Argos and His Master

by Italo Svevo

  Argos and His Master

  Italo Svevo

  Translated by Juan LePuen

  Original title: “Argo e il suo padrone”

  English translation © 2012 Juan LePuen and Fario

  The doctor had banished me up there: I was supposed to spend a whole year in the high mountains, moving around when the weather permitted and resting when it did not. A brilliant idea that, all the same, was not of use to me. The moving around that the summer had permitted in abundance had not done me any good, and the rest imposed on me by the first storms, and which at first struck me as pleasant, soon became too much, boring, enervating. Then boredom drove me into an affair with a woman from the unrefined village. It ended badly—as we shall see—and to my boredom was added a grudge against the whole village that was supposed to be my medicine.

  The old woman Anna, my sole company in the little house protected by a cliff, was, for her part, taking the entire cure. Sometimes she forgot to make my bed. I watched her with envy and couldn’t manage to get angry. When I pretended to get impatient, she would be outraged: “I have only two arms!” she would shout, and these two short and chubby little arms swung into action only now, raised to the heavens in a sign of protest.

  I was delighted to see that for her at least rest wasn’t such a bad thing.

  In my bedroom I read the paper from one end to the other, including the advertisements. I often interrupted this boring reading to burn fuel in the iron stove I always kept red hot. “Now will do,” I would say to myself, feeling that the temperature was warm enough. And then, shortly afterward, needing to move around, I would busy myself with the coal again, so (thanks to the sky) a new activity was imposed on me: opening the window and then closing it right back once the oppressive air of the room had all gone out to heat up the mountains and been replaced all at once by such cold dampness that I was forced into brisk movements around the stove. A truly brilliant idea on that doctor’s part!

  My hunting dog, Argos, watched me with curiosity and a little anxiety, fearing that my restlessness might take another form. He, too, knew how to rest. He was curled up on the soft rug, on which he was also resting his chin, and the only restless part of his body was his eye. In that way, to be sure, soles keep an eye out when they are resting on the seafloor. And if I opened the window, he would go over to the stove and arrange his long body into the same position after having turned around himself a bit, and when the room was too cold he would emigrate to a corner far from the stove. When he managed to find a good position again, he would let out a deep sigh. He was a nuisance only when he slept, since—though he was still young—he snored like a rickety old machine. He went through abrupt reveilles on account of a kick or two I gave him, but ten minutes later he would be back at it and I would give up. On the whole, that noise, so uniform, wasn’t all that unpleasant, and if I became malicious it was out of pure envy.

  Not even among dogs was Argos a very important personage. Hunters said he wasn’t a very pure breed because his body was a bit too long. Everybody acknowledged the beauty of his lively eyes (they, too, too big for a hunting dog), of the precise lines of his muzzle, and of the broad scruff of his neck. On the hunt, he was impulsive; some days, he was aggressive, like those drunks who attack because they are borne by their own weight. Drubbings were sometimes of use, but more often they heightened his brutishness, and then he seemed like a bull in a china shop. Perhaps because of this character of his, he alleviated to a degree the pain of my disconsolate loneliness. Slow-witted and nosy, he made me laugh when he wasn’t making me angry.

  I went back to the paper for the fourth time that evening. Outside, there was a little devil putting an end to an entire day of bad weather. A fierce wind that wouldn’t let up for an instant. If it were to go on that way, we would be cut off from the rest of the world the following day, and I would be given no diversion other than to make love with old Anna. And I read, distracted by the hatred I felt growing in my heart for the doctor who had sent me up here. A university education sure had done him a fine lot of good. Could he not have devoted himself to some less harmful trade?

  Finally, in my paper, I spotted an item that I found utterly engrossing.

  In Germany, there was a dog that knew how to talk. To talk like a man, and a bit more intelligent, too, since it was even asked for advice. It said hard German words that I wouldn’t have known how to pronounce. You could laugh at this item, but you couldn’t overlook it. The fact is it wasn’t something that, like all political and social news, the valley was telling the mountains just to chat, since the mountains didn’t have anything do with it. It was news that concerned me as much as it did the people living up there.

  I don’t know if I, struck, made a move, but to my surprise Argos lifted his head from the rug and gave me a look. Had he, too, sensed the news that had to do with him? I looked at him, too, and in my gaze there must have been an expression so new to him that, troubled, he got up on his front legs for a better look at me. He immediately turned his away from my inquisitive look, with that cowardice that one finds in a dog’s gaze, the only sign that its sincerity is less complete than you might think. He came back to me, and, batting first one eye and then the other—a very funny movement even though you might assume the stupid creature is doing it to keep from going blind for even so much as a second—he tried to hold my gaze. Then, hypocritically, he looked intently toward a corner of the room where there was nothing to see. Finally, he found a middle line between me and the corner, so he could he keep an eye on me without confronting me.

  The item in the paper had released me from all boredom. Since it was emphasized and confirmed by Argos’s pantomime, I could no longer doubt it: the item was true. Argos knew how to talk and was keeping silent out of pure stubbornness. I dropped the paper, which had nothing else I was interested in, and launched straight into Argos’s education.

