Today, on the 5th of November
I begin my report.
I will write everything down as accurate
as I can.
But I don't even know if today
is really the 5th November.
During the past winter
I lost a few days.
I can't even tell you the weekday.
but I think
this is not very important.
I rely on sparse notes.
Sparse, because I never thought
to write this report,
and I'm afraid that much is different
in my memory than I had experienced it.
Perhaps all reports are vague in this way.
I do not write
for the joy of writing.
It just so happens
I need to write,
if I do not
want to lose my mind.
There is no one here
who can think of and care for me.
I'm all alone,
and I must try
to get through the long dark winter months.
I have taken this task upon me,
because it should prevent me
from staring into the twilight and
being afraid.
Because I fear. From all sides
fear creeps up to me,
and I don't want to wait until it reaches
and overpowers me.
I will write until it gets dark.
And this new unfamiliar work
should make my head tired,
empty and sleepy.
I don't fear the morning.
Only the long dusky afternoons.
I write on the back of old calendars
and on aged business papers.
The paper comes from Hugo Rttlinger,
a great collector and hypochondriac.
Actually with Hugo this report should begin,
because without his acquisitiveness and hypochondria,
I wouldn't sit here today.
I probably would not be alive at all.
Not until three clock we reached the hunting lodge.
After a snack,
Hugo started to doze off,
Louise suggested he go with her
to the village one more time.
Come on!
We won't stay long.
We'll go hunting very early in the morning.
The key is in the ignition
if you want to meet us.
Come on!
- Yes.
Where is Luchs?
Luchs?
The dog stays here!
That stupid dog never obeys.
Luchs? Luchs, come on!
Heel!
Come Luchs!
- Heel!
- Don't be so strict.
Luchs, if you don't want to go,
then you stay up here. Go back!
Go! Go!
At nine o'clock I decided to go to bed.
I locked the door and took the key
with me to my room.
Well, Luchs? What's going on?
The two had remained in the village.
I was surprised about this.
Hugo loathed the short inn beds.
And he had never been so callous,
leaving me alone overnight.
Then I decided to go
with Luchs to the village.
I couldn't explain what had happened.
I hardly noticed
how cool and damp the canyon was,
because I was pondering what had
become of the Rttlingers.
Maybe Hugo had
suffered a heart attack.
Like most hypochondriacs, we didn't
take him seriously.
I quickened my steps
and sent Luchs ahead.
I had not thought to wear my
hiking boots
so I stumbled awkwardly
over sharp stones behind him.
Luchs! Luchs?
Luchs? Luchs, what is it?
What do you have?
Did you hurt yourself?
Have you bitten on your tongue?
Luchs come!
Come on!
Luchs, what is it?
Come on!
Then I heard loud knocking,
and as I looked around I realized
it was my own heartbeat
pounding in my ears.
My heart had taken fright
before I knew it.
Hesitantly, I try it again.
And again rested my hand on a glass window.
Suddenly I realized what had unconsciously
tormented me all the while...
...the road was completely empty.
Someone must have sounded the alarm
a long time ago.
It would have been natural
for the curious village people to gather
in front of the wall.
Even if none of them had discovered the wall,
Hugo and Louise must have seen it.
It was more surprising to me
that I couldn't see any people.
I tried it three more times and was convinced
that here, three feet in front of me,
was something invisible, smooth,
and cool that
prevented me from going on.
I thought of an illusion, but
I knew it was nothing of the kind.
I had a problems to accept and understand:
a terrible, invisible thing.
The first little farmstead,
really just a Chaste,
was just around the next bend.
Finally I could see the Chaste.
She lay very still in the sunlight.
A peaceful, familiar picture.
Sorry!
Sorry, I...
Come Luchs. Come on!
We were caught in a bad situation,
me and Luchs,
and we did not, at that time,
know how bad it was.
But we weren't completely lost
because there were two of us.
It just could not be true.
Such things simply do not happen.
And if they happened,
not in a small village in the mountains,
not in Upper Austria
and not in Europe.
I know how ridiculous this idea was,
but this is exactly what I thought,
so I won't conceal it.
I woke up at six clock
when the birds began to sing.
Although I had hardly moved
Luchs knew that I was awake
and came to my bed to greet me.
Suddenly it seemed quite impossible
to survive this fine day in May.
Yet at the same time, I knew
I had to survive it
and that for me
there was no escape.
I had to be completely silent
and simply survive it.
It wasn't the first day of my life,
I had to survive like this.
The less I resisted,
the more bearable it would be.
I do not remember
what I did that morning.
Maybe the following hours were so tough
I had to forget them.
