The Boat in the Evening Read Online Free PDF Page A

can catch only glimpses of it, but he does see it: the dance in the water-mirror, head down and feet up, making it even more real and true.
    *
    The weak banks give way under the weight of the enormous birds. They move right out among the broken stalks of last year’s withered grasses that dip their heads in the water. The turves shiver delicately. The water shivers in rhythm, and the ripples shatter the mirror image. But not for long. The surface is smoothed out, the image returns; it all shivers anew, it all moves in rhythm and all is solemn frenzy.
    On floating turves the dance now glides suddenly away from me. They throw themselves backwards so that they seem to crash on the bottom of the marsh at the bottom of the water. None of them are afraid, but all show signs of what looks like extreme anxiety. Not because of the human being; they cannot see him. From the dance it appears that they have frost at the core and fever in the blood. All of them have doubly displayed their ritual and their hearts’ core; as for the one who sees the end—head up or down, it will be all the same to him.
    But the end has not yet come, I exclaim soundlessly, down in the moss. They have plenty of strength left.
    An excess of strength. Sweep of wings and flight across country after country. Yet there is stamina left for this power-squandering spectacle, even upside down.
    Dance! I beg, agitated and silent, from where I lie, my extremities numb. Dance! I must see how it ends.
    An end I scarcely dare contemplate.
    Within my numb exterior there is a turmoil almost in step with the dance of the cranes. The dance has taken possession of me. I am unable to see the puddles like eyes in the marsh, but I know how indifferently they blink. My own eyes burn. This is torture as well as excitement. Torture to hold out without stirring. So one throws oneself as best one can into a muffled echo of the cranes’ frenzy. If only one could share their movement and shrieking, shriek with the shrieking birds, about what one wishes to know!
    I dare not. They would be gone before I was halfway to my knees.
    Dance, I beg them—because I seem to have been able to echo their fever, so that it feels as if I am shouting my message aloud when the birds shriek theirs. There is no sound really. If I were to try to imitate the shriek of the cranes the huge birds would stand as if turned to stone and then disappear into the clouds.
    The sky would darken with mighty wings in broad day light. Perhaps they would never come back.
    Or perhaps they would attack me, the whole flock, and torture me. There are so many of them, they have the strength to do it. Oh no, not that!
    But perhaps I would remain here as perplexed as ever after being able to call out, after giving vent to a burden borne for a long time.
    They had better dance instead.
    Dance, I beg them. They are not the only ones who are liberating themselves from their burdens; it is of equal concern to me.
    *
    But is it that? Liberation for someone?
    Liberation is a big word. It doesn’t suit me; what am I to be liberated from? On the contrary, I must be able to receive. To fill a void.
    One deludes oneself daily.
    I felt achingly hollow and destitute when I came this way over the marsh in the morning chill. What is it that glimmers now? Is it something for that void?
    There is still movement.
    As long as the dance lasts.
    The difficult knot will not loosen; it has not been torn apart by the pressure. That is not why the cranes are dancing in any case. They are not dancing it away, they are showing it to one another. One cannot see through the tangles anywhere. Not yet.
    Part of oneself lying numb in the moisture, feeling stabs of heat elsewhere, burning with impatience.
    Must I find out more?
    About what?
    Oh, there are so many things.
    The cranes intensify this feeling. One can always find out more. As long as the mirrored head or the upright head is above the surface. As long as one manages to travel