  I immediately got the feeling I was banging my head against the wall. Seeing himself being assailed by gestures and sounds, the stupid animal mustered all of his wisdom and offered me his paw! One time, two times, twenty times! He had intuited that he was being asked to make a show of what he knew, and he held out his paw. He held it out with the same broad gesture every time. I went to quite a bit of trouble to get him out of that bad habit that first evening. To become human, he had to forget that gesture typical of the domesticated dog and at which he had stopped as if at the outermost bound of his education.

  By that first evening I was already getting impatient. Argos went to his bed with his tail between his legs, but I can say all the same that his condition was less wretched than mine. In bed I went back to insulting the distant doctor. The poor dog, who was not to blame for my banishment, I had to leave alone.

  But it wasn’t easy to accept such idleness as that to which I was condemned when, by my side, I had Argos, who was offering me the possibility of truly unlimited activity. Before then, to bestir myself, I would run to the stove and fiddle with the fire; now, all of my intentions notwithstanding, I was constantly crouching next to Argos. It’s the only position you can talk to a dog in. At first, the innocent creature looked away, as if out of an odd sense of decency, when he saw a man in the position of a dog; then he got used to it. And every day there were twenty and one hundred lessons. Blows and pieces of sugar poured down. When he could, Argos tried to get out of that torture. But I was able to do without him only when I was sleeping. Discouragement sometimes cut the lessons short. Anger itself then caused me to start them up again: I had to get revenge for all that imbecility, after all.

  At the same time, I put the same desperate tenacity into training myself for the unequal job. I watched the dog to see if I should take him by the muzzle or by the tail. I too
k in each sound he let out, and those sounds kept me company night and day. The struggle was as long against the dog as it was against me, but the result was a triumph.

  That is, I must say that it was a fiasco if I keep in mind that my initial plan was to teach Argos Italian. Argos never learned to say a single Italian word. But what does it matter? The point was to understand each other, and there were thus only two possible ways: Argos would have to learn my language or I would have to learn his. As to be expected, the more advanced creature learned more from the lessons we gave each other. It was still mid-winter and I understood Argos’s language.

  It’s not my aim to teach it to my readers, and I also lack the graphic marks to write it down. Of the dog, what is important is not so much his poor language as his real character, which I was the first in the world to catch a glimpse of. Speaking of it, I am as proud of it as those who discovered other facets of nature before me: Volta, Darwin, or Columbus. Argos communicated with me meekly and resignedly. I took in his messages and left them in their original soliloquies because they remained that way, seeing as I did not make enough progress in that tongue to be able to discuss his messages with him. I may have misinterpreted Argos now and then, but not too much: I may have mistaken words, but I certainly deduced their overall meaning correctly. Unfortunately, I cannot cite the testimony of Argos himself, because he made it only to the summer: he died of acute neurasthenia. But all of those who knew him recognize him in these recollections of him.

  The details are of no importance, and if they are I don’t know what to do about it. I’ll provide what I have. Dog language is less complete than the most impoverished human language. When I urged him to philosophize (Argos, to be sure, is the first philosopher of his kind) I got this futurist phrase from him: odors three equals life. For days on end I pressed for a gloss on it but never got anything but a repetition. The animal is perfect and not perfectible. Those who study it must know how to make progress. I took note of the phrase as it was and went on. Having later received other messages from him, I made a few deductions from them and thought I had understood. He divides nature into three kinds because for him the mathematical maximum is three; then he mentions five of them, and from his examples it turns out that there are many more of them. I believe that this is the real, the great philosophical sincerity.

  The odd fact that all of Argos’s messages have to do with our stay in the mountains should be noted. There valley where he had been until a few months before seems to have been forgotten entirely, since he doesn’t mention other people besides me, old Anna, and a few men and dogs he met up there. And yet when he returned to the valley, he showed that he recognized his old friends. He doesn’t remember, but neither does he forget. He puts things by.

  I

  There are three kinds of smells in this world: the master’s smell, other people’s smell, Titì’s smell, the smell of other kinds of animals (hares that are sometimes, but rarely, horned and large, and birds and cats), and finally the smell of things. The master’s smell, other people’s smell, and Titì’s and all other animals’ smell is lively and bright, whereas the smell of things is boring and black. Things sometimes have the smell of animals that have been on them, especially if they left something, but otherwise things are mute. We dogs love to improve things.

  Everybody knows the master’s smell, so there’s no need for me to talk about it. Heaven help us if this smell didn’t exist in the world! This smell is reassuring; it keeps watch over things and is protective. Titì says the same thing about her master’s smell, but I don’t believe her. I know, besides, that old Anna obeys my master. Old Anna has a smell you can’t find anywhere else, either. It’s nice, because it always goes with the smell of food. When she comes into the courtyard with the big bowl of food, I wait for her to put it down and give her a warm welcome. Then, when I get my snout in the bowl, it’s all mine. Heaven help anyone who touches it! If Anna herself comes over I growl. That way, I always manage to have the bowl all to myself. Life is this way: first you have to beg for things and then you have to growl to keep them.

