"Great Black Axle"

"Great black axle" [6]

The well is not a window and not a mirror. Who looks too long therein, looks therein too often. Grandfather's face rose like from the depths up to mine. Between his lips stood the water.
Through the well one sees how the great black axle beneath the village turns the years. Who was ever sick up into the eyes, and with the one eye in death, saw it. Grandfather's face was green and heavy.
The dead turn the axle round like a horsemill [Pferdemühle] so that we too die soon. Then we help turn the axle. And the more dead there are, the emptier becomes the village, the faster goes the time.
The well's rim was like a hose of green mice. Grandfather sighed lightly. Into his cheek leapt a frog. And his temple sprang in thin circles over my face, and took along his hair, and his brow, and his lips along with the sigh. And took my face along to the rim.
Grandfather's sleeve leaned on my hand. Behind the trees stood the stolid midday. And in the trees was a vibration and no wind. And over the pavement rang the midday bells made of stone.
Mother stood in the doorframe with steam in her hair and called mealtime. And father came through the street-gate with a long shadow over the sand and laid a hammer beneath the tree. I chased after my shadow on the pavement stones and lifted my shoes from out of the shadows of my legs.
Grandfather shoved me with his sleeve through the half-open kitchen door. His sleeve was long and [7] was dark like the pants-leg. Upon the base of a plate, through the green parsley-veins, I wanted to see the black axle that turns the years beneath the village. A soggy parsleyleaf was stuck between mother's lips and chin. And sipping she said: "The hounds are howling like mad in the village today." Father fished a drowned ant from the plate's rim with his fingertips. And mother looked over at his fingertips and said as if for herself: "It is a peppercorn." And father sipped a soupeye and said lightly: "The gypsies are in the village. They're gathering bacon, and flour, and eggs." Mother blinked with her right eye. "And children," she said. And father silenced.
Grandfather bowed his face and climbed with long dark pant's legs, with a naked foot that held a spoon, out, into the floor of a plate. "The gypsies are Egyptians," he said. "They must wander thirty years. Then they come to rest." "Then they help turn the axle," I said without looking at him. And father shoved the empty plate away and clicked with his tongue in his hollow molar-tooth: "Tonight they're playing theater." And mother set father's empty plate on my plate's base.
Grandfather sweated around his throat. The inside of his collar was damp and filthy. Behind the window-glass [Fensterglas] like beneath the surface of the water-mirror [Wasserspiegel] stood the neighbor woman's face. Leni had two wrinkles on her brow. I knew the one wrinkle. It was like a ribbon.
Since spring Leni's father had also been helping turn the great black axle beneath the village. Grandfather was, on his last Sunday, as mother later said, visiting him before the midday bell toll.
There were white apricot trees over the yard and cabbage butterflies fluttered through the air. And although it was Sunday, grandfather went without his coat. Grandfather went in [8] his white shirt. "So that I don't arrive so bleakly," he said.
I asked grandfather under the white apricot trees if the neighbor was sick up into the eyes, if he sees the axle beneath the well. Grandfather nodded silent.
Then I wanted to see the eye. Two steps behind his Sunday shoes I asked: "Are you taking me along." Grandfather stopped: "Leni's had a child since Tuesday night. If you want to see it, then bring her flowers."
I looked around me, ahead past my coat. In the garden, hesitating, lettuce greened, and onion-leaves grew like hoses out of the earth. The Easter roses had, over their leaves, brown buds covered with skin like finger-knots. "I won't come along. It's not yet blooming." I said it and looked only at his hand.
Grandfather lifted his hand over his head and pulled down the lowest branch of the apricot tree. I broke off two twigs. On the way they fluttered snow over my clothes. "I'll give one to the sick man," I said. Grandfather looked over the fence. "If you give him flowers you send him into his grave." "Is he deathsick," I asked in the grass. I walked a half-step behind grandfather's Sunday shoes. Horseradish bloomed around their soles. It reeked so bitter and was not to gift.
"You don't say deathsick, you say very-ill, when you go to the sick." Grandfather said: "Note that" with half-shut eyes.
The neighbor lie as sleeping. His mouth was covered with a blanket too, which was so white and was stony before starch like the ceiling. The brow of the sick was saturated with water. Death was moist.
Grandfather set himself upon a chair before the bed. He pulled his Sunday shoes under the chair and asked [9], as if his voice was also sick: "How's it going." And at this terse question grandfather closed his eyes.
