The Man Who Lost a Button

I.

And one evening, our father told us a story, mostly looking at me:

»Once, there lived a man who was constantly looking at the sky.

Early in the morning, he would already be looking at the sky, standing by the little window of his small room. He would look and say:

“I greet you, Morning Dawn, our early-rising sister! Greetings and thanks! You dawn for everyone, but no one does it bring as much joy as it brings me. Others see only the small bit of light you pour upon our earth, full of shadows and darkness; but I see rivers of light that you spread over the paths the sun will take. I see gardens with golden trees and pearlescent fences from which you emerge in the East. I sense all the joy of your eternal youth. I gaze at you, and I can never get enough. For each day, you open a new door and reveal new splendors.”

And that man walked through the fields in the morning, and looking at the sky. He would look and say:

“Clouds! Clouds! Some white, light; others gray, heavy. What is there that you don’t build up and tear down in the heavenly fields? What paths are there that you don’t know! People also build up and tear down things on earth, but with what effort and with what struggle! And everything they build is bulky and heavy. A pitiful, ridiculous image of what you make in an instant, undo in an instant, only to create anew, even more beautiful forms.”

In the evening, he walked along the mountain paths down to the hillside of the river, from its mouth to his little house, and constantly looking at the sky. He would look and say:

“I love the twilight, the evening fires in the clouds. And the first stars that emerge in the clear sky. And the moon that rises. How beautiful, vast, and eternal everything is up there; while down here everything is ugly, small, and fleeting. How much life and what abundance there is in the sky; and how much barrenness and what poverty there is on earth! The heavens are overflowing with wonders, while the earth is a wasteland. Oh stars! Oh moon! Oh planets!”

And he walked on the earth, constantly looking at the sky. He would stumble over stones, occasionally falling into a pit, almost plummet into a chasm, yet he would not look at the earth even then. And he wouldn’t even get upset, for the earth wasn’t even worth being annoyed by. At people he barely glanced; he neither loved nor despised them. From his brothers, he grew estranged. With his elderly father and mother, he spoke only as much as necessary. He neglected his affairs. He ate whatever was at hand. The clothes on him were tattered.

II.

But he was happy.

“That man is crazy”, some would say.

“Some sage or poet”, others would remark.

He didn't listen; he didn't care.

He walked a lot, searching for clearings and peaks from where the sky was best seen, and he got into the habit of always holding the top button of his coat. With his hand on his chest, it was somehow easier for him to walk and to gaze. When his admiration was the highest, his grip would be the tightest, and the more he would twist the button between his thumb and forefinger. And so the thread slowly began to give way.

And so it happened one evening that the man noticed that his button was lost. He had a new one sewn on; but the dawn of that early spring day seemed gray to him, the clouds without form, the sun just an ordinary ball of fire, unbearable to gaze upon, the stars cold and distant, and the moon resembling a silver wasteland.

The man replaced the button.

But now, it was even worse.

He didn’t save on buttons. He bought buttons of bone and metal, noble and poor, but all in vain. He grew disheartened; he withdrew even further from everyone. He felt that his life would become something pitiful and barren, far worse than death. The sky would close before his gaze; and he would be more miserable than others, because they could not grieve for something they had never known. In his misery, nothing remained for him but one thing: the only thing that could still help.

He resolved to search for the lost button.

III.

And one day, the man who lost a button stepped over the threshold of his house with his eyes fixed on the ground.

But after the first step, he paused, uncertain.

Which path should he take? Where should he search?

He no longer knew the paths of the earth. He had never even looked at them. Until now, he had walked, treading over all obstacles, dodging pits, rivers, and abysses at the last moment. Like a swallow, he only knew the airways that led to the nest. Of his past journeys, he had only dim memories.

Nothing left but going forward, walking and walking, wherever the feet would go, but now, he was constantly looking at the earth: noticing everything on it, even the tiniest thing, for the button was small and gray.

And the man left. Slowly. Without looking back at anything. Without batting an eyelash.

His house was second to last on that side of town. It was therefore right on the path that led to the peak of a nearby hill.

