“Yes, most assuredly a lady,” the gentleman replied, smiling.
“What does she look like?”
“Dressed in black from head to foot. A tall slender creature. Large eyes that, when you see them, will follow you for a long, long time, even if they aren’t still gazing at you at all. About her neck she wears a necklace of large white pearls, and on her ears long dangling earrings. Her joints are circled by simple gold hoops — I mean her wrist joints, of course. Her face has something full, oval, voluptuous about it. You’ll see. About her mouth, though this is deceptive, there is a trace of something cagey and crafty, it’s a rather shut-tight mouth. By the way, she likes to wear a broad-brimmed hat with drooping feathers: The hat appears to have just flown up and landed on her head and hair. If this description isn’t yet sufficient, let me also draw your attention to the fact that she is accompanied by a greyhound on a thin black leash. She never goes out without him. I shall remain standing here at my post and await your report. I am grateful for your offer, quite aside from the fact that, based on the words you’ve addressed to me, I find you quite interesting: And indeed the crowd of people swarming about keeps increasing in size. There appears to be some sort of festival in progress.”
“Yes — something of that sort. I don’t generally pay much attention to these things.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, you know, each person has his own path to follow. Goodbye for now!”
And with this, Simon went off as quickly as possible through the thick crowd of people. From all sides he was pressed and shoved, almost lifted into the air. But he pushed back as well, finding it highly amusing to pass slowly through the mass of bodies and faces in this way. Finally he reached a sort of island, that is, a small empty space, and, glancing about, he suddenly caught sight of Frau Klara. She really did have a dog with her. Since moving into her house, he hadn’t paid her much attention, and so didn’t know she was in the habit of going out with her dog at her side.
“There’s a man looking for you,” he said when she noticed him.
“My husband, no doubt,” she replied. “Come with me, we’ll go together. He’s suddenly returned from his journey without writing me so much as a line. It’s always like this. How did you make his acquaintance, and how do you come to be tracking down ladies on his behalf? You are certainly a strange person, Simon. What’s that? You’ve given up your job? So what are you planning to do now? Come with me, this way. We can get through more easily over here. I’ll introduce you to my husband.”
It was decided they would spend the evening at the theater. They sent word to Kaspar, who showed up at the appointed hour at the theater, a white splendid building towering up beside the shore of the lake. When the curtain rose, it revealed a gray empty space. But this space soon came to life, when a dancer with bare legs and arms came on stage and began dancing to a soft music. Her body was veiled in a transparent, fluttering, flowing garment which appeared to mirror the lines of the dance in the floating air. You could sense the complete innocence and gracefulness of this dance, and it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone present to find her immodest or to ascribe impure intentions to the girl’s nakedness. Her dance often resolved into a simple striding, but this too remained a dance, and at some points the dancer appeared to be borne aloft upon her own waves. When, for example, she raised one leg and curled her lovely foot, she did so in such a novel
unperturbed manner that everyone thought: I have seen this before, but where? Or did I just dream it? There was something weighty about the girl’s dance, it seemed a part of nature. To be sure, measured strictly by the laws of ballet, her art was perhaps somewhat lacking, her abilities might seem paltry compared with the abilities and achievements of ballerinas. But by means of her girlishly bashful gracefulness alone she possessed the art of filling people with delight. When she sailed to the ground, with such sweet heft, and when she flew up to attain greater momentum, the wildness and innocence of her motions bewitched all the souls witnessing it. And as she moved, she too was exhilarated by her fleeting motions, and her arousal devised ever new flourishes to accompany the notes. Her hands resembled two beautiful white fluttering doves. The girl smiled as she danced, clearly this made her happy. Her artlessness was felt to be the highest art. At one point she flew in huge soft leaps, like a stag being pursued, from one beat to another. Like waves splashing up to crash down on a low shoreline, she’d seem to be dancing to scatter into spray, but next she went flowing off like a wide, sunny, powerful wave, like a wave in the middle of a lake, and now it was like a flurry of flakes and little stones, constantly changing and always poignant. The sensibilities of all who saw her danced along with her, filled with pleasure and pain. Some had tears in their eyes from watching this dance, pure tears of vicarious delight, vicarious dancing. How beautiful it was, when the girl had completed her dance, to see aged imposing women shoot passionately to their feet, waving their handkerchiefs and throwing flowers into the abyss of the stage to honor the girl. “Be our sister,” everyone’s smiles seemed to be asking. “What a joy it would be to call you my daughter if you so wished,” these ladies appeared to be exulting. Gazing at the young girl upon the stage, the hundred-headed audience forgot the boundary, the wall separating them from her. Innumerable arms arced through the air as though in imagined caresses; hands were trembling as they waved. Words shouted down to the stage were the inventions of pure joy. Even the cold golden statues adorning the stage appeared to wish to come to life and for once crown a head with the laurel wreaths they held in their gold hands. Simon had never before found the theater so beautiful. Klara was utterly delighted, who could have been otherwise on such an evening. Only Herr Agappaia remained silent and said not a word. Kaspar said: “I’m going to paint an ovation like this, what a splendid picture it would make.” “But difficult to paint,” Simon said, “this perfume and gleam of joy — this shimmer of delight, the coldness and warmth, the definite and blurry, the colors and shapes in this perfume, the gold and the heavy red, drowning like this in all the colors — and the stage, the tiny focal point and the small blissful girl standing upon it, the clothing of the women, the faces of the men, the boxes and all the rest — really, Kaspar, it would be quite difficult indeed.”
Klara said: “Think of a silent landscape, the way all of it is just lying there, the forests and hills and the wide meadows, and here we are in this glittery theater. How strange. But perhaps it’s all just nature — not only the vastness and silence out there, but also the small agile things that are the work of man. A theater is also part of nature: What nature instructs us to create must itself belong to nature, though perhaps that’s just a natural anomaly. Let culture become ever so refined, it will nonetheless remain a part of nature, for culture is only a long drawn-out process of inventing, spread over the ages, and performed by creatures who must always cling to nature. If you paint a picture, Kaspar, that will be nature, for you paint using your senses and fingers, which nature has given you. No, we do well to love nature and remain mindful of it — even, if I may be permitted to say so, to worship nature — for human beings must do their praying somewhere, otherwise they turn bad. If only we can love what is nearest at hand! That’s a blessing that makes us roll thoughtfully along with the earth, driving our centuries tempestuously on, a blessing that makes us feel our lives more intensely and with greater bliss — and so we must seize and grab hold of it a thousand times over, in a thousand moments — oh, what do I know!”