The sick man opened his eyes big and gray. I didn't see the well. "Life, Gregor, is a great shit, no more," said the sick man so loud that it was screamed. "And when you're young, you're dumb like straw." He looked at Leni with his gray eyes. She pressed both hands on her mouth so that the apricot twigs snowed her cheeks. "Stop it," she cried. Her face was young and withered. And my twigs were bare over her hands. Then Leni took her hand from her mouth, the hand with the twigs. "The doctor said to him, he shouldn't contemplate and shouldn't speak," she said. And without noticing she took the second one, she took the empty hand from her mouth too.
Grandfather placed his shoe under his knee. Without looking at Leni, he asked: "How's the kid." Leni said: "Good. It's growing." "It grows, grows like a worm," said the sick man, "and when it's grown-up, it'll wonder who it's father is. And you'll stand before him like a cow." Grandfather stuck his hands in his pant pockets: "It'll grow up without a father too," he said to his Sunday shoes. "And when it asks, then I'll say: your father was a drunk and a whore-monger," said Leni. Grandfather lifted his face. With both eyes he looked into Leni's eyes. "Everyone has faults," he said, "and every human, who has faults, must make mistakes."
Leni looked at the sick, and looked with her cheeks and ear towards me, and said: "Did you know the stork brought me a little boy, a little Franz." Leni had a wrinkle on her brow. It was like a ribbon. "He's still looking for his father," Leni lay her hand on my neck.
Grandfather raised himself up from the chair. It creaked loudly. [10] The sick man stretched his foot out from the bed, as if he were stretching it out through the ceiling. The arch of his foot was so deep that I saw his eyesockets from beneath.
In the room next door cried the little Franz. He wasn't whining, just a scream, as great as the wall.
Now stood Leni behind the window-glass [Fensterglas]. Between the two wrinkles on her brow the skin was suspended over a year.
Behind the window-glass Leni said: "Since last night my red hen's been missing." Mother opened the window. Her hair flew [flog] onto the street. The window-shutters [Fensterflügel] stood over mother's shoulders like two mirrors. Mother said: "The gypsies are in the village."
Grandfather shoved the empty plate away from himself. "Since this morning, not since last night," he said. Leni looked into the window-mirror [Fensterspiegel] and smiled so that her mouth distorted [ganz verzerrten] her cheeks. "The young, gaunt [mager] girl with the low-cut dress, is playing Genoveva, as it's called," she said. And mother had no time to breath and flustered: "Who knows where she stole it." She rubbed [wetzte] her elbows on the window sill. And Leni looked over mother's shoulder into the window-mirror [Fensterspiegel] and said like in dreams [wie verträumt]: "The dress, who knows. But she definitely has fleas." Mother turned her face to father and said smiling: "Up top hui down under pfui." Father bit his finger. And Leni giggled: "She wanted bacon. I chased her off."
Leni went and a cloud stood in the window-mirror [Fensterspiegel]. Mother stood at the table. "The stork is still seeking a father for the little Franz," I said and looked over at the street.
And father went after the hammer beneath the tree. And grandfather went with gleaming scythe into the clover, after the summer. I saw how the stems bent down before his feet, as if they were too heavy and much too tired.
[11] I read in my book: Then the queen's heart turned itself around in her body out of hatred.
Mother carried the blue bucket into the stall.
The mother left a shadow behind herself.
Then the queen summoned the hunter. You should kill her, she said to him.
Mother came with a chain from out of the stall.
But the hunter had a mild [weiches] heart. He brought the queen the heart of a young faun.
The chain clattered [rasselte] in mother's hand. Mother coiled [schlängelte] it near her round calves.
The heart bled.
Mother dropped the chain next to her naked feet: "It's broken [zerrissen]," she said. "Take it to the smith. Here's some money."
The queen had the heart boiled in salt and ate it.
I held the ten Lei bill in the one hand and in the other hand I held the chain. And mother asked: "Do you have a handkerchief. Hold your eyes shut and don't look into the glowing coals."
Mother's mouth stood behind me in the street-gate and called: "Return quickly, soon it's evening, and then comes the cow."
The hounds barked rashly at me going. The sun had a long beard. It fluttered and pulled the sun down beneath the cornstalks, beneath the village. It was a beard of glowing coals. And glowing coals were beneath the smith's bellows.
Grandfather had been a soldier in the war with the smith. "The first war, that was a world war," he'd said. "And we, the young men, were in the world."
