A small obstacle though, an ever smaller obstacle. People grew used to the strangeness of a circus trying to attract attention with a hunger artist in this day and age, and with that his fate was sealed. He was free to fast as hard as he could, and did so, but nothing now could save him, and the public simply walked past. Try explaining the art of hunger! If someone doesn’t feel it, you can’t make them understand. The lovely signs on his cage grew dirty and illegible; they were torn down and no one thought to replace them; the little board displaying the number of days he’d fasted—which at first had been diligently updated every morning—had now long remained unchanged, because after a few weeks the attendants grew bored of even that small job; and so although the hunger artist fasted just as he’d dreamt of doing, and although he effortlessly succeeded in holding out ever longer, just as he’d predicted, no one counted the days, no one, not even the hunger artist himself, knew exactly how much he’d achieved, and his heart grew heavy. Now when someone idling by happened to stop, to make fun of the number on the board and talk about it being a con, it was tantamount to the stupidest lie that indifference and malice could have concocted, because the hunger artist didn’t cheat, he did his work honestly, but the world cheated him of his reward.
But many days again went by and this, too, came to an end. A supervisor noticed the cage and asked the attendants why this useful piece of equipment had been left standing around with nothing but some rotten straw inside it; no one could say, until someone looked at the board with the numbers and remembered the hunger artist. They poked through the straw with poles and found the artist underneath. “You’re still fasting?” asked the supervisor. “When are you finally going to stop?”
“Forgive me, all of you,” whispered the hunger artist; only the supervisor, whose ear was to the bars, could hear him.
“Of course,” said the supervisor, putting a finger to his temple to show his staff what condition the artist was in. “We forgive you.”
“I always wanted you to admire my fasting,” said the hunger artist.
“And we do admire it,” the supervisor said obligingly.
“But you shouldn’t admire it,” said the hunger artist.
“All right, then we don’t admire it,” said the supervisor, “but why shouldn’t we admire it?”
“Because I have to fast, I can’t help it,” said the hunger artist.
“How about that,” said the supervisor. “So why can’t you help it?”
“Because,” said the hunger artist, and he lifted his head a little, pursing his lips as if for a kiss, so he could speak right into the supervisor’s ear and make sure nothing was lost, “I couldn’t find a meal I would have liked to eat. If I’d found one, believe me, I wouldn’t have made a fuss, I’d have eaten till I was full, just like you or anyone else.” Those were his last words, but in his broken eyes there remained the firm, albeit no longer proud, conviction that he would go on fasting.
“Get this cleared up!” said the supervisor, and they buried the hunger artist together with the straw. In the cage they put a young panther. Even the most stolid attendants felt the relief of seeing this wild animal throwing himself around the long-deserted cage. He lacked for nothing. The keepers brought him the food he liked as a matter of course; he didn’t even seem to miss his freedom; his glorious body, endowed almost to bursting with all it needed, seemed to carry its own freedom within itself; it seemed to lurk somewhere in the panther’s jaws; and the joy of life steamed out of his mouth with such force that the spectators felt they could barely hold their ground against it. But they braced themselves, crowded around the cage and never wanted to leave.
THE TREES
WE’RE LIKE TREE TRUNKS in the snow. They seem to stand on its surface, as if a little push would be enough to knock them over. No, you can’t do that, because they’re fixed firmly to the ground. But look, even that is illusory.
THE NEW LAWYER
WE’VE GOT A NEW LAWYER, a Dr Bucephalus. There’s not much in his appearance to remind you that he used to be Alexander of Macedon’s war horse. But if you know his background, there are a few things you notice. That said, I did recently see even a pretty simple-minded court usher admiring our lawyer with the practised eye of a regular racegoer as he bounded up the stairs, lifting his knees high and letting his steps ring out on the marble.
In general, the office approves of Bucephalus having been taken on. With a surprising degree of sympathy, people say that the way society is arranged today puts Bucephalus in a difficult position and for that reason, as well as on account of his historical significance, we should be as accommodating as possible. Nowadays—this is something no one can deny—there is no Alexander the Great. It’s true that some people still know about killing; nor is the skill needed to spear a friend across the banqueting table wholly a lost art; there are plenty of people who find Macedonia too small and curse Philip, his father—but there is no one, no one, capable of leading us to India. Even in those days, the gates of India seemed unreachable, but the direction was given by the king’s sword. Today the gates are altogether elsewhere, higher and further off; no one is pointing the way; it’s true that lots of people have swords, but only to wave them about, and anyone who tries to follow them with his eyes ends up bewildered.