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to say anything. The stories were always more or less the same: complicated tales written in tortuous interminable sentences which evoked conspiracies, treasures buried in deep holes, and young women held as prisoners. I loved Diodemus. I was also very fond of his voice. Its music made me feel drowsy and warm. I would look out at the landscape and listen to the melody. Those were wonderful moments.
    I never knew Diodemus’s age. Sometimes I thought he looked quite old. On other occasions, I persuaded myself that he was only a few years my senior. He had a noble face. His profile looked like the head on an ancient Greek or Roman coin, and his curly jet-black hair, which lightly brushed the tops of his shoulders, made me think of certain heroes of the distant past who lie asleep in fairy tales and tragedies and epics, and whom a magic charm sometimes suffices to awaken or destroy. Or, perhaps better than a hero, one of those shepherds of Antiquity, who (as is well known) are more often than not gods in disguise, come among men to seduce them, to guide them, or to bring them to ruin.
    “Böden und Herz geliecht,” Diodemus concluded, chewing on a blade of grass as the evening gradually fell on our shoulders. “Funny motto. I wonder where the old fellow came across that. In his head, or in a book? You find some really bizarre things in books sometimes.”

V
    ————
    rschwir was sitting at one end of his kitchen table, a table four meters long, carved in a single piece from the bole of an oak tree several hundred years old—one of those trees that stand like lords in the heart of the Tannäringen forest. A young serving girl stood beside him. I didn’t know her. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, with a pretty, round face, like the face of the Virgin in certain very old paintings. Despite her rosy cheeks, she was pale, and so in a way resembled a peony. She moved so little that she might have been taken for a dressmaker’s mannequin or an unusually large doll. Later, I learned that she was blind. This seemed strange, for her eyes, although somewhat fixed, appeared to see everything around her, and she moved about easily, never bumping into furniture or walls or other people. She was a distant cousin whom Orschwir had taken in; she’d come originally from the Nehsaxen region, but her parents were dead, their house destroyed, and their lands confiscated. The villagers called her Die Keinauge , “the No-Eyed Girl.”
    Orschwir dismissed her with a whistle, and she went away soundlessly. Then, gesturing, he bade me approach and sit down. In the morning, he looked less ugly than usual, as if sleep had tightened his skin and softened his imperfections. He was still in his undershorts. Around his waist, a leather belt awaited the trousers it was destined to hold up. He’d thrown a goatskin jacket over his shoulders, and his cap of otter fur was already on his head. On the table before him was a gently steaming plate of eggs and bacon. Orschwir ate slowly, occasionally pausing to cut himself a slice of brown bread.
    He poured me a glass of wine, looked at me without the least sign of surprise, and simply said, “So how are things?” Then, without waiting for a reply, he directed his attention to the last rasher of bacon, a thick chunk whose fat, rendered almost translucent by the cooking, dripped onto his plate like melted wax from a candle. He carefully carved the bacon into small, even-sized pieces. I watched him, or rather I watched his knife, which that morning he was using to feed himself, as naturally as you please, and which the previous evening had no doubt been thrust several times into the Anderer’s body.
    It’s always been difficult for me to speak and express my innermost thoughts in person. I prefer to write. When I sit down and write, words grow very docile, they come and feed out of my hand like little birds, and I can do almost what I want with them; whereas when I try to marshal them in the