The gardens were high. Shadows grew. The gardens weren't made of the earth. They were only made of corn.
"He didn't lose his eye in the war," grandfather had said. "In wars one dies, and when dies, then one dies totally [ganz]." His moustache vibrated [zitterte]. "Not [12] under the village, no, far from here, really far from here, far in the world. Who knows where they are now turning the great black axle now. He lost his eye in the smithery." Grandfather had once said: "As a mature man."
Hot coals sprayed into the smith's eye. It burned. His eye was thick and blue like an onion. And as the smith could no longer bear the onion-eye [das Zwiebelauge], because it'd have devoured [gefressen hätte] his entire head, and his mind, he opened it up with a needle. The onion-eye [das Zwiebelauge] ran, black and red, and green, and blue. And all the people were astonished that an eye, an eyesight [ein Augenlicht] had so many colors. The smith lie in bed in the run-off of the eyesight [das Augenlicht] and all the people visited him until his eye was run out [ausgeronnen war]. Then his eye-socket was empty.
Upon the street rode a tractor. It clattered [rasselte] under the houses and pulled an acre of dust behind it. The tractor driver was called Ionel. Even in the summer he wore the knit-cap with the thick tassel [Quaste]. On his hand shined the thick ring. "It's not made of gold," Mother had said, "you can see that." And to Aunt she had said: "Leni is dumb as straw that she let herself get involved with the tractor driver. He guzzles his money, and doesn't care a shit about Leni." And Uncle cleaned his shoe, spat upon it, and rubbed it firmly with the lapp [mit dem Lappen fest gerieben], and said: "A Walach is a Walach, nothing more to say." And he swayed his bald head. And Aunt lightly lifted her shoulders, and whispered: "That Leni doesn't think about her father, who still sickens himself unto death."
The tassel vibrated [zitterte] on Ionel's head. Ionel rode and whistled, and the tractor rolled his song into the dust, into the earth. The dust etched [fraß] on my face. The song that Ionel was whistling was not yet finished, was always not yet [war immer noch nicht totgewalzt] waltzed to death. The song was longer than the street.
[13] The moon was originally [erst] the shadow of the moon, was new and not yet risen. Its light stood wide like in thoughts there on sky. And in the sun the embers still shimmered.
Grandfather sat before a year on Easter Sunday with the smith and a bottle of wine in the tavern. I stood at his elbow on the table's edge because I was supposed to go to church with him. The smith drank the bottle of clear liquor and said: "War-prisonerhood [Kriegsgefangenschaft]" and "Heroes' cemetery." And Grandfather said through the red drops of wine on the rim of the glass "Strategy" and "Mostar," he said, "Wilhelm lies in Mostar."
On the way through the village the smith sang La Paloma. His hand danced in the air and his eye danced along. Only his empty eye-socket couldn't turn itself. Grandfather smiled, and sweated, and silenced [schwieg] in his happiness. And one saw in his eyes that they were looking back into other years. The years amassed [häuften], because they were already in the earth. And his legs approached stiffly and moved slowly.
Ionel threw his acre over the village, over the roofs, and drove behind the church into the woods.
The cantoress [Kantorin] went before me. Her dress fluttered with blue bouquets. One time she collapsed next to the Pastor at a burial in the midst of singing. Her mouth stood open and foamed white, as it was horseradish that dropped into her collar at the throat. At that time [damals] Grandfather buttoned up his black coat and said into my ear: "She has the collapses [die Hinfallende]. Soon it'll pass." I saw the mill three times. Twice it stood on its head, once in a puddle and once in the clouds. A red cloud was the queen. She had glowing coals in her dress and looked through her gray hair at my chain.
Behind me went steps. They echoed [hallten] under the pavement [14] and came behind my heels from out of the sidewalk. I didn't look around. The steps weren't frequent, were larger than mine. My chain coiled [schlängelte] next to my pant-legs as the agronomist passed me. I murmured something, like a greeting, something, that he, going with high white ears in gleaming shoes, overheard.
The agronomist had a light gray suit with dark gray pattern. It was herringbone, and it was light on the shoulders and dark on the spine. The agronomist with black vertebrae approached in his herringbone behind the cantoress [Kantorin]. His path was knee-high above the earth, was not upon the pavement. His path was upon the calves of the cantoress, pale and oval was his path, and a little too narrow at the heels. And he fell down, at the heels, and he no longer went after this fluttering dress. And the wide deep way remained to him, before me, upon the pavement.
