Beetle legs ran across his face and he woke up. He stretched and got up, threw the tiny insect on the floor and crushed it, still half asleep. Then he looked down over his body searchingly, pleased with the way he could make his arm muscles twitch and jump as he wanted. He rubbed his hairy legs, the dead beetle sticking all the time to one of his soles.

Morning lay at his window – a broad glimmer that still held some of the chilly stiffness of dawn. The man started to whistle, but then he stopped short, changing his mind, and pushed his lips indifferently to one side. He looked at himself in a broken piece of mirror. His face was oily with sweat; its round features swelled in the looking-glass, well-fed and well-rested. He wrinkled his flat nose, opened his mouth and gawped into it, nodding as if pleased with his looks or at least with his teeth, which were sharp and crooked and had grown quite irregularly in his big mouth. After putting on his shoes, which were thick with dust, he washed himself noisily in a clattering bucket, splashing the water around himself in a circle as though he were sobering up the ground.

On a pinewood table with rickety legs lay a plucked chicken, a bluish wax-yellow heap of skin, meat and fat. In the shadow of this ramshackle piece of furniture the bowels and feathers of his latest loot lay gleaming beside a pool of not yet entirely clotted blood. On his way home from the pub that night he had remembered just in time the long journey that lay ahead of him, and so had trotted back along the dark road in order to cut the throat of a hen in one of the village’s coops. The bird had made no sound and had hardly moved when he killed it.

The villagers hadn’t liked seeing him in their neighborhood, as it was – they had grumbled and sworn behind his back when he, a big sturdy trunk of a body with a thick red head glowing on top, staggered along the roads trampling down all that was growing along them, or annoyed them with his bawling. At times they had even been unjust to this ranting lad who so enjoyed a good laugh, for in the end the rebukes they dared utter and the indignation they voiced would simply bounce off his equanimous temper unnoticed. But many others who had seen him shoe their horses in the blacksmith’s yard would make up with him silently because they were filled with sheer admiration at his skill. When the stallions’ legs would come smashing down and he just caught them between his hands as though this were a mere trifle, people were totally astounded; the village lads and the kids would have gaped for hours or even days at this man who did his job so brilliantly, had he not often been so terribly coarse and lacking all sympathy and understanding of their amazement.

Right now his face was actually melting into a smile, for he was thinking of how he would soon fry and eat the stolen chicken undisturbed, a long way away from the outskirts of the village. Other food had been stuffed into the twill knapsack which he was shouldering now, for it would take him a full week to cross the steppe. And the nearest town, where he planned to be hired by a tradesman, was such a long way off that some tramps and well-equipped travelers had seen nothing but the nodding grass for more than a week before they got there. But he just whistled a saucy little dance tune through his teeth, convinced that this long journey would be no more than child’s play to him, a trifle so to speak, no more effort than a spit and a kick.

He was already standing on the creaking stairs that sloped steeply between the walls of the house when he suddenly remembered his parents. They were sleeping behind these very walls – his pig-headed, uncaring father and his whining mother – but he was in no mood for a tear-jerking goodbye and therefore climbed down the stairs more carefully to avoid making a noise. The summer day was bright and shiny when he stepped onto the road, which stretched out in front of him quite empty but for some swallows that were flying swiftly to and fro. Summer was flowing around him in soft, warm waves. He did not look around, but strode out, sticking his forefingers through the threadbare lining of his jacket; they looked like little blocks of wood. Then he trotted along more quickly towards the last houses of the village.

Suddenly he noticed people running his way in great haste, and he saw flames leaping up high not far from the church, and a column of thick smoke hesitantly screwing its way heavenwards, throwing yellow sparks like seeds over a wide sky. Granaries, stables and barns were all afire; shouts came from different directions all at the same time; children hurried past carrying full buckets, pails and cans. Women, all disheveled, were driving on panting men who were lugging long ladders. He did not make a sound, he just stopped and looked. The big straw hat agreeably shaded his face, which did not show any compassion. As if locked up in his body, which, still almost cool, was like a big wall around him, he quickly stamped on over the crumbling ruts, while the smoke from the fire towered above the low-roofed houses of the village.

Suddenly a woman tore herself from a gate that was standing slightly ajar. She was desperate. Bent forward and crying, her arms unexpectedly shooting out of her shoulders, she stopped the faltering man, waving her hands about him wildly, with unrestrained gestures. Her eyes stared out at him from a face that was worn down by sorrow and grief and incapable of self-control. She sobbed, caught him by his hand, leaned her tearful head against his chest, her flaxen hair blowing into his eyes. Again and again she stammered something in utmost agitation, stamping her felt-slippered feet so violently on the ground that the dust of the road rose in a cloud wide around them. He looked past her and was about to push her aside, but her numb fingers hooked onto the patches of his coat.

