? Can't you go somewhere on your own and do your business?” I try to shoo him off with my walking stick, for if it comes to a fight—always a possibility, whether or not I comprehend the reasons—the whole thing will take place at my feet and put me in a most unpleasant position. “Go away!” I repeat softly. But Baushan doesn't go anywhere. In his anxiety he sticks to my side, trotting off only for a moment to make his offering under a nearby tree, while his counterpart up ahead, as I can clearly see, does the same. Twenty paces are now all that separate us, and the suspense is frightful. The other dog starts crawling on his belly, crouched like a tiger, his neck craned, awaiting Baushan's approach in this highwayman's pose, seemingly intent upon going for the throat at the first opportunity. But this never happens, as Baushan seems to know it
won't—at least he proceeds directly, if with trembling and heavy heart, toward the animal lurking up ahead. He would advance in this way no matter what, even if I were to disengage myself, turn down a side path and leave him to the difficulties of his situation. However tense the encounter may be for him, avoidance is out of the question. He approaches transfixed, bound to his counterpart; indeed, they are bound to each another in some obscure, volatile relationship they are not allowed to deny. Two steps are all that separate us.