The Tanners (13 page)

Inside, in his brother’s room, he gazed at everything with wondering
eyes, though there wasn’t much to observe. In one corner stood the bed, an
interesting bed—after all, it was where Kaspar slept; and the window was a
marvelous window—though made of simple wood and with plain curtains—since Kaspar
had just stuck his head out this very window. The floor, table, bedspread and
chairs were covered with drawings and pictures. Each separate sheet now slid
through the visitor’s fingers, every one beautiful and so perfectly executed.
Simon found it all but inconceivable what a worker this painter was, so many
things lay before his eyes that he could scarcely manage to look at them all.
“Why, it’s nature herself you’ve painted,” he exclaimed. “I find it so
bittersweet to look at new pictures of yours. Each one is so beautiful, they
gleam with sentiment and seem to strike nature in her heart, and yet you are
always painting new things, always striving for something even better—possibly
you also destroy many things that have turned out poorly in your eyes. I’m
incapable of finding any of your pictures weak, each one moves me and bewitches
my soul. Even just a brushstroke of yours, or a color,
gives me a firm and
unshakeable conviction of your talent—it’s
simply wonderful. And when
I look at your landscapes, painted so expansively and so warmly by your brush,
I
always see you, and along with you I feel a sort of pain which tells me there
is
never an end to art. I understand art so well—the urgency human beings feel for
its sake, that longing to vie for Nature’s love and good graces in this way.
Why
do we wish to see a charming landscape reproduced in a picture? Is it just for
the sake of pleasure? No, we are hoping this image will explain
something
—but this is a something that
will surely always remain inexplicable. It cuts so deeply into us when we, lying
at a window, dreamily watch the setting sun; but that’s nothing at all compared
to a street when it’s raining and the women are daintily raising their skirts,
or to the sight of a garden or lake beneath the weightless morning sky or to
a
simple fir tree in winter or to a boat ride at night, or a view of the Alps.
Fog
and snow enchant us no less than sunshine and colors: Fog refines the colors,
and snow is, after all, and particularly beneath the blue of the warm early
spring sky, a profound, marvelous, almost incomprehensible thing. How beautiful
that you paint, Kaspar, and paint so beautifully. I’d like to be a little bit
of
nature and be loved by you the way you love every bit of nature. A painter must
love nature so ardently and achingly, even more tempestuously and tremblingly
and openly than a poet, such as Sebastian, for example—and people are saying
he’s built himself a hut up in the high pastures so he can worship nature
undisturbed, like a Japanese hermit. But poets, no doubt, are less faithfully
attached to nature than you painters; for as a rule they approach nature with
their heads over-educated, over-stuffed. But perhaps I’m
mistaken, and in this case I would gladly be mistaken. How you must have worked,
Kaspar. Surely you have no cause to reproach yourself. I wouldn’t do so. Not
even I reproach myself, and truly, I have ample cause. But I don’t, because this
makes a person nervous, and nervousness is an ugly state unworthy of human
beings—”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Kaspar replied.

The two of them then strolled through the little town, looking
at everything, which didn’t take long, and yet, considering the seriousness
with which they regarded it all, did in fact take quite some time. They
passed the mailman, who handed Kaspar a letter, making a face as he did so.
The letter was from Klara. The church was admired, as was the majesty of the
town’s towers and the defiant protective walls, which however had often been
breached, the vintners’ huts and gazebos set into the mountainside, places
where life had died out long ago. The fir trees gazed down solemnly at the
small old town, and at the same time the sky was so sweet above the houses
which appeared defiant and sullen in their thickness and breadth. The
meadows were shimmering and the hills with their golden beech forests
beckoned the viewer up to their distant heights. In the afternoon the young
men went into the forest. They were no longer speaking much. Kaspar had
fallen silent, his brother sensed what he was thinking of and preferred not
to rouse him, for it seemed to him more important for things to be thought
over than spoken about. They sat down on a bench. “She won’t let go of me,”
Kaspar said, “she’s unhappy.” Simon said nothing, but he felt a certain joy
on his brother’s behalf, that the woman was unhappy over him. He thought:
“How lovely I find it that she is unhappy.” This love enchanted him. Soon,
however, the two took leave of one another; it was time for Simon to return,
by train this time.

