Part 1 (1/2)
The Battle of Sempach.
by Robert Walser.
A Story By Robert Walser (1878-1956)
Berlin.
The Future Press.
1908.
One day, in the middle of high summer, a military expedition was advancing slowly down the dusty country road that led towards a district of Luzern. The bright, actually more than bright, sun dazzled down over swaying armour serving to cover human bodies, over prancing horses, over helmets and parts of faces, over equine heads and tails, over ornaments and plumes and stirrups as big as snowshoes. To the right and to the left of the s.h.i.+ning military expedition spread out meadows with thousands of fruit trees in them up as far as hills that, looming up out of the blue-smelling, half-hazy distance, beckoned and had the same effect as light and carefully painted window dressing. It was before noon and the heat was already oppressive. It was a meadowy heat, a heat contained in gra.s.s, hay and dust, for thick clouds of dust were being thrown up that sometimes descended like a veil over parts and sections of the army. Sluggishly, ploddingly, carelessly the long cavalcade moved forward. Sometimes it looked like a s.h.i.+mmering and elongated snake, sometimes like a lizard of enormous girth, sometimes like a large piece of cloth, richly embroidered with figures and colourful shapes and ceremoniously trailed as with ladies, elderly and domineering ones as far as I'm concerned, accustomed to dragging trains behind them. In all this military might's method and way of doing things, in the stamping of feet and the clinking of weapons, in this rough and ready clatter lurked an ”as far as I'm concerned” that was uniform, something impudent, full of confidence, something upsetting, slowly pus.h.i.+ng to one side. All these knights were conversing, as far as their iron-clad mouths would allow them, in joyful verbal banter with each other.
Peals of laughter rang out and this sound was admirably suited to the bright tones emitted by weapons and chains and golden belts. The morning sun still appeared to caress a good deal of bra.s.s and finer metal. The sounds of tin whistles flew sunward. Now and again one of the many footmen walking as if on stilts would tender to his mounted lord a delicate t.i.tbit, stuck on a silver fork, right up to his swaying saddle. Wine was drunk on the move, poultry consumed and nothing edible spat out, with an easy-going, carefree amiability, for this was no earnest war involving chivalry they were riding to, but more of a punitive expedition, a statutory rape, b.l.o.o.d.y, scornful, histrionic things. Everybody there thought so and everybody saw already the heap of cut-off heads that would redden the meadow.
Among the leaders of the expedition was many a wonderful n.o.ble young man splendidly attired, sitting on horseback like a male angel flown down from a blue uncertain heaven. Many a one had taken off his helmet to make things more comfortable for himself and given it to an attendant to carry. By doing so he displayed to the air a peculiarly finely drawn face that was a mixture of innocence and exuberance. They were telling the latest jokes and discussing the most up-to-date stories of courtly women. The serious ones in their company they tolerated as best they could; it seemed today as if a pensive expression was deemed to be improper and unchivalrous.
The hair of the young knights who had taken their helmets off, shone and smelt of oil and unguents and sweet-smelling water that they had poured on it as if it had been a matter of riding to visit a coquette to sing her charming love songs. Their hands, from which the iron gauntlets had been taken off, did not look like those of warriors, but manicured and pampered, slender and white like the hands of young girls.
Only one person in the wild procession was serious. Already his outward appearance, armour that was deep black broken up with tender gold, indicated how the person it covered thought. He was the n.o.ble Duke Leopold of Austria. This man did not speak a word and seemed completely lost in anxious thoughts. His face looked like that of a person who is being pestered by a fly that is impudently flying round his eye. This fly may well have been a presentiment that something bad was going to happen for a smile that was permanently both contemptuous and sad played over his mouth. He kept his head lowered. The whole world, however cheerful it looked, seemed to him to roll and thunder angrily. Or was it just the thunder of the trampling hooves of horses as the army was now pa.s.sing over a wooden bridge that spanned the river Reuss? Nevertheless something foreshadowing misfortune hovered horribly around the duke's bodily form.
The army stopped near the little town of Sempach. It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon. It may have been three o'clock. It was a matter of indifference to the knights what the time might be. As far as they were concerned it could have been eight o'clock at night--they would have found that quite in order. They were already terribly bored and found even the slightest trace of military discipline laughable. It was a dull moment. It was like a parade ground manoeuvre how they jumped from their saddles to take up a position. No-one wanted to laugh any more. They had already laughed so much. Yawning and exhaustion had set in. Even the horses seemed to understand that all one could do now was yawn. The servants on foot tucked into the remnants of the food and wine, quaffed and scoffed what there was still left to scoff and quaff. How ridiculous this whole expedition appeared to all concerned! This shabby little town that was still holding out: how stupid it all was!
The call of a horn rang out suddenly through the frightful heat and boredom. It left one or two more attentive ears particularly inquisitive as to what it might be. Listen: there it is again. It really did sound out again and it could generally have been believed that it was now ringing out from not so far away. ”All good things come in threes,” lisped a facetious fop. ”Sound one more time, horn!”
And time marched on. People had become somewhat pensive--and now, in addition, frightened, as if the thing had grown wings and was riding on fiery monsters in that direction, consumed by flames and shouting, setting up a long cry: We're coming! It was in truth as if a subterranean world had suddenly received a breath of fresh air, breaking in through the hard earth above. The sound was like the opening up of a dark precipice and it seemed as if the sun were s.h.i.+ning down now out of a darkened sky even more glowingly, even more harshly, but a light coming down out of h.e.l.l and not out of heaven. People laughed again--there are moments when man thinks he ought to smile when really what he feels is the icy grip of terror.
The mood of a military expedition made up of many men is, at the end of the day, not very different from the mood of a single and solitary individual. The whole of the landscape in its stifling white heat now seemed to be still making a hooting noise. It had turned into the sounds of horns and now there entered without any more ado into the range of horns being blown, as if from an opening, the crowd of men from whom the sound had gone out. Now the landscape was featureless. The sky and the earth in summer came together as something solid. The season disappeared. A geographical location, a tilting yard, a bellicose play area had become a battlefield.