style="font-size:15px;"> “These are the chances we all must take. Who knows who deserves whose loyalty? What do you want most of all, sir? What is your greatest wish for the dog in question?”
“I want him . . . to stay,” the Professor mused, “or if not precisely stay, at least not run from me.”
“You must not confuse running away with hauling. The question, I believe, is not one of disappearing, but of constantly jerking you about.”
“I still do not see how force . . . such manipulation can accomplish anything lasting.”
“Ah, well, don’t you see, it’s just the right amount of force, applied at exactly the right time and place. It takes a lifetime to learn, if I may say so.”
“Will you teach it to me, then?”
“Ah, my friend, you are not ready. Humans don’t have the sense to submit. The dog bites only hard enough to make a point. Yes, we think dogs almost human, and dogs think we are other dogs. Which do you think is closer to the truth? Remember St. Augustine: you won’t see God until you become as a little dog. When you are ready, the teacher will appear. That I guarantee.”
“I suppose you mean that we learn only by punishment!” the Professor intoned morosely.
“Not exactly. We learn by the threat of a thrashing administered against a background of love. Think of it as a loving withdrawal. Even gentleness must be enforced.”
“I still do not comprehend your preliminary diagnosis.”
“Well, if it’s analogy you want, I should say that what we have here is the soul of a horse trapped in the body of a dog.”
“Then poor Wolf believes himself to be a horse?”
“No. He knows he’s not a horse. He just wants to feel like a horse, because he believes the horse to be superior.”
“I’m not sure I grasp . . .”
“It’s like this. You don’t want a bottle of wine, do you? No, you want the feeling it gives. What we’re saying to Wolfie is, go right ahead and feel like a horse if you like. Just don’t behave like one when you’re around me.”
“This is hardly scientific, Councilor.”
“Ah, dear friend, facts may be different, but feelings are the same. And it’s not the thinking that’s hard. It’s selling the thinking, Herr Professor.”
“In my experience,” the Professor muttered defensively, “one can often observe in human illness the neuroses of the animals.”
“Perhaps. But the satisfying thing about dogs is that they fear what actually happens, not fear itself. Therefore, the teacher must constantly fight his way into reality, all the while maintaining detachment.”
“But how can we proceed before we locate the trauma, immaterial as it may be?”
“What do we start with, you say? My poor self and this poor dog. That is all. Our origins are different, our values are different, our ends are different. They are all incompatible and they cannot be pushed beyond their limits. But they can be imaginatively understood, if there is a cord, a simple cord.”
“It seems, if I may say so, a project fraught with risk.”
“Whenever you weigh beauty and utility on the same scale, a kind of genetic civil war is created within the animal. When you are stronger, I will elucidate the costs and lessons.”
“But might a dog behave and not be well?”
“We are not concerned with the whole animal, because that leads us into ideology. Life is all concealed pistols and waxed slipknots, Professor. All we can manage is to make the dog face the facts.”
“The verdict, then; I tremble.”
“Ah, Wolf is so much a product of our time. The greater he contests your authority, the greater his need for authority. His willfulness is mirrored back at him, and he becomes even more disappointed with himself. The result is discontent without reference, for which there is no answer. All we have is demand—perverse, obstinate, insoluble, interminable demand! And so the therapy can never end. Are you prepared for such an outcome?”
The Professor walked in circles, squinting and pulling on his moustache.
“It would appear, Councilor, that I have little choice in the matter.”
Smoking their cigars, they walked arm in arm along the darkening river. Wolf and I gamboled after them, tripping one another up. I threw a stick in the water and the dog looked at me with disdain. He was getting better already.
“It’s all so vague and problematical,” the Professor mused. “How do you stand it, Councilor?”
“The transferal is incomplete, my friend, it is always incomplete. It’s the nature of the mechanism.”
“Why do you suppose they love us so? And why do we even bother with them?”
Father stopped, and as they turned to look over the fields, delivered himself of something like a courtroom summation:
“This attachment to man is not born of consciousness, nor does it become conscious. Man, through the insensitivity of objects, feels homesick and alone. In his depths there is an earnest cry for intercourse. When he looks at things, they do not appear different; when he utters his cry there is no response. His conversation with nature has been silenced. The dog is the only one who remains, his reminder of the world of nature that has vanished. Snatched from our place in nature, all love seeks that which is lost, all that which is not itself. In the shimmering heat in the silent fields, we hear in the cry of the animal a call for companionship. The stronger the man, the more vulnerable he is to this. Then the dog finally comes, and together they search for unreal shelter.”
The two men stood with their arms about each other’s shoulders, discussing the mysteries of coordination and conduct, staring out into the unkempt fields in which huge hares bounced like kangaroos and quail called cloyingly to one another as raptors wheeled in the thickening sky. Wolf shoved his head in the tall grass, while leaving his body well outside the green envelope. A gadfly was playing about his limp tail.
“So,” the Professor mused, “we are back to the Jurassic. Horsetails high as oats, saurians running about.”
“Ah yes, my friend,” Father said proudly. “Out here in Klavierland we are truly, absolutely . . . nowhere!”
They agreed that as unpromising as Wolf was, he deserved an indefinite trial, provided the Professor would visit regularly and participate in the great experiment.
“So,” the Professor sighed, “Wolf is a real survivor.”
“Sentimentality will shorten your life, my friend,” Father said softly. “One must be on guard with survivors. They will damage you.”
IN DARKEST CANNONIA
(Rufus)
The Agent known as Iulus had the grave dignity and easy familiarity of the Cannonian gentry,
