三月的南方，一个鸟语花香的春日下午，我被埋在这样的文字和故事下面，喘不过气来。。。 （拙林）
"It was gradually
getting light, slowly, as if the sun were stalking the world, feeling it very
gently with the tips of its rays. The animal stood still at the edge of
the clearing and looked into the undergrowth, sensing the danger. Instinct,
the sixth sense that is more acute than smell or sight, moved in the nerves of
its body. It could not see us and it was upwind from us, so the morning
breeze could not warn it; we stood motionless for a long time, already feeling
the strain of keeping absolutely still - I in front, between the trees at edge
of the clearing; you behind me. The
gamekeeper and the dog were some distance back.
We were alone in the forest in the solitude that is part night, part
dawn, part trees, and part animals, that gives one the momentary sensation that
one has lost one’s way in the world and must someday retrace one’s steps to
this wild and dangerous place that is truly home. It’s a feeling I always had when out
hunting. I saw the animal and
stopped. You saw it, too, and stopped
ten paces behind me. That is the moment
when both quarry and hunter are utterly alert, sensing the entirety of the
situation and the danger, even if it’s dark, even without turning the
head. What forces or rays or waves
transmit knowledge at such a time? I
have no idea….The air was clear. The
pines were unruffled by the faint breeze.
The animal listened. It did not
move a muscle, stood as if spellbound, for every danger contains within it a
spell, an enchantment. When fate turns
to face us and calls our name, along with the oppression and the fear we feel
is a kind of attraction, because we do not only want to live, no matter what
the cost, we want to know our fate and accept it, even at the cost of danger
and death. That is what the deer must
have been experiencing just then.
“Just as I was, as I
clearly remember. And you, too, a few
paces behind me – you were as mesmerized as the beast and I, both of us in
front and in range of you as you lifted the safety catch with that quiet, cold
click that is the sound of perfectly tempered steel going about its fatal task,
whether it is a dagger crossing another or a fine English rifle being cocked
for the kill. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” says the guest.
“A classic moment,” says
the General with almost a connoisseur’s pleasure. “I was the only one to hear that click, it
was too quiet to carry three hundred paces to the deer, even through the
silence of the dawn.
“And then something
happened that I could never prove in a court of law, but that I can tell you
because you know it already – it was a little thing, I felt you move, more
clearly than if I’d been watching you. You
were close behind me, and a fraction to the side. I felt you raise your gun, and set it to your
shoulder, take aim, and close one eye. I
felt the gun slowly swivel. My head and
the dear’s head were in the exact same line of fire, and at the exact same
height; at most there may have been four inches between the two targets. I felt your hand tremble, and I knew as
surely as only the hunter can assess a particular situation in the woods, that
from where you were standing you could not be taking aim at the deer. Please understand me: it was the hunting
aspect, not the human, that held my attention right then. I was, after all, a devotee of hunting, with
some expertise in its technical problems, such as the angle at which one must
position oneself in relation to a deer standing unsuspecting at a distance of
three hundred paces. Given the
geometrical arrangement of the marksman and the two targets, the whole thing
was quiet clear, and I could calculate what was going on in the mind of the
person behind my back. You took aim for
half a minute, and I knew that down to the second, without a watch. I knew you were not a fine shot and that all
I had to do was move my head a fraction and the bullet would whistle past my
ear and maybe hit the deer. I knew that one
movement would suffice and the bullet would remain in the barrel of your
gun. But I also knew I couldn’t move
because my fate was no longer mine to control: some moment had come, something
was going to happen of its own volition.
And I stood there, waiting for the shot, waiting for you to pull the
trigger and put a bullet through the head of your friend. It was a perfect situation: no witness, the
gamekeeper and the dogs were a long way back, it was one of those well-known ‘tragic
accidents’ that are detailed every year in the newspapers. The half minute passed and still there was no
shot. Suddenly the deer smelled danger
and exploded into motion with a single bound that took him out of our sigh to
safety in the undergrowth. We still didn’t
move. And then, very slowly, you let the
gun sink.
“I could not see or hear
that movement, either, but I knew it as well as if I were facing you. You lowered the gun so carefully in case even
the air moving over the barrel might make a whisper and betray you, now that
the moment to take the shot was gone and the deer had vanished.
“You see, the
interesting thing is that you still could have killed me, there were no
witness, and no judge would have convicted you, everyone would have rushed to
surround you with sympathy, because we were the legendary friends, Castor and
Pollux, together for twenty-four yhears through thick and thin, we were their
reincarnation. If you had killed me,
everyone would have reached out to you, everyone would have mourned with you,
because the world believes there could be no more tragic figure than someone
who accidentally kills his friend. What
man, what prosecutor, what lunatic would make the unbelievable accusation that
you have done it deliberately? There is
absolutely no proof that you were harboring any deadly animosity toward
me. The previous evening, we had all
dined together – my wife, my relations, our hunting comrades – as a friendly
circle in the castle where you had been welcome, no matter what the day, for
decades, everyone had seen us together just as we always were, in the regiment
and in society, as warm and affectionate as ever. You did not owe me any money, you lived in my
house like a member of the family, who could imagine you would do such a
thing? No one. What cause would you have to murder me? Who could be inhuman enough to imagine that
you, my friend-of-friends, would kill me, your friend-of friends, when you
could ask anything in life of me, receive anything you needed by way of
psychological or material support, treat my house as yours, my fortune as yours
to share, my family as your second family?
“Any accusation would
have rebounded on whoever made it; the world would have punished it as a piece
of insolence, and then rushed to comfort you again.
“That is how things
stood. And yet you didn’t fire. Why?
What happened in that moment? Was
it just that the deer sensed the danger and fled, whereas human nature is
constructed in such a way that when we have to accomplish some action that is
utterly abnormal, we need some objective pretext? Your plan was the right one, it was both
precise and perfect, but perhaps it required the presence of the deer; the
scene had come apart, and you let your gun drop. It was a matter of fractions of a second; who
could divide everything up into its constituent parts, see them separately and
make a judgment? And it’s really not
important. The fact is what matters,
even if it would not determine a trial.
You wanted to kill me, and when something unanticipated disrupted the
moment, your hand began to tremble and you didn’t do it. The deer was already out of sight between the
trees, we didn’t move, I didn’t turn around.
We stood like that for some seconds.
If I had looked you in the face just then, I might have seen it
all. But I didn’t dare. There’s a feeling of shame that is more
painful than any other in life; it’s the shame felt by the victim who is forced
to look his killer in the eyes, as if he were the creature bowing before its
creator. That’s why I didn’t look at
you, and as the paralysis left us, I started to walk across the clearing toward
the top of the hill. You started
mechanically to move behind me. As we
went, without turning around, I said, ‘You missed your shot.’
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