The Dialogue of the Dogs Read online

  “You can count on that, sir,” answered the shepherd, “because I’ve examined him thoroughly, and there’s no doubt he promises to be a great dog. He just trotted up and I don’t know whose he is, though I know he’s not from any flock around here.”

  “Well if that’s how it is,” said the rancher, “put Leoncillo’s collar on him, that dog it was that died, and give him the same ration as the others. Look after him, so he’ll get to like the flock and stay with it.”

  And with that, he left. The shepherd put a collar around my neck with sharp spikes, but first he gave me a bowl full of crusts all sopping with milk. He also gave me a name: Barcino.

  There I was, fat and happy with my second master and my new responsibilities. I watched the fold carefully and diligently except at siesta time, which I used to spend in the shade of some tree or bank, or a ravine or an orchard, next to one of the creeks that ran all through there. I didn’t pass these hours of tranquility idly, either. I occupied my memory by remembering many things, especially the life my old master and everyone like him led in the slaughterhouse, always jumping at the peevish pleasures of their mistresses. Oh, what couldn’t I tell you now of all I learned from my master’s lady! But interrupt me, because I wouldn’t have you think me a windbag or a gossip.

  Scipio: A great old poet once said that, in this world, it’s hard not to write satire. So I’ll let you snipe—a little. But shed light, not blood. What I mean is, just make your point and don’t kill anyone while you’re at it. If it’s going to draw blood, invective is worth avoiding, even if it makes people laugh. You’re no fool if you can get along without it.

  Berganza: I’ll take your advice, but I hope with all my heart that when the time comes for you to tell me your stories, you—who are such an expert at spotting the errors I commit in telling mine—will surely tell them in a way that informs while delighting.

  But, to follow the twisted thread of my story, I was saying that in the silence and solitude of my siestas I decided it isn’t true, what I’ve heard said of the shepherd’s life—at least, of the shepherds’ lives my old master’s girlfriend would read about in books when I went to her house. These all went on about shepherds and shepherdesses, and said that they spent their lives singing and playing on exotic instruments. I’d stick around to hear her read, and she’d go on and on about how the shepherd of Anfriso sang threnodies to the peerless Belisarda, and in all the mountains of Arcadia, there wasn’t a tree whose trunk he hadn’t reclined against to sing, from the time the sun left the arms of Aurora in the morning until Thetis embraced him at night. Even after dark night had spread her ebony-black wings over the surface of the earth, Anfriso kept up soothingly sung and even more mellifluously yodeled laments.

  My old mistress would also work in the shepherd Elicio, who, even more lovesick than intrepid, nevertheless put aside his love and his flock to rescue his friends from nefarious evil. She also said how the great shepherd of Filida, a peerless painter of portraits, had been more trusting than fortunate. For Sireno’s swoonings and Diana’s regrets, she thanked almighty God and the wise Felicia—who, with her miracle elixir, dissolved the spiderwebs that bound her and brought light to the perilous labyrinth. I recall many other books in this style that she read, but they’re not worth dredging up from memory.

  Scipio: There you’re taking my advice, Berganza: snipe if you have to, even sting a little, but then move on. Keep your nose clean, even if your mouth gets a little dirty.

  Berganza: If something uncharitable slips out, I can’t very well plead innocence. But in case I insult anybody carelessly or maliciously, my alibi will be like Mauleon’s, that buffoonish poetaster from the Imitators Academy, who, when somebody asked him what dies irae meant, he said it meant “days of Ira.”

  Scipio: That’s the answer of an idiot. But you, if you’re smart or you want to be, don’t ever say anything you’ll have to apologize for. Go on.

