An old man in a top hat with mourning ribbon came down one of the little lanes that led steeply down to the harbour. He was looking attentively about him; everything seemed to perturb him – the sight of garbage in a corner made him frown, on the steps to the monument there were fruit peelings, which he pushed away with his stick in passing. He knocked on the pillared door, at the same time taking his top hat in his black-gloved hand. The door was opened right away. Some fifty small boys were lining the long corridor, and bowed. The bosun came down the stairs, greeted the gentleman and led him up the stairs. On the first floor the two men walked around the galleried patio, and while the boys followed behind at a respectful distance, the men entered a large cool room at the back that had no other building facing it, but a bare grey-black surface of rock. The bearers were busy setting up and lighting a few long candles at the head of the bier; but they shed no light, rather they shook up the shadows that had been in repose thus far, causing them to flicker over the wall. The cloth had been peeled back over the bier. Below it lay a man with a wild tangle of hair and beard, a tanned complexion and the appearance of a hunter. He lay there motionless, apparently not breathing, with eyes shut, and yet it was only the setting that seemed to suggest that he might be a corpse.
The gentleman strode up to the bier, laid his hand on the forehead of the man thus laid out, then knelt down and prayed. The bosun motioned to the bearers to leave the room and they went out, shooed away the boys who had collected outside and closed the door after them. For the gentleman, though, even this measure of silence seemed not to be enough. He looked at the bosun who understood and walked out through a side door into an adjacent room. Straightaway the man on the bier opened his eyes, turned to the gentleman with a painful half-smile, and said: ‘Who are you?’ Without visible surprise the gentleman got up off his knees, and replied: ‘The mayor of Riva.’ The man on the bier gave a nod, pointed with his feebly extended arm to a chair, and once the mayor had followed his invitation, said: ‘I knew of course, Mr Mayor, but in the first instant I always forget, everything spins around in my head, and it’s better that I ask, even if I know everything. You presumably know that I am the hunter Gracchus.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the mayor, ‘your coming was announced to me overnight. We were all asleep. Then towards midnight my wife called out: “Salvatore” – that’s my name – “look at the pigeon in the window.” It was a pigeon, but as big as a hen. It flew to my ear and said: “Tomorrow the dead hunter Gracchus is coming, welcome him in the name of the town.” ’ The huntsman nodded, and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue: ‘Yes, those pigeons fly ahead of me. Do you think I can stay in Riva, Mayor?’ ‘I can’t say yet,’ replied the mayor. ‘Are you dead?’ ‘Yes,’ said the huntsman, ‘as you see. Many years ago, it must be an inordinate number of years ago now, I fell from a rock in the Black Forest, which is somewhere in Germany, while I was in pursuit of a chamois. Since then I’ve been dead.’ ‘But you’re alive as well?’ said the mayor. ‘In a certain sense,’ said the huntsman, ‘in a certain sense I’m alive as well. My skiff went astray, a wrong touch on the tiller, a moment’s inattentiveness on the part of the bosun, distracted as he might have been by my beautiful homeland, I don’t know what it was. All I know is that I remained on earth and that my skiff has since then been sailing earthly waters. I only ever wanted to live in the mountains; now after my death I am touring all the countries of the world.’ ‘And no part of you is in the Beyond?’ asked the mayor with a frown. ‘I am,’ replied the huntsman, ‘always on the wide staircase that leads there. I am on that endlessly wide staircase, sometimes further up, sometimes further down, sometimes right, sometimes left, always in motion. If I take a great run-up, then I see the shining gates at the top, only to awaken in my old boat, stuck in some terrestrial waterway. My botched death grins at me in my cabin. Julia, the bosun’s wife, knocks and brings me the morning beverage of whatever coast we happen to be passing.’ ‘A terrible fate,’ said the mayor with hand upraised as though to ward it off. ‘And you’re not at fault at all?’ ‘Not at all,’ said the hunter, ‘I was a hunter, is that perhaps my fault? I was engaged as a hunter in the Black Forest; at the time there were still wolves. I lay in wait, I shot, I hit, I skinned carcasses, is that my fault? My work was blessed. I was called the great hunter of the Black Forest. Is that my fault?’ ‘I’m hardly qualified to say,’ said the mayor, ‘but it doesn’t seem to me that you were at fault. But then who was?’ ‘The bosun,’ said the huntsman.
