The Shadow of the Coachman's Body by Peter Weiss

Author:Peter Weiss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811231626
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2022-04-26T00:00:01+00:00

I couldn’t muster the energy to describe again how I climbed down from the stack of wood and helped the son pick up the stones; instead, after having written this last paragraph of my observations, after having gone to my room after picking up the stones, I lay down, lay down on my bed, put a few grains of salt in my eyes and saw, after a short blurred stage, a picture in front of me; or rather, I glided into the picture; I felt as if I were moving along a road, a wide asphalt road; I felt as if I were reclining comfortably in a car, a bus (I couldn’t see the vehicle, it consisted only of a feeling of motion, of gliding), and while I was gliding along evenly and restfully, I saw, as far as the eye could reach, elk or deer lying along the road, huge animals, in pairs, copulating; the heads with the enormous antlers were raised high and from the gaping mouths rose the steam of hot breath. The hooves of each male animal hit the female shoulders and breast in a rough caress; and the rhythmic movements of the heavy bodies were accompanied by a hollow, giggly rattling from all the throats. While I glided along the unending row of animals the picture dissolved and the outlines of the room showed through. Looking at the outlines of the room through the still moving shadows of the animals, I heard, still listening for the sound of the bony clash of antlers, a knock at the door; and the knock washed away the last bits of the picture and made the room, with its walls, its objects, its window and its door come into focus, and after the knock, the door opened without my answering the knock; and the doctor entered the room, supporting himself on a cane, shut the door behind him and leaned against the wall fingering the bandaged and plastered spots on his head and face. His lips were moving, but I could not hear his voice; I sat up and put my hand to my ear, but there wasn’t even a whisper; then I got up and went close to him and put my ear directly to his mouth, and now I could make out the following words from his breath and his tongue-motions: wounds not heal, whichever way I cut, hollow out deeply, down to the bone, knife on the bone, grates, scrapes, breaks off, sits deeper yet, bandage, all night, all night awake, still blood, pus, farther, down at the arm, then farther up, lifted, armpit, humerus, boil water, sprain, pain, bind, find, to the ribs, in the breast, deep in the breast, heart laid bare, lung, legs, plaster cast around the ankles, saws, clean cut, round the calves, shinbone cut, tendons, plaster cast knee-high, thigh, deep in the abdomen, two pots of pus and blood, further in fury, and now (here he took his black glasses off,

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