Maybe I was in anesthesia.
I do not remember.
I came back at 2 o'clock in the afternoon,
when I went with Luchs
through the gorge.
This time I was better equipped.
I had Hugo's binoculars with me.
If the man at the well was dead, and
I could no longer doubt that,
all the people in the valley had to be dead,
and not only the people.
The Animals as well.
If that was how they all died,
death came quickly and gently
in an almost loving way.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to go with
Hugo and Louise to the village.
Luchs!
What's going on? Luchs?
Come, Luchs!
Luchs!
Com...
Yes, come on.
ln the meantime had become clear to me
that this cow indeed a blessing
but also a great burden.
Such an animal wants to be fed and milked
and calls for a domestic master.
I was the owner and prisoner of a cow.
Of course, I also thought of the cow.
If I were very lucky,
she might be expected a calf.
But I couldn't rely on that.
I only could hope my cow would
give milk as long as possible.
Again and yet I thought of my situation
as temporary
or at least tried to.
I thought of a name for my cow
and called her Bella.
Actually, she didn't need any name.
She was the only cow in the forest.
Perhaps the only cow in all the land.
Until tomorrow, Bella.
Ten days had passed and
nothing had changed.
For ten days I worked in a stupor,
but the wall was still there,
and no one had come to get me.
I had no choice but to face reality.
I could kill myself or I could try
to dig under the wall,
but that probably would have been a
toilsome form of suicide.
And of course I could stay here
and try to stay alive.
I was not young enough.
To think seriously about suicide.
The thought of Luchs and Bella kept me
from thinking about that.
Thanks to Hugo's generosity I owned suppllies
for the whole summer,
a home, wood for life, and a cow.
I also intended to wind the clocks daily
and check off each day from the calendar.
This seemed very important to me.
I wanted no change in my life.
I do not know why I do this.
It is perhaps some inner compulsion
that drives me.
Maybe I'm afraid if I could do otherwise
I would slowly cease to be a human,
and soon would crawl around dirty and stinky
and emit unintelligible sounds.
Not that I was afraid of becoming
an animal, that would not be so bad.
But a human never can be an animal,
we rush past the animal in us,
into the abyss.
I don't want this to happen to me.
Lately this is my biggest fear.
And this fear is why I am writing
this report.
On 30 May, rained all day
a warm, fertile rain,
which forced me to stay in the hut
if I did not want to get soaked.
That evening
the cat came to my house.
So we were four.
The cow, the cat, Luchs and me.
Luchs was closest to me.
He soon became not only my dog,
but my friend.
My only friend in a world
of trouble and loneliness.
It's okay, Luchs.
Although I was confined to the
cabin with Bella,
I wanted to try and look around
a little.
I remembered a path that led to
an elevated hunting lodge,
and from there I could look down
into the opposing valley.
That's where I wanted to go.
Luchs! Heel!
- Wait, Luchs!
Now I had all the valleys researched,
which I could reach
in just a couple of days.
I could ascend to the pasture
and survey the land from there,
but further into the mountain range
I couldn't go.
Of course they could find me
if the wall was not there.
Yes, I had to assume they could
have found me in the end.
I could quietly sit at home and wait.
But again and again I felt driven
to do something about the uncertainty.
At noon I rested.
The misty forest reclined in the
midday sun
and warm clouds rose to meet me.
It was much quieter than it had been
under moonlight.
The forest was sleeping soundly
under a yellow sun.
A bird of prey was flying high above
in circles.
Luchs was sleeping with twitching ears
and the silence rang above me
like the sound of a great bell.
I wished to sit there forever
in the heat, the light,
with the dog on my feet
and the birds circling high above.
When I had to leave,
I did so with deep regret,
and very slowly I turned back into
the creature
that did not belong, into a mere human
with crooked thoughts and clumsy shoes
that buckled the branches,
returning to the bloody business
of a hunt.
It occurs to me I've never
recorded in my diary
the time I first shot a deer.
Now I remember also that it
disgusted me to write it down.
It was enough having to do it.
I called the little cat Pearl
because it was so white and bright.
In a few weeks I realized that
pearl, the ugly little thing,
was about to transform into a beauty.
Pearl was a small miracle
but even then I knew
she was born in the wrong place.
A long-haired, white cat in the forest
is doomed to an early death.
She had no chance.
Maybe that was the reason I liked her so much.
When I think back to that first summer,
I realize I had more concerns for my animals
than my own desperate situation.
With the disaster I lost great responsibility
but gained a new burden,
without knowing it at the time.
When I finally released my situation
I was beyond change.
I don't think my behavior came from
weakness or sentimentality.