‘So now you’re proposing to stay with us in Riva for a while?’ asked the mayor.
‘I’m not proposing anything,’ said the hunter, smiling, and laid his hand placatingly on the mayor’s knee. ‘I’m here, that’s all I know, that’s all I can do. My skiff is without a rudder; it sails with the wind that blows in the lowest regions of Death.’
I am the hunter Gracchus, my home is the Black Forest in Germany.
No one will read what I am writing here; no one will come to my help; if the instruction went out to help me, then all the doors of all the houses would remain locked, and all the windows; everyone would lie in their beds with the covers pulled over their heads, the whole world like an inn at night. There is every reason for this, because no one knows me, and if they knew me, then they wouldn’t know where I was, and if they knew where I was, then they wouldn’t know if I was going to stay there, and if they knew I was going to stay there, then they wouldn’t know how to help me. The idea of helping me is a disease that needs to be cured in bed.
I know all this, and so I’m not writing to ask for help, even if there are moments when, undisciplined as I am, I think about it very hard, as, for instance, right now. But it’s enough to rid me of any such ideas if I look around and see where I am and where – I think I’m right in saying – I’ve been living for hundreds of years. As I write this, I’m lying on a wooden pallet, I’m wearing – it’s no comfort to look at myself – a dirty shroud, my hair and beard are a tangle of grey and black, my legs are wrapped in a large, long-tasselled silk shawl with flower patterns. By my head a church candle sheds a little light. On the wall facing me there’s a small picture, evidently of a Bushman, who is aiming his spear at me and taking cover behind a magnificent painted shield. You run into some stupid pictures on board ship, but this is really one of the stupidest. The balmy air of the southern night comes through a porthole in the side, and I can hear the water splashing against the sides of the old barque.
I’ve been lying here since the time when, still the living huntsman Gracchus, I was pursuing a chamois in my native Black Forest and plunged to my death. Everything happened by the book. I gave chase, I fell, I bled to death in a gorge, I was dead, and this barque was supposed to carry me into the Beyond. I can still remember how cheerfully I first stretched out on this pallet; the hills had never heard such singing from me, as these four still-twilit walls. My life had been a happy one, and I had died happily; happily before going on board I cast aside my rifle, my bag and huntsman’s tunic, that I had always worn proudly, and slipped into my shroud as proudly as a girl might slip into her wedding dress. Here I lay and waited.
Then
‘Is it true, Huntsman Gracchus, that you have been drifting for centuries in this old skiff?’
‘For fifteen hundred years.’
‘And always on this boat?’
‘Always on this boat. “Barque” is the proper designation. Do you not know your shipping terms?’
‘No, I’ve not had occasion to before today, when I first heard of you and set foot on your boat.’
‘Don’t apologize. I’m a landlubber myself. No mariner, nor ever wanted to be; the woods and mountains were all my joy and now – the oldest sailor in the world, huntsman Gracchus, patron saint of mariners, huntsman Gracchus fervently prayed to by terrified cabin boys in stormy nights up in the crow’s nest. Don’t laugh.’
‘Laugh? I’m not laughing. I stood with pounding heart at the door to your cabin, with pounding heart I went i
n. Your friendly nature eases me a little, but never will I forget whose guest I am.’
‘That’s right. Whatever happens, I’m the huntsman Gracchus. Don’t you want some wine, I don’t know what sort it is, but it’s heavy and sweet, the boss looks after me well.’
‘Not now, if you don’t mind, I’m too anxious. Maybe later, if you let me stay that long. Who is the boss?’
‘The owner of the barque. These bosses are most excellent people. I just don’t understand them very well. I don’t mean their language, although I often don’t understand that either. That’s just by the by. I’ve learned enough languages over the centuries that I could be an interpreter between the ancestors and people today. But I don’t understand the thinking of these ships’ owners. Perhaps you could explain it to me.’
