298
PARTISAN REVIEW
too. For whether or not I had told my Negro that I was hunted, not
hunting, how could I explain this now? Or, rather, how could I prove
it? And what good was my proof anyway if they were 01,1t for a hunt?
Perhaps they were. I was being jostled by the throng. I call it a
throng; there were probably no more than a dozen people. One figure
stood out, and it still stands out, in my memory. I was knuckled gently,
ironically, in my back, and when I turned around I saw a short, broad,
swift•hopping, powerful man with sly and glinting eyes and wild hair.
A moment I hesitated, but then I recognized him. He was the butcher
at C. near Guernica, whom my wife and I had often talked about
when we saw him bent under the load of a whole beef side so that it
looked as if the bloody carcass were riding him, rather than that he
carried the carcass. And yet, he had walked and lived lightly, night–
mare that he was, with his enormous arms of muscles and more
muscles, tattooed all over with some obvious, some less easily decipher–
able symbol<; which dated back to the time when he had sailed the
seas. His seafaring eyes had remained with him and were a constant
surprise to us as they blinked from out of his goblin's face above his
broad short body drudging under the enormous loads of skinned ani–
mal<>. His eyes were of a disarming blue. At the sight of a woman,
including my wife, they would suddenly become quite large, but for
never more than a moment- knowing and yet in ever renewed in–
nocence.
"He was the one that so gently knuckled me in the back. Un–
doubtedly he recognized me- the way he looked at me couldn't mean
anything else. I thought I was lost in this throng, although I had not
the slightest idea how I came to be damned. Yet I hoped I might be
forgiven. Thinking my explanation would immediately clear the mis–
understanding, but deeper down rather convinced that the meaning
of my words-of words-would not be received by the crowd that
was bent on undoing me, I cried, half-smiling, half-sweating: 'Hunts–
man!' My God it's not 'huntsman,' God in Heaven knows it, it's
<Hunted!'
You misspelled the word! But they only laughed, and the
butcher slapped his thighs, blinking at me, extraordinarily amused.
"I woke up. I swear I wish I knew how it would have gone on
if I hadn't awakened, but you know that I tell the truth when I say
that it was at that moment that I've described, not before nor later,
that the dream was over. All that's left is excitement and some worry–
already less than there was at first when I woke up.
"What do
you
make of this?"
But Gregory didn't wait for me to reply. He took his coat which
he had thrown over a chair when he came, and without further ado
