Even had I been in the inn when the others all went mad that night, what could I have done on my own? The least word, the least gesture from me would have meant my life, and I would have suffered the same fate he did. That thought, too, filled me with terror: the knowledge that if I had been in the inn, I wouldn’t have done anything to stop what happened, I would have made myself as small as possible, and I would have looked on impotently as the horrible scene unfolded. That act of cowardice, even though it had never actually taken place, filled me with disgust. At bottom, I was like the others, like all those who surrounded me and charged me with writing the Report, which they hoped would exonerate them.
Stern lives outside the world — I mean, outside our world. All the Sterns have lived the way he does, for as long as anyone can remember: staying in the midst of the forest and maintaining only distant relations with the village. But he’s the last of the Sterns. He’s alone. He’s never taken a wife, and he has no children. His line will die out with him.
He lives by tanning animal skins. He comes down to the village twice every winter, and a little more often in fine weather. He sells his furs as well as various objects that he carves from the trunks and branches of fir trees. With the cash thus acquired, he buys some flour, a sack of potatoes, some dried peas, tobacco, sugar, and salt. And if he’s got any money left over, he drinks it in fruit brandy and makes the climb back to his cabin dead drunk. He never gets lost. His feet know the way.
When I reached the cabin, I found him sitting on the threshold, busy with binding some dead branches together to make a broom. I greeted him. Always suspicious of visitors, he replied with a movement of his head but spoke no word. Then he got up and went inside, leaving the door open.
Many things, both animal and vegetable, were hung up to dry from the ceiling beams; the acrid, violent odors blended and clung to whoever was in the room. The fire in the hearth produced some stingy little flames and a great deal of smoke. Stern dipped a ladle into a kettle and filled two bowls with thick soup, a porridge of groats and chestnuts, which had no doubt been simmering since the early morning. Then he cut two thick slices of hard bread and filled two glasses with dark wine. We sat facing each other and ate in silence, surrounded by a stench, with its overtones of carrion, that many would have fled from. But as for me, I was familiar with stenches. That one didn’t bother me. I had known worse.
In the camp, after my stay in the Büxte and before becoming Brodeck the Dog, for a few long months I was the Scheizeman, the “shit man.” My task consisted of emptying out the latrines into which more than a thousand prisoners relieved their bowels several times a day. The latrines were large trenches a meter deep, two meters wide, and about four meters long. There were five of them, and my job was to muck them out thoroughly. To accomplish this task, I had only a few tools at my disposaclass="underline" a big pan attached to a wooden handle, and two large tin buckets. I used the pan to fill the buckets, and then, under escort, I went back and forth to the river, into which I emptied their contents.
The pan, which only a few lengths of old string kept fastened to the handle, often came loose and fell into the latrine. When that happened, I had to jump down, plunge my hands into the mass of ordure, and feel around for the pan. The first few times I did this, I remember puking up my guts and the little they contained. Then I got used to it. You can get used to anything. There are worse things than the smell of shit. A great many things have no smell at all, and yet they rot senses, hearts, and souls more surely than all the excrement in the world.
The two guards who escorted me back and forth held handkerchiefs soaked in brandy over their noses. They kept a few meters away from me and talked about women, sprinkling their tales with obscene particulars that made them laugh and inflamed their faces. I stepped into the river. I emptied the buckets. And I was always surprised at the frenzy of the hundreds of little fish that arrived in a brownish whirl and wallowed in the filth, flicking their thin silvery bodies in every direction, as though driven mad by their stinking food. But the current quickly diluted it, vile though it was, and soon clear water and the movements of algae were all that could be seen, as well as the reflections of the sunlight, which struck the surface of the river and shattered it into a thousand mirrors.
Sometimes the guards, in their drunken euphoria, allowed me to wash myself in the river. I would pick up a round, smooth stone and use it like a bar of soap, rubbing my skin with it to remove the shit and the dirt. Occasionally, I’d manage to catch some of the little fish that were still lingering around my legs, perhaps hoping for another portion. I’d quickly press their bellies with two fingers to squeeze out their guts and pop the fish into my mouth before the guards had time to see me. We were forbidden under pain of death to eat anything other than the two liters of fetid broth we were served in the evening and the chunk of hard, sour bread we got every morning. I chewed those fish for a good long time, as though they were savory delicacies.
Throughout that period, the odor of shit never left me. It was my true and only clothing. The result was that during the night, I had more room to sleep because no one in the hut wanted to be near me. Man is made thus: He prefers to believe himself a pure spirit, a creator of ideas and ideals, of dreams and marvels. He doesn’t like to be reminded that he’s also a material being, and that what flows out between his buttocks is as much a part of him as what stirs and germinates in his brain.
Stern wiped his bowl clean with a piece of bread and then, with a brief whistle, made a slender creature appear out of nowhere: a ferret, which he’d tamed and which kept him company. The small animal went to him and ate from his hand. Every now and then, while it was gobbling away, it cast a curious glance in my direction, and its round, gleaming little eyes looked like black pearls or ripe mulberries. I’d just told Stern everything I knew about the foxes and all about my visits to Limmat and Mother Pitz.
He got slowly to his feet, disappeared into the darkness on the far side of the room, returned, and spread out on the big table several handsome fox skins, bound together with a piece of hemp cord. “You can add these to your fox count,” he said. “Thirteen of them. And I didn’t have to kill them. I found them dead, and all in the position you describe.”
Stern took a pipe and filled it with a mixture of tobacco and chestnut leaves while I stroked the fox furs, which were glossy and thick. Then I asked him what all this could possibly mean. He shrugged his shoulders, pulled on his pipe, which crackled merrily, and exhaled great clouds of smoke that made me cough. “I don’t know anything, Brodeck,” he said. “I know nothing about it. Foxes — I can’t figure out foxes.”
He stopped talking and petted his ferret, which began wrapping itself around his arm and emitting little whimpers. Then he spoke again: “I don’t know anything about foxes. But I remember my grandfather Stern talking about wolves. There were still wolves around here in his time. Nowadays, whenever I see one, if it’s not a wolf ghost, it’s a stray come from far away. Once old Stern told me the story of a pack, a fine pack according to him, more than twenty animals. He enjoyed spying on them and stalking them a little, just to get on their nerves. And then one day, they’re all gone. He stops hearing them and stops seeing them. He tells himself they got tired of his little game and went to stay on the other side of the mountain. The winter passes. A heavy winter, full of snow. Then spring returns. He tramps through all the forests, as though he’s inspecting them, and what does he find at the foot of the big Maulenthal rocks? The remains of the entire pack, in an advanced stage of decay. They were all there, every one of them, old and young, males and females, all with their backs or their skulls broken. Now, as a rule, wolves don’t fall off rocks. Occasionally, one may take an accidental step into thin air, or slip, or the edge of the cliff may crumble under its feet, but just one. Not a whole pack.”