THE SECRETARY TO THE RUSSIAN PROTECTOR IN THINGS AND IN MORAVA, PRAGUE, inv. 2373, sig. 109-12/18

Page 113

English Translation

-5- 102 angle Someone came after me. In the Augenbtiek I saw that it was the wild shooter; he was holding himself sideways behind me. Did he want to start again from his vacation? The people in the back became too loud and I ordered calm. One could not know if the opponent had not left individual posts behind. "The Serbs are long gone," said the Wild shooter, but I did not answer. After a while, he looked like he didn't actually say to me, "They're good."He obviously meant the people behind us, who were talking half-mouthed now. "They are good as beef vish, it's not a pity about them." I turned around for a moment after him, but he looked calmly in front of him, as if he had only spoken for himself, the path led along a hill in gentle curvature, dark juniper bushes stood at his edge and in the distance before wns the green-brown hills stretched in eternal repetition to the horizon. In the wide valleys thick white mists had gathered and the vaulted domes seemed to float silently above it. A blackbird leaped over the way; we were involuntarily quieter up and also the people behind us were still. Only when an iron-cracked boot clattered to a stone, the bird flew up. No one spoke a word, we went attentively and grasped, as if we had entered a meaningful place. Suddenly the wild shooter tore the rifle from the shoulder. Where the path led across the cape, that it looked as if it had flowed into the sky, lay a man. As we got closer, the wildshooter took the rifle again: a dead man. He lay on his back across the road with wide arms. They had taken his blouse and shoes and the shirt of raw canvas stood open over his chest. I stepped off the road and as I passed the dead man's bare feet, I cast a glance into his face. It was beautiful. A short black beard framed