On the side of the street walked the postman. The brim of his cap was like a roof. I saw the roots of his face, I saw his mustache. His mouth I did not see.
My chain clattered [rasselte] in my soles. I did not go to the smith. I went toward the (railway) embankment [Bahndamm]. Because I heard a song behind the embankment. And the song was inside the embankment, was long and high, so that it must flow into the village, the song. And the song was tender and sad, like rain upon the earth in summer.
The song came from a violin. And the strings were suspended over the village like wires on telegraph poles. And a male voice sang so deep like from out of the earth. It sang of horses and of hunger on the great streets.
On the embankment, near the rails, whereupon black trains drove, grew plentiful grass. The grass vibrated [zitterte] [15] from the wake [Sog] of the trains, already long passed, in the valley. And the grass vibrated from trains that never rode in the night, that first came into the village the next day.
In the grass that always vibrated and rode a while with the trains grazed the horses. One of the horses had red bands in its mane. The horses had bony faces. "They must wander thirty years. Then they come to rest." The horses of the gypsies are also gypsies.
Behind the embankment stood two gypsy-wagons with round, taut canvas. On the wheels hung dusty lanterns with drowned and black wicks.
An open circle of people were near the wagons. Those in the last row had pant legs, and calves, and backs, and heads. And those in the next to last row had shoulders, and throats, and heads. And those in the first row had hair-ends, and hat brims, and head cloths.
Before the people was a wall of cloth, a stage-cloth. And before the stage-cloth was the stage. And upon the stage stood the hunter. He said: "My prince," and held a large red heart in his hand.
The cantoress lifted [hob] her chin too high. Her mouth stood open. She moved her lips and grabbed her hair. As the voice of the prince was at its loudest, a tooth twinkled in her mouth.
The singer climbed the stage. He pressed his chin against the violin and played and sang: "You black gypsy, come play something for me." My aunt had moist eyes and pressed her finger against her mouth. My uncle blew a great gray smokebird [Rauchvogel] into her hair. His cheekbones moved.
I laid my chin in the grass so that it wouldn't clatter [rasseln] through the song and approached the open circle, [16] next to the stage-cloth. The agronomist stuck his hand into his coat pocket and I saw this hand like the gut of a fish under cloth [wie den Bauch eines Fischs unterm Stoff]. The agronomist looked over the singer's violin past the face of the saleswoman at the throat of the cantoress. Her calves were covered by the pant legs of the postman.
Genoveva gazed at her face in the water-mirror [Wasserspiegel] of a round basin [Blechtrog]. The basin was was wrought with green poplar branches and was, in the forest, a sea.
Genoveva closed her eyes. She slid her marriage ring from her finger, looked at her child and let the ring fall into the water. She sat hunched before the sea and cried.
Leni stood in the second row next to my mother's seamstress [Schneiderin]. She wore a pea-green dress with a white collar. She sewed the Brusteinnäher on mother's dresses too deep every time. So all of mother's clothes were shriveled [welk], and underneath them her breasts were shriveled [welk]. Leni looked into Genoveva's deep breast-cut [Brustausschnitt], Leni was, ever since her father turned the great black axle, black-secluded in mourning clothes [schwarzeingeschlossen in ein Trauerkleid]. She tugged at the buttons of her sadness and whispered something in the seamstress's ear. And past the breast-cut flowed the corner of the eye on Ionel's face towards her. Her silken head cloth had a black peak. He became terrified as he stroked the white collar. The seamstress warped/puckered [verzog] her mouth. Ionel teetered [wippte] with the tassel of his cap before the brow of the smith.
The prince bent his face over the sea and let his hands sink into the water. The smith moistened his lips on the bottleneck. The postman's hat was tilted over his face. The brim devoured [fraß] his brow. The mustache devoured his mouth.
The prince held a fish in his hand and cut open the soft gut with a small knife. [17] The knife had a white grip. In the gut of the fish was the marriage ring of the princess.
I heard cows walking behind the embankment. Their mooing was strained from the evening and tired from grazing. My chain lie next to a large shoe. The postman tossed a cigarette butt next to the shoe. It glowed like an eye.
The singer came before the stage-cloth. He pressed his chin against the violin. He played and spoke: "The red heart was not the heart of our princess. It was the heart of a dog."
The postman ripped the cap from his head and waved it in the air. His brow licked his hair up to the back of his head. I waved my handkerchief and looked at its wind and at its white wings.