‘I don’t hold out much hope of that. How could I explain something to you, when relative to you I’m like a babe in arms?’
‘Well, not like that. And you’ll be doing me a favour if you come over with a little more confidence, a little more manliness. What will I do with a shadow for a guest? I’ll blow him out of the porthole into the lake. I need explanations for all sorts of things. You, as someone on the outside, could furnish me with some. But if you sit here at my table quaking and through false modesty forgetting what little you knew anyway, then you might as well pack up. I’m a straight from the shoulder guy.’
‘There’s something in what you say. There are probably things I can help you with. I’ll try and get a grip on myself. Ask away.’
‘Better, much better, you exaggerate the opposite way and come up with some imaginary superiority. Understand me. I’m a person same as you, just a couple of centuries older and more impatient. So, let’s talk about ships’ owners. Pay attention. And have a drink to sharpen your senses. Don’t hold back. Fill your boots. There’s more in the hold.’
‘Gracchus, the wine is delicious. Here’s to the patron.’
‘Too bad he died today. He was a good man, and he died in peace. Tall, well-grown children stood at his deathbed, and at the foot end his wife fell down in a dead faint. His last thought was of me. In Hamburg. He was a good man.’
‘Good Lord, in Hamburg, and you already know that he passed away today?’
‘What? How would I not know when my patron dies? You’re a little simple-minded.’
‘Are you out to offend me?’
‘No, not at all, I’m most reluctant to do so. But you should be less startled, and drink more. And as far as patrons go, it’s like this: to begin with the barque didn’t belong to anyone.’
‘Gracchus, a favour, please. Will you tell me briefly and coherently about your situation? I have to admit, I don’t understand it. As far as you’re concerned, it’s all self-evident, and in that way of yours, you assume the whole world knows about it. But in a short life – for life is short, Gracchus, try to remember that – in this short life, we have our work cut out to keep ourselves and our families. So, however interesting a figure huntsman Gracchus is – and that’s the truth, not flattery – we don’t have time to think about him, make inquiries about him, or worry about him. Maybe on our deathbed, like your Hamburg man, I don’t know. Maybe that’s when the hard-working man has a moment to stretch out for the first time and in among the leisurely process of his thoughts there may be some of the green huntsman Gracchus. Other than that, though, as I say, I hadn’t heard of you. I am here in port on business, I saw the barque, the gang-plank was down, I climbed up it – but now I’d like to hear something detailed and coherent about you.’
‘Oh, coherence, that old canard. All the books are full of it, in all the classrooms the teachers are chalking it up on the blackboard; the mother dreams of it while her baby is at her breast – and there you are, sitting here, asking me about coherence. You must have had an unusually misspent youth.’
‘Possibly so, most youths are. But I think it would be very useful to you to take a look about you in the world. It may appear droll to you, I’m almost surprised at it myself, but it’s right, isn’t it, you’re not the talk of the town. Whatever people talk about here, you’re not among them; the world goes its merry way, and you’re on your cruise, but before today I’ve never noticed your appearance anywhere.’
‘Those are your observations, my dear fellow, other people have made different ones. There are two possibilities. Either you’re keeping quiet about what you know about me, and you intend something thereby. In that case I will simply say: you’re making a mistake. Or again, you really don’t remember me, because you’re confusing my story with someone else’s. In that case, I say to you: I am – no, I can’t, everyone knows it, and yet I’m supposed to tell it to you! It all happened such a long time ago. Ask the chroniclers! They sit in their rooms with their mouths hanging open, looking at things in the dim and distant, and describing it without cease. Go and ask them, and then come back. It’s all such a long time ago. How can I keep it in my over-stuffed brain?’
‘Wait, Gracchus, I can make it easier for you. I’ll ask you questions. Where are you from?’
‘From the Black Forest, as everybody knows.’
‘Of course, from the Black Forest. And that’s where you were a huntsman in, let’s see, the fourth century.’
‘Hey, have you been to the Black Forest?’
