The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass: -I- -II- -III- -IV- (V)
V
I DO NOT know if it is the influence of the late season of the year, but the days are growing ever more sombre in colour, ever murkier and darker. It is just as if the world were seen through totally black spectacles.
The whole landscape is like the bottom of an enormous aquarium — full of pale ink. The trees, people and houses liquefy into dark silhouettes, waving against the background of those inky depths like underwater plants.
Packs of black dogs roam about the vicinity of the Sanatorium. All different shapes and sizes, quiet, tense and alert, they run close to the ground in the twilight, along all the roads and footpaths, engrossed in their canine affairs.
They run in twos and threes with outstretched, vigilant necks and pricked up ears, with the doleful tone of a quiet growl involuntarily torn from their voice boxes, indicating their supreme agitation. Absorbed in their own affairs, always hurrying, always on their way somewhere, consumed by their incomprehensible purpose, they hardly pay any attention to a passer-by. Only occasionally will they glower at him, their eyes darting — and then rage emerges from that sly black squint, its impulses restrained only by their lack of time. Sometimes, giving vent to their animosity, they even run at his feet with an ominous snarl, their heads lowered, only to give up their intention in mid-course and fly on with great canine dance steps.
This plague of dogs cannot be helped, but why the devil does the management of the Sanatorium keep an enormous alsation dog chained up, a terrible beast, a veritable werewolf of simply demonic wildness?
A shudder runs through me every time I pass by his kennel, beside which he stands perfectly still, on a short chain and with a collar of fur sticking wildly out around his moustachioed, bristly and bearded head with its machinery of huge jaws full of fangs. He does not bark at all, but his savage face becomes even more terrible at the sight of a human being — his features freeze in an expression of utter rage, and in a quiet convulsion, slowly raising his terrible muzzle, he gives a low, intense howl, torn from the depths of detestation, in which the sorrow and despair of powerlessness resounds.
My father walks inifferently past that beast whenever we leave the Sanatorium together. For myself, I am deeply shocked each time by that elemental manifestation of impotent detestation. I am now two heads taller than Father, who trots beside me, small and thin, with his tiny, old person’s steps.
Close to the market square now, we perceived unusual movement. Crowds of people were running about the streets. The unlikely news reached us that an enemy army was rapidly approaching the town.
Amid the general consternation the people passed alarming and contradictory news among themselves. It was difficult to gain any sense from it. A war with no preliminary diplomatic moves? A war in the midst of blissful peacetime, undisturbed by any conflict? War with whom, and over what? They informed us that the enemy army's invasion had stirred up a party of malcontents in the town, who were running armed around the streets, terrorising the peaceful townsfolk. We even caught a glimpse of a group of these assasins in their black civilian clothes with white bands crossed over their chests, silently advancing with lowered rifles. The crowd backed away before them and huddled on the pavements, while they walked on, sending ironic dark looks from under their caps, looks displaying a clear sense of advantage, a flash of malicious amusement and a knowing glint as if holding back snorts of laughter, lest they unmask the whole mystification. Some of them were known to the bystanders, but it was the lowered rifles that give rise to the crowd’s restrained shouts of joy. They passed by us, accosting no one. An ambling, gloomily taciturn crowd once more overflowed all the streets. A dull hubbub flowed over the town. We seemed to hear the rattle of artillery fire in the distance, the rumble of batteries moving into position. ‘I must get to the shop,’ said Father, pale but determined. ‘You needn’t come with me, you’d only be in the way.’ He added: ‘Go back to the Sanatorium.’ A cowardly voice bid me to obey. I saw Father pushing into the dense wall of the crowd, and lost sight of him.
I hurriedly sneaked through the side streets to the top end of the town. I told myself that by these steep paths I would be able to go in a semi-circle around the town centre, which was choked up by a multitude of people.
