Tobias Mindernickel now left the house still less frequently than before, for he felt no inclination to show himself publicly with Esau. He devoted his whole attention to the dog; yes, he occupied himself from morning till evening with nothing else than feeding him, wiping his eyes, ordering him about, scolding him, and talking with him in a most human manner. It was a fact, however, that Esau did not always conduct himself to his owner’s satisfaction. When Esau lay beside him on the sofa and, sleepy for lack of fresh air and exercise, looked at him with melancholy eyes, then Tobias was full of contentment; he sat there quietly in an attitude of great self-satisfaction and stroked Esau’s back in pity, while he remarked: “You are looking at me with a very pained expression, my poor friend? Yes, yes, the world is a sad place, you too have discovered that, young as you are!”
But when the animal, blind and wild with the instinct of play and the chase, raced about the room, tugged and tussled with an old felt slipper, sprang upon the chairs, and tumbled about in his exceeding joy, Tobias would then follow these doings from a distance with a puzzled, disapproving, and uncertain look and a smile that was sinister and full of vexation, until he would finally call the dog in a harsh tone and shout at him: “Stop that silliness! There is no reason for gambolling.”
It even happened one day that Esau escaped from the room, and raced down the steps to the street, where he began to chase a cat, to mouth the street manure, and, quite beside himself, to play about with the children. Then as Tobias appeared with painfully distorted features and was greeted by the applause and laughter of half the street, the sad thing occurred—the dog bounded away from his master in long leaps. On that day Tobias thrashed him for a long time and with great bitterness.
One day—the dog had now been his property for several weeks—Tobias took a loaf of bread from the drawer of the bureau to feed Esau, and began to cut off small bits with the large, bone-handled knife which he was accustomed to use for this purpose; these bits he let fall upon the floor. The dog, however, carried away by hunger and silliness, leaped blindly into the air, ran the knife, which was clumsily held, into his right shoulder-blade, and then lay bleeding and twisting on the floor.
Tobias, appalled, threw everything aside and bent over the wounded creature. Then suddenly the expression of his features changed, and it is a fact that a gleam of relief and happiness lighted up his face. Carefully he carried the whimpering dog to the sofa, and it is difficult to describe with what devotion he began to tend the sick animal. He would not leave his side the whole day long; at night he let him sleep on his own bed; he washed and bandaged him, patted, comforted, and pitied him with indefatigable joy and solicitude.
“Does it hurt very much?” he would ask. “Yes, yes, my poor fellow, I know you suffer sorely. But never mind, we must bear it.” His face, as he spoke these words, was peaceful, sad, and yet content.
In that degree, however, in which Esau recovered his strength and became convalescent, the behaviour of Tobias became more restless and discontented. He now considered it right not to trouble himself any more about the wound, but merely to show his pity for the dog by words or by petting him. But the wound was pretty well cured; Esau’s constitution was excellent, and he soon began to run about the room once more, and one day, after he had lapped up a plate of milk and white bread, he leaped from the sofa completely cured, and went charging about the two rooms with joyous yappings and all the old abandon, to tug at the bedspread, to chase a potato to and fro, and to turn somersaults out of sheer fun.
Tobias stood at the window, near the flowerpot, and while one of his hands, protruding lean and skinny from his frayed sleeves, fumbled mechanically at the hair which he had stroked far back from his temples, his figure stood outlined strange and black against the grey wall of the neighbouring house. His face was pale and distorted by grief, as he immovably followed Esau’s boundings with a squinting, embarrassed, envious, and sinister look. Suddenly, however, he pulled himself together, went towards him, caught him, and lifted him slowly in his arms.
“My poor fellow!” he began in a pathetic tone—but Esau, full of playfulness and not at all disposed to let himself be treated still further in this manner, snapped sportively at the hand that wished to stroke him, writhed out of the arms that held him, sprang to the floor, made a mischievous side-jump, yapped, and ran away gaily.
What now happened was something so inexplicable and infamous that I simply refuse to relate it in detail. Tobias Mindernickel stood there, leaning forward a little, with his arms hanging down at his sides. His lips were pressed together and his eyeballs trembled eerily in their sockets. And then, suddenly, with a kind of insane leap, he had seized the animal, a long, shining object flashed in his hand, and the dog, with a deep cut from the right shoulder to the chest, fell to the floor. He did not utter a sound, he simply
