She had become inflamed as she spoke. “Does that make any sense, what I just said?” she asked Kaspar.
Kaspar did not reply. They had long since left the theater behind and were on their way home. Simon had walked on a bit ahead with Herr Agappaia.
“Tell me something,” Klara asked her companion.
“I have a colleague, Erwin by name,” Kaspar began, walking beside the woman. “He doesn’t have much talent, or perhaps he was once talented, in his early youth. Nonetheless, despite the fact that his painting offers him no prospect of success, he is fanatically in love with his art. He declares all his pictures lousy, and lousy is what they are, but he works on them for years. He keeps scraping off the paint to try again. To love nature as he does must be a torment — and it’s also disgracefuclass="underline" No sensible man allows himself to be made a fool of by any one thing, tormented and tricked for so long, even by nature itself. Of course, it isn’t art that torments him: He himself is doing the tormenting with his pathetic notions of art and the world. This Erwin loves me. When both of us were just starting out, we would paint together. We would romp about the open meadows and beneath the trees, which I always see only in the fullest, most opulent blossom when I think back on that ‘godful’ time. This word ‘godful’ is one that Erwin himself coined in his blind enthusiasm when he stood before landscapes whose beauty surpassed his powers of apprehension. Kaspar, just look at this godful landscape, is something he said to me I don’t know how many hundreds of times. Even back then, although he was turning out attractive little pictures that were made with talent, he was a harsh unsparing critic of his own work. He destroyed pictures of his that were successful, and preserved only the botched ones, because only they appeared to him to have value. His talent suffered terribly beneath this constant distrust, until finally the bad treatment caused it to shrivel up and run dry like a spring that’s been scorched by the sun and parched. I often advised him to sell his finished pictures at a modest price, but because of my importunity he almost declared our friendship null and void. Day after day he became more and more puzzled at how I could go on lightheartedly, even frivolously painting, but he admired my talent, which he had to acknowledge. But he wished I would pursue my art with more seriousness of purpose, and I replied that in the practice of art all that was required to accomplish something were diligence, a joyful zeal, and the observation of nature, and I drew his attention to the harm that could and must come about when one approached a matter with exaggerated holy solemnity. He did in fact believe me, but he was too weak to tear himself away from this bullheaded seriousness he’d sunk his teeth into. Then I left on a journey and received the most poignant letters from him, full of sadness over my departure. He said I was the only one who’d been able to keep his spirits up, such as they were. He asked me to return or, failing that, to allow him to join me. Indeed, he did join me. He was always right behind me like my very own shadow, no matter how often I treated him with coldness, scorn or even condescension. He steered clear of women, indeed he hated them, for he was afraid they might distract him from the holiness of his life’s work. I made fun of him for this, and it may be that I treated him rather contemptuously. His paintings became ever more clumsy, and he went on sketching ever more obsessively. I advised him to make fewer studies and instead get his hand used to the brush. He tried it, and wept at the sight of my own offhanded productivity. Then the two of us undertook a shared journey to my homeland — you can imagine! The paths there led one across broad high mountains, then steeply down into deep valleys and at once back up again. To me it was an easily grasped pleasure, something to savor, a slight quickening of the breath, a greater demand on the legs, and nothing further. Erwin could barely move forward: In truth, his strength had been sapped by the excesses of his artistic longings. One day the two of us — it was nearly evening, and we stood high up on a mountain meadow — glimpsed between the fir branches the three lakes of my native region. Edwin cried out at the sight. It was indeed unforgettably beautiful. Down below, the noise of the railway could be heard, and the sound of bells rang up to where we stood. The city had not yet come into view, but I stretched out my hand to show Edwin the spot where it must lie. Like the raiment of princesses, the lakes lay spread out all sparkly and gently gleaming, ringed in by noble processions of mountains, with enchantingly delicate shorelines, so far off in the distance and yet so near. That very evening the two of us reached home, dust-covered and ravenous. My sister was happy I’d brought this reticent guest with me. This was perhaps three years ago now. Little by little she drew closer to him, and I believe I am correct in thinking that a secret love for him was kindled within her. It pained her to see how I treated her chosen ward. She asked me to speak of him in a more friendly and respectful way when I made jocular remarks at his expense. The poor fellow didn’t last long. One day he took his leave. He was prevailed upon to write a few lines in my sister’s journal — it’s all so comical, and yet somehow profound. Perhaps while he was writing in her book he rested his hand thoughtfully and imagined a future for himself together with my sister. What was art offering him? I felt a bit worried my sister might make something like a scene. But she just looked at him warmly and kindly as they said goodbye. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, he didn’t dare. Did he appear to himself a miserable wretch? Probably. Perhaps because he had a birthmark that covered half his face he was incapable of believing that a girl might love him and want him for a husband. But in my eyes it only made him look more noble. I very much liked looking at him. We were traveling, and once he asked my permission to write to my sister. ‘What’s it got to do with me,’ I exclaimed. ‘Write to her if you feel like it!’ He went home again, back to the utterly dead, dismal surroundings of his academy professors. I pitied him, but parted from him coldly, or at least I displayed coldness toward him: For me it’s unpleasant to show warmth to someone I find so pitiable. He wrote a few letters which I never answered, and even today he still writes to me and I don’t respond. He’s clinging to me in desperation. Under such circumstances, is it necessary to respond? He’s lost, he’s made no progress whatsoever. His recent pictures are horrible. And yet no other person has ever had so close a bond with me as he did…. And when I think of those days when the two of us were so captivated by nature! So many things in this world pass. All you can do is work, make things, create, that’s what we’re here for, not for inspiring pity.”
“The poor thing,” Klara said, “I do pity him. I wish he were here, and if he were ill, how gladly I would care for him. An unhappy artist is like an unhappy king. What pain he must feel deep in his soul to know he’s so lacking in talent. I can imagine that so well. The poor fellow. I would like to be his friend, since you have no time to take pity on him. I could make time for him. What unfortunate people there are in this world!”
Kaspar said in a low voice, seizing her hand for the first time: “How kind you are!”—
The forest was inky black, everything was dark, the house was a dark patch in the darkness. Simon and Agappaia were waiting for the two others at the door.