HOW WE ACQUIRED BASHAN
It was a short, buxom, dark-eyed young woman who, with the help of
her equally sturdy and dark-eyed daughter, keeps a hillside tavern
not far from the Bavarian mountain resort called Tolz, who acted
as go-between in the business of our making Bashan’s acquaintance
and then acquiring him. That is over two years ago and he was only
half a year old at the time. Anastasia—this is the name of mine
hostess—knew that we had been compelled to have our Percy shot—he
was a Scotch collie, a harmless, somewhat weak-minded aristocrat,
who had been visited in his old age by a painful and disfiguring
skin disease—and that for over a year we had been without a faithful
guardian. She therefore rang us up from her perch in the hills and
told us that she was boarding a dog who was sure to suit us to a
dot, and that he was to be seen at any time.
The children coaxed and urged, and as the curiosity of their elders
was scarcely less than their own, we all sallied forth the very
next afternoon to climb the heights where Anastasia’s tavern lay.
We found her in her roomy kitchen which was filled with warm and
succulent vapours. There she stood with her round bare forearms
and her dress open at the throat, with her face rosy and shiny,
preparing the evening meal for her boarders, whilst her daughter,
busily but quietly going to and fro, lent assistance. We were given
a pleasant greeting, and the fact that we had not postponed our
visit but had come to attend to business without delay, was
favourably commented upon. In answer to our inquisitive glances,
Resi, the daughter, steered us toward the kitchen table. Here she
bent down, placed her hands upon her knees, and directed a few
flattering and encouraging words under the table. There, tied to
a table-leg with a frazzled rope, stood a creature of whom we had
until then been unaware in the smouldering half-light of this
kitchen. It was a vision, however, which would have induced any
one to burst into peals of pitying laughter.
There he stood on long, knock-kneed legs, his tail between them,
his four feet close together, his back arched. He was trembling.
It is possible that he was trembling out of fear, but one had the
impression that it was due to a lack of flesh and fat. For the
little apparition before us was a mere skeleton, a chest with a
spinal column covered with rough hair and supported on four sticks.
He had drawn back his ears, a muscular manœuvre which, of course,
immediately extinguishes every gleam of intelligent cheerfulness
in a dog’s physiognomy. This effect in his still so childish face
was so extreme that it expressed nothing but stupidity and misery
as well as an insistent plea for consideration. There was also the
fact to consider that the appendage which one might now call his
goatee was at that time still more developed in relation to the
rest of his face, something which gave to the aggregate woebegoneness
of his appearance a trace of sour hypochondria.
We all bent down to address comforting and coaxing words to this
picture of misery. Anastasia, from her post in front of the stove,
mingled her remarks with the rapturous and pitying exclamations of
the children, and retailed information as to the personality of
her boarder. His name, she declared in her pleasant and even voice,
was, for the time being, Lux. He was the son of most respectable
parents. She was personally acquainted with his mother, and as for
his father she had heard nothing but good of him. Lux was born on
a farm at Huglfing, and it was only owing to special circumstances
that his owners were willing to sell him so cheaply. For that
reason they had brought him to the tavern—in view of the lively
traffic there. They had come in a small wagon and Lux had gallantly
trotted the whole twenty kilometres, between the hind wheels. She
had at once thought of us, for she knew we were looking for a good
dog, and she felt quite certain that we could not help taking him.
If we could decide upon taking him at once, it would be a fine
thing all round. She was sure that we would have great joy of him,
and as for him, he would no longer be alone in the world, but have
a cosy berth, and she, Anastasia, would cease to worry about him.
We ought, however, not to be prejudiced against him because of the
faces he was now making. He was a bit cowed at present and not sure
of himself, because of the strange surroundings. But we would soon
see that he had a fine pedigree, that his parents were excellent
stock.
Yes, we objected, but it was clear—was it not—that these parents
of his had not been well matched?
Oh, yes, they had, and both of them were a fine breed, too! She,
Anastasia, would guarantee that his points were all good. He was
also unspoiled and very moderate in his demands—something which
was worth a good deal in such lean times as these. Up to the
present he had supported himself entirely on potato-skins. She
suggested that we take him home first, on probation, as it were.
