Simon had scarcely murmured or thought these words when an old man with white hair sat down in the empty seat beside him. The old man’s face displayed a gray, haggard pallor, his nose was dripping, or rather, a large drop hung from his nose, unable to fall and yet heavy enough to fall. One was constantly expecting it to fall at any moment. But the drop clung on. The man ordered a dish of boiled potatoes and nothing more, and then he ate his potatoes, carefully sprinkling them with salt from the tip of his knife, with elaborate pleasure. But beforehand he folded his hands together and said a prayer to his Lord God. Simon allowed himself the following little prank: He secretly ordered a slice of roast meat from the serving girl and, when it arrived, he had a good laugh at the man’s astonishment when the plate was set down before none other than himself.
“Why do you pray before you eat,” Simon asked simply.
“I pray because I need to,” the old man replied.
“Then I’m glad I saw you praying — I was just curious what sort of sentiment prompted you.”
“One has many sentiments when one prays, young man! You, for example, surely do not pray at all. Young people today have no time for it, nor the desire. I can understand this. When I pray, I am merely continuing my habit, for I have grown used to prayers, and they give me comfort.”
“Were you always poor?”
“Always.” —
As the old man spoke this word, the clean yet nonetheless musty and squalid dining room was suddenly graced by the appearance of beautiful Frau Klara. Every hand holding a fork, a spoon or a knife, or the handle of a cup hesitated for a moment before going on with its work. Every mouth popped open, and all eyes were riveted at the sight of a figure so unlikely to have any business in such a place. She was the consummate lady, never more so than at this moment. It was exactly — even for Simon’s eyes and senses — as though from an open fluttering sky an angel had emerged and was now floating down to earth and visiting some dark hole in order to bring happiness to those who lived there simply with her heavenly appearance. This is just how Simon had always imagined a benefactress visiting the poor and wretched, people who possessed nothing more than the questionable privilege of being constantly flogged with worries as if with birch canes. In this charitable establishment it appeared to come quite naturally to Klara to comport herself like a regal remote creature that had just flown here from distant borderlands, from a different world and walk of life. Precisely this splendor and radiance compelled all these timid persons to gape, struggle for breath and use their free hands to steady the hands holding their knives for fear they might drop them, they were trembling so. Klara’s beauty suddenly, painfully, gave them something to consider. All at once it occurred to every one what other things existed in this world besides harsh labor and the fear of not making ends meet. Health like this — this luxuriant, voluptuous, smiling charm — had nearly vanished from their imaginations; life in all its bleak unsavory ordinariness was slipping through their fingers, ground down in worry and squalid graspings. All these things now occurred to them — though perhaps not in each case with such great clarity — occurred tormentingly, for a torment it is to behold beauty whose very scent intoxicates but which can kill a person whose thoughts take the liberty of smiling along with beauty’s smile. All of them therefore frowned involuntarily, showing grimacing faces to the woman towering over them, for they were seated on low chairs, squeezed into narrow spaces, while she in her loftiness stood erect above them. She seemed to be looking for someone. Simon kept quiet in his corner, steadily smiling at the woman as she peered about. And it was a long time before she noticed him, although the room was relatively small; it must have been strenuous to accustom her eyes to this jumbled dark hodge-podge and pick out individual figures such as she wasn’t in the habit of noticing at all. She was about to withdraw again, having grown somewhat impatient, when her eyes swept over Simon and recognized him. “So here’s where you’re sitting, all tucked away in a corner?” she said, and with the greatest joy sat down beside him, on the chair between her young friend and the old man, whose nose still bore the large glistening drop. The old man was asleep. It was not permitted to sleep in such establishments, but it was a quite common occurrence for old people to fall asleep here after eating, out of sheer exhaustion they could no longer control. Perhaps this old man had a long fruitless peregrination through all the city’s streets behind him. Quite possibly he’d asked for work everywhere his thoughts could even faintly suggest he try. Growing ever more weary, he had perhaps nonetheless tried to achieve something this day, might have expended his last resources scaling a mountain, for the city extended up the mountainside, and at the mountain’s summit he was rejected just as swiftly as down below; and so he went back down again, his heart filled with death, his strength shattered, until he came to this place. The very thought that this old man might, as one could suppose, have gone out looking for work, that he still had the will to work, old as he was — there was something piteous and horrifying about the very idea. But this was a thought that lay quite near at hand. This old man had no other home than this dining establishment, but even here only during certain hours, for afterward the restaurant was closed. Perhaps this was why he prayed: to give the awful seriousness of his situation a soft soothing melody. This was why he said: “I need to pray.” So it wasn’t at all sanctimoniousness but just the utterly plaintive need to sense the presence of a hand that wished to caress him, the hand of a child or daughter softly, consolingly stroking his old creased forehead. Perhaps the old man had begotten daughters — and what about him now? It was easy to give in to such thoughts, sitting there beside the old man watching him sleep like this, his head strangely immobile, hands propping his chin. Klara said: “Your brother has come, Simon, in his officer’s uniform, and your sister too, and one other gentleman named Sebastian.” Hearing these words, Simon paid what he owed, and the two of them left together. When they were gone, one of the serving girls noticed the sleeping man, gave him a shake and declared with mock severity: “No sleeping! You there! Can’t you hear? You mustn’t sleep!” At this, the old man woke up.
This day was followed by a splendid evening. All the world was strolling along the lake’s lovely shore beneath broad, large-leaved trees. Walking here among all these many lighthearted, quietly conversing people, one felt transported to a fairy tale. The city was ablaze with the setting sun’s flames; later it smoldered, black and dark, in the glowing ashes of the sun that had set. There’s something delightful and enchanting about a summer sun. The lake glittered in the dark, and all the lights shimmered in the depths of the still water. The bridges were looking splendid, and when you walked over them you could see small dark boats shooting past in the water below; in these rowboats sat girls in light-colored dresses, and often when one of the larger flat-bottomed boats slowly, ceremoniously floated past, you could hear the warm crepuscular sounds of an accordion. The notes vanished in the black and then sonorously reemerged, clear and warm, heartbreakingly dark. How far it carried, the sound of this simple instrument played by some boatman! The sound seemed to be making the night even larger and deeper. From the far distant shoreline the lights of rural settlements shimmered, their reddish glint like gemstones in the dark heavy raiment of a queen. The entire earth was fragrant, lying there as still as a sleeping girl. The huge shadowy dome of the night sky arched above all eyes, all the mountains and lights. A sense of spacelessness hovered about the lake, and the sky now had something enclosing, encompassing, overarching about it. Whole groups of people were collecting. The young folk appeared to be waxing rhapsodic, and upon all the benches silent, still people sat pressed close together. There was no lack of flighty, pridefully coquettish women, nor of men who had eyes for these women alone, who kept walking behind them, constantly hesitating before rushing forward again until at last they found their pluck or the words to address these ladies. Many were given a proper dressing-down, as the expression goes.