He vaguely remembered some height not far from his house. Yes! That day it was already dark when he looked at the first stars in the sky, and he was disturbed by the evening buzz of the town, the town he didn’t even notice.

He intended to take a good look at that hill. Who knows? Maybe even today...

IV.

And the man who lost a button walked along the path, looking at every pebble, at every blade of grass.

“Button, small and gray! Button, small and gray!”

When he looked at the path for the first time, a single glance across its length, it appeared empty and barren, worn by the feet of people, trampled by the hooves and paws of animals, eroded by the rains. But behold now! Here is the host of pebbles, shimmering in the sun, and blades of grass that are sprouting. And there, the print of a tiny bare foot. Look, a needle for knitting socks that must've dropped from some woman as she walked. A tiny worm, black and hairy, crawls across the path: it stops with its front, curls up, and then stretches out again, moving forward in this way. A long line of ants moves along the edge of the path, hauling grains and straws from somewhere. Some snail is migrating across the path, its shell on its back. A green lizard basks on a rock and, startled, flees into a nearby bush. Someone had passed by and spilled meadow flowers resembling buttons. The man who lost a button realized he had deceived himself, for this little path was overcrowded and crammed with all sorts of things. He was at the verge of anger, as he had to touch everything and turn it all over, wasting time.

A few people were digging in the small field by the path. When they say him they said:

“Ain't that the crazy one?”

“Can’t be! Where’d he be off to like that?”

“And what are you searchin' for, sir?”

The man lifted his head. For the first time, he considered someone might be of use to him.

“I am looking for my button, small and gray.”

“We ain’t seen nothin’.”

They recognized him and gave him a nod, expressing their sympathy.

The man moved forward, constantly looking at the earth, bending down now and then to see better, to shift and rearrange whatever he found.

V.

When he reached the height, he found it all covered in young grass, resembling a green carpet, sprinkled with flowers, mostly small yellow marsh stars and buttercups.

Now he had to kneel and search with his fingers through the grass.

“Button, small and gray! Button, small and gray!”

But instead of the button, his hands encountered white snowdrop bells, orchid blossoms resembling large, velvety flies, blue heads of speedwell, and the fuzzy fruits of pasqueflowers. Tiny worms crawled over his fingers, ants climbed up his elbow, and green grasshoppers leaped onto his knees: a whole host of small creatures emerged from the grass to climb onto the man who was searching for his button.

At times, he would pause, kneeling with his head bowed, and gaze intently at all those tiny but restless creatures. His gaze lingered longest when he noticed, instead of the button, white eggs in his palm, as if something inside them were tapping and wanting to emerge, to come out into the air and sunlight.

And for the first time, he felt the scent of earth, warm and damp—the spring earth from which everything grows and sprouts.

All this distracted him from his task. He was glad to have finally explored the entire hilltop, so he got up and stretched his numb knees. He shook off the leaves and little creatures and looked around.

The river sparkled at the bottom of the hillside. He wanted to descend but caught sight of a thicket just a little lower down. He immediately remembered that on the day he lost a button, a thin branch had struck him in the face, scratching his cheek and almost injuring his eyes, which had been looking at the sky. He might have passed right through that thicket. Surely some branch must have torn the button from his chest.

VI.

The man entered the thicket.

Right away he realized that searching here would be difficult, even unpleasant, for the thicket was not only plain and empty but also hostile.

He pulled his cap down hard on his head, wrapped his scarf snug around his neck, and curled his hands into his sleeves so that the thorns would prick him as little as possible.

He slipped into the thicket and crouched down beneath a bush. He first wanted to see what the thicket was like and how best to carry out his task within it. Maybe there would still be signs of his previous passage. But in the few days since, the thicket had fully leafed out and burst into bloom, and every trace within had vanished.

He kept searching the thicket with his eyes.

Suddenly, he heard that it wasn’t so quiet in there.

Everything was rustling beneath the leaves, crawling along branches, buzzing around flowers, flapping wings, and tapping with beaks. He brushed aside the leaves in front of him, and a black beetle with tiny horns on its head emerged and crawled onto his leg. A thin branch swayed, and he saw on it a small bird with a red throat and yellow spots on its tail, cocking its head slightly, looking at him.