The singer sang a song of beautiful women. His mouth verweichte on the violin. The smith lifted the bottle to his mouth and closed his colorful eyesight [buntes Augenlicht], not yet run out [das noch nicht ausgeronnen war]. He smiled and swallowed. Ionel's tassel stood in the ringing of sweet-sung love in his empty eye-socket and was a woolen eye. The smith lifted his hand and called: "Meister, sing us La Paloma." The singer strummed until he found the song in his fingers and on his lips. My uncle swayed his bald head and clapped. And my aunt gripped at his sleeves with bent fingers and hissed [zischelte]: "You fool.''
The cantoress hummed into herself. The agronomist danced with his knee. Ionel danced with his finger. The smith sang along loud and passionate. A round tear stood on Leni's cheek. The seamstress ripped herself from the black mourning-stone and Leni's tears, was pea-green and in the joy of her white collar she called: ''Bravo.''
The prince went over the stage. Behind him walked three [18] servants, and behind the servants a horse. The servants were smaller than the prince and older, and the horse had red bands in its mane.
Ionel looked at the legs of the horse. His tassel stroked the smith's mouth. Leni chewed on the silken tip of her head-cloth.
"Your honor,'' said the oldest servant, ''the hunter has confirmed that Genoveva lives.'' The smallest servant ran and pointed at the thicket. The seamstress whispered something in Leni's ear.
"Is it a dream, or is it reality,'' called the prince. Genoveva ascended from out of the thicket. Her hair lapsed [war geglitten] on black ends into the night. Her dress was light and was not wrinkled/shrivelled [welk].
She ran to the prince. Her child ran behind her. It held a great butterfly in its hand. The butterfly vibrated [zitterte] from the running and was colorful. As the child stayed behind Genoveva, the prince called: "My Genoveva" and Genoveva called: ''My Siegfried.'' They embraced and the butterfly vibrated not. The butterfly was dead and was made of paper.
The postman bit at the roots of his face. He had lips and teeth had he. And his teeth had an edge. The cantoress laughed. Her teeth were white, were horseradish and were foam. On her shoulder hund a blue bouquet bobbing on her arm.
The horse with the red bands devoured [fraß] grass upon the stage. Siegfried lifted the child to the sky. Its naked feet dangled before his mouth. Siegfried's mouth stood open. ''My son,'' he said, and his mouth was so large, as if he would inhale the naked toes of his child. And Siegfried said to his servants: ''Now we celebrate, now we laugh, my people, and dance.'' He [19] lifted Genoveva and the child onto the saddle. The horse stamped in the grass with its hoof. I knew that it had devoured [gefressen hatte] from the grass up on the highway, the grass that always vibrated and always rode a while with the trains. ''Soon the horse must wander from this grass,'' I thought.
Genoveva waved with her hand and the child waved with the dead butterfly. Ionel waved with the thick ring, the postman waved with the brim-cap, the smith waved with the empty bottle. Leni was black-secluded [war schwarzeingeschlossen] and waved not. The seamstress called: ''Bravo.'' The agronomist waved with the herringbone-sleeve and my uncle called: ''German gypsies are Germans.''
My chain was black like the grass. I saw it not. With its ends it had lapsed [war geglitten] into the night. I stepped after it with my foot and heard it. I swung my handkerchief.
The singer came on stage and waved with his violin. He sang with broken voice and the gut of his violin was deep as night and hummed beneath me: ''Fate is sometimes so tough/ and when you believe, it goes no more, / arrives from somewhere a beam of light.''
The cantoress cried into a crumpled handkerchief. A girl approached near the singer. She carried a burning lantern. She had a large shrivelled [welk] rose in her hair. And naked shoulders that were through-lit [durchleuchtet], and were made of glass. With his eyes the agronomist lapsed [glitt] over the glass of these shoulders and his herringbone pressed him close to me, nearer the stage.
The singer sang a song of little food and little money. The girl's arms were transparent before smooth skin and they clanked [rasselten] from the many wild bracelets that slid up to her elbows and fell back down over her hands. The bracelets snapped [zerbrachen] [20] iridescent and were whole again in the flame of the lantern, and lit through by hot light.
The girl held a black hat in her hand and went from face to face, from hand to hand.
My uncle in the last row now had a flaming face and let a handful of coins fall into the hat. A crumpled bill fell from the cantoress's hand. The lantern glowed through her throat and swept it, after the money had sunk into the hat, away out of the night.