–7–

Winter arrived. Simon, left up to his own devices, sat dressed in a
coat, writing at the table in his small room. He didn’t know what to do with
all
the time on his hands, and since his profession had accustomed him to writing,
he now sat and wrote offhandedly, without forethought, on small strips of paper
he’d cut to size with scissors. Outside the weather was damp, and the coat Simon
had wrapped himself in was serving the function of a heating stove. This sitting
at home in his room seemed so cozy to him, while out of doors violent winds were
raging, promising snow. He felt so comfortable sitting like that, engaged in
his
activity and embracing the notion that he’d been utterly forgotten. He thought
back on his childhood, which wasn’t yet so terribly far behind him but
nonetheless appeared as distant as a dream, and wrote:

I wish to recall to my mind my childhood, as my current
circumstances make this a fascinating and instructive task. I was a boy who
liked to lean back against warm heating stoves. Doing this made me fancy myself
both important and sad, and I would wear a simultaneously
self-satisfied and melancholy expression. What’s more, I donned felt
slippers whenever possible for indoor wear—changing shoes, exchanging wet ones
for dry, gave me the greatest pleasure. A warm room always struck me as
ravishing. I was never ill, and always envied people who could fall ill, as they
were then cared for and had somewhat more delicate words addressed to them. For
this reason I often imagined myself falling ill and was touched when I heard,
in
my fantasy, my parents speaking tender words to me. I had a need to be treated
with affection, but this never happened. My mother frightened me because she
uttered affectionate words so infrequently. I had a reputation for being a
scallywag—not without cause, as I recall—but it was nonetheless sometimes
hurtful always to be reminded of that. I would so have loved to be coddled; but
when I saw it was out of the question that attentions of this sort would be
shown me, I became a ruffian and made a point of provoking the children who
enjoyed the advantage of being well-mannered and loved—my sister
Hedwig and my brother Klaus. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than when they
boxed my ears, for this demonstrated that I’d been skillful enough to arouse
their ire. I don’t have many memories of school, but I know I found it a sort
of
compensation for the minor affronts I suffered in my parents’ home: I was able
to excel. I took great satisfaction in bringing home good grades. School
frightened me, and so I always behaved well there; whenever I was at school my
conduct was diffident and restrained. The teachers’ weaknesses didn’t remain
hidden from me for long, but I found them more terrifying than ridiculous. One
of the teachers, a cloddish, monstrous person, had a real drunkard’s face; it
nonetheless never occurred to me to suspect him of drinking, and yet a
mysterious rumor was circulating in the world of the school about another
teacher, saying drink had been his downfall. The expression of suffering on this
man’s face is something I shall never forget. I considered Jews more refined
than Christians, for there were several enchantingly beautiful Jewish girls who
set me trembling when I met them on the street. Often my father would send me
on
errands to one of the elegant Jewish homes; it always smelled of milk in this
house, and the lady who would open the door to me there would have on wide white
dresses and would bring with her a warm spicy scent that at first I found
distasteful, but later I came to love. I think I can’t have worn such nice
clothes as a child, in any case I would gaze with malicious admiration at a few
of the other boys who wore beautiful high-topped shoes, smooth
stockings and well-tailored suits. One boy in particular made a deep
impression on me because of how delicate his face and hands were, and the
softness of his movements and the voice that came from his lips. He was exactly
like a girl, dressed always in soft fabrics, and with the teachers he enjoyed
a
respect that bewildered me. I felt a pathological longing to have him deign to
speak to me, and was overjoyed when one day he suddenly addressed me before the
window of a stationery store. He flattered me, saying I wrote so beautifully,
and that he wished his own handwriting were that beautiful. How it delighted
me
to be superior in at least this one respect to this young god of a boy, and I
fended off his compliments blissfully blushing. That smile! I can still remember
how he smiled. For a long time his mother was my dream. I overvalued her to the
detriment of my own mother. How unjust! This boy was attacked by several
pranksters in our class who put their heads together and declared him to be a
girl, a real one just dressed up in boy’s clothes. Naturally this was pure
nonsense, but the claim struck me like a thunderbolt, and for a long time I
imagined I ought to be worshiping this boy as a girl in disguise. His overripe
figure provided ample fodder for my high-strung romantic sentiments.
