by Italo Svevo
Another thing he hadn’t gotten used to was to refrain from strewing scent around the house. The lashings he got! And still the imbecile couldn’t understand what it was all about! He got a clubbing for having chosen a corner of a room to relieve himself in, so the next time he relieved himself right in the middle. It was worse. He ended up not daring to go even outside when the master could see him. “And what do you do?” he asked me very anxiously. “If things go on this way, no matter how comfortable I am here with you, I’ll have to flee, because with me these needs are very pressing.” I explained to him that the master didn’t want that in his den, but that instead he liked it outside. One day, it happened that he had to relieve himself outside in the presence of the master. He couldn’t avoid it. When he had to yield to necessity, on relieving himself he stuck out his neck to keep a closer watch on the master and to be ready for flight, all of which is a considerable effort when you’re rooted to a particular spot.
Later, once the law had been verified, he asked me for an explanation, and the odd thing is that I was unable to give him one. I was sure that in the den it wasn’t allowed (and Argos would never have done it) and outside it was. Then, shortly before leaving, my friend, who often pondered it, came up with the answer: in the den, scents aren’t necessary, because in that limited space it’s easy to get around and find things without help from them. Scents were useful only in the open, and my master was making sure they wouldn’t be wasted.
IX
The big difference between man and dog is that the latter does not experience the joy of drubbings that come to an end. One day we were walking down our street when a woman who had accompanied my master until then started hitting him with her umbrella. I gnashed my teeth and was about to go after her. But the master stopped, and he took off running, holding me by the collar. The woman couldn’t catch up with us, and I started bounding around the master to share in his joy. But he gave me a violent lashing with the whip. Then he stopped, and to me it seemed as if the time had come to celebrate the stopping of the drubbings for both of us. But I got another one, and I must thus conclude that when men have been beaten they want to keep quiet.
Between man and dog there’s another great difference. A man’s mood changes constantly, like a zigzagging hare. It takes a lot more to change a dog’s mood. Sometimes Argos is cheerful and wishes everyone well. He slashes the air with his tail, because he suspects nothing and he knows no one wants to grab him by that defenseless part of his body. Then he is assailed by a doubt: maybe someone doesn’t wish him well. But the doubt is overcome by his tail’s shouting to the wind: “Everything’s fine and everybody’s my friend.” It’s hard to stop if there’s no obvious need to hide it between his legs. But man is a misshapen animal, as he has no tail.
One day, after having dined, the master and I were sitting quietly in our den when Anna came to announce visitors. The master shouted, whether from pleasure or displeasure I don’t know. I soon found out, or thought I did. Unsure, I had started wagging my tail around him and he gave me a kick. This struck me as most reasonable, since only that way could I tell what kind of mood he was in, and I withdrew to the side.
He went to greet the visitors in the garden, and I, at a reasonable distance, naturally, followed my master. If I could have, I would also have informed the visitors, who were a man and a woman.
To my surprise, I see my master run to greet them, bow, and even open his mouth and half close his eyes the way he does when he is happy, seeing as he doesn’t have a tail. His mood had obviously changed completely, and yet I could have sworn that nothing new had come over him. There was no reason not to celebrate such a favorable change, and I bound in to take part in the celebration and to remind the master that since he had given me a kick I now needed caresses. Instead, he gave me a kick even harder than the first one, and my surprise was equal to my pain.
I followed him at a distance and couldn’t believe my ill luck, because by then, talking with the visitors, he had opened his mouth and half closed his eyes again. Anyone who had not taken that kick, which was impossible to forget, would have thought that my master was in a perfectly joyful and friendly mood. And for quite some time I followed him from afar, unable to believe my ill luck. And I watched him laugh and smile and bow and I became more and more convinced it was nothing but an unfortunate misunderstanding. I am unable to live on bad terms with my master, and after wavering a bit I slinked meekly up to him to go over to the happiest part of his body, his face. With a violent punch, he knocked me over, and right afterward he went on bounding around the other people. I was most disheartened. His mood changed right when I showed up.
When the two visitors were leaving, I accompanied the master to the door at a reasonable distance, and when I saw it close on the bores I couldn’t help myself and I growled. That visit had been too hard on me, and I hated those people. The master came right over to me, and I, fearing that he was going to punish me for threatening his friends, got down on my stomach to keep from falling if he beat me. Instead, I got caress after caress. No one will believe this story, and yet I’m telling it exactly as it happened to me.
X
I was chained up. I suspect they had something good to eat and didn’t want to let poor Argos have any of it. Anna left, not looking at me any longer, while I, hoping she would regret her malice, kept an eye on her until she disappeared into the house. I barked for a bit, trying to move people to pity or to be a nuisance, but no one paid my complaints any mind.
Then I got a pleasant surprise and forgot my sufferings. I wasn’t alone on the chain. Maybe kind Anna herself, to relieve my sorrows, had left an old shoe by my side. A fragrant shoe. The man who had worn it must have done a lot of walking. On one bit of the shoe was a hobnail that smelled of clotted blood. And I was constantly worrying that shoe. Little by little I realize that if the object is not alive, it shouts, and life rings out from it. Hostile or friendly life? Hostile, it seems. When people with such fragrant shoes go into the house I drive them away because they are too unlike the smells I’m used to. I get angry, and I start tearing the shoe, which resists, into pieces. It resists as if it were alive. It’s not easy to undo its fibers. But here I am getting my nose into spots that were once inaccessible, and all of sudden another smell dominates. Older, but no less clear. I make peace with the shoe because the new smell is not hostile. I joke with it and give it little taps that make it bounce merrily, merrily around. It’s clear that tearing such a shoe to pieces is like running free through the fields. One visit is followed by another and there’s no room for boredom.
At one point the shoe took an excessively hard blow and landed outside of the limited space the chain allows me to cover. It’s lost to me, and I return to the pain of slavery. Oh, when will they come and get me? Now that it’s safe, the shoe again has a hostile smell.
When, several hours later, old Anna finally came to liberate me, I no longer wanted to have anything to do with the shoe. Heavy scents were coming in from all sides and summoning me peremptorily. You can see that to savor certain things the chain is necessary. I sniffed the shoe briefly and ran on.
Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me to bring it back within reach when I found myself on the chain. The next day I missed it only when I found myself alone again on the chain. And when I was free I again made the same mistake, which I realized only when I was back on the chain. But to think about the chain while you’re free would be to lessen the great joy of freedom.
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