The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten Read Free Book Online

good? . . . Things were all right as they were. . . . But then I used to hear people talking about a country where there was no winter, a country of lofty mountains where, even in the hottest summer, the snow never melted . . . and I heard them talking about the sea. . . .”
    He turned and looked at Lucas, his curly beard making his wizened face appear aflame with animation, while his sharp, merry eyes twinkled with laughter.
    â€œI waited until my wife grew old and my son was a settled man. What can one do with an old wife? And what is there to do in the nursery when one’s son is grown up and settled down in life? Well then! The time had come. And so I left. Now it’s for the boy to sit and make clothes; he knows all about it; he learned it all with me. It was no use saying, ‘Father, stay with us!’ or weeping and wailing, ‘Don’t go away!’ That was all nonsense. They could snivel as much as they liked. I turned a deaf ear. When things are done, they’re done! Just try telling a burned-out stove to give out more heat, as you want to cook some more soup and stew some more apples on it . . . just you try. . . . The fire is out and the stove is cold and you can go on talking till you’re black in the face.”
    He gave a loud merry laugh. “But I must be up and off, on and on until I reach the country where there is no winter . . . for I want to convince myself once and for all of its existence. I want to go on and on until I reach the sea. You know . . . you stand on the beach like this . . . and over yonder there’s nothing but sky and sea. . . . The sea . . . I want to look on that with my own eyes now . . . I must see that . . . !”
    And rising hurriedly to his feet, he threw his knapsack over his shoulder. Lucas went with him. The old man went uphill along the road. After a while he began to sing.
    And thus they went on together, Lucas feeling happy in the old man’s company. He tried to remember how long he had been alone, because hitherto he had kept out of the way of men when he was allowed to wander about in his own human form. And he recollected that recently he had always been a dog when in the presence of men.
    The old man talked, sang, or whistled all the time. “Always snow,” he observed, “always cold, so cold that your fingers grow stiff. How long have I been on the road now? . . . It’s just possible that it’s all a hoax. But we shall see. . . . I am curious, and I shall walk and walk as long as there’s a road for me to walk on. They won’t catch me getting tired . . . so they needn’t think it . . . not me!” And he laughed and began to whistle again.
    Lucas trudged along in silence by his side; the old fellow expected no reply nor did he ask for one. But that evening as they were sitting together on the edge of a wood, and saw the houses of a little town nestling deep in the snow before them, Lucas began to talk. The whole mystery which had, as it were, cut his life in two, and cast it out into the world in two halves, the strangeness of it, which took his breath away and frightened him out of his wits—he poured it all out, shy and stammering at first, but gradually with greater vehemence and emphasis, as though he were crying aloud for help.
    The old man listened calmly; the tale did not seem to surprise him in the least. “But what does it matter?” he exclaimed, when Lucas’s voice at last died away in sobs. “What does it matter? Why cry about it? Nonsense! Look on and marvel—that’s the thing! Look on and wait—that’s all! What are you grizzling about? Have you had an accident? Have they cut off your head or amputated one of your legs? Well then! And aren’t you making your way to the place you want to get to? Why lose heart? Just look on, my dear