Free Dog Years by Günter Grass Page B

would wander, frantically wind-blown and disheveled, through fields and scrub pines, over dunes and dikes, though house and garden, and might almost have tangled with the moving sails of the Matern windmill if Lorchen's brother, miller Matern, hadn't grabbed her by the apron. On Kriwe's advice and against the will of old man Folchert, who afterward promptly demanded the refund of part of the rental fee, Walter Matern and Eduard Amsel destroyed the scarecrow during the night. Thus it was brought home to an artist for the first time that, when his works embodied a close enough study of nature, they had power not only over the birds of heaven, but over horses and cows as well and were also capable of disorganizing the tranquil rural gait of Lorchen, a human being. To this insight Amsel sacrificed one of his most successful scarecrows. Moreover, he never again took a willow tree for a model though he occasionally, in times of ground fog, found a niche in a hollow willow or deemed the thirsty eels on their way from the brook to the recumbent cows worthy of his attention. He avoided mating human and tree, and with self-imposed discipline limited his choice of models to the Island peasants, who, stolid and unoffending as they might be, were effective enough as scarecrows. He made the country folk, disguised as the King of Prussia's grenadiers, fusiliers, corporals, standard bearers, and officers, hover over vegetable gardens, wheat, and rye. He quietly perfected his rental system and, though he never suffered the consequences, became guilty of bribery by persuading a conductor on the Island railway, with the help of carefully wrapped gifts, to transport Amsel's rental scarecrows -- or Prussian history put to profitable use -- free of charge in the freight car of the narrow-gauge line.
     
     
     
    SEVENTEENTH MORNING SHIFT
     
    The actor is protesting. His waning flu, so he says, has not prevented him from carefully studying Brauxel's work schedule, which has been sent to both coauthors. It doesn't suit him that a monument should be erected to miller Matern in the course of this morning shift. Such a monument, he feels, is his affair. Brauksel, who fears for the cohesion of his literary consortium, has abandoned the sweeping portrait he was planning, but must insist on mirroring that aspect of the miller which had already cast its reflected splendor on Amsel's diary.
    Though the eight-year-old was especially given to combing the battlefields of Prussia for ownerless uniforms, there was nonetheless a model, the above-mentioned miller Matern, who was portrayed directly, without Prussian trappings, but with his flour sack over his shoulder.
    The result was a lopsided scarecrow, because the miller was an extremely lopsided man. Because he carried his sacks of grain and flour over his right shoulder, this shoulder was a hand's breadth broader, so that all who looked upon miller Matern full face had to fight down a strong temptation to seize the miller's head in both hands and straighten it out. Since neither his work smock nor his Sunday clothes were made to order, every one of his jackets, smocks, or overcoats looked twisted, formed wrinkles around the neck, was too short in the right sleeve, and had permanently burst seams. He was always screwing up his right eye. On the same side of his face, even when there was no hundred weight sack bent over his right shoulder, something tugged the corner of his mouth upward. His nose went along with the movement. Finally -- and this is why the present portrait is being drawn -- his right ear, for many years subjected to the lateral pressure of thousands of hundredweight, lay creased and flattened against his head, while contrastingly his left ear protruded mightily in pursuit of its natural bent. Seen in front view, the miller had only one ear; but the ear that was missing or discernible only in relief was the more significant of the two.
    Though not in a class with poor Lorchen, the miller was not