Naturally I was too shy and proud to declare how fond I was of him, and so he
considered me one of his enemies. What elegant aloofness he could convey. How
curious to be thinking of this just now
!
—In religion class I once
delighted one of my teachers by finding just the right word for a certain
feeling; this too I shall never forget. In various subjects I was indeed quite
good, but it always felt shameful to me to stand out as a model pupil, and I
often practically made an effort to get bad marks. My instincts told me that
the
students I surpassed might hate me, and I liked being popular. I found the
thought that my schoolmates might hate me rather frightening—a calamity. It had
become fashionable in our class to detest all swots, and therefore it often
happened that clever, intelligent pupils would try to look stupid as a
precaution. This conduct, when it was recognized, counted among us as exemplary
behavior, and indeed, there was no doubt something heroic about it, even if only
in a misunderstood sense. To be singled out for praise by teachers therefore
carried with it the danger of being held in low regard. What a curious world:
school. One of my earliest years at school, I had a classmate, a little squirt
of a thing with blotches on his pointy face, whose father was a basket weaver
and swillpot known to all and sundry. The little fellow was constantly being
made to pronounce the word “schnapps” before the entire mocking classroom, which
he couldn’t do—he always said “snaps” instead of “schnapps” because of some
miserable speech impediment. How we howled with laughter. And when I now think
back on it: How crude this was. Another boy, a certain Bill, a jovial little
fellow, was always late for school because his parents lived in a remote, rugged
mountain region far from town. The latecomer would always be forced to hold out
his hand as punishment for his tardiness, whereupon he would receive a biting,
sharply painful blow of the cane. Every time, the pain would force tears from
the lad’s eyes. How intently we witnessed this castigation. Let me emphasize,
by
the way, that I have no wish to make accusations about anyone—the teacher in
question, say—as one might easily suspect, but am simply reporting what I recall
from those days
.
—Up on the mountain, in the forest above the town,
all sorts of rough unemployed derelicts—then even more than now, I would
assume—were in the habit of gathering to drink from schnapps bottles in the
thickets, play cards or court the womenfolk who were present, recognizable as
women by the scraps of clothes they wore, their faces home to misery and
affliction. These people were known as vagrants. One Sunday evening we—Hedwig,
Kaspar and I—were out walking with a girl we called Anna, who was fond of us
all, on a narrow path that led over this mountain, and as we stepped out into
a
forest clearing full of rocks, we saw a man seize one of these rocks in his fist
and smash it audibly into the face of another man, his opponent, so that blood
came spurting out and the man who had been struck fell at once to the ground.
This fight, whose end we didn’t witness, as we immediately fled, appeared to
have started because of a woman; at any rate I can still see clearly before me
the dusky tall figure of a woman who at the time was standing by, nonchalant,
observing the fight with a wicked expression. This encounter filled me with a
profound distress and terror that kept me from eating and made me avoid that
part of the forest for a long time. There was something horrifyingly primitive,
even primeval about the sight of those men doing battle—

Kaspar and I had a friend in common, the son of a member of the
Cantonal parliament and respected merchant, whom we dearly loved on account of
his submissiveness and his willingness to take part in any plan we hatched. We
often went to visit him in his parental, parliamentary home where we were always
given a friendly welcome by an exquisite lady, his mother. We would play for
hours with our friend’s building blocks and tin soldiers and amuse ourselves
splendidly. Kaspar excelled at building fortresses and palaces and sketching
out
battle plans. Our friend was very attached to us; to Kaspar, I thought, even
more than me; and he often visited us at home as well, though things at our
house were admittedly less refined. Hedwig was very fond of him. His mother was
completely different from ours, the rooms gleamed more than at our house, and
the tone was different; I mean, the tone of the conversations; but at our house,
all in all, things were more lively. At the time, there was a wealthy lady in
our town living all alone in a magnificent garden, in a house of course, but
the
house was invisible thanks to all the ivy and trees and fountains that concealed
it. This lady had three daughters, beautiful, pale girls who were said to have
a
new dress to put on every two weeks. They didn’t keep these dresses in their
cupboards, but rather sent special messengers to sell them to the townsfolk.