I just followed an inner drive,
and I couldn't fight it without
destroying myself.
I don't know what is
dishonorable about
carrying the burdens imposed on us,
like every animal must,
and finally to die like one
in the end.
I don't even know what honor is.
To be born and to die
is not honorable.
It happens to every creature
and means nothing.
(Insects buzzing)
On 20 July
I started with the hay.
I took three weeks
to reap the meadow.
I blamed not only the changing weather
but my clumsiness and physical weakness.
I suffered a severe
attack of discouragement
and clearly recognized for the first time
which blow had hit me.
I don't know what would have happened
if the responsibility of the animals
hadn't forced me to do
what was necessary.
Very reluctantly I remember my labor.
It took me 14 days to bring myself back
and begin to live again.
The autumn was always my favorite season,
even though I never felt physically well.
During the day I was pretty tired.
At night I lay for hours in a fitful sleep
and my dreams were confusing
and more vivid than usual.
The Fall sickness didn't
spare me in the forest.
But my health appeared to be moderated.
Maybe I didn't have time to keep track
of it accurately.
Luchs was exhilarated and happy,
but a stranger probably wouldn't
have noticed a difference.
He was almost always cheerful.
I have never seen Luchs grumpy for more
than a few minutes.
He just couldn't resist happiness.
And life in the forest
was a constant lure for him.
Sun, snow, wind, rain,
everything was a cause for excitement.
I never could stay sad very long
next to Luchs.
It was almost shameful,
how happy it made him to be with me.
Perhaps the human owes his
hubris to his dog.
Sometimes I thought there had to be
something special about me
when I saw how happy Luchs was
to be with me.
Of course there never was
anything special about me.
Luchs was like all dogs
simply addicted to people.
Yes, you're my Luchs. Yes.
Good Boy.
Sometimes when I'm alone
traveling in the forest in winter
I talk to Luchs as I did before.
I don't even know that I do it,
until something startles me
and I fall silent.
I turn my head and catch the glimmer
of a reddish brown coat.
But the path is empty,
bare shrubs and wet stones.
It does not surprise me that I still
hear branches crackling behind me
under the light tread of his soles.
Where else should his little dog soul
haunt, but my tracks?
It's a friendly ghost,
and I do not fear him.
Luchs, nice, good dog
my dog.
Probably only my poor head makes
the sound of your footsteps,
the glimmer of your coat.
As long as I exist, you'll follow my trail,
hungry and yearning,
like myself, hungry and yearning,
following invisible traces.
On 27 October fell the first snow.
The onset of winter
lasted only a few days.
After that came the wind that licked
the young snow from the mountains.
It was uncomfortably warm,
and the wind blew night and day
snarling at the little house.
I slept badly
and listened to the roaring of the stags,
which descended during the rutting season
from the heights.
Both cats went out into
the warm, damp forest.
I lay awake and worried about Pearl.
The roaring of the stags sounded sad,
threatening, and sometimes almost desperate.
I just hoped the wind would not
last too long
and finally winter returned and
brought a little peace.
The warm winds lasted only three days,
just long enough to kill Pearl.
Pearl was buried,
and the wind died overnight,
as if fulfilling its task.
I have not forgotten Pearl.
Her death was the first loss
I suffered in the forest.
Once, perhaps during the first winter,
I saw a fox standing by a stream.
I could have shot him.
I carried the gun with me.
But I did not.
Pearl died because one of their ancestors
was a breeding Angora cat.
From the beginning she was
destined to be a victim.
Should I punish this beautiful vivid fox?
Pearl's death was an injustice.
And I was a victim of that injustice.
Should I pass that injustice on
to the fox?
The only creature in the woods that
can really do right or wrong, is me.
And only I can practice mercy.
Sometimes I wish the burden of
that decision would not lay on me.
But I am a human.
And I can only think and act like a human.
Only death will set me free.
When I think of winter, I always see the
tired fox standing by the stream.
A lonely, adult animal
walking a predetermined path.
It seems this picture is important for me.
It stands only as a sign
for something else.
But I can not recognize its meaning.
So.
Yes, my Bella.
Yes, you are beautiful.
Bella became chubby again,
but I still couldn't know
if she expected a calf.
After all,
what we have experienced together,
Bella has become more than my cow,
a poor, patient sister, which handles her
destiny with more dignity than I do.
In the night I could hear the wood crack
in the cold.
I burned a lot of wood, but I shivered
and could not sleep.
Sometimes a log crackled
and went out again,
and I felt sick.
I knew the reason was
I had to kill, again and again.
I imagined what a person may feel,
who liked killing.
I did not succeed.
