22
ROBERT
MUSIL
was hard to explain- when horses arrived, either fresh horses from
beyond the valley or some that had been brought down for a few
days' rest: they would stand about on the meadow, or lie down,
but would always group themselves somehow, apparently at random,
in a perspective, so that it looked as if it were done according to
some secretly agreed esthetic principle, just like that memory of the
little green, blue and pink houses at the foot of Mount Selvot. But
if
they were up above, standing around all night tethered in some high
corrie in the mountains, three or four at a time tied to a felled tree,
and one had started out in the moonlight at three in the morning and
now came past the place at half-past four, they would all look round
to see who was passing, and in the insubstantial dawn light one felt
oneself to be a thought in some very slow-thinking mind. Since there
was some thieving, and various other risks as well, all the dogs in the
district had been bought up to serve as guards. The patrols brought
them along in whole packs, two or three led on one rope, collarless.
By now there were as many dogs as men in the place, and one might
well wonder which was actually entitled to feel he was master in his
own house on this earth and which was only adopted as a domestic
companion. There were purebred gun-dogs among them, Venetian
setters such as a few people in this district still kept, and snappy
mongrels like spiteful little monkeys. They too would stand about in–
groups that had formed without anyone's knowing why, and which
kept firmly together, but from time to time the members of a group
would attack each other furiously. Some were half starved, some
refused to eat. One little white dog snapped at the cook's hand as
he was putting down a plate of meat and soup for it, and bit one
finger off.
At half-past four in the morning it was already broad daylight,
though the sun was not yet up. When one passed the grazing land
high up on the mountain, the cattle were still half asleep. In big,
dim, white, stony shapes they lay with their legs drawn in under
them, their hindquarters drooping a little to one side. They did not
look at the passerby, nor after him, but imperturbably kept their faces
turned towards the expected light, and their monotonously, slowly
moving jaws seemed to be praying. Walking through the circle of
them was like traversing some twilit, lofty sphere of existence, and
when one looked back at them from above, the line formed by the