The crowds were sparser there, in the higher parts of the town, and at last they disappeared completely. I proceeded peacefully along the empty streets to the municipal park. Lanterns burned there with dark, bluish little flames, like funerary asphodels. Each was surrounded by the dance of a swarm of May bugs, heavy as bullets, carried by the oblique, sideways flight of their vibrating wings. Some of them, having fallen, clambered listlessly on the sand, their convex backs hunched with hard elytras, under which they tried to fold the delicate outspread films of their wings. Passers-by, engrossed in lighthearted conversations, walked on the lawns and footpaths. The last trees hung over the courtyards of houses, lying low in a valley and pressing againt the park wall. I wandered along that wall, which on my side barely reached the level of my chest, but which fell away on the outside, with storey-high butresses, to the level of the courtyards. In a certain place among the courtyards a ramp rose up from the compacted earth, up to the height of the wall. I crossed the barrier with ease and, along that narrow embankment, I squeezed between the tightly packed structures of the houses and into the street. My calculations, backed up by outstanding spatial intuition, were accurate. I found I was almost directly opposite the sanatorium building, its rear side looming indistinctly white through a black covering of trees. I entered as usual from the back, through the courtyard, through the gate in the iron fence, and from a distance I could already see the dog at its post. As ever, a shudder of aversion ran through me at that sight. I wanted to get past him as quickly as possible, in order not to hear that groan of detestation torn from the bottom of his heart, when to my horror, not beliving my eyes, I saw him unleashed, stepping quickly away from his kennel, running around the courtyard with hollow barks as if resounding from a barrel, trying to cut off my retreat.
Numb with terror I withdrew into the opposite, most distant corner of the courtyard, and, instinctively looking for some hiding place, I sheltered in a little pavilion which stood there, utterly concvinced of the pointlessness of my efforts. The shaggy beast approached with rapid steps, and, lo and behold, his snout was already at the entrance of the pavilion; he had caught me in a trap. Almost expiring with fear I noticed that he had unwound the entire length of his chain, which he had dragged behind him through the courtyard, and that the pavilion was just beyond the reach of his teeth. Aghast, crushed by horror, I felt barely any relief. Staggering, close to fainting, I raised my eyes. I had never seen him so close up before, and only now did the scales fall from my eyes. How great is the force of anticipation! How powerful is the suggestion of terror! What enthralment! It was a man — a man on a chain, whom I had by incomprehensible means, in a simplifying, metaphorical, comprehensive elision, taken for a dog. Please don’t misunderstand me. A dog it was, to be sure, but in human form. The quality of the canine is an internal quality, and it can manifest itself just as well in human as in animal shape. He who stood before me in the opening of the pavilion — his jaws inside out, as it were, unwrapped, all of his teeth bared in a terrible snarl — was a man of medium stature, with a black beard. His face was yellow and bony, his eyes black, angry and distressed. Judging from his black clothes, from the civilised shape of his beard, one might take him for an educated person, a scholar. He could have been an older, failed brother of Doctor Gotard. But that first impression was mistaken. His huge hands, smeared with glue, two brutal and cynical furrows around his nose, getting lost in his beard, the vulgar horizontal wrinkles on his low forehead quickly dispelled this first illusion. He was, rather, a bookbinder, a tub-thumper, a rally speaker and a party member — a fierce man with dark, explosive enthusiasms. And exactly there — in those depths of passion, in that convulsive bristling of all of his fibres, in that mad rage, furiously barking at the end of a stick pointed at him — he was a hundred percent dog.
If I get out, over the back wall of the pavilion, I think to myself, I will be completely out of the range of his fury, and by a side path I can reach the Sanatorium gate. I am about to hop over the railing when I suddenly stop in the middle of the action. I feel that it would be too cruel to simply walk away and leave him like this, his helpless fury surpassing all limits. I imagine his terrible disappointment, his inhuman pain at seeing me escaping from his trap, walking away once and for all. I stay. I approach him and say in a steady, natural voice: ‘Stay calm. I will untie you.’
