From my own stores they have taken quite a lot. But I can hardly complain when I see, for example, how the butcher across the street fares. He’s barely brought in his supplies when they’re snatched away and the nomads are all over it. Even their horses feed on meat; a horseman and his horse frequently lie side by side, gnawing at the same piece of meat, one at either end. The butcher is afraid and does not dare stop his meat deliveries. We understand this, however, and we take up a collection to support him. Who knows what the nomads would be capable of if they didn’t get the meat—for that matter, who knows what they’re capable of even when they do get meat every day.
The other day the butcher thought he might at least spare himself the trouble of slaughtering, so he brought out a live ox in the morning. He must never be permitted to do this again. For a full hour, I lay flat on the floor at the very back of my workshop; I had covered myself with all my clothes, blankets, and pillows, just to drown out the horrifying braying of that ox; the nomads were leaping on it from all sides to rip off pieces of its warm flesh with their teeth. All had been quiet for a long time before I ventured out again. Like drunks around a wine cask, they were lying glutted around the remains of the ox.
It was just then that I thought I saw the Emperor himself in one of the palace windows; ordinarily he never enters these outer rooms but keeps strictly to the innermost garden; but at that moment he was standing, at least it seemed so to me, at one of the windows, gazing down, with head bowed, at the activity before his palace gates.
We all ask ourselves, What will happen? How long can we endure this burden and torment? The imperial palace has attracted the nomads, but it does not know how to drive them away again. The gates stay shut; the sentries, who before always marched in and out with pomp, now hide inside behind barred windows. The salvation of our fatherland is left to us craftsmen and tradespeople, but we are not equal to such a task, nor indeed have we ever claimed to be capable of it. This is a misunderstanding, and it is proving the ruin of us.
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A Message from the Emperor
THE EMPEROR, OR SO THEY SAY, HAS sent you—his single most contemptible subject, the minuscule shadow that has fled the farthest distance from the imperial sun—only to you has the Emperor sent a message from his deathbed. He has had the messenger kneel beside his bed and he has whispered the message to him; so important was this message that he has made him repeat it in his ear. He has confirmed the accuracy of the words with a nod of his head. And then, before all the spectators assembled to witness his death—every wall obstructing the view had been knocked down and on the free-standing, vaulted staircases, all the dignitaries of the empire were gathered in a circle—before them all, he has dispatched the messenger. The messenger sets off at once, a strong and tireless man; sometimes thrusting ahead with one arm, sometimes with the other, he beats a path through the crowd; where he meets resistance, he points to the sign of the sun on his breast, and he forges ahead with an ease that could be matched by no other. But the throng is so thick, there’s no end to their dwellings. If only there were an open field before him, how fast he would fly; soon you would surely hear the glorious rapping of his knock on your door. But instead, how vain his efforts are; he is still only forcing his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; he will never reach the end of them, and even if he did he’d be no closer; he would have to fight his way down the steps, and even if he did he’d be no closer; he would still have to cross the courtyards, and after the courtyards the second, outer palace, and still more stairs and courtyards, and still another palace, and so on for thousands of years, and even if he did finally burst through the outermost gate—but that could never, ever happen—the empire’s capital, the center of the world, flooded with the dregs of humanity, would still lie before him. There is no one who could force his way through here, least of all with a message from a dead man.—But you sit at your window and dream it up as evening falls.