Read Online Dog Years by Günter Grass & Ralph Manheim - Free Book Online
Authors: Günter Grass & Ralph Manheim
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Sarnowitz in all their possessions? Here Striessbach is written “Stricze” in one place, while elsewhere we read: “… praefatum fluuium Strycze cum utroque littore a lacu Colpin unde scaturit descendendo in Wislam…”
The other coauthor is no more backward about checking back and seasons all his letters with requests for an advance: “… perhaps be permitted to point out that according to our verbal agreement each coauthor, on starting work on his manuscript, was to receive…” That’s the actor. All right, let him have his advance. But let Amsel’s diary, a photostat if not the original, be his Bible.
The log must have inspired him. A log has to be kept on all ships, even a ferry. Kriwe: a cracked, lean chunk of leather with March-gray, lashless, and slightly crossed eyes, which nevertheless permitted him to guide the steam ferry diagonally, or it might be more apt to say crosswise, against the current from landing to landing. Vehicles, fisherwomen with flounder baskets, the pastor, school-children, travelers in transit, salesmen with sample cases, the coaches and freight cars of the Island narrow-gauge railway, cattle for slaughter or breeding, weddings and funerals with coffins and wreaths were squinted across the river by ferryman Kriwe, who entered all happenings in his log. So snugly and unjoltingly did Kriwe put in to his berth that a pfening could not have been inserted between the sheet metal sheathing on the bow of his ferryboat and the piles of the landing. Moreover he had long served the friends Walter Matern and Eduard Amsel as the most reliable of business agents, asking no commission for the deals he transacted and barely accepting tobacco. When the ferry wasn’t operating, he took the two of them to places known only to Kriwe. He urged Amsel to study the terror-inspiring qualities of a willow tree, for the artistic theories of Kriwe and Amsel, which were later recorded in the diary, amounted to this: “Models should be taken primarily from nature.” Years later, under the name of Haseloff, Amsel, in the same diary, amplified this dictum as follows: “Everything that can be stuffed should be classified as nature: dolls, for instance.”
But the hollow willow tree to which Kriwe led the friends shook itself and had not yet been stuffed. Flat in the background, the mill milled. Slowly the last narrow-gauge train rounded the bend, ringing faster than it ran. Butter melted away. Milk turned sour. Four bare feet, two oiled boots. First grass and nettles, then clover. Over two fences, through three open stiles, then another fence to climb. On both sides of the brook the willows took a step forward, a step back, turned, had hips, navels; and one willow—for even among willows there is the one willow—was hollow hollow hollow, until three days later Amsel filled it in: squats there plump and friendly on both heels, studies the inside of a willow, because Kriwe said… and out of the willow in which he is sitting with his curiosity, he attentively examines the willows to the right and left of the brook; as a model Amsel especially prizes a three-headed one that has one foot on dry land but is cooling the other in the brook because the giant Miligedo, the one with the lead club, stepped on its willow foot long long ago. And the willow tree holds still, though to all appearances it would like to run away, especially as the ground fog—for it is very early, a century before school time—is creeping across the meadows from the river and eating away the trunks of the willows by the brook: soon only the three-headed head of the posing willow will be floating on the fog, carrying on a dialogue.
Amsel leaves his niche, but he doesn’t feel like going home to his mother, who is mulling over her account books in her sleep, rechecking all her figures. He wants to witness the milk-drinking hour that Kriwe had been telling about. Walter Matern has the same idea. Senta isn’t with them, because Kriwe had
The other coauthor is no more backward about checking back and seasons all his letters with requests for an advance: “… perhaps be permitted to point out that according to our verbal agreement each coauthor, on starting work on his manuscript, was to receive…” That’s the actor. All right, let him have his advance. But let Amsel’s diary, a photostat if not the original, be his Bible.
The log must have inspired him. A log has to be kept on all ships, even a ferry. Kriwe: a cracked, lean chunk of leather with March-gray, lashless, and slightly crossed eyes, which nevertheless permitted him to guide the steam ferry diagonally, or it might be more apt to say crosswise, against the current from landing to landing. Vehicles, fisherwomen with flounder baskets, the pastor, school-children, travelers in transit, salesmen with sample cases, the coaches and freight cars of the Island narrow-gauge railway, cattle for slaughter or breeding, weddings and funerals with coffins and wreaths were squinted across the river by ferryman Kriwe, who entered all happenings in his log. So snugly and unjoltingly did Kriwe put in to his berth that a pfening could not have been inserted between the sheet metal sheathing on the bow of his ferryboat and the piles of the landing. Moreover he had long served the friends Walter Matern and Eduard Amsel as the most reliable of business agents, asking no commission for the deals he transacted and barely accepting tobacco. When the ferry wasn’t operating, he took the two of them to places known only to Kriwe. He urged Amsel to study the terror-inspiring qualities of a willow tree, for the artistic theories of Kriwe and Amsel, which were later recorded in the diary, amounted to this: “Models should be taken primarily from nature.” Years later, under the name of Haseloff, Amsel, in the same diary, amplified this dictum as follows: “Everything that can be stuffed should be classified as nature: dolls, for instance.”
But the hollow willow tree to which Kriwe led the friends shook itself and had not yet been stuffed. Flat in the background, the mill milled. Slowly the last narrow-gauge train rounded the bend, ringing faster than it ran. Butter melted away. Milk turned sour. Four bare feet, two oiled boots. First grass and nettles, then clover. Over two fences, through three open stiles, then another fence to climb. On both sides of the brook the willows took a step forward, a step back, turned, had hips, navels; and one willow—for even among willows there is the one willow—was hollow hollow hollow, until three days later Amsel filled it in: squats there plump and friendly on both heels, studies the inside of a willow, because Kriwe said… and out of the willow in which he is sitting with his curiosity, he attentively examines the willows to the right and left of the brook; as a model Amsel especially prizes a three-headed one that has one foot on dry land but is cooling the other in the brook because the giant Miligedo, the one with the lead club, stepped on its willow foot long long ago. And the willow tree holds still, though to all appearances it would like to run away, especially as the ground fog—for it is very early, a century before school time—is creeping across the meadows from the river and eating away the trunks of the willows by the brook: soon only the three-headed head of the posing willow will be floating on the fog, carrying on a dialogue.
Amsel leaves his niche, but he doesn’t feel like going home to his mother, who is mulling over her account books in her sleep, rechecking all her figures. He wants to witness the milk-drinking hour that Kriwe had been telling about. Walter Matern has the same idea. Senta isn’t with them, because Kriwe had
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