‘No.’
‘Then you really don’t know anything. The bosun’s infant son knows more than you do, but really, much more. I wonder who brought you in here. It feels like fate to me. It seems your initial modesty was only too well grounded. You’re a nothing that I’m filling full of wine. It turns out you don’t even know the Black Forest. I was a huntsman there until my twenty-fifth year. If that chamois hadn’t tempted me – there, now you know – then I would have had a long and happy huntsman’s life, but the chamois tempted me, and I fell to my death on the rocks. And now here I am, dead, dead, dead. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was loaded up on the barque in the proper fashion, a poor stiff, I suffered the usual three or four things to be done to me as they are for everyone else, why make an exception of huntsman Gracchus, everything was in order, I lay stretched out on the skiff—
Yesterday There Came to Me a Swoon …
Yesterday there came to me a swoon. She lives in the house next door, I have seen her disappear in there often enough in the evenings, hunching over in the low gateway. A large lady in a long flowing dress and wide-brimmed hat decorated with feathers. She came rushing up to my door like a doctor afraid of arriving too late to his fading patient’s bedside. ‘Anton,’ she called out in her hollow and somehow theatrical voice, ‘I’m on my way, I’m here.’ She dropped into the chair I indicated to her. ‘You live so high up,’ she said plaintively, ‘so high up.’ The steps skipped before my eyes, innumerable steps leading up to my room, one after the other, little indefatigable waves. ‘Why so cold?’ she asked, pulled off her old fencer’s gauntlets, tossed them onto the table and twinkled at me, her head a little to one side. I felt I was a sparrow, practising my skips on the stairs, and she was tousling my soft, fluffy, grey feathers. ‘I’m so terribly sorry you’re eating yourself up about me. I have often looked with real sadness into your pining face as you stood in the courtyard gazing up at my window. Now I am not unfavourably disposed to you, and while you may not have my heart yet, you will surely be able to conquer it.’
I Really Should Have …
I really should have paid a little more attention to these stairs before now, to the local conditions and ramifications, what to expect and how to react. But you never heard the least thing about these stairs, I said to myself by way of apology, and in newspapers and books they’re forever discussing all sorts of topics. But never anything about these stairs. That’s as may be, I replied to myself, you will have been reading absent-mindedly. How often you were distracted, left out whole paragraphs, or just read the headlines; maybe the stairs were in there somewhere, and it escaped you; and now you need the very thing that escaped you. And I st
ood still for a moment and considered that as an objection. Then I thought I could remember reading about some similar stairs, perhaps in a children’s book. It wasn’t much, perhaps nothing more than a passing reference to their existence, and that was no good to me at all.
Building the Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China has been completed at its north-east point. The construction advanced from the south-east and the south-west and was joined here. This same system of partial construction was also adopted in microcosm, within the two great armies of labourers in the East and the West. The pattern was this: gangs numbering a score or so of labourers were formed, and each was made responsible for a section of five hundred yards, while another gang was set to build a section of a similar length to meet theirs. After the two had met, the construction wasn’t taken up at either end of the thousand yards; rather the gangs were reassigned to other sites in other places far away. The inevitable outcome was a plethora of large gaps which were only filled in by and by, some of them even after the successful completion of the entire project had been announced. Yes, there are said to be some gaps that have seen no construction at all; according to some sources, they are far larger than the built sections, a claim, though, that may merely be another one of the numerous legends that attend the project, and in view of its vast extent are unsusceptible of proof by a single human being and a single pair of eyes and his own measurements. One might have taken it as a given that it would have been advantageous in every way to build continuously, or at least continuously within the two principal sections. The purpose of the wall was, after all, as is generally claimed and known to be the case, protection against tribes to the north. How can a discontinuously built wall afford any protection? Not only can such a wall afford no protection, the construction itself is in continual danger. Abandoned sections of wall in remote places can easily and repeatedly be destroyed by nomads, not least as, having been initially intimidated by the construction, they changed their abode like locusts, with baffling rapidity, and perhaps had a better view of the progress of the work as a whole than we who were building it.