  Berganza: All I mean is, everything I’ve been saying made me see how different the practices of my shepherds and their sort were from what I’d heard that shepherds in books did. If mine ever sang, they were songs neither memorable nor well-composed, but more like “Look out for the wolf, Joannie!” and so forth. And not to the strains of rebecs and flutes, but to the beating of one shepherd’s crook against another, or to conkers. Not with delicate and mellifluous voices, either, but with cracked caterwauling, whether solo or approximately together, that sounded less like singing than like shouting or gargling. They spent most of the day scratching fleas or patching their sandals. None among them were like Amaryllis, Filida, Galatea or Diana, nor were there any Lisardos, Lausos, Jacintos or Riselos. No, they all went by Anton, Domingo, Pablo or Llorente. All this persuaded me of something that I think everybody should accept: all those books are dreamy things, well enough written for the diversion of layabouts, but without a whit of truth. If they were true, my shepherds would have at least a vestige of that supremely happy life, of those pleasant meadows, vast forests, sacred mountains, beautiful gardens, clear streams, and crystalline fountains, those professions of love even more honest than well-phrased—a lovestruck shepherd here, his shepherdess there, and yonder the echo of the panpipes, elsewhere the flageolet.

  Scipio: Enough, Berganza. Take up your thread and quit tripping over it.

  Berganza: I thank you, friend Scipio. If you didn’t warn me, I’d keep running my mouth until I described an entire book like the ones I used to fall for. But the time will come when I’ll tell you everything more sensibly and eloquently than I’m doing now.

  Scipio: Just keep a hand on the reins and watch the road, Berganza. Remember you’re still a dumb animal, and if you seem to have anything on the ball tonight, we agree it’s a supernatural thing, never seen before.

  Berganza: That might be the case if I were still wet behind the ears. But now that I recall some things I should have mentioned at the beginning of our chat, it’s no wonder I can talk—I’m only mortified at all I’m leaving out.

  Scipio: Well, can’t you just work them in now?

  Berganza: There is a certain story that happened to me involving a famous witch, a handmaiden of Camacha de Montilla.

  Scipio: Then get it over with before you go any further with the story of your life.

  Berganza: I won’t do that until its proper time comes around. Be patient and listen to all my doings in order. You’ll get more out of them that way—if you haven’t already worn yourself out wanting to know the middle before the beginning.

  Scipio: Well hurry up, and tell what you want however you want to.

  Berganza: As I was saying, I was well cut out for the job of guarding the flock, because I felt that I was earning the fruits of my labors, and that I was a stranger to laziness, the root and mother of all vice. If by day I rested, at night I didn’t sleep, what with striking out and giving chase to the wolves. The shepherds had hardly cried, “After him, Barcino!” when I took off, outpacing the other dogs to wherever they said the wolf was. I ranged over valleys, scoured the mountains, plunged through forests, jumped gullies, crossed highways. In the morning I’d return to the fold without finding any trace of a wolf, panting, tired, stumbling, my paws torn by thorns—only to discover, right there in the flock, a dead sheep or a gutted lamb, half-eaten by the wolf. I despaired to see how little good my fanatical care and attention were doing. Then the owner would appear. The shepherds would approach him with the pelt from the carcass. He’d scold them for negligence, then order the dogs punished for laziness. Blows rained down on us, and recriminations on top of them.

  One day, seeing that they were punishing me for no reason, and seeing that my care, sure-footedness, and bravery were proving useless to catch the wolf, I resolved to change my strategy. I wouldn’t chase after the wolf as I’d been doing, far from the flock, but stay near it instead. That way, when the wolf came, I’d stand a better chance of catching him.

  Week in and week out they’d raised the alarm, and one sable-black night I
lay in ambush for those wolves against whom I’d failed to protect the flock. While the other dogs tore out ahead of me, I lay doggo behind a bush and watched two shepherds mark out one of the best lambs in the fold and kill it—and in such a way that in the morning, everyone would think the wolf had done it.

  It flabbergasted me. I gasped when I saw that the shepherds were the wolves, and were raiding the flock they were supposed to guard. They notified the master of the “wolf’s” depredations right away, giving him the pelt and part of the meat, but they wolfed down most of it themselves, and not the worst part, either. The master reprimanded them again, and again the dogs got the worst of it.

  There had never been any wolves, and the flock was shrinking. I wanted to blow the whistle, but I found myself mute, filled with confusion and outrage. God deliver me, I said to myself, who can defeat this evil? Who has power enough to proclaim that the defenders are doing the attacking, that the sentinels sleep, the trusted plunder, and those who watch over us are killers?