“I’ll die like a dog without you,” she wailed. “You can’t just go away, you can’t leave me! I won’t let you go, no, never! You’ve got to think about me, too!” But he gave her no more than a sound of contempt and disgust. He caught her by the wrist and pushed her so hard that she fell on the ground. He shouted, “What do you want of me? I’m leaving. I owe nothing to you!”

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for shouting at me?” she threw back at him. “In three months’ time I shall give birth to your child!”

Then something smothered her, choked her who had nothing more to say. It sank like an axe into her brain. Oh, she tried to say more, but in vain, she had no more words for him. Not knowing what to do, she could not find one syllable to help her. But he only answered, “He’ll manage without me, the bastard, the brat. I don’t need a child from someone like you!”

He started to go, but she hung like dead iron from his heavy foot, let him tread on her fingers again and again, threw herself at his feet and cried loudly, every syllable red-hot with hate, “How dare you treat a woman so brutally? You’ve dislocated my wrists! You’ve squashed my fingers blue! But I’ll smash your skull to pieces with stones and with stakes!”

“And I’ll give you such a beating, you’ll never get up,” he said, his voice quiet with forced control.

He unlocked her fists which were tearing at his trouser legs, and managed to get out of her way for a moment and run a short distance, while from some of the windows and yards people jeered loudly at him. But this did not upset him in the least, his mind was made up and he would not let them make fun of his decision. He remained obstinate, ignoring any impact from outside. Yet while he was running, the agitated face of the woman flared up behind his back and her coarse, exhausted voice managed to threaten: “If you ever come back, I’ll throw vitriol in your face, a whole bottle of it, do you hear? And the other woman you’ve deceived and left, she’ll throw vitriol in your face, too!”

And then the weary woman stopped and, groaning, waded through a crunching heap of gravel which lay beside the road, stretched up her body again, and fell down over the edge of the field. Then a strange feeling, unknown to him to this morning, fell like a cloud over his consciousness: without admitting it to himself, he felt somewhat disarmed, frightened of something that was not totally without danger to him, something he would not be able to fight off with his fists. And so he stopped short, suddenly seeing himself with a ripped-up, lacerated face in whose cracks the goddamned vitriol nested, the burnt-out sockets of his eyes staring emptily out of his head. He wanted to go back a few steps and give the woman some soothing words. But a dismissive wave of her hand unchained him, as it were, from all she had just threatened him with, and like after an overly greasy meal he wiped over his lips with the back of his hand and laughed. He threw his twill knapsack over the other shoulder, mumbled something, and strode on, easy-hearted, his fists clenched, submerged and restful in his own heavy blood.

He paid no heed to the wretched streets and paths which, scantily shadowed by shrubs and branches, seeped slowly away like gray rivulets into dusty vegetable gardens and disappeared behind wooden gates or wicker fences. He made for a brook, whence a hardly-trodden path led into the steppe. The sun, tearing every single object out of its defensive and defiant silence, had nothing in mind with him, it simply burned down on him, providing unwanted heat. Yellowing rushes and grass, spread like worn-out rags of felt around the gaping veins of the dried-out earth, were but indifferent things in the monotonous landscape around him, from which his eyes would often turn away. For his imagination, which on most other occasions was rather fenced in, and his already heated senses had taken him to the far-off town, to the inns and taverns at which the raftsmen would noisily stop, and to the numerous women whose lazy voluptuousness he had enjoyed. He saw rearing horses, disreputable houses and a bewitching love affair that would while away his time most agreeably, costing him no more than a smile and a promise, a cheap ring left behind as a keepsake, and warm nights in a barn. Then, wide-eyed, he dreamt of the muffled noises in the streets of the town, and once in a while he thought with pleasure of the chicken that he would take out of his knapsack and roast on a quickly-cut spit under the nearest tree. 

He was utterly unaware of the soft infinity of the steppe that began on the far side of a chain of hills which was gradually getting closer. This endlessness around him, unstirred by anything and unable to appeal to his sense of taste or smell, held no power over him and was no more than a vague, floating apparition in the haze, bereft of any secrets. Far off, some birds were flying upwards, dark specks of dust on the deep blue vault of the sky. For miles around there was no one to see them, and they were none of his business either. He found a dry, gnarled branch that had long ago lost its leaves, dragged it behind him till he came to a tree, and made a fire. Then he roasted the chicken, watching with pleasure how the fat dripped from the pores of the crisp, brown skin, ate a thick slice of bread, drank, and then continued on his way, for he did not feel at all tired, and did not want to rest until he was deep into the steppe.

The sun had already melted a huge portion of the vault of heaven above him and he must have been walking for hours on end when he met a couple of men, tradesmen maybe or tramps, who came up to him whimpering and begging desperately for a little water.

“We haven’t come across any, anywhere,” they murmured so meekly that he could hardly hear what they were saying. “Really, not one puddle of mud. We haven’t found one drop of water, not even in the coach tracks or under any stone.”

