...of desolation

In the immediate neighbourhood of Aurach, after we had climbed the Hongar and then, beginning the descent, had walked along the ridge towards the Hollengebirge for five hours, we visited Haumer, the logger, of whom we had heard nothing for a long time. Haumer did not open his door to us even after we had knocked repeatedly, although we were sure our assumption that he was at home was correct. When we had already left his house, we suddenly had the impression he had now heard us and wanted to open up for us, and we went back to his house. Haumer - whom we had known from our earliest childhood and who had been closer to us than anyone - did, in fact, open the door and invited us to sit down in the so-called downstairs parlour. It was only after we had been sitting on the benches in the downstairs parlour for a while that we realised that Haumer had still not said a word to us. We stayed more than an hour with him and then we took our leave without his having uttered a single word. It was not until the next day, while talking to my cousin about the meeting, that I learned that Haumer had lost his hearing and his speech more than four years ago before as the result of a gun salute that he himself had fired in his daughter's wedding-day when she married a butcher's apprentice from Nussdorf. At the same time it became clear to me that it was over four years since I had visited Haumer, the very person, I thought, to whom I owe so much.

[Haumer The Logger, from The Voice Imitator, Bernhard, T.]