  Scipio: You’re onto something, Berganza. There’s no worse footpad than the footman, and misplaced trust kills more people than strangers. The hell of it is that it’s impossible to get by in the world if you can’t trust somebody. But stay with this, since I don’t want to seem like some know-it-all preacher. Go on.

  Berganza: As I was saying, I made up my mind then and there to leave that trade, though it had seemed so good at first, and find another one. If I did well, maybe I wouldn’t be rewarded, but at least I wouldn’t be punished. I returned to Seville and entered the service of a very rich merchant.

  Scipio: How did you usually find a master? Because the way things are, it’s certainly tough nowadays to find a good one. The lords of the earth are very different from the Lord of heaven. To hire a servant down here, they first ask around about you, give you tests, judge your looks, even inspect your clothes. But to serve God, losers go to the front of the line. The lowliest have the best pedigree. Just for applying without lying, they sign you up, and the rewards are so advantageous that they beggar imagination.

  Berganza: All that is sermonizing, friend Scipio.

  Scipio: OK, you caught me. Shutting up now.

  Berganza: As to what you asked me about the rigmarole I employed to find a master, you already know that humility is the most basic and fundamental of all virtues, and without it the others don’t matter. Humility smoothes opposition, overcomes obstacles, and is a route that conveys us to glorious ends. It makes friends of enemies, it tempers the anger of blowhards and thwarts the arrogance of the haughty. It’s the mother of modesty and the sister of temperance. In short, no vice can vanquish it, because its modesty and deference turn aside and blunt the arrows of sin.

  So I pretended humility whenever I wanted to enter the service of a household, having first cased the place to ascertain that it could maintain and accommodate a large dog. Then I parked myself by the door and, when an apparent stranger came up, I barked at him. The lord of the house would come out and I’d lower my head, wag my tail, go up to him, and lick his brogans with my tongue. If he hit me, I took it and, with the same modesty, I’d come back to whimper at his feet. Seeing my resolve and noble bearing, they never pulled that again. In this way, after a couple of tries, I usually found myself staying in the house. I did what it took, they loved me well, and nobody ever sent me away. It was always I who took my leave—or, to say it better, I’d just leave. And I found a master I’d still be serving, if bad luck hadn’t pursued me.

  Scipio: All that’s just how I used to buddy up to the masters I’ve had. It’s like we can read each other’s thoughts.

  Berganza: Since we have experiences like these in common, if I’m not deceived, I’ll tell you more in time, as I’ve promised. But listen to what happened to me after I left the flock in the keeping of those no-accounts.

  I returned to Seville, as I said, which is a sanctuary for the poor and a refuge for the rejected. Despite its grandeur, it welcomes the lowly, and doesn’t fawn over the great. I planted myself at the door of a fine merchant’s house, paid my usual respects, and before long I was staying there. They took me in, but kept me tied behind the door by day and turned me loose at night. I served with great care and devotion. I barked at strangers, and growled at anyone I didn’t know. I didn’t sleep at night, what with visiting the stables, going up on the roof, and making myself an all-purpose sentry for the house and its neighbors. My master was so thankful for my faithful service that he ordered me treated well and given a ration of bread and the bones from his table, together with scraps from the kitchen. I played grateful and jumped shamelessly when I saw him, especially when he came in from outside. I made such a show of hopping around and rejoicing that my master ordered me turned loose day and night. As soon as I got my freedom, of course, I bounded up and ran circles around him—but without ever touching him with my paws. I had remembered the fable of Aesop about the donkey who was such an ass that he wanted to nuzzle his master the same way a puppy does, and earned a pulverizing pounding.

  The moral of the story is that the graces and airs of some aren’t always becoming in others. The fool may caper, the jester strike poses and leap, the rakehell bray or imitate the song of the birds. The lowly man who cares to can ape the gestures and actions of animals, but the highborn man, to whom none of these hijinks can do credit, should refrain.