But he already knew what to say, that he hadn’t any water either because he had thought he would come across a brook on his way. The exhausted tramps looked at one another with uncomprehending, suspicious eyes and finally burst into thin laughter. They merely asked how far it was to the nearest village and seemed pleased when he lied to them that it was no more than an hour or so away. They even touched the broken peaks of their caps when he gave them a sudden grim and unfriendly look, not wishing to be asked a second time. They soon disappeared behind the far side of the hills, little pairs of scissors, swinging to and fro.

In front of him the starving steppe spread out wide: under his shoes, which just a few hours ago had sounded like clods of earth hitting the ground, his steps gradually weakened to feeble noises in the monotonous landscape which extended around him over miles and miles. The last trees and shrubs grew sickly out of the broken cup of the ground; he left them behind unheeded. But the brooding heat was everywhere, unrelenting in its torture of his tired limbs. Then it flowed like boiling lye over the land. Sighing, he pulled out an old scarf, wiped the sweat off his neck, took his jacket in his hand. But soon his body grew clumsy and awkward under the sullying rays of the sun, from which he could never escape. The sun pressed him down; there was no protecting or saving himself from it, it bore right through his clothes, through his shirt, through his skin. It set his blood afire and then left it faint behind. It was foolish to scold or to curse it! He couldn’t revolt against it, he was like a clod that had no will of its own in the waves of wind that broke against him, laden with heat. He did not eat, he just drank and drank. From the furry hair on his chest the water poured like from a forest. With great effort he sought four large, dry twigs and laid his jacket like a tent over them, then he crept underneath and fell asleep. In his dream, which was a loose, happy sequence of images flickering through him, many women were dancing around him, their cool skin refreshing him pleasantly.

A dark golden sun slanted down on him when he awoke. He pulled his jacket away from his face with a good long yawn. Strangely enough, a sticky little insect was sucking his arm. He had never seen the like of it before. He blew it off, wondering how such a tiny animal could exist in these poor surroundings. Then he ate the last of his chicken, smacking his lips and throwing the bones far around him. After some time he licked the last droplets of fat from his hand. He could now breathe more freely because the sun was no longer lying on his straw hat like a red-hot frying pan. He cut himself a walking-stick from a branch and then he set out again walking for many hours, till night glided over the gray fabric of the steppe and darkness shrouded him, and it was as if sleep were building its nest like a little bird behind his exhausted eyes.  

When morning came, there were a few clouds in the sky. He got up from the ground, chewed a chunk of dry goat’s milk cheese and immediately set out again. He had never walked this route before. As a child he had once traveled through these parts, lying under the wicker hood that covered their wagon, but he could no longer remember much about that journey. And since it brought to mind his whining mother, who had often told him of the waste land they had traveled through, he removed the thought of her almost by force – it was tiresome to think of the pitifully decent woman while right now life was pulsing like warm blood through him. He increased his pace, leaning forwards, but it was as if the steppe were becoming his enemy, a spiteful adversary that you had to trample down if you wanted to get rid of him. When he rested again, raven swarms were blowing around him. Here and there, dry clods of earth lay in little heaps on the ground; it looked as if the tramps he had met the day before had used them for pillows, so that they could sleep like kings or at least like lords.

There was still some water left in his metal can and the amount was likely to do for the next few days, but how he would have loved to have washed himself in a river or at least in a small brook! No one was around there to feel with him how terribly long an hour was. It was pointless to look around, and after some time he felt put out, strangely embittered even. Granted – it might have been wiser to stay in the village and not to invite evil the way he had done. He could have gone on living with that woman, after all, and the child would not have been a hindrance in any way.

Daylight embraced the area more clearly now, but the barren steppe spread like pestilence in front of him. Desperate to hear something at last, he whistled, then yelled up at the infinitely curved blueness of the sky. It was as if the sun wanted to set fire to his straw hat, and sweat dripped from his limbs. The scorched, ashy earth lay naked under the dogged heat that seemed to know no bounds. The lack of color was tiring to his eyes, which would have been more than happy with the sight of even a little crippled tree.

But the stubborn, impetuous lad would not admit even to himself this first humiliation. He was still thinking of the pleasures that awaited him in the town, and a lusty shudder ran down his neck. The dreariness that was locking him in was not invincible, nor was it inescapable, he thought. And he himself, calmly relying on his bodily strength that had proven itself so often, was by no means a worthless thing, thrown away in the steppe and forgotten. He walked along as well as he could, and then fell asleep by the side of the road, lying there on the ground like an earth-colored sack.

When he awoke, he felt hunger sucking inside his body, a sensation that was completely new to him. His teeth tore greedily at a crust of bread, which he gulped down, looking around furtively, for his loneliness weighed heavily on his senses, closing in around him like a wall.

A long way away he made out a vertical line, a shadow, which soon turned into a man who was drawing nearer and nearer. Attention! This was something new, at last. He sat down again, awaiting the stranger, and took a drink from his metal can. The sun was now shining right into the face of the dark-skinned newcomer. Neither said a word. The stranger was staggering like a drunken man, one of his hands buried deep in his pocket. Although he was bare-footed and ragged, he did not seem to be frightened. He came nearer, till he was within two or three steps’ distance from the lad.

