Of the bright, clear vineyard country by the lake with its cozy wine villages, the imposing boulders and outcroppings, the delicate, slender church spires, the graceful walls supporting the vines, and the steep, precipitous, narrow streets running through it all; of the good men and women he saw busily, undourly creating, building, and working, which made him, I should rather hope, not only marvel at but even be properly ashamed of his own laziness, which in turn, thank God, will have filled him with some serious concern; of the subsequent eventual sitting inside in the pub over a lightly foaming and sparkling white wine, which in his prominent or negligible opinion tasted excellent; of the venerable old lady by the pub window; of the dark-tabled, amiable room itself with several depictions on the wall from the world-famous story of the prodigal son mentioned in a charming novella by Pushkin alongside other attractive illustrations: of all this, and of the arbor and outdoor seating on the lakeside where it was so marvelous to sit in the evenings, he (you know who I mean) thought with no less pleasure than of various other happy, pleasant things.
Architectural matters, such as for instance certain medieval castles and seats of nobility on the lake, or, in the city, the city’s church on its magnificent raised platform, or an old fountain crowned with the striking, impressive figure of a man-at-arms, of necessity remained no less memorable than various nearly just as meaningful and beautiful things like for example a round fortress tower with merlons and embrasures, which would not have been out of place in Damascus or somewhere else like that, or a nicely situated swan rookery, where ducks, geese, pigeons, sparrows, chickens, and swans could be observed as well as fed, or several and similar other items.
Since all of these things literally swarmed and seethed to be diligently, properly stored up in his memory, there always remained a large number left over that he should have paid equal attention to, although there was in fact no possible way he could have possessed enough brainpower to do so.
But at least there was the day when he helped two poor village schoolboys pull and push their cart for a ways, an occurrence or diminutive incident that stayed with Hans always, the same way a faithful, obedient dog makes sure to run after his master or mistress always. However trivial the little event might have been in and of itself, it nonetheless burrowed its way deeply into his inner life. The deed took place on a steep mountain road, where the two boys were struggling to try to move a cart from the spot where it found itself. One of them even started crying because the difficult task just did not want to be accomplished. In vain was one desperate expenditure of strength after another sacrificed to the attempt.
Now since our Mister Hans happened to come walking down the road just then and saw the desperate situation, he helped push, thereby making the thing progress nice and quickly. When the little lads politely thanked the grown-up passerby for his assistance, he thought and said to himself:
“How beautiful it is to be able to lend a hand and help someone. How happy this most charming of all little adventures makes me. How the tear-stained face before me has just this minute been transformed into an unclouded, satisfied, noticeably smiling one.
“Often enough have I longed to be able to do some small good in the world, something kind in some way. And now a modest opportunity to be good-hearted, feel human sympathy, and help out has just presented itself.”
The fact is, Hans had for the longest time held it against himself that all he did was roam around for himself, free and easy, neither attached to other people nor bound up in some way with rough-and-tumble day-to-day working life but rather just flitting past human beings and social conditions, not so much standing on his own two feet in life itself as alas instead simply strolling past it, admittedly in no sense inattentive to the cares and joys of his fellow man but still in truth moving past them too quickly, too exclusively concerned with himself, and therefore only looking on at active, suffering life rather than actually living it — too much the spectator and correspondingly much too little the active participant, the essentially affected party concerned.
One time, it happened that he went walking with an old gentleman, whose white hair made a deep impression on him, up a moderately high hill. Several cherry trees adorning the road were thickly covered with ripening red fruit, smiling out from the soft pale green of the foliage like a kind of cheerful eye.
The two of them walked into the nearby forest. Before they reached it, they passed through a little newly built area or nice outlying district.
The old man proved to have the liveliest interest in everything that looked in any way worth seeing, in a manner that made his old age give an impression of utmost youth.
The sight of the pleasant green forest, which looked like a green capital city, ceremonial residence, king’s palace, and amiable-solemn high cathedral in green in one, gave great pleasure to the old man’s ancient eyes and heart. Hans noticed this and it made him happy. To be permitted to see someone made happy makes us happy ourselves, provided we are decent people.
Out from the sweetly hidden depths of the forest came the sounds of the woodland birds, an army as unwarlike as it was invisible, performing an afternoon concert in the best possible way, which would have been able to satisfy even the most spoiled and fastidious ears.
Visibly glad as he was about his well-preserved health, which allowed him to hike in the mountains in order to enjoy the lovely view in person even in this his time of old age, the old man expressed the opinion, almost with pride but in any case with uncommon good spirits, that his old legs did his bidding better than young legs did that of most young people. Hans, contemplating the January snow on the old man’s head with a certain amount of pity, could not do enough to approve the vitality and joie de vivre he saw the man displaying.
“If accumulated years and long since entered-upon fragility are still able to greet the world so joyously, how committed in every sense to good humor and grateful affirmation of life must not those who are still young and strong feel?” was the noble thought that came to his consciousness in the company of the old man.
On August First, which as is well known is our fatherland’s most beautiful holiday, all sorts of boat rides were organized on the lake in the evening under flashing, hissing fireworks. Rowboats and sailboats glided this way and that through the water while a large crowd of cheerful people stood and promenaded on the streetlight-bedecked shore. Rockets flew high into the night sky only to rain back onto the lake as a scintillating spray of fire, a spectacle that looked almost like a Venetian night. The incandescent spheres of fireworks shone down from above; through the silent blackness of the night shot magnificent if admittedly artificial stars. Farther off in the distance, high atop the mountains, the memorial fires burned. The night was still and warm, like a carefully locked room or like a high, beautiful, dark, aristocratic hall where everyone involuntarily falls silent because unnecessary noise seems inappropriate.
On the nearby forested mountains, among all sorts of scattered, light-green hazelnut shrubs and isolated taller trees standing all around, Hans found places to play and rest that were more lovely that any you could have probably ever seen anywhere else. There were places there that Hans could tear himself away from only with great difficulty, since they invited him to remain in what seemed like everlasting sitting and lying by offering the wanderer and mortal creature an uninterrupted slumber.