A strange place: a vil­lage, name­less now, deep in the forest. The old main street can no longer be called even a cart track, the houses lie in ruins, and here and there a build­ing still stands whole. Some gates still bear a pad­lock, per­haps the depths of a lar­der still hide some­thing, but every­where decay holds sway, the smell, the sight and the feel of things passing away. Beside the many toppled and tumble­down ruins the aban­doned church is an edi­fy­ing sight: it still stands firm – true, a layer of dust cov­ers the altar and only the place where the cru­ci­fix hung can be seen, but the build­ing itself still stands… While a set­tle­ment’s church still stands, the vil­lage is not yet dead, for all that its main road has become a ghost track. It is also true that a set­tle­ment is at an end where people still live, where the women chat in front of their houses as they rock the chil­dren, but the church stands in ruins. A caved-in roof leaves the house of God orphaned, and soon­er or later spir­itu­al col­lapse is fol­lowed by phys­ic­al death as well.

Deep thoughts, still deep­er silences kept – the moments trickle slowly by. We leave behind the set­tle­ment over­grown with creep­ers and trees and wander back along the sel­dom-trod­den path. Behind us the dead vil­lage, ahead of us the live­li­er part of our party, who set off soon­er. But now the party has pulled up short, we can see it even from afar, they have stopped beside the herd. Some two hun­dred cows stand slug­gishly all around, motion­less. There is a kind of expect­ancy, a ten­sion in the air. Our friends stand about, the cows stand about, we are still out of earshot, but the wave of bewil­der­ment washes over us too. We quick­en our pace, even the few words run dry, and only the hur­ried steps remain.

When we come near, the riddle seems to solve itself, but the ten­sion mounts. In the middle of the herd the lad is busy with a cow: the beast is calv­ing. The lad is shout­ing for help, if only someone would come, but the hikers are town people, and none of them knows any­thing about live­stock. The lad can­not man­age the task, he keeps call­ing out, but still nobody moves. And the sev­er­al hun­dred beasts wait. The cows sense the mys­tery of life, of birth. Like the petals of a flower they ring the labour­ing beast in the middle, all of them gaz­ing towards her, rump to the passing world, nose to the mir­acle of being born. I see the lad sweat­ing, on the point of giv­ing up. I have never calved a beast either, but I set off towards him. Still, to find a way through two hun­dred cows… Like women they stand around the mir­acle of the life about to be born – what busi­ness has a man here?! Had they taken offence, they could eas­ily have trampled me, but no, gently, eleg­antly, even com­pas­sion­ately they open a way, all but urging me to hurry. Soon I am there in the middle, the out­side world has ceased, and I see only the cows’ faces, expect­ant, help­less, yet hope­ful: their eyes are so human! Here, now, is the centre of the world, a beast is about to be born, the mys­tery of life, ah, only let it not tip over into the mys­tery of death!

The lad looks at me, I under­stand him without words, the calf’s fet­lock is already hanging out, but the cow can­not man­age, she is not push­ing enough. We have to pull. Slip­pery the fet­lock, slick the hands, sweat­ing the brow, and there in the middle of the field, under the rays of hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of pairs of cows’ eyes, we fight for life. In blood and filth – the cow glances back and looks at us, this cos­mic embod­i­ment of exist­ence and birth. In her is the etern­al moth­er, the one who hands on the secret of life, this is no beast at all, but a ver­it­able insti­tu­tion, a prin­ciple. Her look is implor­ing, plainly she is as worn out as the lad, who could not man­age the calf alone. One more tug, the hoof slips from my hand, a new grip, the lad too finds fresh strength, the little one’s nose appears, then its head, a little more, we pull and haul, and then with a sud­den slith­er a new life flops onto the ground, the kick­ing, flail­ing calf. Com­ing to life, or dying – it is not yet decided. Its moth­er tot­ters off a little way, the lad and I can only pant. The cow sniffs at it, then turns away, the little one paws with its legs. A thought freezes in me: I am a stranger among them, what if she has caught my scent on her young and will not accept it?! But the lad sig­nals, he is calmer, and when the beast recov­ers from her labours, she turns to it and licks her calf… the bathing begins. With beaded brow and tear-filled eyes, slick to the elbows, I shake hands with the lad, who sig­nals that all will be well now, he can man­age alone. The mir­acle has happened, there at the tiny centre of the immeas­ur­ably vast world Life has been born, the flower-petals of the herd still enfold the holi­ness pro­tect­ively, and I stumble word­lessly out of the circle, I am no longer needed… but I had great need of them. A dying vil­lage and a calf being born, life and death, begin­ning and end, houses and beasts, man and anim­al – the far ends touch, and over the tran­si­ence of the dead mud bricks life itself pre­vails.