No, I never gave them a thought until today, until I heard about you, until I boarded your ship.
Don't apologize. I'm from the interior, too. Never been a seafarer, never wanted to be one, mountains and forests were my friends, and now — most ancient of seafarers, Hunter Gracchus, patron saint of sailors, Hunter Gracchus — the cabin boy shivering with fear in the crow's-nest in the stormy night prays to me with wringing hands. Don't laugh.
Me laugh? Certainly not. With a beating heart I stood before your cabin door, with a beating heart I entered. Your friendly manner has calmed me a little, but I'll never forget whose guest I am.
You're right, of course. However it may be, I am Hunter Gracchus. Won't you drink some wine? I don't know the brand, but it's sweet and heavy, the master does me proud.
Not just now, I'm too restless. Later perhaps, if you can bear with me that long. Besides, I wouldn't dare drink out of your glass. Who is the master?
The owner of the bark. They are excellent men, these masters. Except that I don't understand them. I don't mean their language, although of course I often don't understand their language, either. But this is beside the point. Over the centuries I've learned enough languages to act as interpreter between this generation and their ancestors. What I don't understand is the way the masters' minds work. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
I haven't much hope. How could I explain anything to you, compared with whom I am but a babbling babe?
Don't, don't talk like that. You'd do me a favor if you'd be a little more manly, more self-assured. What am I to do with a mere shadow of a guest? I'll blow him through the porthole into the lake. I need several explanations. You who roam around outside can give me them. But if you sit trembling at my table here and by self-deception forget the little you know, then you may as well clear out at once. What I mean, I say.
There's something in that. In fact, I am superior to you in some ways. So I'll try to control myself. Ask away!
Better, far better that you exaggerate in this direction and that you fancy yourself to be somehow superior. But you must understand me properly. I am a human being like you, I'm as many centuries more impatient as I am older than you. Well, let's talk about the masters. Listen! And drink some wine, to sharpen your wits. Don't be shy. Take a good swig. There's another large shipload there.
Gracchus, that's an excellent wine. Long live the master!
Pity that he died today. He was a good man and he went peacefully. Healthy, grown-up children stood at his deathbed, his wife had fainted at the foot, but his last thought was for me. A good man, a Hamburger.
Heavens above, a Hamburger! And you down here in the south know that he died today?
What? I not know when my master dies? You're really a bit simple-minded.
Are you trying to insult me?
Not at all, I do it without meaning to. But you shouldn't be so surprised. Drink more wine. As for the masters, it's like this: originally, the bark belonged to no one.
Gracchus, one request. First, tell me briefly but coherently how things are with you. To be truthful: I really don't know. You of course take these things for granted and assume, as is your way, that the whole world knows about them. But in this brief human life — and life really is brief, Gracchus, try to grasp that — in this brief life it's as much as one can do to get oneself and one's family through. Interesting as the Hunter Gracchus is — this is conviction, not flattery — there's no time to think of him, to find out about him, let alone worry about him. Perhaps on one's deathbed, like your Hamburger, this I don't know. Perhaps the busy man will then have a chance to stretch out for the first time and let the green Hunter Gracchus pass for once through his idle thoughts. But otherwise, it's as I've said: I knew nothing about you, business brought me down here to the harbor, I saw the bark, the gangplank lay ready, I walked across — but now I'd like to know something coherent about you.
Ah, coherent. That old, old story. All the books are full of it, teachers draw it on the blackboard in every school, the mother dreams of it while suckling her child, lovers murmur it while embracing, merchants tell it to the customers, the customers to the merchants, soldiers sing it on the march, preachers declaim it in church, historians in their studies realize with open mouths what happened long ago and never cease describing it, it is printed in the newspapers and people pass it from hand to hand, the telegraph was invented so that it might encircle the world the faster, it is excavated from ruined cities, and the elevator rushes it up to the top of the skyscraper. Railway passengers announce it from the windows to the countries they are passing through, but even before that the savages have howled it at them, it can be read in the stars and the lakes reflect it, the streams bring it down from the mountains and the snow scatters it again on the summit, and you, man, sit here and ask me for coherence. You must have had an exceptionally dissipated youth.
Possibly, as is typical of any youth. But it would be very useful, I think, if you would go and have a good look around the world. Strange as it may seem to you, and sitting here it surprises even me, it's a fact that you are not the talk of the town, however many subjects may be discussed you are not among them, the world goes its way and you go on your journey, but until today I have never noticed that your paths have crossed.
These are your observations, my dear friend, other people have made others. There are only two possibilities here. Either you conceal what you know about me, and do so with a definite motive. In which case let me tell you frankly: you are on the wrong track. Or you actually think that you can't remember me, because you confuse my story with someone else's. In that case I can only tell you: I am — no, I can't, everyone knows it and of all people I should be the one to tell you! It's so long ago. Ask the historians! Go to them, and then come back. It's so long ago. How can I be expected to keep it in this overcrowded brain?
Wait, Gracchus, I'll make it easier for you, I'll ask you some questions. Where do you come from?
From the Black Forest, as everyone knows.
From the Black Forest, of course. And was it there, around about the fourth century, that you used to hunt?
Man alive, do you know the Black Forest?
No.
You really don't know anything. The helmsman's little child knows more than you, probably far more. Who on earth sent you in here? It's fate. Your obtrusive modesty was indeed only too well justified. You are a nonentity whom I'm filling up with wine. Now you don't even know the Black Forest. And I was born there. I hunted there