I got a goose flesh on my arms,
and my mouth became dry in disgust.
You had to be born, probably.
I could bring myself to do it
as quick and clean as possible,
but I would never get used to it.
For a long time I lay
awake in the darkness,
and thought of the little heart
in the chamber above,
frozen into a block of ice.
After the sever cold broke,
a wave of humid, warm air closed in.
Bella was restless, and I had
to check on her ten times a day.
At 11 January Bella was bleeding a little.
It was after the evening feeding,
and I decided to
I set up in the Barn for the night.
Come on, Bella! Hard!
Hard!
Come on, Bella, come on!
So much had happened in the recent past.
Pearl had been killed,
a little bull was born,
deer were frozen, and the predators had
a fat winter.
I myself had a lot of excitement
behind me, and now I was tired.
And when I closed my eyes,
I saw snow mountains on the horizon,
White flakes, falling on my face
in a wide, bright silence.
There were no thoughts, no memories,
just the great, silent expanse of snow.
I knew this thought for
a lonely human was dangerous,
but I couldn't find the strength to
fight against it.
Luchs didn't leave me in peace for long.
Again and again he
nudged me with his nose.
Sighing, I got up and
tended to my daily work.
Now Luchs is no longer
my friend and guardian.
And the desire to enter the white,
painless silence
is sometimes very heavy.
I have to pay attention to myself and be
stricter than I was before.
Luchs was my sixth sense.
Since he died,
I have felt like an amputee.
Something is missing and it always will be.
I don't just miss him for the
hunting and tracking game
It's not that alone.
The worst thing is I really feel
alone without Luchs...
The question of moving to the pastures
occupied me from day to day.
This task seemed terribly painful,
even if I took only the bare essentials
with me and lived barbarically
on the mountain pasture.
After I realized I had
long ago decided to move,
when I saw the green meadows
of the Alp for the first time,
I became more quiet.
And on 25 May came the day
of departure from the cabin.
The road was very well maintained
but it still took hours
to reach the pasture.
It was about noon.
I was completely exhausted.
Less from the physical effort
but nervous tension.
Something new started. I didn't know
what would that be.
But my homesickness and concern
for the future slowly faded away.
I began to like the beautiful pasture,
strange and dangerous.
But like everything strange,
full of secret allurements.
It was a strange feeling,
to look over a wide area,
with no mountains or trees in the way.
It wasn't immediately pleasant
or liberating.
My eyes had to
get used to the expanse
after having spent a year in
a narrow valley.
While I was on the mountain,
I did not take notes.
I dutifully counted the days,
but didn't notice important events
such as the hay harvest.
The memory of this time
has remained fresh,
and it's not hard for me to write about it.
The summer scent, the thundershower,
and star-glittered evenings
I will never forget.
For the first time in my life
I was appeased.
Not satisfied or happy,
but appeased.
It was as if a big hand
stopped the clock in my head.
Sometimes my thoughts confused me.
My mind would return to it's old thoughts.
Back then, in the second summer,
I didn't release it.
The boundaries were strictly drawn.
It is difficult for me,
to distinguish between my earlier and
my new self when I'm writing.
My new self,
of which I'm not sure
that it won't be slowly absorbed by
a larger We.
But even then
the transformation started.
The mountain pasture was to blame.
In the buzzing silence under a big sky
it was almost impossible to
be content with such isolation.
A small, blind, stubborn life,
which didn't want to fit
into a larger community.
Once it had been my pride and joy
to live such a life.
But on the mountain pasture it
seemed pathetic and ridiculous.
An inflated nothing.
On 16 October,
having returned from the pasture,
I resumed by notebook.
Throughout most of October
the weather was beautiful.
I used the favorable time
to doubled my wood stock.
At All Saints it became suddenly warm,
and I knew
that this could only be the beginning
of winter.
On 1O December
I found a strange note:
"Time goes by so fast."
I do not remember
having written this note.
I don't recall what occurred on that
10 December
and let me write below "fresh snow"
the words "collected hay":
"Time goes by so fast"
Did time really go by that fast?
I can't remember and
can't report about that.
It's not true at all. Time seemed
to pass very quickly...only, to me.
it seemed that time did not move,
but I moved in it.
Sometimes slowly,
sometimes at a breakneck speed.
I work, I drive things forward,
and I forget the passage of time.
And then, just as suddenly, I stop,
and time is moving passed me again.
I'll have to get used to it.
To its indifference and omnipresence.
Since Luchs is dead,
I feel that very cleary.
I sit at the table
and time stands still.
I can't see, smell or hear it,
but it surround me on all sides.
