grueling three-day trip, he was so happy that, although prostrate with weakness until then, he stood up, walked around, and went to eat some grass in what had always been his corner. The end of his journey had arrived. And it was also the end of his life.
6
It seems that whenever we’re able to return to a place where we have lived before—especially where we have spent our vacations—something guards us against bad luck. We draw from the sky, the earth, and everything those great powers provide, resources they have held in reserve to protect us. But if our day is written in the Book, nothing will help. An enemy within, which we take with us wherever we go, battles furiously against our existence. For a moment, we think we have lost it along the way or hope that influences that were once favorable will get the upper hand. Things begin to improve, hope returns (did it ever cease?). And then the mechanism breaks and we’re lost forever.
7
It is said that we are invigorated when reunited with those we love. Upon our arrival, I had left Taïaut in the bedroom and gone to the kitchen, where our friend and hostess happened to be. The bedroom door had been left ajar. How great was our surprise when we saw him appear, although a short while ago he had barely been able to stand on his feet. He didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to be abandoned. I’m glad I decided at the last moment to bring him with us. The evening before we left, he had wanted to sleep in the bedroom, alongside the bed. The morning of our departure he had climbed into the car by himself. We weren’t deaf to his prayer.
8
Writing from the bedroom where he spent his final moments, I recall the custom, practiced in certain countries, which consists in closing the room where a member of the family has died. Things are left exactly as they are. No one will enter that room again. I suppose that after a generation, the house, no matter how large, would no longer have space for the surviving members. But there is something about the custom that attracts me.
9
Soon after a death, we ask ourselves the following: How could it have happened? Couldn’t it have been avoided? Goya shows several doctors gathered around a patient. The caption reads: “What will he die from?” It’s certain he will die, but we have to provide a name for that death. That’s what worries doctors; isn’t it what everyone worries about? After a result they declare to be “fatal,” and whose fatality should cut short any desire for further research, they begin an inquiry to discover the assassin! But the assassin is nature, and it is she who, from our very first day, makes us a gift of the last.
10
There were contradictory diagnoses. The veterinarian recommended by a writer who hates mankind but loves animals (the two go hand in hand, hatred seeking to justify itself) thought it was a simple “problem of the digestive system.” But after “forty-five years of practice,” he was too sure of himself. What was needed was a moment of intuition.
11
In the end, we didn’t abandon him. He followed us on this last trip as in all those that preceded, sitting in the back of the car, next to a window that had to be kept open so he could stick his head outside, curious like all dogs of the varied spectacle of the road, sleeping at night on that same back seat. The difficulties began when we arrived at the hotel.
12
The most tiring trip was the one to Venice. Because we couldn’t bring the car into the city, it had to be left in this immense garage, high up on a hill, which the Venetians are so proud of. We took off in a gondola with our luggage and the dog, only somewhat reassured. Along the way something I had never seen before occurred—a fish jumped into the boat (which was traveling very near the surface of the water). The gondolier wanted to grab it. But the dog, faster than he was, caught hold of it. “That was my dinner!” the man said regretfully. At the hotel, there was never any food for the dog. After taking him for a walk along the narrow streets, I had to stop at a latteria, where, before the scandalized but silent staff, I ordered two yogurts, one of which the dog ate.
13
If yet another proof of the diversity of customs were needed, you would find it when crossing different countries with an animal. In Switzerland, they would be shocked to see you traveling with a dog. “What! Is that allowed now?” Switzerland had just lifted a ban, no doubt the result of some ideal of safety and control. Foreign dogs could now travel with their owners; their presence was simply added to their passport at the border. Besides, everyone in Switzerland likes animals, although they want to reconcile that love with the utmost concern for hygiene. In Italy, dogs are not very well regarded (humans already have enough difficulty in the matter). Ungaretti, seeing a dog climb into a gondola, yelled out “Anche il cane!” But in his case the feeling of surprise was spontaneous.
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