Browsing Dakota translation

11.

After 20 years of travel, Hoborg grew very lonely. Soon he could not stand to go on. He found a chunk of land upon which he could stop and rest. It had one spindly vine growing on it, and Hoborg lay down beside it to enjoy the shade it provided so he might be delivered from his discomfort. And Hoborg was extremely happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day a worm came and attacked the plant and it withered. And it came about when the sun came up, that a scorching east wind and the white light of the sun beat down on Hoborg's head so that he became faint and begged to die, saying, ''Death is better to me than life.''

12.

Hoborg could not get himself to do anything, he just lay there. Hoborg began to scrape, absent-mindedly, at the dirt where his hand lay. Then he said, ''Scraping is better to me than death.'' It was a fine, dry dirt that was packed down and baked hard by the white sun. His fingers bent, lifted and stretched; bent, lifted and stretched; bent, lifted and stretched, scratching relentlessly. His fingers scraped through the layers of fine dust and grit day after day. Just a few grains of dust and grit required weeks of scraping before it broke loose from the ground, the ground was that hard and compacted.

13.

More and more dirt added to the pile under his palm each month. During the years that passed, the only sound he heard were the scraping of his hand on the dirt and his breathing. After a pile big enough to pick up formed under his hand, he grabbed it, spat on it and squeezed it and squeezed it and squeezed it until his hand turned white and his knuckles made popping noises. Hoborg sat up and looked at what lay in his palm as he opened his fist. He saw that he had formed a clod of dirt.

14.

Now the worm that had attacked the spindly vine and caused it to wither popped his head out of the ground and admired the clod, saying, ''My, what a nice clod of dirt you've got there!'' Looking Hoborg up and down, it asked, ''Did you make that all by yourself?''

15.

''Yes, I did.'' said Hoborg.

16.

''If I were you,'' said the worm, ''I'd stay right here and make more dirt clods. You could fashion them into beings and populate this chunk of land with them. After all, did you really see a pile of Klay through the scope Quater gave you? Or did you just want to see it because Quater said you would be able to see it?''

17.

Hoborg answered, ''Actually, Quater said the scope would enable me to see the shortest path to the Klay, and because of that, I should save quite a few years of travel. But I've been traveling for so long...''

18.

And the worm said to Hoborg, ''You haven't saved any time in your journey. You haven't ever seen Klay, have you? I wonder if Quater has ever seen Klay?'' When Hoborg thought of it that way, he also began to wonder. Was there even such a thing as Klay? He had only heard about it; he'd never seen any. Then a thought occurred to Hoborg. Sure, it had taken many years to collect enough dirt to make this one clod, but he had plenty of time, and he knew there was plenty of dirt right here; he did not have to keep searching for Klay.

19.

Or he could continue his journey, not even knowing when or if he would reach his goal. He considered making more dirt clods and creating clod-beings right there to populate the chunk of land he had stopped on to rest. Sure, it would take a lot of spit, but Hoborg figured he would find a way to work-up enough. And now that he had a purpose for scraping he could use both hands and save time. First he would finish creating a being from the dirt clod he already had made.

20.

Hoborg knelt beside the thing he had put together. The hideous outrage of dirt stretched out, and then, as he worked the clod with his hands, it began to show signs of life, and stirred with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful it must have been; for supremely frightful was the effect of his endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of his own creator, Quater. His success terrified Hoborg; he cast away his odious handiwork, horror-stricken, as far and with as much velocity as he could throw it. He hoped that, left to itself, out wherever it might land, the slight spark of life which had received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter. Hoborg went to sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous clod which he had looked upon as the cradle of life.