Bashan and I

Thomas Mann, Herman George Scheffauer

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781512821673
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

Bashan and I is the moving story of Thomas Mann's relationship with his spirited German short-haired pointer. From their first encounter at a local farm, Mann reveals how he slowly grows to love this energetic, loyal, and intelligent animal. Taking daily walks in the nearby parkland, Mann begins to understand and appreciate Bashan as a living being, witnessing his native delight in chasing rabbits, deer, and squirrels along with his careful investigations of stones, fallen branches, and clumps of wet leaves. As their bond deepens, Mann is led to contemplate Bashan's inner life, and marvels at the ease with which his dog trusts him, completely putting his life into his master's hands.Over time, the two develop a deep mutual understanding, but for Mann, there is always a sense of loss at never being able to enter the private world of his dear friend, and he slowly becomes conscious of the eternal divide between mankind and the rest of nature. Nonetheless, the unique relationship quietly moves to the forefront of Mann's life, and when master and companion are briefly separated, Mann is taken aback by the depth of his loneliness without his dog. It is this deep affection for another living creature that helps the writer to reach a newfound understanding of the nature of love, in all its complexity.First published in 1916 and translated into English in 1923, Bashan and I was heralded for its simple telling of how a dog became a priceless companion, an animal who brought meaning to the author's life.

CHAPTER V

THE CHASE

THE region is rich in game, and so we go a-hunting it. That is to say, Bashan goes hunting and I look on. In this wise we hunt: rabbits, quail, field-mice, moles, ducks and gulls. But we do not by any means fight shy of bigger game; we also track pheasants and even deer—whenever such first-rate quarry—as sometimes happens—strays into our hunting-grounds. This always furnishes an exciting spectacle—when the long-legged, lightly-built animal, the furtive deer, all yellow against the snow and with its white-tufted hindquarters bobbing, goes flying before little old Bashan who is straining every nerve. I follow the course of events with the greatest interest and tension. It is not as if anything were ever to result from this chase, for that has never happened and never will happen. But the lack of tangible results does not in the least diminish either Bashan’s joy or his passion for hunting, nor does it in any way minimise my pleasure. We pursue the chase for its own sake and not for the sake of prey or booty or any other utilitarian purpose.

Bashan, as I have said, is the active member. He does not expect any save a moral support from me, since no personal and immediate experience has taught him a more pronounced and practical manner of co-operation. I lay particular stress upon the words “personal” and “immediate,” for it is more than probable that his ancestors, in so far as they belonged to the tribe of setters, were familiar with more actual methods of hunting. On occasion I have asked myself whether some memory of this might not survive in him and whether this could not be aroused by some accidental impulse. It is certain that on Bashan’s plane of existence the life of the individual is less differentiated from the species than in our case. Birth and death signify a far less profound vacillation of the balance of being; perhaps the inheritances of the blood are more perfectly preserved, so that it would merely be an apparent contradiction to speak of inborn experiences, unconscious memories which, once aroused, would be able to confuse the creature in the matter of its own personal experiences and cause it to be dissatisfied with these. I once courted this thought, but then rid myself of it, just as Bashan had obviously rid himself of the thoughts of the brutal incident of which he had been a witness and which gives me occasion for these deliberations.

When I go forth to hunt with him, it usually chances to be noon—half-past eleven or twelve o’clock—sometimes, especially on very warm summer days, it may even be late afternoon, say six o’clock or later. It may be that this is even our second going-out. In any case my mental and spiritual atmosphere is quite different from what it was during our first careless stroll in the morning. The virgin freshness of the early hour has vanished long since. I have worried, and have struggled in the interval with this or that. I have been forced to grit my teeth and overcome one difficulty after the other—I have had a tussle with some person or other. At the same time I have been obliged to keep some diffuse and complicated matter firmly in mind and my head is weary, especially after a successful mastery of the problem. Hence this going a-hunting with Bashan distracts and enlivens me. It infuses me with new life, putting me into condition for the rest of the day and for triumph over the tasks that are still lowering in my path. It is really largely the impulse of gratitude which forces me to describe these hunting trips.