Surprised by such boldness, he clapped his hands together.

“Creak! Creak!” There it stopped, chirping, but did not move.

“What kind of wonder is this now?”, thought the man who lost a button.

He heard a rustling beside him and saw another little bird, pushing its way into something near the root of a flowering cornel.

“Ha, a nest! I’m in their way.”

And for the first time in so many days of misery and trouble, his face brightened, a smile blossomed on his lips.

A nest! The laying of eggs! Love for the young!... Things so tiny, yet so... big. And in this thicket!

He wanted to stand up; to quietly slip away on his toes.

But he startled and came to himself.

“Button! Button, small and gray!”

And he set about searching through the thicket.

He dug all around. He crept beneath the bushes. He crawled on his belly at times, lifting the dry leaves and moss, tearing what bothered him.

“Button!”

But instead of the button, small fragrant mushrooms came onto his palms, with delicate caps, adorned with thin, spiraling stems, and seeds that barely sprouted. Hazel catkins hit his cheek, showering yellow dust on his cheeks and hands. Violet flowers clung to his clothes. And the birds sang in the thicket; they sang as though speaking to him:

“We don't fear those who are constantly looking at the sky. You didn't look at us before, and now it seems as if we don’t see you.”

The man stopped in front of a stone. It seemed to him that he saw something beneath it, small and gray.

He jumped and turned it over.

But instead of the button, he saw an army of tiny worms and insects, barely prepared to make their first journey into the sunlight. They twisted and struggled, unpracticed in their crawling and walking. And because his hands were within their reach, they all began to squirm and crawl up his fingers. For a moment, he felt as if something from the earth was gently caressing his hands, eager to climb up to his chest.

The man who lost a button shook the tiny burden into the grass. A strange restlessness grew over him, and he realized that now he didn’t even know how to continue searching.

He emerged from the thicket, his face and hands scratched, dusted with leaves and pollen.

As he descended the path from the peak, he saw the little snail on the path again.

“Look! He was on the other side, grazing, but now he's coming back.”

As he descended, he encountered a peasant woman carrying a heavy burden on her back.

He wrestled with himself for a few moments, but he couldn't hold back.

“Madam, be careful as you walk!”

“What is it?”

“Look over there! In the middle of the path.”

“What?” she wondered, staring at the empty stretch of path.

He extended his finger and said:

“A snail.”

VII.

And the man kept searching for his button.

He searched the forest, the shores of the river and the sea, the orchards and the fields. He feared that the water had carried the button away, into the river or the sea, so he stripped down and waded through the river and the shallows near the coast, carefully observing everything in the sand and in the mud.

Thin, pale, and exhausted, he walked and walked, constantly looking at the ground, his eyes wide open, afraid of his eyelids blinking.

But he couldn’t find the button. Instead, he brought home flowers, shells, nests, insect cocoons, and strange stones, examining them and muttering:

“Mysteries! Divine mysteries!”

He also found rings, little lost crosses, and bracelets. Several times, he stumbled upon gold and silver coins. He handed all of these over to the authorities so they could search for their owners and return them.

And the people in the little town said:

“Ever since he’s gone more mad, he’s become more useful. Before, he couldn’t help himself, his family, or any of us; but now, if you lose somethin’, just watch him. If he finds his button, there goes that usefulness... God must’ve punished him, ‘cause he never cared for nobody. Now too, he hardly sees any of us...”

And the man who lost a button said suddenly:

“Why am I wandering around everywhere? When I go through the forests and the meadows, it feels like I’m no longer even looking for that button. There’s no button out in the fields. It’s surely in the town, with some woman, or man, or child. They found it, kept it. Maybe they don’t even know it’s mine. Now I know that nature is beautiful, full of life, and mysterious. I know the earth is as sacred as the stars in the sky, as the moon, and as the sun. I’ve discovered all of this, I’ve come to understand it. I feel wonder for the small just as much as for the immense. Everything was woven by one hand. Everything was brought to life by one breath. But the earth that feeds us is just a part of All, and I cannot see All without that button of mine. I will find it! They must return it!”