We were under no obligation at all. In case we did not like him
she would take him back and return the small sum we had paid. She
was not afraid to say this—not afraid that we might take her at
her word. For knowing us as she did, and knowing _him_, too—both
parties to the bargain—she was convinced that we should learn to
love him and never think of ever giving him up again.
She said a good deal more in this vein—quietly, glowingly, and
amiably—the while she negotiated things on the stove, with the
flames at times shooting up magically in front of her. And finally
she came herself and with both hands opened Lux’s mouth in order
to show us his fine teeth and for some mysterious reason also the
rosy and riffled roof of his mouth.
Upon our asking, with professional air, whether he had already had
the mange, she replied with a slight show of impatience, that she
did not know. And as to his size when he had finally stopped
growing?—well, she declared with a smart promptness, this would be
exactly that of our deceased Percy. There was a good deal more of
talk to and fro, a good deal of warm-hearted encouragement on the
part of Anastasia, reinforced by pleas from the children, and a
good deal of half-conquered irresolution on our part. We finally
begged leave to be permitted to consider the matter for a short
time, and this was graciously granted us. And so we descended to
the valley, thoughtfully rehearsing and ruminating upon our
impressions.
That bit of four-legged misery under the table had naturally
captured the hearts of the children, and we grown-ups attempted in
vain to smile away their lack of taste and judgment. We, too, felt
a tugging at our hearts and realised all too clearly that we should
be hard put to it to banish the vision of the unfortunate Lux from
our memories. What was to become of him?—if we turned away in
contumely? Into whose—into what hands would he fall? A terrible
and mysterious figure arose in our phantasies: the knacker in his
flaying-house, from whose loathsome attentions we had once saved
Percy by means of a few chivalrous bullets from the rifle of a
gamekeeper and the honourable burial-place we had given him at the
edge of our garden. If we were minded to leave Lux to an unknown
and possibly ghastly fate we should not have been so careless as
to make his acquaintance, and to look upon his childish face with
the goatee. But now that we were aware of his existence, a
responsibility seemed laid upon us which we could dispute only with
difficulty and with forced, half-hearted denials.
Thus it came about that the third day following saw us once more
climbing up that gentle spur of the lower Alps. It was not that we
had already decided upon the acquisition of Lux. But we saw that
things being as they were, it was not likely that the matter would
have any other outcome.
This time we found Anastasia and her daughter sitting opposite each
other at the kitchen-table and drinking coffee. Between them, in
front of the table, sat he who bore the preliminary name of Lux—sat
as he is still accustomed to sit to-day, his shoulder-blades
twisted like a yokel’s, his paws turned in. Under his worn leather
collar there was a little nosegay of wild-flowers which decidedly
augmented his appearance and lent it something festive, like that
of an enterprising village youth on a Sunday or the bridegroom at
a country wedding. The young hostess, who herself made a neat and
pretty appearance in her peasant costume with its laced velvet
bodice, had furbished him out in this fashion in order to celebrate
his entry into his new home—as she put it. And mother and daughter
both assured us that they had been absolutely certain that we
should come again to fetch Lux, and that they knew that we should
come today.
Thus all further controversy and debate proved to be impossible,
in fact, precluded almost before we had entered. In her own pleasant
way, Anastasia thanked us for the purchase-money which we handed
to her and which amounted to ten marks. It was clear that she had
imposed this price upon us more in our own interests than in hers,
or those of the farmer-folk who had Lux to sell—that is, she felt
that it was necessary to give a positive, computable value to poor
Lux in our eyes. This we understood and gladly paid the tribute.
Lux was detached from his table-leg, the end of the rope handed
over to me, and thus we passed over the threshold of Anastasia’s
kitchen, our procession attended by the most friendly wishes and
congratulations.
It was, however, not a triumphal procession which proceeded on the
hour’s march towards home with our new household companion—the less
so since our bridegroom soon lost his nosegay. It is true that we
read amusement and also mocking and derogatory depreciation in the
glances of the people we met, the opportunities for which became
multiplied as we made our way through the market place—longitudinally.
