Read Online Dog Years by Günter Grass & Ralph Manheim - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Günter Grass & Ralph Manheim
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said: “Don’t take the hound, boy; she’s likely to whine and get scared when it starts.”
So no dog. Between them a hole with four legs and a tail. Barefoot they creep over gray meadows, looking back over the eddying steam. They’re on the point of whistling: Here, Senta! Heel! Heel! But they remain soundless, because Kriwe said… Ahead of them monuments: cows in the swirling soup. Not far from the cows, exactly between Beister’s flax and the willows to either side of the brook, they lie in the dew and wait. From the dikes and the scrub pines graduated tones of gray. Above the steam and the poplars of the highway leading to Pasewark, Steegen, and Stutthof the cross pattern of the sails of the Matern wind mill. Flat fretwork. No miller grinds wheat into flour so early in the morning. So far no cocks, but soon. Shadowy and suddenly close the nine scrub pines on the great dune, uniformly bent from northwest to southeast in obedience to the prevailing wind. Toads—or is it oxen?—toads or oxen are roaring. The frogs, slimmer, are praying. Gnats all in the same register. Something, but not a lapwing, calls: an invitation? or is it only announcing its presence? Still no cock. Islands in the steam, the cows breathe. Amsel’s heart scurries across a tin roof. Walter Matern’s heart kicks a door in. A cow moos warmly. Cozy warm belly-mooing from the other cows. What a noise in the fog; hearts on tin against doors, what is calling whom, nine cows, toads oxen gnats… And suddenly—for no sign has been given—silence. Frogs gone, toads oxen gnats gone, nothing calls hears answers anyone, cows lie down and Amsel and friend, almost without heartbeat, press their ears into the dew, into the clover: they are coming! From the brook a shuffling. A sobbing as of dishcloths, but regular, without crescendo, ploof ploof, pshish—ploof ploof pshish. Ghosts of the hanged? Headless nuns? Gypsies goblins elves? Who’s there? Balderle Ashmodai Beng? Sir Peege Peegood? Bobrowski the incendiary and his crony Materna with whom it all began? Kynstute’s daughter, whose name was Tulla?—Then they glisten: covered with bottom muck, eleven fifteen seventeen brown river eels have come to bathe in the dew, this is their hour, they slide slither whip through the clover and flow in the direction of. The clover remains bowed in their slimy track. The throats of the toads oxen gnats are still benumbed. Nothing calls and nothing answers. Warm lie the cows on black-and-white flanks. Udders advertise themselves: pale yellow matutinal full to bursting: nine cows, thirty-six teats, eighteen eels. They arrive and suck themselves fast. Brownish-black extensions to pink-spotted teats. Sucking lapping glugging thirst. At first the eels quiver. Pleasure who giving whom? Then one after another cows let their heavy-heavy heads droop in the clover. Milk flows. Eels swell. The toads are roaring again. The gnats start up. The slim frogs. Still no cock, but Walter Matern has a swollen voice. He’d like to go over and grab. It would be easy, child’s play. But Amsel’s against it, he has something else in mind and is already planning it out. The eels flow back to the brook. The cows sigh. The first cock. The mill turns slowly. The train rings as it rounds the bend. Amsel decides to build a new scarecrow.
And it took form: a pig’s bladder was to be had for nothing because the Lickfetts had just slaughtered. It provided the taut udder. The smoked skin of real eels was stuffed with straw and coiled wire, sewed up and attached to the pig’s bladder—upside down, so that the eels twined and twisted like thick hair and stood on their heads on the udder. The Gorgon’s head was raised over Karweise’s wheat on two forked sticks.
And in his diary Amsel sketched the new scarecrow just as Karweise would buy it—later the tattered hide of a dead cow was thrown over the forked sticks like an overcoat. In the sketch it is overcoatless and more striking, a
So no dog. Between them a hole with four legs and a tail. Barefoot they creep over gray meadows, looking back over the eddying steam. They’re on the point of whistling: Here, Senta! Heel! Heel! But they remain soundless, because Kriwe said… Ahead of them monuments: cows in the swirling soup. Not far from the cows, exactly between Beister’s flax and the willows to either side of the brook, they lie in the dew and wait. From the dikes and the scrub pines graduated tones of gray. Above the steam and the poplars of the highway leading to Pasewark, Steegen, and Stutthof the cross pattern of the sails of the Matern wind mill. Flat fretwork. No miller grinds wheat into flour so early in the morning. So far no cocks, but soon. Shadowy and suddenly close the nine scrub pines on the great dune, uniformly bent from northwest to southeast in obedience to the prevailing wind. Toads—or is it oxen?—toads or oxen are roaring. The frogs, slimmer, are praying. Gnats all in the same register. Something, but not a lapwing, calls: an invitation? or is it only announcing its presence? Still no cock. Islands in the steam, the cows breathe. Amsel’s heart scurries across a tin roof. Walter Matern’s heart kicks a door in. A cow moos warmly. Cozy warm belly-mooing from the other cows. What a noise in the fog; hearts on tin against doors, what is calling whom, nine cows, toads oxen gnats… And suddenly—for no sign has been given—silence. Frogs gone, toads oxen gnats gone, nothing calls hears answers anyone, cows lie down and Amsel and friend, almost without heartbeat, press their ears into the dew, into the clover: they are coming! From the brook a shuffling. A sobbing as of dishcloths, but regular, without crescendo, ploof ploof, pshish—ploof ploof pshish. Ghosts of the hanged? Headless nuns? Gypsies goblins elves? Who’s there? Balderle Ashmodai Beng? Sir Peege Peegood? Bobrowski the incendiary and his crony Materna with whom it all began? Kynstute’s daughter, whose name was Tulla?—Then they glisten: covered with bottom muck, eleven fifteen seventeen brown river eels have come to bathe in the dew, this is their hour, they slide slither whip through the clover and flow in the direction of. The clover remains bowed in their slimy track. The throats of the toads oxen gnats are still benumbed. Nothing calls and nothing answers. Warm lie the cows on black-and-white flanks. Udders advertise themselves: pale yellow matutinal full to bursting: nine cows, thirty-six teats, eighteen eels. They arrive and suck themselves fast. Brownish-black extensions to pink-spotted teats. Sucking lapping glugging thirst. At first the eels quiver. Pleasure who giving whom? Then one after another cows let their heavy-heavy heads droop in the clover. Milk flows. Eels swell. The toads are roaring again. The gnats start up. The slim frogs. Still no cock, but Walter Matern has a swollen voice. He’d like to go over and grab. It would be easy, child’s play. But Amsel’s against it, he has something else in mind and is already planning it out. The eels flow back to the brook. The cows sigh. The first cock. The mill turns slowly. The train rings as it rounds the bend. Amsel decides to build a new scarecrow.
And it took form: a pig’s bladder was to be had for nothing because the Lickfetts had just slaughtered. It provided the taut udder. The smoked skin of real eels was stuffed with straw and coiled wire, sewed up and attached to the pig’s bladder—upside down, so that the eels twined and twisted like thick hair and stood on their heads on the udder. The Gorgon’s head was raised over Karweise’s wheat on two forked sticks.
And in his diary Amsel sketched the new scarecrow just as Karweise would buy it—later the tattered hide of a dead cow was thrown over the forked sticks like an overcoat. In the sketch it is overcoatless and more striking, a
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