Its silence and stillness is terrible.
Fundamentally, these thoughts are
without meaning.
I pity animals and people,
because they are thrown into life
without being asked.
Maybe people are more regrettable,
because they have enough sense
to defend themselves against
the natural course of things.
This has made them angry and desperate
and a bit unlovable.
It would have been possible
to live differently.
There is no rational emotion like love.
Love makes the life of the lover and
the beloved more bearable.
If only we could recognize, in time,
that this was our only option.
Our only hope
for a better life.
An infinite army of the dead
has missed this human possibility,
forever.
Again and again I have to remember.
I can't understand
why we follow the wrong path.
I just know that it's too late.
This fall
a white crow has emerged.
She always flies apart from the others
and settles herself on a tree
her companions avoid.
I don't understand why the other
crows don't like her.
For me she is a very beautiful bird.
But she is an abomination to her kind.
This should not be such a
sad absurdity
A white crow.
She remains on her perch,
until the other crows depart,
and then I bring her a
a little food.
She can't know
why she is rejected.
She knows no other life.
She will always be rejected and lonely,
until she is less afraid of people
than her black brothers and sisters...
Every day I wait for the white crow,
and attract her.
And she looks at me attentively with
reddish eyes.
I can do very little for her.
My effort may extend a
life that should not be extended.
But I want the white crow to live,
and sometimes I dream
that there is a second one in the
forest and the two will find each other.
I don't believe it
but I wish it.
Step by step I began to
forget my own past
and grow into a new order.
Until the weather finally improved,
and it was May.
Two years had passed in the forest,
and it occurred to me
that I almost never thought about the
possibility of being found.
I decided to move to the mountain
very soon.
In June I was finally ready
to get used to the mountain pasture.
But it was never like last year.
That first summer on the pasture
was gone forever.
I did not want to be let down,
so I curbed my expectations.
The old magic might not return.
But the Alp made it easy for me.
She had closed before me
and showed a strange face.
I often sat on the bench and looked out
over the meadow, as I did a year ago.
It was no different then it ever was,
and it smelled just as sweet,
but I never felt the same delight again.
I took no more big trips,
because I already found
my limits last summer.
It didn't matter to me,
where the wall was.
That summer, I completely forgot that
Luchs was a dog, and I a human.
I knew it, but our separateness
had no meaning.
Luchs had changed too.
Since I dealt with him so much,
he was quiet and didn't seem
to worry all the time,
If he turned his back, I could
just as well dissolve into thin air.
When I think about it today, I think
this was his only fear
of his dog's life:
to be left alone.
I had learned a lot also,
and understood the meaning of almost
all his movements and sounds.
Now finally a tacit understanding
prevailed between us.
I carried Luchs to the hut
and laid him on the bench.
He became small and light.
And then I heard,
as if from afar, Bella's roar.
She roared in fear.
I tried to calm her.
It was only then I noticed the
man again.
I knew he must be dead.
He had been such a big target,
I couldn't have missed him.
I was glad that he was dead.
I would have been difficult to accept
the killing of an injured man.
And I couldn't have let him live.
Or could I?
I don't know.
I didn't want to leave him on the lawn.
Not next to the dead bull
and the uncut grass.
So I grabbed him by the legs and
dragged him to the vantage point
Where the rocks hang
steeply into the scree
and rhododendrons bloom in June,
and I let him roll downhill.
I made a grave for Luchs that evening.
I made a deep pit,
and put Luchs into it.
I covered him with earth
and laid grass over it.
And then I was very tired.
As tired as I had ever been.
Then I sat down on the bench
and waited for the long night.
It was a bright starry night,
and a cold wind rolled down
from the high rocks.
But I was colder than the wind
and did not feel it.
At first light I got up and left
the mountain pasture with Bella.
The next day I resumed my work.
In October I harvested potatoes and fruit.
The meadow had to be mowed,
but that lasted only one week.
Finally, physically beaten and broken, I
gave up my senseless thoughts of escape,
and my mind was free.
I want to know why
the strange man killed my animals.
I'll never know,
and maybe it's better that way.
Now I am completely calm.
I see a little bit further.
I see this is not the end yet.
Everything goes on.
Taurus, Pearl and Luchs
will not return.
But something new is approaching,
and I cannot escape it.
The memory, the grief
and the fear will remain
and there will be hard work
as long as I live.
Today, 25 February,
I finish my report.
There is no paper left.
It is now about five o'clock
and already it is so bright
I can write without a lamp.
The crows have risen and they are
screaming and circling above the forest.
When they are no longer visible,
I'll go into the glade
and feed the white crow.
She is waiting for me.