To cap everything we soon discovered that Lux was suffering from
a disorder of the bowels, apparently a chronic one, something which
forced us to make frequent halts under the cynical eyes of the
townspeople. We formed a protective circle and hid his internal
misery from rude eyes, and solemnly asked ourselves whether it was
not, after all, the mange which was thus displaying its most
sinister symptoms? But this anxiety was uncalled-for, as the future
proved to us, for we soon saw that we had to deal with a sound and
hearty constitution which has proved itself proof against plagues
and distempers up to this very moment.
As soon as we reached home, the servant-maids were called forth,
so that they might make acquaintance with this new addition to the
family and also deliver their humble judgment upon him. We saw that
they had been prepared to express admiration, but after they had
caught sight of him and read our own vacillating and uncertain
looks, they broke into rude laughter, turned their backs upon him
of the rueful countenance, and made motions of rejection in his
direction. Confirmed by this in our doubt as to whether they would
fully appreciate the humanitarian nature of the small fee which
Anastasia had demanded, we declared that the dog had been presented
to us. And then we led Lux to the veranda and set before him a
welcoming feast composed of liberal scraps of considerable content.
But his timidity caused him to reject all this. He sniffed, to be
sure, at the titbits which he was invited to consume, but stood
aside shy and incapable of bringing himself to the pitch of
believing that all these cheese-rinds and chicken-bones were really
intended for him. On the other hand, he did not reject the sack
which we had stuffed with seaweed and which we had made ready upon
the floor for his comfort. And there he lay down with his paws
tucked under him, whilst we retired to the inner rooms and consulted
as to the name which he was finally to bear through all the years
to come.
He still refused to eat on the following day. Then followed a
period during which he devoured indiscriminately everything that
came within the radius of his jaws, until he attained the necessary
degree of quiet regularity and critical dignity in matters of diet.
The process of his domiciling and civic habitation should be
described in some bold and spacious manner. I shall not lose myself
in a too meticulous portrayal of this process. It suffered an
interruption through the temporary disappearance of Bashan. The
children had led him into the garden and they had taken off the
rope in order to give him freedom of action. During an unguarded
moment he had escaped into the vastness of the outer world through
the gap left between the lower part of the gate and the gravel
path. His disappearance aroused grief and consternation—at least
among the master and mistresses of the house, for the servants were
disposed to make light of the loss of a gift-dog, if they really
regarded it as a loss at all.
The telephone began to play tempestuously between our domain and
Anastasia’s mountain caravanserai, at which we hopefully adjudged
him to be. But in vain, he had not shown himself there. Two days
heavy with care went by, and then Anastasia reported that she had
received tidings from Huglfing that Lux had appeared at the parental
farm an hour and a half ago. He was there, no denying it—the
idealism of his instinct had drawn him back to the world of
potato-parings. And in lonely one-day marches, facing all kinds of
wind and weather, he had covered the twenty kilometres which he
had once travelled between the wheels of the farm wagon. And so
his former owners were obliged to hitch up this vehicle in order
to deliver the fugitive home-comer into Anastasia’s hands once
more. Two more days rolled by and then we again went forth to bring
home the errant one. We found him fastened as before to the
table-leg, unkempt and gaunt and splashed with the mud of the
country roads. To be sure, he gave signs of recognition and of joy
as he caught sight of us. But why then had he left us?
There came a time when it was clear that he had rid his mind of
the charms of the farm, but had not yet fully taken root with us,
so that his soul was masterless and like to a leaf that is set
tumbling about by the wind. During this period it was necessary to
keep a sharp eye on him whilst out walking, for he was all too
prone to tear asunder unperceived the weak band of sympathy that
bound us, and in a grand burst of independent living to lose
himself in the woods—where he would certainly have reverted to the
condition of his savage forbears. Our solicitude preserved him from
this sinister destiny. We strove to keep him on that high moral
level which his kind had achieved at the side of man during
thousands of years of association in common. And then a radical
change of residence—our removal to the city, or rather its
suburbs—led to his becoming wholly dependent upon us and entering
upon an intimate connection with our household life.
REGARDING BASHAN’S CHARACTER