W G Sebald: Vertigo

Over the years that followed, lengthy shadows fell upon those autumn days at Riva, which, as Dr K. on occasion said to himself, had been so beautiful and so appalling, and from these shadows there gradually emerged the silhouette of a barque with masts of an inconceivable height and sails dark and hanging in folds. Three whole years it takes until the vessel, as if it were being borne across the waters, gently drifts into the little port of Riva. It berths in the early hours of the morning. A man in blue overalls comes ashore and makes fast the ropes. Behind the boatmen, two figures in dark tunics with silver buttons carry a bier upon which lies, under a large floral-patterned cover, what was clearly the body of a human being. It is Gracchus the huntsman.