Charles Newman - In Partial Disgrace

Geographically, they neither founded nor wandered, but in summertime occupied the high plateau of Crisulan, where the tallest plant to be found is the wild onion. In winter they returned to their black tents on the outskirts of town, sending their brown children out to beg by feigning blindness, retardation, leprosy, and other crippling injuries. Often they brought their performing dogs to Silbürsmerze: one danced with cymbals hanging from its hips, another sang along with his master’s falsetto war cries. Some charged and withdrew upon wordless commands; one dropped pebbles in a vessel so as to bring the water level to his lips, then begged for an ice cream cone. Another presumed, after looking you up and down and sniffing your hand, to snuff out a dittany from one hundred herbs for what ailed you.

In Roman times, whenever a barbarian tribe revolted — whether the Roxolani, the Jazyges, the Suebi, the Parthians, or the Basternae — their actions were blamed on the Astingi roiling behind them, though truth be told, the Astingi preferred to watch from their unassailable plateau as various predacious hordes rode operatically back and forth, creating the stage sets of Europe. These settlers were often confused as to whether they were invaders or refugees, finding the interior more densely crowded than the conditions they had left behind. Meanwhile, to the front and rear, the Imperium harassed them continually, apparently just out of spite, as social convulsions flooded them with psychopaths, criminals, bitter intellectuals, and masses of people so genetically and culturally broken that they could neither give nor take, but only expire slowly in their midst.

For the Romans themselves, the Astingi territory marked the northeastern frontier of the empire, which may have been why Marcus Aurelius, a frequent visitor to Cannonia during the interminable campaigns against the barbarians, chose to retire there and finish his meditations inside a fortress looking out at the ephemeral riverbanks of the Mze. Dying, he watched one day as a raft loaded with Astingi foundered in the river, its helpless soldiers swept off among ice floes. Not one of them, nor their officers on shore, shouted or bemoaned their fate. They did not even gesticulate while wordlessly awaiting death in the icy water. For the first time the Prince could not arise at dawn, and denouncing himself in his day book, turned over on his couch. Looking as he was through the rose window of the West, when the old gods were dying but Christ had not yet appeared, the warrior-prince-against-his-will had come to believe that if the soul were virtuous, one might look out to eternity, and there would be nothing new for future generations to witness, for the world is both good beyond improvement and evil beyond remedy.

The gig burst around the crest of the volcano, flying through the translucidity. Father noted with relief that the Professor had arrived alone, as promised, though the springs of the lilac gig still seemed weighted down with the memory of their collective despondency. Yet in the boot stood a different dog, pure Alsatian by appearances, tied with the same rope. Rearing up on his hindlegs, the animal jerked his head like a parrot, looping strings of spittle across the Professor’s black homburg, and as the gig swung to an abrupt stop, the dog toppled out and hung, eyes bulging, tongue a royal purple, until Felix cut him slack.

The Professor seemed more downcast and disoriented than on his first visit, but nevertheless rushed over before Felix could say a word, vigorously pumping his hand while explaining that Scharf had suddenly sniffed freedom, broken away from his wife on the evening walk, and been cut in two by an electric tram. The Professor, driven wild by his sobbing women, had gotten a replacement the very next day from the doghaus , though in this admission Felix could discern no real grief or contrition. And it did not bode well, he noted, that the present dog, despite being in such evident pain, had not cried out.

Ainoha had prepared a hare fricassee for lunch, and Felix was happy enough to postpone investigation of the Alsatian, tying him to the axle on a short lead with a slipknot, hoping no doubt the dog might do away with himself. When asked why he had again chosen a companion for life who had been so obviously and cruelly abandoned, the Professor could only say that the doghaus officials had assured him that the animal was of the noblest, purest stock, the absolute favorite of a landed Russian family of the finest northern German origin, the sort of people who had kept their servants standing in the orangery with torches throughout the killing frosts of the recent troubles, and when rightly alarmed by the czar’s appointment of a parliament, had hastily emigrated by freighter from Odessa, and now lived in the most reduced condition in the Therapeia ghetto, where they had reluctantly turned over the Alsatian, their last proud possession, to the care of the state. The long sea voyage had no doubt unsettled the animal, the doghaus officials opined, but his superior breeding would undoubtedly resurface once the trauma of losing his fortune and his homeland, as well as his constipation, subsided.

Felix put on his gamest face throughout this exculpation, interjecting only that with this animal, at least the nature of the abuse was clear, as was often the case with tumbled aristocrats. However, after coffee on the terrace, the Alsatian bit him fiercely when untied.

“You see — the children call him Wolf!” the Professor fairly shouted.

Father bore pain as well as any man I ever saw, and with one hand still clamped in the brute’s jaws, staunched the flow of blood with his free hand, somehow making out of his pocket-handkerchief a tourniquet. If the Professor was embarrassed, he was also plainly intrigued by his host’s ambidextrous stoicism, which gave his apology — signaled by the arc of his eyebrows — a rather forced and detached air, his curiosity overcoming his identification with another’s misfortune, which any normal person would of course find quite unforgivable.

Felix decided to rescue a bad situation by making it didactic. He allowed his encaptured hand to go limp as a fish in Wolf ’s mouth, then gave it a friendly shake or two. Realizing that he had perhaps overreacted, the dog reconsidered the amputation, which, as Father was wont to demonstrate, could also be a kindness. The Alsatian’s ears arched as he released Felix’s hand with a small pop, a string of saliva tinged with blood still conjoining them.

The Professor, however, had apparently decided to inflict a public punishment on the cur, and took up Wolf ’s rope, coiling it about his arms and swinging the knotted end above his head a la gaucho . But before he could administer the chastisement, the animal lowered his head and began to pull like a mule, first in one direction and then in another, causing the Professor’s patent leather shoes to screech on the gravel like chalk on a blackboard. He glanced imploringly at Felix, throwing up his one free hand in a gesture of disbelief. And then, as if to certify the case, the shortened lead was snapped even more anarchically, until Wolf, wheezing against his collar with unbelievable persistence, lowered his shoulders, turned his toes in and elbows out, and with gravel flying from his paws, became a classic study in time and motion. The Professor managed to emit a deep sigh before he was again, as on his first visit, forced to his knees, but this time also flung forward on his face. Succeeding in making his point, Wolf immediately sat down and licked the considerable foam from the corners of his mouth, one yellow eye wandering like an expiring nova.

“You see,” the Professor groaned, lying on his stomach, “he wants to leave us! There is no master in this house.” The dog had yet to emit as much as a grunt.