And on that very day, he entered his neighbor's little house for the very first time.

In it he found an old grandfather, a widowed mother, and three small children.

They were all surprised. One of the children even got scared and started crying.

“Uncle Ante, every day I passed by here. Have you ever found, on the path, in front of the house, a button small and gray?”

“We haven't, sir.”

“And yet... the children. I can see that they’re scared of me. Maybe they didn’t want to say if they had found anything.”

“Never no button in their hands. And we’re so poor, we don’t even have those in the house. We make do as best we can,” said the mother.

“And yet... yet...”

With his eyes he searched all around, across the ground and into the corners.

“There’s none, sir! None at all,” the woman said with unease, gathering the little children around her.

“If you don’t believe me, I’ll light a candle so you can see for yourselves.”

And when the old man lit the candle, he saw how the little, dark cottage was cramped and damp, with no wooden floor, all blackened with soot.

“But how can these five live here?” he thought.

“We'll go through the children’s pockets,” said the widow, just to finish it quickly.

The children burst into tears, staring with fear at the strange man.

He no longer even thought about the button.

He looked at the children, ragged, thin, and pale.

“No! No!” he said. “There is no need.”

The mother insisted, though. She just wanted him to never come back to them again. She turned out the pockets; poor, torn little pockets; in one of them, they found a small, colorful shard of a broken plate. The child felt as though they had caught him in a wrongdoing; he started to tremble.

“No! No!” said the man who searched a button. He patted his pockets, but he didn’t have any money on him. He found a piece of bread, for on his long travels, he always carried something with him. He gave it to the child and said:

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t cry.”

As he stepped out of the little house, he paused at the door and for the first time, a new thought crossed his mind.

VIII.

And the man who searched a button began going from house to house.

Some people welcomed him and let him enter their rooms, walk amongst their families, feeling sorry for the still-young man who would never bring harm to anyone. Others, however, made fun of him. They laid out heaps of buttons before him and watched as he examined them. They would, on purpose, lead him into dark cellars, to attics, where buttons rested on a lonely beam. One joker even made him climb onto the roof, to pull a button out of the chimney. They showed him buttons, small and gray, similar to his, but they couldn’t trick him. He would only touch the button and say:

“It’s not it!”

He knew they pitied him or mocked him, but he bore it without anger. He now looked with curiosity into those rooms: into their cabinets and even into the people. He wondered, just as he had once felt wonder when he turned over the stone in the thicket and discovered that whole tiny world. It was happening to him now, just as it had when he searched the fields, the forests, the coastal shallows, and the little river. He was no longer searching only for his button: he was observing people. Getting to know them. And finally, understanding them... It was as if, in front of him ―the madman who searches for his lost button― they took off their masks and showed themselves, as they truly were. Most often he visited the homes of the poor, and sometimes he returned home not even thinking of the button, sad and full of sorrow. Now he knew the little town better than anyone else; he knew every soul in it, just as he knew every blade of grass and every stone in the lands around.

“What is there to fear in a man constantly looking at the sky or searching the wide earth for a button, small and gray?”, the people said, letting him wander among them, hiding nothing from him.

But one day, the man said:

“The thing I search, I will never find among them.”

IX.

And he went to his old father.

He found him in front of the little house, working in the garden.

The old man waited for him calmly, cheerfully, almost with a smile.

“Father, it’s as if you don’t see… as if you don’t know.”

“What is it, son?”

“Well, this… what’s wrong with me.”

“I know. Oh, I know everything. You’re still searching.”

“But can’t you see what I'm going through? It’s hard. Terrible,” said the man in a voice he had never before used with his father.

“No, son! Now it’s better. And tomorrow it might be good.”

“But look at me! I’m afraid I might really go mad.”

“You won’t. Just keep searching. And you will find it. I sense it, I believe…”

“Thank you!” said the man. He turned around and left.

A new hope grew inside him. His father did not make fun of him. The old man sensed, believed; he was already happy.

Oh, that father!… He had never appreciated him until today.

Once again, his thoughts turned to the lost button.