“Have you got some water? Anything to drink?” he shouted, giving the man squatting in front of him an imploring and at the same time threatening look.

The latter stood up and said indifferently, no, he hadn’t any. What more should he say? He acted as though he were there all alone, rubbing his flat nose for a while, seemingly at ease. What exactly did he want of him, he then inquired, and it sounded like a reproach, although he hadn’t actually meant to provoke the stranger. Why was he looking at him like that? He’d be better off going, did he understand? But the man came up close to him, throwing words in his face that were sharp like pebbles. Cried that the other was lying, for he had just seen him drink out of a can.

He answered flatly that it had been the last of his water, there wasn’t anything left. And he didn’t have to account to him whether there was any more in his bag or not, did he? It was high time he were off! Was that clear?

But before he could think twice, the stranger quite unexpectedly took a step back, groaning and laughing like a madman, and pulled a revolver out of his pocket, and suddenly a sense of utmost danger came over him. He flung himself on the crazy man, threw him down on the ground and tried to snatch the weapon from him. The man doggedly defended himself and, with every blow and kick and grab and bite, the struggle grew fiercer. He landed a crashing blow on the stranger’s jaw, but the man couldn’t be tamed by it, he ran against him again at once, panting, his head ducked deep between his shoulders. Like dogs they fought each other, fell crashing down, their hands clinging to the weapon, their shrill screams piercing the other’s ears. Their bodies bashed into each other, braced up against the other man’s resistance. They felt the weapon’s edges hard and hot in their hands. A shot roared between them. The stranger sank down on his back, and his face, suddenly quite pale, lost its hold and coherence, and a wretched, forlorn expression settled down upon it. 

Revolver in hand he stood there, with bared teeth, unexpectedly relieved and suddenly laughing without realizing it. Time was buzzing around him in tiny fragments that he could only untangle very slowly. He was already looking around for his knapsack, beating the dust off his torn trousers. But then his eyes caught the groaning man who was writhing with pain at his feet. Mildly curious, he stepped forward. Seeing that there were only a few scratches on the back of his own hand, which just tingled a little, something like joy surged up in him. He stared at the suffering man, hesitated, stepped back ready to go. But then he stopped, his eyes wide open. It was as if it weren’t his own legs that were carrying him, but those of some other man. Time passed in silence and full of sorrow and helplessness. The loud beats of his heart were all he could clearly perceive. The stranger was breathing heavily, mumbling something he couldn’t understand. Blood poured out from beneath his shirt, clotting darkly on the sparse tufts of grass. He hesitated again, then bent down to the wounded man. Deep in his heart he felt growing distress. What was the meaning of this? The creature that lay there in front of him stretched a little and immediately flinched, a mere bundle of limbs whose pain was surely deep and akin to death. He had never seen such loneliness, never been aware of the inescapable nature of death. Full of anxiety, he looked around. He would have liked to call out to someone, but the monotony of the steppe lay like sand on his tongue.

And so he bent down over the whimpering man and begged him to let him open his clothes. Feverishly he removed the stranger’s belt, tore open his jacket and shirt, and then saw the circle of gunpowder around the wound in his side, from which blood seeped red incessantly. He pressed his clumsy fingers against the open wound, wanting to stop the blood as well as he could, but the suffering man screamed like a madman with pain. The lad then pulled the metal can out of his sack and tore a piece of cloth from his shirt. This he wetted a little, then used it to wash out the wound. Next he held his metal can close to the groaning lips. The wounded man took a few sips, oh, how he savored it! The other smiled happily, but he was also a little confused, for what had happened a short while ago was now so remote, and this man in front of him a poor victim. He shuddered. Like a man sinking deeper and deeper into a swamp he hastily shouted something, and all of a sudden he knew, almost achingly, that this man must not die – not at any price!

Couldn’t he hear him, he stammered. He would get better, yes, very soon. There was absolutely no doubt about it.

Awkwardly, painstakingly, he continued to wash the wound, then, pushing his knapsack under the suffering man’s head, sat down beside him. He looked out over the steppe, which seemed to him to have changed. Far away a few birds were sailing in the sky. He longed for some miracle, some unexpected rescue operation. What else could save this poor wretch lying there? He made a mental effort to find a solution, for he had never learned how to cut a bullet out of a wounded man’s flesh, and once again he uncovered the wound, which was not bleeding so heavily now. Only then did he notice that the sun had almost completely set and that evening was flowing in fast, pouring out darkness over the boundless expanse. He grasped at a sensation that was already fading in him, a feeling that seemed to be fleeing, and so he asked the man if his wound was still hurting so badly.

In a futile effort the other man mumbled something between his dry lips.

He hadn’t meant to kill him, he cried in despair. He would help him, yes, by all saints, he would help him as well as he could.