  People have quite the scent, and they’re big, but there are small animals with strong smells there’s no mistaking. There’s the little bitch Titì, who has the heavy scent of life and love. Two Titìs stacked on top of each other wouldn’t come to Argos’s head—if it’s being held up. And yet, as small as she is, she’s a very important thing in this world and in Argos’s life. The master, who is made like me in every other way, doesn’t run after Titì, and I let him stay by her side without fear. Her smell tells me so, and there’s no doubt about it: smells don’t lie. Heaven help us all if things were different and the master cared about Titì: he would no longer be my master, but an object to tear to pieces. Heaven help us!

  II

  One day I caught a whiff of prey in the air. The smell doesn’t reveal everything about the prey, but when Argos has sensed it he runs around with desire or howls in fear. He doesn’t need to see the animal to prepare for the struggle or the pleasure. He is immediately ready. And that day I ran with desire. Anna shouted for me to stop, but I know no doubts when prey is calling me, unless the master is there to hold me back.

  And what an odd quarry! It left its smell to the wind alone. All the stupid things are usually full of smells because the animal going by leaves its mark everywhere. Smells tremble and quake on blades of grass and are given off by bare ground. The master, when he’s there, encourages me, but I know better than he does, since he wobbles around on only two legs, whereas I have three. Then I’m the one who discovers the prey and the master kills it. Now it’s lying there. Before, it was able to keep a part of its smell in its sack of skin and fur, but now the sack is ripped and the animal is sincere. It gives off all of itself to the land and the air, and around it everything comes to life.

  That, day, I sensed I was chasing a running animal that was already sincere, which astonished me, because sincere animals can no longer run. Two men, one very small, were walking on the path. I passed them and lost the scent. The wind was empty and silent. I went back over my tracks and didn’t pick up the scent again until I got right behind the two men. It was obvious that the smell was coming from one of them. In fact, the bigger man had a rucksack over his shoulder, and poking out of it, with its head bloodied, was a hare. I’m always the one, to be sure, who flushes the hare, and other people get it, but I hadn’t flushed this one, and for that reason I knew perfectly well it wasn’t mine.

  But that was no reason not to delight in it. I started hopping around the two men, and the shorter one petted me. I took in the scent of the prey and his own, which was getting friendlier and friendlier and kinder and kinder, and I followed it. I hesitated a bit at first, since I thought I heard the master’s whistle at one point. But his smell wasn’t around and I could have been wrong.

  The short fellow with the milder smell went on petting me affectionately, and those caresses went with his smell. In fact, the petting and the smell ended up being a single thing. Likewise, the smell of food and that of old Anna became one. We went on together, farther and farther. I was sure that since my master wasn’t stopping me I was supposed to follow that tiny great friend of mine. And we went up and down and through a forest and there I discovered a new scent. It wasn’t the animal that was lying in the rucksack, because that one was suspended in the air, whereas the new one had enlivened the entire path we were walking on. “Too bad my master’s not here,” I thought. But why hadn’t he come? I flushed the quarry from out of a clump of bushes, and with a well-aimed shot the man hit it and put it in his rucksack together with the other one.

  Now the mood was even better, and Argos was petted by the bigger of the two men, too. Then we got to a house where there was another old Anna smelling of food, which I got a lot of. They didn’t let me visit the whole house; instead, they confined me to the kitchen. Later, the little fellow brought me straw, and I had a fairly comfortable bed. All the same, I couldn’t get to sleep. And in t
he darkness, left so alone in the midst of entirely new smells, I started howling: I was calling my master, and old Anna, too. By this time, my escapade was over. Why weren’t they coming?

  Instead, the bigger of the two men came. I got up to give him a joyous welcome. With a box on the ear, he bounced me back onto the pallet, and I could tell he wanted me to keep quiet. I went on whining to myself and was alone and quiet for a long time. I was already more comfortable in the kitchen, and its smell seemed more pleasant to me. Drubbings can help you get used to anything. The door opened again, and the other man, the small one, the one who had been friendlier to me, came to see me. He put his arms around my neck and put his mouth on mine. I inhaled the friendly smell with pleasure. Then he gave me a small piece of good meat. The piece of meat seemed small to me and I started turning joyfully around him so he would give me some more. And in hopping around, to urge the little fellow to generosity and to add to the good cheer, I started barking. The little fellow ran off and slammed the door in my face. And then, even though it’s so hard to get comfortable in an unfamiliar place, I fell asleep. I dreamed that I now had not one master, but two, and they split up, going in two different directions, so I was unable to fulfill my obligations by following both of them. Later, the same thing happened with game. There was so much of it the air was shouting with it. The air was bringing the scent to me from in front of me and from behind me and from both sides, and I couldn’t run and I was suffering atrociously.

  My master came that morning. As soon as I sensed him, I figured I had done wrong. I went over to him crawling on my belly in a show of repentance. Then I lay down with my legs in the air so he would know I didn’t want to escape or defend myself. He gave me a few lashings that made me howl. Then the drubbing stopped, which was a great joy. And when we were on the long walk home, I followed my master and was glad to be free of all doubt. It would be really bad to have two masters.