The Torch in my Ear by Elias Canetti

Author:Elias Canetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The Rivals

There was someone else in the laboratory who rarely spoke. But in his case, it wasn’t due to ignorance of German. He came from the countryside, I believe from a village in Upper Austria, and he looked shy and hungry. The poor clothes he wore, always the same, hung baggily on him; perhaps they had been handed down to him from someone else. Or perhaps he had lost a lot of weight since living in the city, for he most certainly had nothing to eat. His hair didn’t shine; it was a wan, weary red, which fitted his pale, sickly face. His name was Hund [dog], but what an odd dog that never opened its mouth. He never even returned anyone’s “good morning.” If he did take notice of the greeting, then he merely nodded morosely, usually glancing away. He never asked anyone for help, he never borrowed anything from anyone, and he never requested information. He’ll collapse any moment, I thought to myself, whenever I looked in his direction. He was anything but skillful and spent a long time on his analyses. But his movements were so terse and meager that you couldn’t tell what a difficult time he was having. He never eased into anything; he would merely pull himself together, and no sooner had he commenced than it was already done.

Once, he found a sandwich at his place, still wrapped; someone had put it there, unnoticed. I suspected Fräulein Reichmann, who had a soft heart. He opened the package, saw what it contained, wrapped the sandwich up again, and took it from one person to another. He showed it to everyone, saying hatefully: “Is this yours?” And then went to the next person. He left no one out; it was the only time he ever spoke to everybody in the laboratory, but all he said was the same three words. No one claimed the package. Upon reaching the last person and obtaining the last “No,” he lifted the small package aloft and cried in an ominous voice: “Is anyone hungry? This is going into the wastebasket!” No one responded, if only so as not to be considered the perpetrator of the abortive deed. Hund furiously hurled the small package—he suddenly appeared to have excess energy—into the wastebasket. And when a few voices became audible, daring to say, “Too bad,” he hissed: “Why don’t you fish it out!” No one would have thought him capable of being so articulate, much less decisive. Hund thus gained respect, and the charitable gift had not been in vain.

A few days later, he entered the laboratory with a small package, which he put down in the place of that sandwich. For a while, he left it there unopened while he tackled some of his lengthy and futile procedures. I was not the only person to wonder about this package. I soon stopped conjecturing that he had gotten his own sandwich and was flaunting it; the package looked as if it contained something angular.

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