But silence stuck in his neck like a knife and he shivered, having covered the stranger with his own coat. Night was falling now, an infinitely loaded roof that pressed down heavily on top of him.

He sat there, his hand in the hand of the wounded man; sleep would not come to him. At one point he softly lit a match, shining it at the pain-stricken face. The sky was partly overcast and as he sat there motionless, he gazed in wonder at the flickering stars which, it seemed, he had never seen so clearly before.

When dawn came at last, the stranger was asleep, having calmed down a little after all. He wetted the man’s lips with his fingers. They trembled when they touched the rough, bitten skin. Time seemed unspeakably long before the blazing sun rose above the horizon. The soft dew of dawn had fallen on the grass, and he bent down and breathed in its sparse sweetness as he rested his face on it. But its coolness gradually faded as he rubbed the wet shimmer off his hands. Crouching forward, he fell asleep.

The stranger’s eyes were open and staring at him when he awoke. Filled with consternation, the lad jumped up and took his hand, which was shaking with fever, and the shining eyes reflected his unredeemed expectation.

Filled with apprehension, he asked the man if he was feeling just a little better and if the pain in his wound was still so unbearably strong.

Yes, the answer came in an effort, he had slept.

Slept, indeed? He had really slept, then? But that was incredible, wonderful, yes, quite wonderful . Maybe he would like to drink a little water? And he immediately passed him the can.

“Some water, yes?” he asked again, a little bit on his guard. The wounded man drank greedily, writhing with pain and whispering miserably that he would perish there.

This stirred the lad to the depths of his soul, he yelled at him, No, he wouldn’t die, not in a long while, he was just being cowardly, and weak! When he had calmed down again, he humbly offered to carry him all the way home, or at least as far as the town.

“My sister lives in the next town,” the stranger replied.

“Ah, your sister lives in the next town, does she? Very well; in the next town, you say,” he repeated and nodded, lost in thought, for it seemed to him they would never, ever get there. But then he reflected: it couldn’t be so unthinkably far away, after all. Straightening up, he felt his body strong and reliable beneath his shirt. He swallowed some crumbs of bread that he had found in his sack, then asked if there were a spring not too far away, and if there weren’t any farmsteads near by.

The answer was unambiguous: even if he strode out steadily, it would take him two days before he got to a well, and farmsteads – no, there weren’t any for miles and miles around.

The huge jaws of the steppe opened up around the two men, the earth already scooped out wide by the light of day. A sudden gust of wind passed over them, and rare flights of birds cut weird symbols into the air. The man’s suffering frightened him now, as did his groans and his silence and the way he seemed to be swallowing down his pain with his spittle.

So he asked him if he wasn’t hungry and if he would let him give him just a little bit of soaked bread.

The other man shook his head, whimpering and murmuring something unintelligible. He suddenly felt as if the moment desperately needed some cheering up, and so all that terrible fear that had gathered in him reached out for consolation: he was so much stronger than he had ever realized; they couldn’t just stay there, anyway, and he was going to take the wounded man on his back at once. A sensation that had long ago faded away smoldered up in him again, made him stop short. But then he asked the stranger if his sister had a room where they could look after him, and how old his sister was, yes, how old? He waited for the answer impatiently and when it failed to come, he became restless. “Can’t you hear me, you coward?” he cried. “Can’t you hear me, my friend?”

The wounded man whined that he wasn’t deaf, he had heard him all right. His sister had a house where they would be in good keeping. She would certainly take them in, seeing how much he was suffering. His sister was young, much younger than himself, and she had a two-year-old child.

For a moment a lecherous smile lingered on his lips as he thought of a woman’s voluptuous arms and breasts, imagined her inviting smile that needed no words to make a man understand. But then he was filled with disgust at himself, flung his foul, haunting thoughts like decaying dirt from his consciousness, and stuttered that they must be off - forward march, one, two! There was no time to waste, but first he would dress the wound again. – It was nothing, really.

He pretended to be full of confidence and even gave himself airs. The stranger babbled his thanks which he couldn’t just wave aside; he felt embarrassed as though he had been caught at something, tried to stammer a few words and avoided the man’s eyes, looking away at the road leading through the steppe.

Then, with great difficulty, he loaded the sore body onto his back, until it finally hung there, heavily. At first, the heavy load did not hinder him much. But soon he felt irresistible exhaustion in every limb, and he had not walked far at all when it overcame him. With such humiliating weakness he had not reckoned. Sweat ran down his forehead, collecting in his brows and dripping between his eyelids so that he could hardly see and had to take care not to lose his way. The wounded man’s body lay like a hot millstone on his back. And thus hindered and weighed down earthwards he swayed on, encouraging himself, and starting when he stumbled over a clod of earth. He wanted to talk himself out of this terrible fatigue, wanted to forget it, and so he looked out for a tree or another human being. But in the end he had to admit to himself that he had overrated his bodily strength, which was leaving him much faster than he had expected it to. So he laid the softly groaning man down by the side of the road to take a few deep breaths without the heavy load on his back.

