Bashan and I Thomas Mann (carter reed txt) 📖

resume their strange and ineffectual race, shoulder to shoulder on either side of the fence. Finally, however, my dog makes use of his liberty and races off. This is always a terrible moment for the imprisoned one. This sudden lighting out is to him something unendurable; it is villainy unutterable and unparalleled⁠—to think that the other dog, his racial colleague, should really think of abandoning him!

So he raves, howls, acts like one possessed, races up and down his territory, all by himself, threatens to jump over the fence and strangle the traitor, and keeps on hurling the vilest curses after him. Bashan cannot help hearing all this pother, and he is most disagreeably affected by it, as his guilty and diffident air proclaims. Still he refuses to look back, and jogs easily along. During this the terrible maledictions to our rear gradually decline in intensity and slowly die away into low whinings and thin yowls.

Such is the customary course of events when one of the parties concerned happens to be under duress. But the strange contrariety of things reaches its apex when the rencontre takes place under equal conditions and both happen to be free of foot. It is extremely unpleasant to be obliged to describe this⁠—really, it is the most oppressive, embarrassing and ticklish situation conceivable. However⁠—

Bashan, who has just been blithely gambolling about, comes to me, simply forcing himself upon my attention with that peculiar sniffling and whining which arise from the very profounds of his nature. These sounds cannot be interpreted as the expression of any particular emotion, though I at once recognise them as an attempt to tell me of the approach of a strange dog. I peer sharply about me. No mistake⁠—there he comes⁠—and it is clear even from afar, as proclaimed by his cautious and hesitant advance, that he has become conscious of the other. My own anxiety is scarcely less than that of the other two⁠—I have premonitions that this meeting is going to be precarious and highly undesirable.

“Go ’way!” I say to Bashan. “What d’ye mean by clinging to my leg! Can’t you two carry on negotiations amongst yourselves⁠—and at a distance?”

I try to push him away with my stick, for if it should come to a battle of bites, which⁠—whether there be a reason for it or not⁠—is extremely probable, it is sure to take place around my feet and I shall become the centre of a most unedifying tussle.

“Go ’way!” I repeat hoarsely.

But Bashan does not go ’way. He continues to cling to me, tightly and helplessly. Only for a moment does he deign to move aside to sniff at a tree⁠—an operation which the stranger, as I observe out of the corner of my eye, is also performing yonder. The distance between the two is now only twenty paces⁠—the tension is fearful. The stranger has now assumed a crouching position like a tiger-cat, with head thrust forward, and in this highwaymanlike pose he awaits Bashan’s approach, apparently in order to seize him by the throat at the proper moment. This, however, does not take place, nor does Bashan appear to expect it. At all events he continues to advance straight towards the lowering one, though with palpitant hesitancy and an alert though tragic mien. He would do so⁠—would, in fact, be forced to do so, even though I were to leave him and pursue my path, abandoning him to all the perils of the situation. No matter how upsetting the rencontre may be, no thought can be given to evasion or escape. He goes as one that is under a spell⁠—a ban. Both are bound to each other by some secret and tenebrous tie, and neither dares belie this. We have now approached within two paces.

And then the other dog gets up quietly, just as though he had never assumed the looks or attitude of a lion couchant and stands there precisely as Bashan stands⁠—both with hangdog look, miserable and deeply embarrassed and both incapable of yielding an inch or of passing each other. They would like to be free of all this; they turn away their heads, squint sadly aside. Thus they shove and slink towards each other, side by side, tense and full of a troubled watchfulness, flank to flank, and begin to snuffle at each other’s hides.

It is during this procedure that the growlings begin. Sotto voce, I call Bashan by name and warn him, for this is the fateful moment which is to decide whether a tussle and biting-match is to take place, or whether I am to be spared this calamity. But the battle of bites, of tooth and claw, is upon us⁠—in a flash⁠—no one could say how or why. In a moment both of them are merely a tangle, a raving, chaotic tumult out of which arise horrible gutteral cries, as of dragons of the prime tearing each other. In order to avert a tragedy I am forced to interpose my stick, to seize Bashan by his collar or by the scruff of his neck, and to hoist him into the air with one arm with his antagonist hanging to him with locked jaws⁠—or face whatever other terrors may be awaiting me⁠—terrors which I am then fated to feel in every nerve during the greater part of the walk. But it also happens that the entire affair may pass off quite uneventfully, and, as it were, ebb away. Nevertheless, in both contingencies it is difficult to get away from the spot. For even if these twain do not happen to clamp themselves together by the teeth, they remain fettered by a tenacious inner bond. In this case things proceed as follows:⁠—

You imagine that the two dogs have already passed each other, for they are no longer hesitating flank to flank, but are aligned almost in keel formation, the one with his head turned in one direction, the other with his in the opposite direction. They do