The girl had on a white bodice. It was oval and scant like an eye-white, so that in the shimmer of the lantern one saw the round brown eyes of her breasts swim. The postman held his hand over his hat. His mustache vibrated and his eyes lie like sepal leaves around the little shrivelled rose that the girl wore in her navel.
The agronomist's hand jingled, as if the herringbone were barren. The girl's thighs lapsed up until her arms, she shook her hips and partitioned the folds of her skirt. And the herringbone of the agronomist stood in the twitching gray and his eyes pressed themselves with the eyes of Ionel upon the small silken triangle between the things of the girl.
Leni's eyes were large and in the corners hard and white like gravestones. Ionel winked with the ring above the black hat. His lips were moist and Adam's apple climbed up into his gums.
The silken triangle drowned my eyes. I let my money fall past the wild bracelets into the hat. My hand was terrified as I saw the long black around the white triangle near my fingers.
Leni hatte die Schneiderin eingehängt. She went with her up towards the embankment. Ionel whistled his dead-waltzed [21] song and watched the girl with the silken triangle from behind. The cantoress was already above on the embankment and her dress illumined a little and vanished. The agronomist stuck his hands into his coat pockets. The girl carried the hat behind the stage-cloth. Ionel went whistling to his tractor.
The embankment was black and high and the grass was black and deep. My chain lie next to my shoe. I bowed. So much earth was before my face, and I turned myself in circles. The grass was damp and my hands were cold. And my chain was drowned, slithered away to the invisible hidden coils, was wandering, thirty years away from me, is the wandering of the gypsies.
And my chains, and the smith, and my mother, and my money.
The stage-cloth bulged in the wind. The fire of the gypsies was very red and it was hot like my face, like my eyes, like my before itself and away speaking mouth. And the smoke of the fire was thick. It covered the eyes of the gypsies, the temples of the gypsies, and the hands. The smoke devoured their hair, tousled it and distended it like gray dough. I set myself in the smoke. It devoured me not, flew into the air in fine plumes and starry layers, in white suits and black shoes. And let me stand. And sent me home.
The singer fed the horses. The horses with red bands in its mane gazed into the moon.
I went as if run-out [ausgeronnen] towards the embankment. The moon was empty. Before the embankment sat a woman. Her blouse was blacker than the night and her skirts were spread out. Beneath her skirts it noised [rauschte]. She plucked the grass with a white hand and sighed loud like sighing for death. On the embankment stood a black man looking up into the sky. [22] ''Now we'd have long been home already,'' he said. And his voice was the voice of my uncle.
It stunk like rotting flesh. My aunt lifted her skirts. A bright spot stood beneath the black blouse. The spot was wide, more even than two moons. My aunt wiped off her backside with a clump of grass. My uncle paced on the embankment. He stood still a moment and: ''Child of man,'' he called, ''stinks like the plague.''
The sky reeked like feces. The embankment stood black behind me and ripped down the sky, and shoved it before itself upon the rails towards me like a black train.
The puddle was small and held out the mirror. It could not reflect so much feces and so much night. So it remained standing blind and starry in the sack of the moon.
Before the mill stood a stork. Its wing was decayed before darkness, its leg infected from the puddle.
But its throat was entirely white. ''When it flies, it dies in the air, and all that it does is a lament,'' I thought. And going I saw my chain over all out of the dark air and screamed: ''Stick your beak in feces. Go into your slurry and seek a father for the little Franz.''
On the streets stood thick trees. They bloomed in the well. And when the summer came, they had red leaves and no fruit. And no names, the red trees. They noised softly and my chain was not inside.
And behind the gates howled the heart of a hound. And above in the red trees froze the heart of a young faun.
And at the smith's the window was dark, because the smith already slept, and because the embers already slept.l And many windows were bright and didn't sleep.
The well-wheel [Das Brunnenrad] stood silent. The well slept and its chain slept. A cloud wandered in the great feces. In the sleep of heaven it pulled, up and down, and had white wild horseradish in its shoe, and fluttered at the throat. And fluttered at the throat with Leni's red hen.
And over the red hen screamed a face: ''Where is your chain, and where is your money.'' The window of our house was filled with embers.
The village was empty. Gregor, the village was empty. I listened at the window. The radio silenced. And mother screamed. And father silenced.
Grandfather slept. Gregor slept a dream and saw in his dream, like a frog springing into my cheek.
The great black axle turns.