At this his face, torn by twitches, perturbed by the vibrations of a snarl, reintegrates, grows smooth, and an almost completely human face emerges from deep inside. I approach him without concern and unfasten the buckle at his neck. We walk together, side by side. The bookbinder is wearing a decent black suit, but is barefoot. I attempt to engage him in conversation, but only unintelligible gibbering comes from his mouth. Only in his eyes, in those black, expressive eyes do I read the wild enthusiasm of attachment, of fondness, which seizes me with terror. At times he stumbles against a stone, against a clump of earth, and then, through shock, his face at once breaks up, falls to pieces, and his dread half emerges, poised to jump out, and right behind it, his rage, only awaiting the moment to transform that face once more into a swarm of hissing vipers. I bring him to order at such times with a gruff, friendly reprimand. I even pat him on the back. And at times an astonished, suspicious smile, not trusting itself, attempts to rise to his face. Oh, what a burden this terrible friendship is to me! How that eerie fondness terrifies me. How can I get rid of this man striding beside me, his eyes fixed on me, all the eagerness of his canine spirit intent on my face. I am not free to betray my impatience, however. I take out my wallet and say with a businesslike tone: ‘You will surely require money. I can lend it to you with pleasure.’ But at this sight his face takes on such terible wildness that I put the wallet away as quickly as possible. And for a long time he can not calm down or control his features, which are contorted by convulsion of howling. No, I can stand it no longer. Anything but this. Matters have become altogether complicated, hopelessly tangled. Over the town I see the glow of a fire. Father somewhere in the fire of a revolution — in the burning shop! Doctor Gotard unavailable, and what is more, the incomprehensible appearance of Mother incognito on some mysterious mission! These are the links of some great incomprehensible intrigue tightening around my person. I must escape — escape from here. Anywhere at all. I must cast off this terrible friendship, this bookbinder stinking of dog who keeps a close watch on me. We are standing before the Sanatorium door. ‘Please come to my room,’ I say with a courteous gesture. My civilised motions fasinate him; they lull his wildness to sleep. I let him into the room before me. I seat him on a chair.
‘I shall go to the restaurant and bring some cognac,’ I say.
He starts up in dread at this, wanting to accompany me. I calm his panic with gentle firmness.
‘Please sit down. Please wait calmly,’ I say to him in a deep, resonant voice, at the bottom of which my terror lies concealed. He sits down with an uncertain smile.
I go out and walk slowly along the corridor, then I go down the stairs and along the corridor leading to the exit. I go through the door; I cross the courtyard; I slam the iron gate shut behind me and now I begin to run — out of breath, my heart thumping, my temples pounding — along the dark avenue that leads to the railway station.
Visions accumulate in my head, each more terrible than the last. The impatience of the monster, his dread and despair when he realises that he has been cheated. The return of his fury, the recurrence of his rage, exploding with uncontrolable power. My father returning to the Sanatorium and tapping on the door, not suspecting anything, and coming unexpectedly face to face with the terrible beast.
I am glad that Father is now actually dead, and that it will not really catch him, I think with relief, and I can now see a black row of train wagons before me, waiting to depart.
I take a seat in one of them, and the train, as if it had been waiting for this, moves slowly from its place, without a whistle.
In the window that huge bowl of the horizon passes by and turns once more, bloated with dark roaring forests among which the Sanatorium walls loom white. Farewell Father; farewell town that I will see no more.
Since that time I have been travelling, travelling continually. Wandering from carriage to carriage, I have made myself at home, as it were, on the railway, and they tolerate me there. The carriages, enormous as rooms, are full of rubbish and straw, draughts penetrating them from end to end on grey, colourless days.
My clothes became torn and tattered. I was given an outworn railwayman’s uniform. I have a dirty rag tied around my face because of a swollen cheek. I sit in the straw and doze, and when I am hungry I stand in the corridor before the second-class compartments and sing. And they toss loose change into my conductor’s cap, a railwayman’s black cap with the peak torn off.
> -Dodo (pending)- >