Weary as I was, I stood at the window and waited. Perhaps for the night after all, perhaps the night of sleep? I didn’t know. I stood there looking down. Finally I understood: it was the farmyard with the pigs that interested me so much. And at the same time I thought of many other things, as we always do when we are miserable. I thought at once of the tavern-keeper’s derisive look as I had entered, and of the server’s casual chitchat that I had listened to from afar, a conversation with death in a quiet voice. Oh, you never forget a conversation or a look like that, even when it seems that you’ve taken it in with dreaming ears and dreaming eyes. Oh, and there were so many things I would never forget. I was veritably rich in them. Yet I didn’t actually complain about this gift of memory.
After all, I knew of a man who always, always had to live under such a derisive gaze, and no one could even say why. Yes, I had found a man like that right on this spot: a swineherd.
While I watched, my eyes growing hungry, the old farmhand crossed the yard many times.
In his eagerness he moved effortlessly, almost gently, the way I can imagine someone moving even in the hereafter. But he was hunched over, “hunched to death,” as the old saying goes; and the things that he touched seemed to be on a level with him, even above him, higher than he was himself, as old and hunched over as he was.
I saw it on that afternoon, and it is engraved in me forever: the love with which he tended the animals, almost smiling as he worked. Of course this smile was mixed with sighs and clearings of his throat, in the manner peculiar to old people. A smile that brought to mind the most aged, and even the animals themselves. Not that the smile proceeded from animal feeling; but rather from sympathy, from love. Oh, you could certainly call it ignorance if you wanted to, most miserable ignorance. And I’m sure that he often ate no better than the pigs themselves. That hard bread must have been like a stone in his toothless mouth. The animals would grunt for it when they saw him coming, I saw that on this first occasion, and many times thereafter. Not only the animals, but the whole town knew that he received hard bread to eat. And like the pigs, no one else knew why.
The tavern-keeper, my tavern-keeper and the swineherd’s master, was only the son of the man he had actually served. That actual master, whose servant had outlived him — serving him even in death, so to speak — had been a good and righteous man. The son, however, as often occurs with no explanation or warning: incomparably wicked and heartless. He was a man who took pleasure in those things that cause us horror. It was he himself who gave his servant that bread every day. Every day he recklessly ventured right up to the edge of that innocence. He knew that he could not fall through, that it would bear his weight. For even if there was in the servant a wisdom that saw and felt all of this, it was not of a human kind.
He was too old for that, he was ninety-five years old. And earlier, though you may laugh, he might have been too young. If no one tells you that your childhood has ended, you might not know it yourself.
In any case — I read this in his movements — he complained of nothing but the sudden downturn the estate had suffered, which had left only his pig farm unharmed and undiminished in value. Perhaps it was in this most particular way that he lodged his complaint about the tavern-keeper’s rude demeanor. For the tavern was always empty. The only people who came there were travelers, and that dead man, and a poor woman who certainly didn’t bring his house any honor. And when they were gone (I followed his thoughts, for you could almost read them right through him) — who would come then?
In the end, the pigsty itself would become the shelter of his harsh master. And he, the ninety-five-year-old man, would be driven out. For the downward slope into poverty and desperation is steep once they have persisted for some time in secret.
But that of all things did not discomfit him, you could read as much from my window.
And that of all things was the mystery.
It is written in the great book, in every passage. He himself was a word from that book. He was a word placed in a particular passage. He was written in the prodigal son.
I thought about it for a long time. Even as the noise below grew and swelled, this simple perception created within me a blessed calm.
And so I imagined the story told in three different ways:
In the manner of the hard-hearted tavern-keeper, in the manner of the simple servant, and in the manner of my own life. Each of us was a story of the prodigal son. But as for when these stories would ripen and fall sweetly into paradise, that no one could know. With this thought, I reverently lay down to sleep. True, it was not yet evening. But for me it was night. I heard a blowing and rustling, and felt that a whirlwind was passing in the street. And then someone propped a ladder against my wall, and pounded in a wedge with a heavy hammer. But I was already far off, I had left myself behind. And then someone, who must have had nails between his lips, shouted a word to the man who was fastening the rope to the wall, the rope the tightrope walker would have to cross. .
Part Three
Granted, desperation had never been more than a word to me, that harshest desperation that tears people apart. And a person in that state is like an animal we watch at pasture, saying: “If it knew what awaited it, it would bellow and run away. .” But it doesn’t leave its spot. It has another day, and then another, and then another final day. . Once, earlier, I had a dog at home, it ran away but it came back, too, just three days later. So even that comes to nothing: running away. . We are hemmed in by the world, by everything that supports us and everything that threatens us. But we don’t recognize it right away. Like the beasts of the field, and perhaps other creatures as well, we need some movement to bring it to our attention; a clear, unmistakable movement, in case we haven’t already caught its scent. —
So when I left this place it was not with any intention of escaping; rather, I kept a slow and steady pace as I started up the rising path between the hills.
It was an especially brilliant day. And even if the grass and flowers could take on no more beauty in this rainless season, at least they were spared from a flowery death up there in the heights, where the air seemed to sing. A little swallow twittered, almost right into my mouth. A lamb came along. As it came closer, its outlines growing clearer and sweeter, I could see that it wanted to be petted. Of course, it turned out that the lamb was not as soft as I had supposed. Its wool was piled up so thickly in spots that it had begun to form ridges; it only appeared as if it would be pleasant to touch. And its bare spots were cool.
Aside from this lamb I encountered a child, a real one: a less common sight than one might think. And up above, on the ridge of the hill, stood a very old shepherd. I took all this in with a grateful heart. But then, from this glorious prospect, I continued down into the valley, knowing full well that this vast view would not remain with me, that temptation has made its home in the heights for ages: the false hope of a life that renews itself.
The house I was to live in had been described to me in detail. And so I found it at once: I could have pointed it out with my finger. The roof, which reached up high and stretched down almost to the ground, covered both the living quarters and a barn. And just when you thought that the birds were coming to perch on the roof, they would dive down into the grass, or disappear into a tree. That’s how low the house sat in the hollow.
But the rest of the world didn’t see things as I have described them. They drew sharp distinctions, razor sharp, as they say. For them this was one man’s property, in distinction to another, poorer property next door, or one of equal value far away. These squares and rectangles spoke to each other in their own loud tongue; this whole landscape was divided up along the axes of human power. There were horses, for instance; I could see them even from afar, a pasture of unharnessed horses rearing up. There was something rich about them, an uncorrupted strength that extended to their owner as well. I would gladly have lived in that farmer’s house. But he was not the owner of my house; my owner was a very different man. And he was right next door. An inexperienced eye could hardly have told their properties apart. And I was just such a person. And I had just such an eye. Actually I was still just a child, and I would gladly have gathered up a few of the dice I had cast — and had played away long ago — and swept them back into my cup. But a higher power was playing with me than I had imagined: and he took a serious interest in who won. In any case, it had to be decided. And he made it very clear, except for those few friendly moments: except for the swallow, except for the lamb, except for the shepherd.