Having wiped the sweat out of his eyes, but still hampered in his movements, he found some words of consolation for the suffering man, for today he had seen how very small and lost he himself was in the infinity of the steppe. When he wetted again the piece of cloth he had torn from his shirt, he did not know that it was sheer humility he felt when he discovered a brass necklace round the stranger’s neck. It was not worth one single glass of brandy, to be sure, but it must have some secret meaning. For a little while he held it in his clumsy fingers, turning it this way and that, but, cheered up for the first time by the deep, wide blue of the sky, he foolishly felt that its color might rub off on his face, and stroking his chin he looked at his fingers in surprise because not a trace of it was clinging to them.

To quench his terrible thirst he ate some dry crust, the wounded man lying motionless at his feet. Once again he lifted him onto his back and walked along the pale strip of winding road which seemed to flutter in the wind. Silence lay dull in his ears, and he heard nothing but his own gasps now and then. Once, a frail, crippled tree appeared in front of his strained eyes, its branches stretched out like spider’s legs, but it was a long way from the road. The worn-out path stretched out endlessly before his eyes, as though it had been traced round and round the globe, round something eternal. Who, he wondered, had trodden it flat, for there was no-one to be seen in this deserted land. People? Wolves? Or was it the biting winter wind? He would have liked to run for a while, had it not been for that clumsy heap of limbs clinging so desperately to his back.

He tripped and fell down, swearing. A sharp-edged stone had got into his knee, but he didn’t feel very sorry for himself, he wasn’t going to attach even the slightest importance to this accident. He merely sucked the blood from his knee and continued on his way, stumbling and swaying and anxiously holding his companion like a child in his arms. But he couldn’t keep this up for long, and soon he had to sit down again and rest. Again he desperately stole a little bit of the road, and again his breath became exhaustingly hot, and he had to stop to ask the wounded man if he did not want some water. Bitterness lay dry in his throat, and he felt terribly hungry. So his hand snapped almost automatically at a piece of bread and threw it into his mouth. But with all this toil nothing was achieved, and the darkness of evening was drawing inevitably closer and closer. He was worried about the stranger and dressed his wound, although he was actually afraid of it, and then sleep threw him down beside the other man.

During the night he awoke and thought of the brass necklace round his companion’s neck. He wondered if his mother had hung it there. As if freed at last from the dark shaft of a well, words came trembling off his lips. Somewhere in him there was a heart.

Very early the next morning he woke the man, who was whimpering in his sleep, and told him hurriedly that they must be off at once. The surprised man begged for something to eat. Yes, sure, there was still some bread and goat’s milk cheese and a bit of dried meat left. He could have it all, every bit of it.

He took out some wilted lumps, glad to see how the stranger, who now seemed so close to him in many ways, turned round on one side and calmly began to eat. It could not be long, really, before they got to a well, and the town should not be too far off, either.

But the wounded man’s laughter sounded like rusty iron. Then he began to cry and said the well was still a long way away, and from there it was another three days’ walk before they would reach the town. Between the words he greedily swallowed the food, then he added slowly that he wasn’t really better at all.  

 “You’re not better?” The lad stammered the words in consternation.

His pain had pulled up in his side, but this wasn’t much use, he wouldn’t get away, anyway, said the stranger and added after some time, “You ought to eat something, too, or else we’ll both be dead before any traveler comes this way.”

 He shook his head. No, he really wasn’t hungry at all, but he would eat just a bit. He picked a crumb off the dry loaf of bread and looked out on the seemingly dissolving far end of the road. His coarse voice faltered when he asked, “Don’t you think we will come across any people on this road?”

They might, of course, but it was seldom that anyone decided to take this route. People usually preferred the longer way round. While he was saying this, the sufferer opened the dressing on his gaping wound, which was red and inflamed. Now he would not be a coward, either, so he took a look at it, too, while the man watched him with a strange expression in his eyes and then said the bullet had grown in his body, it seemed to him that it had already filled his belly completely.

But the lad turned his eyes to the clouded sky which, like an all too boldly built bridge, extended far beyond into a region that now seemed to him no more than a delusion of silent despair. Throwing the rest of the bread back into his knapsack, which was now almost empty, he wondered whether it was going to rain. Oh, the clouds would disperse, the almost imperceptible answer came.

And then he, whose eyes flared up with anger and stifling rage, became meek again, because he suddenly understood that the man’s terrible suffering was of no account in the face of the atrocity of life. And so he shoved himself patiently under the wounded man’s back and carried his heavy burden with a quiet humility when the sun, having torn up all the clouds, burned down again. More often than on the previous day a rest was needed. Full of hope and expectation he ran to a group of trees, thinking they had arrived at the well. There they rested in the sparse shadow cast by the dry, crippled branches, and the protection they got from them was sheer mercy, undeserved and like a mother’s gentle caress. Before they set off again his fingers tenderly touched the rough bark and the thorns of the acacia trees while the leaves seemed to him like kind hands, soothing hands that he did not deserve.

