THE BUILDING OF THE WALL: A FRAGMENT The news of the building of the wall now penetrated into this world -- late, too, some thirty years after its announcement. It was on a summer evening. I, ten years old, stood with my father on the riverbank. In keeping with the importance of this much-discussed hour, I can recall the smallest details. My father held me by the hand, something he liked doing until the end of his days, and ran his other hand up and down his long, very thin pipe, as though it were a flute. His large, sparse, stiff beard moved in the wind; enjoying his pipe, he looked upwards across the river. This made his pigtail, object of the children's veneration, sink lower, rustling faintly against the gold-embroidered silk of his holiday gown. At that moment a bark drew up before us; the boatman beckoned to my father to descend the embankment, while he himself climbed up to meet him. They met halfway; the boatman whispered something in my father's ear. To get even closer to him, he embraced him. I could not understand what was said, I only saw that my father did not seem to believe the news, that the boatman tried to insist upon its truth, that when my father still refused to believe it the boatman, with the passion of sailors, almost tore the garment from his chest to prove the truth, whereupon my father fell silent and the boatman jumped noisily into the bark and sailed away. Deep in thought my father turned toward me, knocked out his pipe and stuck it in his belt, stroked my cheek, and pulled my head toward him. This was what I liked best, it made me very happy, and so we came home. There the rice soup was already steaming on the table, several guests had assembled, and the wine was just being poured into the goblets. Paying no attention to any of this and having advanced no farther than the threshold, my father started telling what he had heard. Naturally, I have no exact recollection of his words, but because of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances involved which cast a spell even over the child, the meaning became so clear to me that I venture nevertheless to give some version of what my father said. I am doing so because it was very characteristic of the popular interpretation. My father said something like this: An unknown boatman -- I know all who usually sail past here, but this one was a stranger -- has just told me that a great wall is going to be built to protect the Emperor. For it seems that infidel tribes, among them demons, often assemble before the imperial palace and shoot their black arrows at the Emperor. |
