IDYLL

Under the trees grew such enticing grass. For an hour now I’d been fuming at my light-colored suit, my white shirt, and worse still was my rage at the jam-packed bag I had to haul. A horse-drawn wagon, dawdling as the heat set in, had taken me a stretch, and the driver had recommended, as the shortest way to town, a path that led away from the main road; I’d set out at the crack of dawn, in town new rooms awaited me. Now I reckoned it was eight o’clock, a September morning under the sun’s spell. It was a northerly region, the country flat as a tabletop, and contrary to expectations, the summers in this area seemed especially long-lasting, from early May to late September summer reigned in the woods. My path took me through meadows where trees stood, not too closely, but I couldn’t see far ahead. It was already turning hot, my newly purchased shoes had a coat of pale dust, my feet smarted in the stiff leather; it struck me that the grass by the wayside must still be cool and fresh, never in my thirty years had I really lain in the grass, what a fateful omission, what malicious circumstances had barred me from savoring that blessing. That sprawl in the grass, that utter submission to the weightless murmur filtering through the eardrums, through the closed lids into the perturbed brain—that must have been it, the thing I was deprived of, a mute curse eluding consciousness, suspended over my life at all times. I kept on walking, since early morning with my free hand I’d been smoking cigarette after cigarette, the nicotine burned on my tongue and phlegm clogged my mouth, toxic in its bitterness; I’d gotten up too early, but my body was barely tired yet, my nerves were tired, something like a semi-anesthesia was lodged in my head. Before I actually lay down, the trees ahead grew denser, I heard a rushing noise, as though ahead of me water were rushing, a tall hedge of underbrush rose suddenly between the trees, leaving a tiny gap for my path, now just a beaten track, to slip through. Behind the hedge, once I’d passed through it, I saw a broad brook, dammed by a weir, the water plunged rushing over the weir and took the form of a noise suspended over the surroundings like an invisible cloud of water dust. I had to accustom myself to that rushing to hear the morning’s other sounds over it once more. Along the weir a wooden bridge led across the watercourse into a big overgrown garden or rather a sort of orchard that seemed to have gone long uncared-for. The branches of the trees grew snarled and unpruned, the unharvested fruits had fallen to rot in the grass, swarming with wasps, bushes and weeds shot up beneath the trees all around, the whole garden seemed suffused by the scent of old honey. — Once I’d crossed the bridge, I saw an old mill a bit farther down the brook, its gigantic paddlewheel rising two-thirds of the way from the water. The wheel stood still, and drawing nearer I saw that the wood was black, water-logged, rotten, the paddles broken, at the waterline the wood was green from algae, while the upper portion was bleaching out, turning white again in the sun. The mill was uninhabited, the doors torn from their frames, streaks of sun crossed the floors of the halls, covered with shards and debris. Outside, woodbine seemed to hold up the old half-timbered walls, washing like a green wave over the building, growing almost to the roof and into the broken windows. — It’s hot, I said, this is a mill. A deserted mill. — My thoughts were shockingly banal, perhaps, but they didn’t shock me. My head seemed impervious, completely closed, I had to repeat myself: This is a mill, it’s deserted. — In the rooms, apart from a rickety table, a broken chair, the debris of a caved-in tile stove, apart from tattered curtain remnants and newspaper scraps on the floorboards, nothing more was left; someone had defecated in the corner; the cellar stairs probably led to the former workroom, but I didn’t trust them to carry my weight; cautiously I climbed the wooden steps to the top floor, in whose rooms I found the same grimy vacancy. Now the rooms and corridors were pervaded by a twilight suggesting the warmth outside, the white sunlight spilling across the roof, the meadows, the brook. Looking out the top-floor window, I saw that the green water had taken on a blinding, shimmering hue, throwing back a spray of sunlight, reflections playing and flaring in the vines that ran riot right next to my head. Returning to the ground floor, I found it twilit and cool, only the small windows let rectangular sunbeams slant to the floor; it was the thick dust that seemed to keep the air so cool here, a