  Scipio: Enough already! Get on with it, Berganza. I get the idea.

  Berganza: Would that those I could help understood me as you do. I don’t know where I get such a sweet nature, but it weighs on me when I see a gentleman act vulgarly, and pride himself on his cardplaying and crapshooting and his skill on the dance floor. A gentleman I know once bragged that he’d stitched thirty-two paper flowers against a crepe backdrop to decorate a memorial monument. He made such a big deal out of these displays, taking his friends to admire them, that you’d think he was showing off the captured pennants and spoils of the enemy adorning the tombs of his ancestors.

  Anyway, this merchant had two sons, one twelve and the other almost fourteen, who studied grammar with the Jesuits. They went around in high style, attended by a tutor and valets who carried their satchels and books. Seeing them with such an entourage, in sedan chairs if the sun shone and a coach if it rained, made me think about how simply their father went to the Exchange to transact his business. He brought no attendant but a black servant, and sometimes poked along on a small mule that wasn’t even very well tricked out.

  Scipio: You should know, Berganza, that merchants in Seville—and not just in Seville—like to show off their power and wealth, not personally, but through their children, because then they shine even brighter in all that reflected glory. These burghers don’t go around showboating, since they rarely bother with anything but their sales and contracts. But because ambition and riches thrive on showing off, they all lavish treasures on their children. They treat them, and raise them, as if they were princelings. Some even buy their children titles, and put heraldic crests on their chests to set them apart from the riffraff.

  Berganza: It’s ambition all right, but it seems harmless enough, to try to better yourself without hurting anybody else.

  Scipio: Rarely if ever do you find ambition that doesn’t hurt anyone.

  Berganza: We already said we weren’t going to snipe.

  Scipio: Who said anything about sniping?

  Berganza: There, that just proves what I’ve always heard. Some unrepentant gossips will slander ten fine families and libel twenty good people, and if someone scolds him for it, he protests that he said nothing, and that if he said anything, he hasn’t said much—and that if he thought he’d offend anybody, he wouldn’t have said anything at all. Honestly, Scipio, anybody who hopes to talk for two hours together without once lapsing into gossip has his work cut out for him. Even though I’m an animal, I’ve only to put a few words together before they swarm and flutter to my lips like flies to wine, and all of them scurrilous. And so I come back to what I said
before: wrongdoing and calumny are human nature. We drink them in with our mothers’ milk. A child barely out of his swaddling clouts will raise a vengeful hand against anyone who denies him, and almost the first word out of his mouth is to call his nanny or mother a whore.

  Scipio: True enough. I admit I went negative, and I’m sorry for it. It’s not as if you haven’t made a mistake or two yourself. No skin off my nose, as the young ones say, and enough with the sniping. Get on with your story. You were talking about how entitled the merchant’s sons looked when they went to the Jesuit school.

  Berganza: All I do redounds to His glory, and though giving up gossip will be difficult, I have a system that I heard a real pottymouth once used. Repenting of his bad habit, every time he swore after vowing not to he gave his arm a pinch, or kissed the ground as penance for his guilt—yet he kept on swearing just the same. So for me, every time I violate my vow to you not to gossip, I’ll bite the tip of my tongue till it hurts, and remember my crime so as not to slip back.

  Scipio: If you stick to that, the way you’re going you’ll probably bite your tongue clean off, so you couldn’t talk trash if you tried.

  Berganza: At least I’ll do my part diligently, and the rest is up to heaven. As I was saying, one day my master’s sons left a haversack in the courtyard where I chanced to be. Since my master the butcher had taught me to carry a basket, I did likewise with the schoolbag and went after them, and resolved not to let go of it until I reached the school. Everything happened as I’d planned. My young masters saw me coming with the bag in my mouth, holding it gently by the ribbons, and ordered a page to take it from me. But I wouldn’t let him, nor did I turn it loose until I trotted into the classroom with it, which made all the students laugh. The older of my two masters approached me and, with what struck me as impeccable delicacy, I placed it in his hands and sat back down by the classroom door, studying the instructor intently as he gave a lesson to the class.