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What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
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Story 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 7 Summary: “Dornička and the St. Martin’s Day Goose”
A woman named Dornička meets a wolf on Mount Radhost. The wolf is not truly a wolf, but something that has recently consumed a wolf and is wearing its remains, though in the “wrong order.” She asks the “wolf” if he’s the Big Bad Wolf, and he claims that the archetype was modeled on him. The wolf says that he thought that Dornička was “her,” and though he has already consumed a wolf, he needs to consume life again. Dornička promises to bring him something juicy and young to eat so that he won’t wait for someone else to come around. He agrees, but he strikes her in the hip with a blow so strong that it feels like it should have shattered bone.
Dornička goes home, and the place on her hip where the wolf hit her has grown into a large lump that looks like a “knob of cured ham” (265). Dornička’s goddaughter Alžběta and her 19-year-old daughter Klaudie are coming to visit, so she decides to cut it off her hip before they arrive. She uses a carving knife, treats the wound, and buries the lump under an ash tree in the garden. When Alžběta and Klaudie arrive, Klaudie asks Dornička what smells so delicious and goes out to the ash tree. Dornička is unnerved by this and calls Klaudie in to help her with something.
Together, they build a wooden box, which Alžběta outfits with a lock. Dornička sleeps with the key to that lock in her hand, though the box remains empty. The next day, Dornička has Alžběta and Klaudie help her prepare meals for the coal miners in her town, as she is one of the caterers that takes the time to feed them. One of the young men seems to be attracted to Klaudie but refuses Dornička’s invitation to dinner. Alžběta says that the young man knew he wasn’t good enough for Klaudie, but Dornička, rejecting her snobbery, suggests that things happen in their time.
On All Souls’ Day, the three women go to tidy up the graves, including the grave of Dornička’s husband, Tadeáš. Dornička tells Tadeáš about the wolf, her promise to send him something to eat, and the lump. She also recounts Klaudie’s strange interest in the lump’s smell. He tells her that she shouldn’t have promised anything to the creature and asks how she intends to keep the promise, but she isn’t sure. That night Dornička takes the opportunity to dig up the lump. She locks it in the wooden box and hides it in her bedroom. She finds that Klaudie, still enticed by the smell, keeps coming up with reasons to go into her bedroom.
Dornička lets Klaudie pick the goose that they will eat on St. Martin’s Day. Klaudie is wary about picking a live goose, and when she does choose one, she doesn’t want to kill it and suggests they buy one already butchered from a store. Dornička insists that butchering their own goose will be better. The goose and Klaudie become close, and the goose will only allow Klaudie to feed him. It pecks at the place in the garden where the lump was buried.
Klaudie returns to Dornička’s room, making an excuse of looking for scraps for the goose to eat: “Klaudie fluttered her eyelashes and murmured something about scraps. Any scraps for the goose, Dornička…?” (273). Klaudie’s request gives Dornička the idea to feed the lump to the goose while Klaudie and Alžběta are sleeping. The goose devours the lump and runs around the garden, and Dornička drops the key in the box, pours herself a drink, and prepares to forget the whole thing.
The next day, Klaudie brings Dornička the box and asks what had been in it. Dornička refuses to tell her and asks her to feed the goose, but Klaudie says that the goose has changed and doesn’t want to be fed. Dornička goes out to feed the goose, which looks at her with eyes that suggest an understanding that wasn’t there before. On the day before St. Martin’s Day, Dornička orders a child-sized red cape on her laptop and leaves it outside for the goose. The goose comes into her bedroom that night wearing the red cape and carrying her keys in its beak. She drives the goose to Mount Radhost, and thanks the goose as she sends it up the mountain. Later, at St. Martin’s Day dinner, Alžběta doesn’t complain about the lack of goose but tells Klaudie that she isn’t allowed to choose the Christmas carp.
Story 7 Analysis
This story is a take on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. The “wolf” in this story represents predation and danger more than an actual physical monster. The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood has often been interpreted as an allegory for the dangers that await a young girl in the world, especially as she enters adolescence. The “red hood” that the girl wears represents menarche, and the “wolf” represents sexual danger directed at the innocent and naïve girl as she grows up. In this take on the story, the “wolf” mistakes Dornička for “her”—presumably the young girl from the story. Dornička makes a promise to send him something young and fresh to eat in hopes of protecting others from his hunger.
Dornička, a woman approaching the last quarter of her life, is older and therefore wiser than the “Little Red” archetype that the “wolf” wishes to prey on. He strikes her and creates a lump on her hip, which Dornička compares to a pregnancy. As a “pregnancy,” the lump suggests the innocence of a baby, but it is also the product of sexuality. That is why Klaudie, a young girl approaching adulthood, is drawn to its scent. It is also why Dornička finds Klaudie’s attraction to the lump so disconcerting; she fears Klaudie will become the wolf’s prey.
Klaudie chooses the goose because of a connection between them. They both represent innocence, which is why Klaudie expresses sadness over the idea of slaughtering the goose for food. Because the goose is innocent and is already condemned to death, it makes a good sacrifice to the “wolf” in the stead of a young girl. After eating the lump from Dornička’s hip, the goose gains a level of self-awareness, as if it knows that it must be sacrificed to the “wolf.”
Notably, the goose is associated with the lump even before Dornička feeds the lump to it. The scent of the lump attracts the goose, but the goose and the lump are also similar in their growth and consumption, which again recall pregnancy or an infant; Dornička describes a “nauseous” sensation of the lump “suckling at her hip” (265), and she later complains that the goose is “eating [them] out of house and home” (272). The story’s ambivalence toward adult sexuality stems not only from the threat of predation but from recognition of the physical and mental toll of pregnancy and childrearing—a toll it accentuates through the use of fantastical elements, showcasing The Magical in the Mundane.
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