Things, to be sure, are not so neatly arranged that Bashan and I could go forth in pursuit of any one special species of the game which I have mentioned—that we should, for instance, specialise on rabbits or ducks. No, on the contrary, we hunt everything that chances to cross our path—I had almost said that chances to come within range of our guns. We need not go very far in order to strike game. The hunt may literally begin immediately outside the garden gate, for there are great numbers of field-mice and moles in the hollows of the meadows close behind the house. To be exact and sportsmanlike—I am aware that these fur-bearing animals cannot, of course, be regarded as game in the strict sense of the term. But their secret, subterranean habits, especially the nimble craftiness of the mice, which are not blind o’ day like their excavating and tunnelling brethren, and often go gambolling upon the surface, and then when danger approaches go flicking into the little black burrow without one’s being able to distinguish their legs or their movements—these things work tremendously upon Bashan’s hunting instincts. These are also the only animals of the wild which occasionally become his prey—a field-mouse, a mole—these are titbits which are not to be despised in such lean and meagre days as these—when one often finds nothing more palatable than a thick barley soup in the stoneware bowl beside one’s kennel.

I have scarcely taken a dozen steps with my cane along the poplar avenue, and Bashan has, as an overture, scarcely got through with his preliminary leaps and lunges, than he is seen to be performing the most extraordinary capricoles towards the right. He is already gripped by the passion for the chase, and is blind and deaf to all things save the exciting but hidden goings-on of the living things about him. With every nerve taut and tense, waving his tail, carefully lifting his feet, he goes slinking through the grass, sometimes pausing in mid-step, with one foreleg and one hindleg in air, then peering with cocked head into the hollows, an action which causes the flaps of his erected ears to fall forward on both sides of his eyes. And then raising both forepaws, he will suddenly jump forward and will stare with dumbfounded expression at a spot where but a moment before there was something and where now there is nothing. And then he begins to dig. . . .

I feel a strong desire to go to him and await the result, but then we should never be able to leave the spot. Bashan would expend his entire stock of joy-in-the-chase right here in this meadow, and this stock is meant to last him for the entire day. And so I walk on—untroubled by any thought that he might not be able to overtake me—even though he should remain behind for a long time without having observed in what direction I had gone. To him my track and trail are as clear as that of a bit of game. Should he have lost sight of me, he is sure, with head lowered between his forepaws, to come tearing along this trail. I hear the clinking of his brass license-tag, his firm gallop behind me—and then he goes shooting past me and turns with wagging tail once more to report himself on duty.

Out yonder, however, in the woods or in the broad meadows alongside the brook, I often halt and watch when I catch him digging for a mouse, even though it should be late and I in danger of exceeding the time I have apportioned for my walk. The passionate devotion with which he goes to work is so fascinating to observe, his profound enthusiasm is so contagious, that I cannot but wish him success with all my heart, and naturally I also wish to be a witness of this success. The spot he is attacking may have made quite an innocent impression in its outward aspect—it is, let us say, some mossy little mound at the foot of a birch and possibly penetrated by its roots. But did not my Bashan hear the quarry, scent it, perhaps even see it as it switched away? He is absolutely certain that his bit of game is sitting there under the earth in some snug runlet or burrow; all that is necessary is to get at it, and so he goes digging away for all he is worth in absolute devotion to his task and oblivious to the world. He proceeds not ragingly, but with a certain fine deliberation, with the tempered passion of the real sportsman—it is wonderful to see. His small, tiger-striped body beneath the smooth coat of which the ribs align themselves and the muscles play, is hollowed, is concave in the middle; his hindquarters, with the stump of a tail vibrating to quick time, is erected vertically. His head is between his forepaws and thrust into the slant hole he has already dug. With averted face he continues with the rapid strokes of his iron claws to tear up the earth more and more—lumps of sod, pebbles, shreds of glass, and bits of roots fly all about me. Sometimes his snortings are heard in the silence of the fields—that is when he has succeeded in penetrating some little distance, and in wedging his snout into the entrance to the burrow in order, by means of his scent, to keep check upon the clever, still, and timid creature within there.

His breathing sounds muffled, he ejects his breath in a blast in order to be able to empty his lungs quickly—and to draw in the delicate, acrid, distant, and yet disguised odour of the mice. What emotions must surge through the breast of the little animal down there when it hears this hollow and muffled snorting? Well, that is its own affair, or perhaps God’s affair, who has decreed that Bashan shall be the enemy and persecutor of these earth-mice. And then—is not fear only an intensified feeling for life? If no Bashan existed the little mouse would very likely be bored to death. And what use or purpose would then be served by its beady-eyed cleverness and its art of swift mining operations, factors that fairly well equalise the conditions of the battle, so that the success of the party upon the offensive always remains highly problematical, even improbable. Indeed I feel no compassion for the mouse; inwardly I take sides with Bashan, and sometimes I cannot remain content with the rôle of a mere spectator. I get my walking-stick into play whenever some firmly-bedded pebble, some tough cord of a root is in his way and help him to get rid of these obstacles. Then sometimes, in the midst of his hot and furious activity, he will throw up his head and bestow upon me a swift and fervent glance of gratitude and approval. With munching jaws and glinting teeth he goes working his way into the stubborn, fibrous ground,—tears away clods, throws them aside, sends his resonant snorts once more into the depths, and then, fired to renewed action by the provocative scent, sets his claws once more into furious action. . . .

