The Tanners (6 page)

–2–

One day Simon rang the bell rather shyly—it was
noon—
before an elegant house standing off on its own in a garden. The
bell sounded to him as if a beggar had rung it. If he himself were sitting
inside the house just now, as its owner for instance who was perhaps eating
lunch, he would have turned indolently to his wife and asked: Who could be
ringing the bell just now, surely a beggar! “When you think of elegant people,”
he thought as he waited, “you always picture them at the dinner table, or in
a
carriage, or getting dressed with the help of male or female servants, while
you
always imagine a poor man standing outside in the cold with his coat collar
drawn up, as mine is now, waiting before a garden gate with a pounding heart.
Poor people have, as a rule, rapid, pounding, ardent hearts, while those of the
rich are cold, roomy, upholstered, well-heated, and nailed shut! Oh,
if only someone would rush fleet-footed to the door, what a relief
that would be. There’s something constricting about standing and waiting at a
wealthy portal. Despite my little bit of worldly experience what weak legs I
am
standing on.” —And indeed he was trembling when a girl came hurrying up to open
the door for the one standing outside. Simon always had to smile when someone
opened the door and invited him in, and now, too, this smile was in evidence,
a
smile that resembled a timid appeal and perhaps could be seen on many other
faces as well.

“I’m looking for a room.”

Simon removed his hat before a beautiful lady who appeared and looked
the newcomer up and down with great attentiveness. This pleased Simon, for he
believed it was her right to do so, and because her air of friendliness was
unabated.

“Would you like to come with me? There, up the stairs.”

Simon invited the lady to precede him. To do so, he gestured with his
hand, actually employing his hand for this purpose for the first time in his
whole life. The woman, opening a door, showed the young man the room.

“What a beautiful room,” cried Simon, who was truly astonished,
“far too beautiful for me, unfortunately, far too elegant for me. I am, you
should know, so very poorly suited to such an elegant room. And yet I would
dearly love to inhabit it—all too dearly, far far too dearly. In fact, it
wasn’t right to show me this chamber. It would have been better had you
shown me the door at once. How do I come to be casting my gaze into such a
gay, beautiful space—it’s as if it were made for a god to dwell in. What
beautiful dwellings are inhabited by the well-to-do, the
ones who possess something. I have never possessed anything, have never been
anything, and despite the hopes of my parents will never amount to anything
at all. What a lovely view from the windows, and such pretty, shiny
furniture, and such charming curtains—they give the room a girlish look. I
would perhaps become a good, tender person here, if it’s true, as people
say, that surroundings can change a person. Might I gaze at it for a little
while longer, remain standing here one more minute?”

“Of course you may.”

“I thank you.”

“What sort of people are your parents, and, if I may ask, in what
sense are you ‘nothing,’ as you expressed yourself a moment ago?”

“I’m unemployed.”

“That wouldn’t matter to me. It all depends!”

“No, I have little hope. Though admittedly I shouldn’t be saying such
things if I am to speak with perfect truthfulness. I’m overflowing with hope.
Never, ever does it abandon me. —My father is a poor but joyful individual who
would never dream of comparing his currently bleak circumstances with his glory
days. He lives like a lad of twenty-five and can’t be bothered to
ponder his condition. I admire him and seek to emulate him. If he can still be
cheerful in his snowy old age, it must be his young son’s duty, thirty
times—indeed one hundred times—over, to hold his head high and meet people’s
gazes with eyes that flash like lightning. But the gift of thought was given
to
me—and to my brothers even more than me—by our mother. My mother is dead.”

A dismayed “ah” came from the mouth of the lady, who was still
standing there kindly.

“She was a good-hearted woman. We children always,
constantly still speak of her whenever and wherever we’re reunited. We live
scattered all across this round, wide world, and this is excellent, for we all
have such heads on us, you see, that they shouldn’t come together for very long.
There’s a ponderousness to each of us that would be burdensome if we appeared
together in human society. But this is something that, thank goodness, we avoid,
and each of us knows perfectly well why that’s imperative. And yet we love one
another with appropriate fraternal love. One of my brothers is a fairly
prominent scholar, another a stock market specialist, and yet another nothing
more than just my brother, for I love him more than a brother—and thinking of
him, it never occurs to me to emphasize any of his qualities except simply the
fact that he is my brother: mine, someone who looks just like me, and nothing
more. I would like to live here in your home together with this brother of mine.
The room is large enough for both of us. But no doubt this isn’t possible. What
does the room cost?”