And then the hours crept past them very slowly again, but it was as if someone had unlocked a secret for him. The sky, a burning blue, and the wide, scorched steppe seemed to be changing under his eyes. He did not know why his shoulders were hurting so, for now the burden he was carrying seemed to become lighter with every step.

The stranger told him that he looked different now and that his face was quite pale, and the man’s mouth stayed open for a little while after he had spoken. What was it that had scared him so?

He took the metal can and drank a few drops of water. They had done a considerable distance again. The wounded man was stringing together meaningless words, and yet they conveyed the full extent of his misery. He knelt down beside him and then, far away, he noticed some dark-colored object, something gray or brown, moving along the road. Very soon he could see what it was – a carriage that was coming nearer and nearer. He trembled as he put his hand to his forehead, filled with distrust. But no, he was not mistaken, the carriage, drawn by three horses, was coming their way all right, and it was now no more than half a mile away.

An insane laughter broke out of him as he shook the wounded man, who had only just fallen asleep. He asked him what he thought they should do. Should they lie down across the road? Lie there like some beams placed across a carriage-way?

A hundred possible ways of rescue flashed through his brain. Should they point the revolver at the coachman? Without hurting him of course, just ask him to take them along to the town? But the travelers might think they were robbers or highwaymen. So they decided to call out to them from a distance and ask them for help. Feverish expectation, a mixture of joy and hope and doubt and fear, shot through his limbs and made him stagger like a drunkard.

The rattling carriage was now quite near, whirling up the dust on the road. They heard voices that sounded quite unreal to them. The wounded man clung close to his back, and his own body now gave all that he demanded of it, making him feel like a tautened sling.

So he called out to the coachman and cried that they had had an accident there and couldn’t continue their journey, and he implored them to have mercy on the wounded man.

But the reins were not drawn in, the carriage was not going to stop or even slow down, and his poor cries were trampled by the horses’ heavy hooves.

“Have mercy on us!” he cried. “Have mercy! We are not doing you any harm! We beg you, have mercy!”

Instead of an answer there was a crack of the whip. He only saw that the coachman turned round to the men who were sitting in the carriage, armed with hunting rifles, and that the trot became faster. The cloud of dust hit his eyes.

“Take pity on us!” he cried again, but the carriage did not stop.

He then hurled himself onto the step of the carriage and caught hold of a handle, his back bent under its burden. A blow fell on his body, a stroke of the whip burned on his hands and two, three, four further strokes cut his face. He fought back, but the coachman punched his breast. He fell down, got up again and caught hold of the carriage once more, while swearwords and threats hailed down upon him. This time the butt of the rifle hit him on his forehead; he stumbled and lost consciousness for a second.

The carriage disappeared. The wounded man lay beside him in the dust, swearing and crying. But he himself was quite numb and stiff. There was a dull whir behind his temples. He knew that the noble hunting rifle had sparkled in the sun before it hit his head. For a long time he said nothing, but then he remembered how heavily they must have crashed down on the ground and how badly it must have hurt his companion. He lifted him gently and laid him down at a place where the grass, a threadbare fur, had grown a little more thickly. He began to dress his wound, stammering something that was meant to soothe the man when he could hardly bear his pains. His companion’s inflamed body had become one ever growing sore.

He gave him the last bit of water, took a little bread in his mouth and then set out again. Evening was falling. He groaned and ran for a while. Between the clouds the sun had piled up a stake; now it glowed and dived into the flat steppe, casting its reflection on them, and he stopped and stared at the miracle, then ran on, ran for hours and hours, till he caught sight in the distance of the black beams of the draw-well, of its swinging beam, even of the pole with the bucket hanging from it. It took them another hour or two before they got there and drank at last. The water was sheer bliss, clean and cool.

Dawn came, and morning swung itself gently over the margins of the world that lay round and waiting, with a shimmer like glass, untouched, while the soft breath of earth was but a tender caress. He filled his metal can, his eyes shining with tears. He swore to his companion that he would soon be well again, then took him on his back. White clouds sailed over the sky, the heat seemed less intolerable now, and the trees, crowding like bells around the well, rang merrily in the wind. After some time, more trees appeared from the distance, they stood before him like stray vagabonds that one could talk to if one felt like it, and although the other man’s pain was burning in him, too, all these trees seemed closer to him, they were like kin.

The road was no longer a curse sticking to his soles; on the contrary, it seemed to him now to be slipping back fast beneath his feet.

But after they had rested again a couple of times, almost nothing was left of their provisions. He was overwhelmed with shame when the wounded man asked if that was all he still had for them to eat and he had to give an evasive answer. Staring at his rough fingers he merely said, as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t hungry – no, he himself was not hungry at all.