At
one point Hedwig owned a silk dress and pair of shoes that had belonged to one
of these girls, and these second-hand items inspired in me, when I
looked at and touched them, a secret repulsion combined with the greatest
interest and a concern that often made me the butt of jokes. The lady was always
sitting at home; at most she might put in an appearance at the theater, where
she looked alarmingly white in her dark red box. The middle girl was probably
the most beautiful of the three. I always imagined her seated on horseback; she
had a face that looked as if made to gaze down from the back of a prancing horse
upon a gaping crowd of people, causing them all to cast down their eyes. All
three girls have no doubt long since married
.
—Once we had a
conflagration, not in the town itself, but in a neighboring village. The entire
sky all around was reddened by the flames, it was an icy winter night. People
ran upon the frozen, crunching snow, including Kaspar and me; for our mother
had
sent us to find out where the fire was. We reached the flames, but it bored us
to spend so long gazing into the burning beams, besides which we were freezing,
and so we soon ran back home again, where Mother received us with all the
severity of one who’s been made to worry. My mother was already unwell in those
days. Not long afterward, Kaspar left school, where he was no longer prospering.
I still had one more year ahead of me, but a certain melancholy took hold of
me
and bid me look with bitterness upon all things scholastic. I saw the end
approaching and the imminent start of something new. What it would be—on this
subject I could muster only the most foolish thoughts. I saw my brother often,
laden down with packages, in his life of employment, and thought about why he
looked so downcast as he worked, with his face drooping toward the ground: It
couldn’t be so nice after all, this new thing, if you weren’t allowed to raise
your eyes. But Kaspar had already begun to plan his career, he always seemed
to
be dreaming, and had such a curious calmness about him, which didn’t please our
father at all. We were now living on the edge of town in humble lodgings the
sight of which was enough to chill you through. This dwelling did not suit
Mother. In general she had a most peculiar illness: She always felt wounded by
her surroundings. She liked to go on about elegant little houses set in gardens.
What do I know. She was a very unhappy woman. When for example we were all
sitting at the dinner table, keeping fairly silent as was our custom, she would
suddenly seize a fork or knife and hurl it away from her, right off the table,
making all of us turn our heads to one side; if you tried to calm her, she would
feel insulted, and if you reproached her, she would feel even more insulted.
Father had his hands full with her. We children recalled with melancholy and
pain the days when she’d been a woman who was received everywhere with an
admixture of affection and esteem, when if she called you to her with her
ringing voice, you happily rushed to her side. All the ladies in town paid her
compliments which she brushed aside with grace and modesty; this bygone time
appeared to me even then like a magical fairy tale filled with wonderful
fragrances and images. And so I learned quite early to devote myself
passionately to beautiful memories. Once more I saw the tall building where my
parents ran a delightful costume jewelry shop, where people were always coming
in to buy things, where we children had a bright, large nursery which the sun
seemed particularly to enjoy filling up with light. Right beside our tall
building crouched a short, crooked, squashed, ancient one beneath a pointed
gable roof; a widow lived there. She had a hat shop, a son and a female
relative, along with a dog, I believe, if memory serves. When you walked into
her shop, she would greet you in such a friendly way that merely to stand in
front of this woman would be a goodly pleasure. She would then press various
hats upon your head and lead you to the mirror with a smile. Her hats all
smelled so wonderful that you couldn’t help standing there transfixed. She was
a
good friend of my mother. Right next door, that is, right next door to the hat
shop, a snow-white pastry shop glittered temptingly, a confectionery.
The confectioner’s wife appeared to us to be an angel, not a woman. She had the
most delicate oval face you could imagine; kindness and purity appeared to have
given this face its shape. A smile that turned anyone it touched into an
enchanted pious child sweetened her already sweet features. The entire woman
appeared to have been made to sell sweets, delicacies and dainties that could
only be touched by the very tips of one’s fingers, to preserve their exquisite
flavors. She too was a friend of my mother. Mother had many friends—