dust that covered everything, older-seeming than the dust on my shoes. Suddenly I felt that if I daubed the dust on the tabletop with my finger and tasted it, I’d have the familiar taste of the floury crust of a loaf on my tongue. Stepping back outside, I realized that I was thirsty. — I want a drink of water, I thought, and then I really was walking down the low bank to the brook and bending down to the water. Here the current was almost imperceptible, I saw it dark and pure, too deep to make out the bottom. I scooped up water and drank, it was cold and tasted faintly of algae. I rinsed the nicotine taste from my mouth and spat into the water, saw that flurry drift slowly away, leaving my reflection, hunkered there in the light-colored suit, the end of the red tie dangling in the water. Annoyed, I leaped back up the bank, where my bag stood; I felt tempted to kick it into the water. But then I thought it would be more sensible to take out a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of light linen pants beforehand. — That’s my first sensible thought today, I said; everything I thought was so infinitely banal, so unsatisfying, and yet I had to think it. — After that I can toss the bag in the water. Toss the bag in the water, I said, I said it as though I were learning to talk, the bag in the water, with my shoes inside, with my suit and tie. Let that baggage float away, down the brooks, down the rivers, for all I care, all the way to the Vistula, all the way to the Danube, all the way to the oceans. — Wearily I picked up the bag again, turned away from the mill and started back, slowly, keeping to the brook. — I’ve always wanted a mill, rooms in a mill, I thought, and yet I’m walking slowly away. Slowly, but still. — I said to myself: it’s got to stop, the state my mind’s in, the only thoughts that won’t perturb me are spiteful, wrathful thoughts, those are the best thoughts to have. Spiteful, destructive thoughts. The devil take it, there’s no cause for them, not today, not here and not in the country I live in. — But I forgot things so quickly, maybe I’d forgotten the reason for my spiteful thoughts, what was it that let me forget so quickly, I searched my benumbed mind and found that all the reasons for my wrath had vanished; what was it in this country—the gas of the sun, the gas of peace, the vapor of the stillness that was decaying and working away here by that decaying mill—that drowned my invigorating wrath in this tranquil concord of water and sun. — You ought to take a rest, I thought, but change your clothes first, it won’t do to lie in the grass in this light-colored suit. — But already I was tossing aside the bag and sprawling out. The grass was pleasantly warm and damp, the sun shone in my eyes, and blinking, already nearly insensate, I felt sleep draw near. — Let the devil go into town, I thought, let the devil go calm down in the security of town. — I was calmed by that thought, my need for sleep was so strong, my body featherlight, I knew I was really already sleeping, yet I could rise at any moment and go back to the mill, my feet just grazing the tips of the grass, borne by sun-warmth and sleep, and before that sleep deepened I argued: what am I supposed to do in town, hunkered in my rooms, paying rent, paying taxes, gobbling food, guzzling drink, living like other people, forgetting, spending all my time forgetting, sitting in my chair forgetting, staring out the window at the forgotten street, until I can hardly get up from my forgotten chair to strangle myself with my necktie. Am I supposed to get to know people there, people whose friendliness sickens me. Am I supposed to work there, work, work, work. How dreary, how pathetic to work. How degraded to get haircuts, to shave, how miserable to wash and dress according to the fashion. How sad to be healthy and sound, placid, forgetful, how tiresome, how tiresome to know what country I live in, and know it without wrath, and have to hold this always and without wrath in my dreary consciousness. —

And already within this sleep I stand up, ramble over to the mill, step into its rooms damp and dirty, unkempt and wild.

Hey maid of the mill, I shout as I enter the hall, everything’s provided for. See this bottle of brandy clenched in my fist, I haven’t forgotten a thing. Hurry and slice one of those sweet, flour-dusted breads of yours. All summer long you’ll have no need to hold me here. And in the winter evenings, when the house resounds with our laughter, we’ll find out what I’m good for. Then I’ll go and chop wood until the smoke of our fire rises for all to see, with all its might from the ancient chimney.