“What does your brother do?”

“He’s a landscape painter! How much would you charge for the room?— —
Oh, that much? This is assuredly not too expensive for this room, but for us
it’s far too much. Besides which, come to think of it, now that I am peering
at
you more keenly: The two of us would hardly be suitable, strolling in and out
of
this house as though we belonged here. We are still so coarse, you’d be
disappointed in us. What’s more, our habits are a bit rough on duvet covers,
furniture, linens, window curtains, doorknobs and stair landings—you’d be
horrified and would lose your temper with us, or perhaps you would forgive us
and strive to turn the other cheek, which would be even more humiliating. I
don’t wish to be the cause of your having trouble with us at some later point.
Surely you would! Do hear me out. I can see it all perfectly clearly. Basically,
the two of us have, in the long run, little respect for anything fine and
delicate. People such as ourselves should be left standing before wealthy garden
gates—free to make derisive remarks about all the splendor and attention to
detail. We are great deriders! Adieu!”

The eyes of the beautiful woman had begun to gleam intensely, and now
all at once she said: “I should like to take in you and your brother after all.
As for the price, I am certain we can reach some agreement.”

“No, it’s best that we don’t.”

Simon was already heading downstairs. Then the lady’s voice called out
after him: “Please stay a little longer.” And she hurried after him. At the
bottom she caught up with Simon and forced him to stand still and listen to her:
“What could you be thinking of, leaving again so soon. Can’t you see that I
want, that I would like to keep the two of you? Even if you don’t pay a thing.
What does it matter? Not at all, not at all, just come with me, come. Come into
this room with me. Marie! Where are you? Bring in the coffee at once.”

Inside she said to Simon: “I wish to get to know you and your brother.
How could you go running off like that? I am so often all alone in this isolated
house that I feel frightened. My husband is always gone, off on some distant
journey, he is an explorer and goes sailing off on seas the very existence of
which his poor wife hasn’t even an inkling. Am I not a poor woman? What is your
name? What’s the name of the other one, your brother? My name is Klara. Just
call me Miss Klara. It pleases me to hear this simple name. Are you feeling a
bit more trusting now? This would make me so, so very happy. Don’t you think
we’ll be able to live together and get along? Certainly we’ll be able to—I think
you must be quite gentle. I’m not afraid to have you in my home. You have honest
eyes. Is your brother older than you?”

“Yes, he is older and a much better person than I am.”

“You are an honest man to say such a thing.”

“My name is Simon, and my brother is Kaspar.”

“My husband’s name is Agappaia.”

She turned pale as she spoke these words, but quickly pulled herself
together and smiled.

Simon wrote to his brother Kaspar:

What odd fish we are, the two of us. The way we drift about this
earth, it’s as if only you and I were alive, and no one else. What a crazy sort
of friendship the two of us have forged, it’s as though among all mankind no
one
else could be found who might be worthy of the designation
“friend.”
We’re not really brothers at
all, we’re just friends, two people who find themselves companions in this
world. I’m not truly made for friendship, and can’t understand what it is about
you I find so splendid that I’m forced constantly to imagine myself at your
side, pressed against your back as it were. I’ll soon be thinking your head is
my own, for you’re so very often in my head already; and if things go on like
this, perhaps I’ll soon be seizing things with your hands, walking with your
legs and eating with your mouth. Truly there is something mysterious about our
friendship when I say to you I consider it quite possible that our hearts have
been trying to draw apart from one another, but they’re incapable of separating.
I’m overjoyed I have to admit that you still can’t quite manage this, for your
letters sound so nice and for the time being I also wish to remain under this
mystery’s spell. For us this is good, but how can I be speaking in such a
horribly dry tone: I find it simply, not to tell a lie, enchanting. And why
shouldn’t two brothers overdo things a little? We fit together quite well—and
we
did even back in the days of still hating one another when we nearly beat each
other to a pulp. Do you remember? This appeal, with a dash of healthy laughter,
is all that’s needed to stir up within you, to glue together, paste, and draw
pictures that are truly more than worth remembering. We had become, for reasons
I can no longer recall, mortal enemies. Oh, how accomplished we were at
hating—our hatred was decidedly resourceful in inventing torments and
humiliations to inflict on one another. Once at the dinner table, just to
provide a single example of this lamentable and childish state of affairs, you
threw a platter of sauerkraut at me, because you couldn’t resist, saying: “Here,
catch!” I have to tell you, at the time I was trembling with fury even if only
for the fact that here was this lovely opportunity for you to insult me so
cruelly, and there was nothing I could do about it. I caught the platter, but
was stupid enough to savor the pain of this mortification all up and down my
gullet. And do you remember how, one noon—it was a quiet, a deathly quiet
summer-hot Sunday afternoon mad with this deathly silence—someone came
creeping up to you in the kitchen and asked you to be friends with me again.
It
was an incredible feat of self-control, let me tell you, to overcome
those feelings of shame and defiance to reach out to you, the very figure of
an
enemy inclined to scornfully reject me. I did this and to this day am grateful
to myself for doing so. Whether you’re grateful as well is a matter of the most
joyous and fragrant indifference. I can only guess. Go away, I hear you trying
to get a word in. Sorry, not possible. Desist! —How many delightful hours I
thereafter enjoyed in your company. All at once I found you tender, loving,
considerate. I think blissful feelings of joy burned on our cheeks. We wandered,
you as painter and I as observer and commentator, through the meadows on the
broad mountain slopes, wading in the scent of the grass, in the wetness of cool
mornings, under the heat of midday and with the damp, infatuated setting of the
sun. The trees watched what we were doing there, and the clouds balled
themselves up, no doubt in anger at possessing no power to break our newly
forged love. In the evenings we would come home horribly broken, dusty, starved
and exhausted, and then suddenly you went off one day. The devil knows I helped
you leave, as though I’d bound myself to do so for some sort of retainer, or
as
though I were in a hurry to see you depart. Certainly it was an
unheard-of pleasure for me to see you setting off, for you were
traveling out into the wide world. How far from wide this world is, brother.