So he carried his companion again, and he waited for nightfall much earlier than on the previous days. When night came hesitantly at last, it entangled itself in the trees around him. Like the wide-spread wing of a vulture the foliage hung in the darkness. The wounded man groaned, and the lad shrank back in horror when he saw the wound: it was open, and scarlet red. Then blackness covered the sky which was not pierced by a single star. It grew cold. He lay awake, hearing his companion moan. Very late, after he had stared into the dark night for a long time, his eyes closed at last.

A shot tore him from his sleep. Darkness flowed into his eyes, sluggish like pitch, and panic-stricken he hit out in all directions. Then he got up stumbling, cried something, hearkened into the darkness. There was a sharp smell in the air, but nothing moved and loneliness closed in round him like a tower. He took his matches out of his pocket and lit one, but then he staggered and fell on his knees. The yellow light went out. He lit another match and bent down, shining the light onto the dead man’s face. From his temples streamed blood.

“What have you done, you fool?” he cried, shaking the limp body violently. He put his ear to the man’s breast, from which the last warmth had gone. Darkness fell over him and every sound around him became small and insignificant before being drowned in the wide, open steppe. And again he cried, accusing the dead man, and again there was no response and everything around was cold and deaf. Then, at last, his pain loosened. He broke down near the dead man and sobbed. His companion lay there, dead and stiff, and he felt night nestling against him. There was something wet coming out from between his lids. At that moment he could not have said what it was, but for some time it dripped down his chin incessantly. Then he thought he could see a huge shadow near him, and he covered his forehead with his hands in fear.

Shivering with cold, he knelt beside the corpse until morning slowly began to rise. The dead man’s head, this crumbling clod of horror with a hole in it, seemed to be gaping at him, and all his thoughts were scattered. He had to tense himself completely before he was able to think. No, he wouldn’t leave his companion there. Contemptuously he looked at his hands. They still were not hard enough to serve as a spade, and he had not taken along any other tools. But he wouldn’t let the crows hack this man to pieces. Then he finally realized that he did not even know the dead man’s name, he had never asked after it. But what was the good of names, anyway? He gave him this name and that, called him by many names, all the names that came to mind. He stood up, looked around, and it seemed to him as if the four trees towering over him were waving at him like friends. He smiled. But he was wrong, only the light-colored wings of birds were flickering in the sky, rocked by their playmate, the wind.

From where the dead man lay, the steppe retreated as if in full flight. He marveled at it in his sorrow, then lifted the dead body on his back again, left his knapsack behind, and set out in the same direction, for he eagerly wished to take the dead man to the town to have him buried there. Once again the floating air washed up sheer heat against his limbs, but it seemed to him that the weight of the corpse, whose head was now pressing against his shoulder, was even lighter than the weight of the living man only a day ago. He walked more slowly now, often turning his head round, afraid that his limp companion might fall. Each time he rested, he looked into the dead man’s face and then at the deep dome of the sky, feeling how solemn its glorious silence was. It filled him with wonder, for he saw for the first time that, far away in the distance, his own path, this mysterious river that carried him along, streamed right into the sky, linking the earth to infinity.

He felt how hunger and thirst were assaulting him, but he merely waved them aside and wandered off again, the dead man’s arms carefully laid round his neck.

Then he protested again to the silent man: “Believe me, I would have taken you to the town and all would have been well.”

He nodded his head emphatically. Soon he came to another well and noisily drank the water out of the wooden bucket. It was late afternoon. Dusk was already blowing over him. He fell asleep and only awoke when white shooting stars ripped open the veins of the sky. He lay there, stiff, holding his friend’s hand in his own. He felt guilty and reprobate and thought of the woman who had implored him to stay when he had been leaving the village a few, or perhaps many, many days ago. But now all that seemed almost buried without a trace, deep at the back of his mind, after all that had happened since.

He had been carrying his burden for a long time before the day flickered up cloudy. The sun, a huge, violet ball, broke through the window of dawn, smashing it into a thousand glistening pieces. The boundless steppe lay before him, transfigured.

He halted, for this came like a revelation to him. But then something pushed him forwards, urged him to go on, and so he walked in no particular direction, and lost his way, straying from the road to which he had been fettered for such a long time, and he did not care. The shimmering circles drawn on the sky by a mighty hawk lit up the air even more blindingly, rendering everything festive. He did not eat a bite. Now and again he gently stroked the dead man’s hair.

And so he wandered through the steppe for days, untiring and completely detached from his former life, resting at night, crouched beside his burden. In the place that he finally reached, the grass grew higher and when the wind blew through it, it sang alongside his steps. Flowers lit up gently along the invisible paths, wide-eyed like wondering children. Occasionally he drank from the narrow veins of the springs that flowed along easy and pure, and birds flew around him like white pennants. He wondered at them, shaking his head and smiling. And he gazed about him in rapture, as his hands floated before him light and pale.

Time closed in around him, gentle and clear, and he was raised by the steppe into its mysterious tide.

English version by Erika GRÜN