In the great majority of cases this is all love’s labour lost. With the moist earth clinging to his nose and sprinkled about his shoulders, Bashan makes another quick and superficial survey of the territory and then gives it up and jogs indifferently on.

“There was nothing doing, Bashan,” I remark to him, when he chances to look at me. “Nothing doing,” I repeat, shaking my head and raising my brows and my shoulders, so as to make the message plainer. But it is not at all necessary to comfort him; his failure does not depress him for a moment. To hunt is to hunt, the titbit of game is the least of all considerations. It was, take it all in all, a magnificent effort he thinks—in so far as he still happens to think of this violent business he has just been through. For now he is already on new adventure bent—adventures of which there is, indeed, no lack in the three zones of this domain.

Sometimes, however, he happens to catch the mouse. And then something occurs which never fails to strike me with horror—for Bashan devours his prey alive, with hide and hair. Perhaps the unfortunate creature had not been properly advised by its instincts of self-preservation and had chosen a spot for its burrow which was too soft, too unprotected and too easily excavated. Perhaps the little creature’s tunnels had not been sunk deep enough, or it had been paralysed by fright and prevented from burrowing to deeper levels. Or it had perchance lost its head and, crouching a few inches under the surface with its little beady eyes popping out of their sockets with horror, listened to that terrible snorting coming nearer and nearer. No matter, the iron claws disinter it, uncover it, fling it into the air, into the pitiless glare of the day! Hapless little mouse! you had good cause to be frightened, and it is well that this immense and comprehensible fright has already reduced you to a kind of semi-unconsciousness. For now the tiny rodent is to be converted into pap and pulp.

Bashan has caught it by the tail; he tosses it upon the ground twice or thrice; a very faint squeak is heard, the last that is vouchsafed to the god-forsaken little mouse. And then Bashan snaps it up, and it disappears between his jaws and the white, gleaming teeth. He stands there with legs four square and forepaws braced. His neck is lowered and thrust forth as he chews—he catches at the titbit again and again and throws it into the proper position in his mouth. The tiny bones are heard to crack, a shred of fur hangs for a moment from the corner of his mouth; he draws it in and then all is over. Bashan then executes a kind of dance of joy and triumph, circling around me as I stand leaning on my cane with cold shudders rushing up and down my spine.

‘You’re a fine fellow!” I say to him in a kind of gruesome recognition of his victory. “You scoundrel! you murderer! you cannibal!”

These words cause him to dance still more wildly, and, one might say, almost to laugh aloud. So I proceed on my way, somewhat chilled in the limbs owing to the tragedy I have just witnessed, and yet inwardly enlightened by the brutal humour of life. The thing, after all, is quite in order, in Nature’s order. A mouselet which had been ill-advised by its faulty instincts has simply been converted into pap and pulp. Nevertheless I am inwardly gratified when in such instances as the foregoing, it did not become necessary for me to help along the natural order of things with my cane, but remained a simple and passive spectator.

Startling and even terrifying is it when some pheasant suddenly bursts from the thicket in which, sleeping or waking, it had hoped to remain undiscovered, some coign of concealment from which Bashan’s delicate and unobtrusive nose had after a little searching managed to rouse it. Thumping and flapping, with frightened and indignant cries and cacklings, the large, rust-red and long-tailed bird lifts itself a-wing, and with all the silly heedlessness of a hen, goes scattering upon some tree from which it begins to scold, whilst Bashan, erect against the trunk, barks up at the fowl, stormily, savagely. The meaning behind this barking is clear. It says plainly enough: “Get off! get off that perch! Tend to business. Fly off, so I can have my bit o’ fun. Get off—I want to chase you!” The pheasant cannot, apparently, resist this powerful voice, and off it scuds, making its way with heavy flight through the branches, still cackling and complaining, whilst Bashan, full of manly silence, pursues it smartly along the level ground.