Come visit me soon. I can give you shelter just as I would shelter a
bride whom I assume to be in the habit of reposing on silk while servants wait
on her. Admittedly I have no servants, but I do have a room fit for a born lord.
The two of us, you and I, have just been offered a splendid
chambre
as a gift, it’s been laid at
our feet. You can paint pictures here just as well as in your luscious fat
landscapes, after all you have your imagination. It ought by rights to be summer
now so that I might throw a garden party on the lawn in your honor, with Chinese
lanterns and garlands of flowers, so as to receive you in a manner approaching
what you deserve. Come all the same, but see to it your coming is quick,
otherwise I’ll have to come get you. My lady and landlady is pressing your hand
in hers. She is convinced that she knows you already just from my descriptions.
Once she meets you, she’ll never want to meet anyone else again. Do you have
a
decent suit? Are your trousers not sagging too terribly about your knees, and
does your head covering still merit the designation hat? Otherwise you may not
appear before me. Just a joke, what silliness. Let your little Simon embrace
you. Farewell, brother. I hope you’ll come soon—

* * *

Several weeks had passed, spring was beginning to return, the air was
damper and softer, uncertain fragrances and sounds began to assert themselves,
coming seemingly from beneath the earth. The earth was soft, one walked on it
as
on thick supple rugs. You thought you must be hearing birds singing. “Spring
is
on its way,” people on the street said to one another, awash in sensations. Even
the stark buildings were taking on a certain fragrance, a richer hue. Such a
peculiar state of affairs, and yet it was such an old, familiar phenomenon—but
everyone perceived it as utterly novel, it inspired strange, turbulent thoughts,
a person’s limbs, senses, heads, thoughts, everything was stirring as if all
these things wished to start growing anew. The water of the lake gleamed so
warmly, and the bridges snaking across the river appeared to arch more boldly.
Flags were flapping in the wind, and it gave people pleasure to see them flap.
And then the sunshine drove everyone out into the beautiful, white, clean
streets in clusters and groups, where they remained standing, greedily
luxuriating in the warm air’s kisses. Many coats of many people were cast aside.
You could see the men moving more freely again, and the women had such strange
expressions in their eyes, as though something blissful were emerging from their
hearts. At night one heard the sound of vagabond guitars for the first time,
and
men and women stood amid a whirl of gaily frolicking children. The lights of
the
lanterns flickered like candles in quiet rooms, and when you went walking across
the night-dark meadows, you could feel the blooming and stirring of
the flowers. The grass would soon grow again, the trees soon begin again to pour
their green over the low roofs of the houses and block the view from the
windows. The forest would be luxuriant, voluptuous, heavy, oh the forest.— —
Simon was working once more at a large commercial firm.