Late at night, a new thought was born.

On that unfortunate day, he must have sat there for some time, on the stones that people had used to fence the chasm in the hills above the town. Perhaps the button fell into it right there.

That night, his sleep was calmer. He dreamed he was building by himself a new house for his neighbor, old uncle Ante, putting a roof of silver atop it while the children watched, the fear of him gone.

X.

The next day, he hired two peasants and went with them into the hills.

When he reached the chasm, he tied a rope around his waist and said to the men:

“Lower me down!”

They looked at him.

What’s this? Lower himself into the chasm? Into that chasm! Did he not know that a gruesome murder had once happened here, long ago? Robbers had killed an unknown merchant. They must have robbed him. Blood was found. But the loot, the killers, and the victim vanished without a trace. Into the chasm? Such an idea had never crossed anyone’s mind. And he… over some button!

“Do it!” said the man who searched a button.

“Let it be.”

“Do it! Or I'll jump in.”

The men thought about it.

“So be it then,” said the elder. “This way, less evil will come of it.”

The man took a lantern and began his descent.

At first, it was difficult. But the lower and darker it became, the easier it grew. As he grasped the stones, he felt something small and delicate caressing his hands.

“Oh, Earth! Even here there is life in you.”

Soon he lighted the lantern.

He descended along the rocks toward the bottom.

It was flat, narrow, covered with stones thrown from above. He saw no skeletons. Silent and still like a grave; only a thin trickle of water dripped somewhere in a crack. Yet, he was not afraid of that mysterious sound.

He began to search for the button.

Suddenly, he jumped up, crying out.

A button stood right before him, in plain sight, as though someone had intentionally placed it there, beside an old bag.

The lantern had fallen from his hand, shattered, went out.

But he reached out his hand, and it seemed to find the button on its own. He took it and felt it.

Yes! That’s the one. The true one. The very one. It is his lost button.

And the man who found a button looked through the chasm at the sky, and saw it again, as bright and glorious as before.

When he calmed down a bit and settled, he reached out his hand and took what must have been the broken lantern, and gave the signal for them to lift him.

Quickly they pulled him straight up, since a few people had accidentally arrived.

When they pulled him out, he showed them something small and gray: “Here it is!”

The people found it hard to believe.

“Doubting Thomas! Look!”

And they saw that the button was indeed exactly the same as the others on his coat.

They rushed back.

They were almost back in the town when someone asked:

“Why did you put the lantern in that bag?”

Ah, yes. It was lying next to my button in the chasm. I took it instead of the extinguished lantern. Let’s see!

He barely opened it.

Large gold coins gleamed in the old bag.

XI.

The whole town was astonished.

“He’ll go back to looking at the sky, just as before: self-possessed and self-centered. What use is that treasure for such an odd fellow? He’ll build a tower to the heavens and put one of those tubes on top, the kind you use to look at the moon and stars. He won’t even help his father,” the people said.

But they were mistaken.

The man who found a button first helped his neighbor, old Ante, and the poor family in the cramped, smoke-filled little house. He remembered the hardships he had seen in the homes of the downtrodden while searching for his lost button. And everyone said that he not only knew how to give but also how to recognize true need. He gave away nearly everything, both to his own and to strangers: to those who had pitied him and to those who made fun of him.

He sewed the button that was found onto his coat and took a stroll each evening, his hand resting on his chest. But he no longer was constantly looking at the sky; now he was aware of the earth and its people too. He gave the heavens what was heavenly, and the earth what was earthly.

And every spring, when the bushes turned green and blossomed, he would wander into the thicket on the far side of the hill. Slowly, he would overturn a larger stone, extend both hands, and hold them still, watching as a throng of worms and insects crawled, caressed, and wriggled up his arms. And as birds sang near their nests, he would say, almost playfully:

“Button, small and gray! Button, small and gray!”

*

Thus spoke my father, looking intently at me.

It was only much later that I came to truly understood what he was trying to tell me.

A short story by Vladimir Nazor, published in 1924 in "Priče iz djetinjstva" in Croatian. Orignal text on Wikisource. Translated by Denny Vrandečić into English. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.