This is sufficient for Bashan’s bliss; his wish and his will go no farther. What would have happened had he caught the bird? Nothing, I assure you, absolutely nothing. I once saw him with a bird between his claws. He had probably come upon it whilst it lay in deep sleep, so that the clumsy thing had had no time to lift itself from the ground. On that occasion Bashan had stood over the fowl, an utterly bewildered victor, and did not know what to do next. With one wing raked wide open and with its head drawn aside to the very limit of its neck, the pheasant lay in the grass and screamed, screamed without a single pause—a passer-by might have thought that some old woman was being murdered in the bushes. I hurried up, bent upon preventing something horrible. But I was soon convinced that there was nothing to fear. Bashan’s all-too conspicuous confusion, the half-curious, half-disgusted mien with which, head aslant, he looked down upon his prisoner, assured me of that. This old wives’ screeching and dinning in his ears, very likely got upon his nerves—the whole affair apparently caused him more embarrassment than triumph. Was it in victory or in shame that he pulled a couple of feathers out of his victim’s dress, very, very cautiously with his mouth, refraining from all use of his teeth, and then threw them aside with an angry toss of his head?

He followed this tribute to his predatory instincts by taking his paw off his victim and letting it go free—not out of magnanimity, to be sure, but simply because the situation bored him, and because it really had nothing in common with the stir and gaiety of the chase. Never had I seen a more astonished bird! It had closed its account with life, and for a brief space it seemed that it no longer knew what use to make of life, for it lay in the grass as though dead. It then tottered along the ground for a bit, swung clumsily upon a tree, appeared about to fall from it, summoned its strength, and then with heavily-dragging feathery raiment went fluttering off into the distance. It no longer squawked, but kept its bill shut. Silently the bird flew across the park, the river, the forest beyond the river, away, away, as far as its short wings could carry it. It is certain that this particular pheasant never returned to this particular spot.

There are, however, a good many of his breed in our hunting-grounds, and Bashan hounds and hunts them in an honourable sportsmanlike manner and according to the rules of the game. The only real blood-guilt that lies heavy upon his head is the devouring of the field-mice, and this, too, appears as something incidental and negligible. It is the scenting-out, the drive, the pursuit, which serve him as a noble end in themselves—all who were able to observe him at this brilliant game would come to the same conclusion. How beautiful he grows, how ideal, how perfect to the end and purpose! It is thus that the awkward and loutish peasant lad of the hills becomes perfect and picturesque when you see him standing amidst the rocks and cliffs as a hunter of the Gemsbock. All that is noble, genuine, and fine in Bashan is driven to the surface and achieves a glorious efflorescence in such hours as these. That is why he pants for these hours with such intensity and why he suffers so poignantly when they pass unused.

Bashan is no toy spaniel; he is the veritable woodsman and pathfinder, such as figure heroically in books. A great joy in himself, in his own existence cries from every one of the martial, masculine, and striking poses which he assumes and which succeed one another with almost cinematographic rapidity. There are few things which are able so to refresh my eyes as the sight of him, as he goes sailing through the underbrush in a light, feathering trot and then suddenly stands at gaze, with one paw daintily raised and bent inward, sagacious, vigilant, impressive, with all his faculties in a radiant intensification. And then amidst all this imposing statuesqueness it is possible that he may give vent to a sudden squeak, or yelp, occasioned, very likely, by having caught his foot in something thorny. But this too, is all in order with the course of nature and with the perfection of the picture—this cheery readiness to be splendidly simple. It is capable of diminishing his dignity only as a breath dims a mirror; the superbness of his carriage is restored the very next moment.

I look upon him—my Bashan—and I am reminded of a time during which he lost all his pride and his gallant poise, and was once more reduced to that condition of bodily and mental dejection in which we first saw him in the kitchen of that tavern in the mountains, and from which he so painfully lifted himself to a faith in his own personality and in life. I do not know what ailed him—he began to bleed from the mouth or the nose or the ears—even to-day I have no clear idea of his particular malady. But wherever he went in those days, he left marks of blood behind him—in the grass of the hunting-grounds, in the straw of his kennel, on the floor of the house when he entered it—and yet there was no external injury anywhere visible. At times his entire nose seemed to be covered with red paint. Whenever he sneezed he would send forth a spray of blood, and then he would step in the drops and leave brick-red impressions of his paws wherever he went. Careful examinations were made, but these led to no results and thus brought about increased anxieties. Were his lungs attacked? or was he afflicted by some ...