Simon went home. He’d made it his habit to amble homeward each day at a certain hour when evening was approaching, usually with his gaze lowered to the brown dark earth, to make the tea at home, in the preparation of which he’d developed a skill that always struck the right balance, for it was a matter of using not too little and not too much of this noble fragrant plant, keeping the crockery meticulously clean and placing it in an appetizing, graceful way upon the table, preventing the water from boiling away on its spirit burner, and then combining it with the tea in the prescribed manner. For Hedwig it provided some modicum of relief that all she had to do to have tea was pop out of the classroom for a moment before rushing back to work. In the morning when he got up, Simon would put his bed to rights, then go to the kitchen to make the cocoa, which, to Hedwig’s pleasure, came out quite tasty; for with this task, too, he was always in hot pursuit of the best way to give an undertaking, modest as it might be, the required perfection. He also took it upon himself as a matter of course, without previous study or particular exertion, to light the fire in the heating stove and keep it burning, and to clean Hedwig’s room, whereby his skill in manipulating the long broom very much came in handy. He would open the windows to allow fresh air to enter the room, but he closed them again promptly when he thought it was time, in order to achieve a room that was both warm and nice-smelling. Everywhere in the room, in little pots, flowers that had been snatched from their natural environment went on blooming, distributing their fragrance between these four narrow walls. The windows had simple but charming curtains, which added considerably to the brightness and friendliness of the room. On the floor lay warm rugs that Hedwig had had made from gathered-up scraps of cloth by unfortunates serving prison terms, who carried out tasks of this sort exceptionally well. A bed stood in one corner, in the other a piano, and between them was an old sofa with a flowered cloth slipcover, an adequately large table before it, chairs on either side; and then there was a washstand in the room, a small writing table with a blotting pad and a bookshelf filled with books; and a small inverted crate on the floor that, covered with a soft cloth, served for sitting and reading, as reading sometimes made one feel the need to be close to the floor and fancy oneself an Oriental; further, a little sewing table with a sewing basket containing all those fantastical items indispensable to a girl who sets any store in housekeeping; a round, odd stone bearing a postmark and stamp, a bird, a stack of letters and postcards; and on the wall a horn for blowing into, a cup to drink from, a walking stick with a large crook, a backpack with a canteen, and the tail-feather of a falcon. Also hanging on the walls were Kaspar’s paintings — a crepuscular landscape with a forest; a rooftop seen from a window; a foggy gray city (to Hedwig particularly lovely); a bit of river in voluptuous evening hues; a field in summer; a Don Quixote; and a house nestled against a hill in such a way that one could borrow the words of a poet to declare: “O’er yonder stands a house.” Upon the piano, whose top was covered with a silken scarf, stood a bust of Beethoven in a greenish shade of bronze, several photographs and a small, dainty empty jewelry box, a keepsake from their mother. A curtain that looked like a theater curtain separated the two rooms and the two sleepers. In the evening, the teacher’s room appeared particularly cozy when the lamp was lit and the shutters closed; and in the morning, the sunlight would awaken a sleeper who was anything but eager to emerge from her bed but in the end had no choice.
The notaries left Simon in the lurch, not a single one contacted him. As a result, he found himself compelled to earn money in other ways, since he hoped to demonstrate to his sister his good intentions when it came to sharing household expenses. He took up a sheet of paper and wrote:
COUNTRY LIFE
I arrived here in a house in the country along with the snow, and although I am not the master of this house, nor harbor any ambition to become master, I can nonetheless feel myself to be at home here and am perhaps in this way happier than the owner of the stateliest dwelling. Not even the room I’m living in belongs to me; it belongs to a gentle, dear teacher who has taken me in and feeds me when I am hungry. It pleases me to be the sort of fellow who depends on the kind mercy of others, for in general I like depending on someone so I can love this person and keep a close watch to see whether I haven’t forfeited his kindness. One might well associate a quite particular sort of conduct with this sweetest of all unfreedoms: conduct that lies halfway between insolence and tender, soft, natural attentiveness, and at this I excel. Above all one must never allow one’s host to perceive one’s gratitude; this would be displaying a faint-heartedness and cowardice that can only insult the giver. In your heart you worship the kind person who has summoned you under his roof, but it would bespeak a lack of sensitivity to press your thanks insistently upon him — he doesn’t want such thanks, as his generosity wasn’t and isn’t motivated by the wish to receive something beggarly in return. Under certain circumstances, giving thanks is only a form of begging, nothing more. Then there’s another thing: In the country, thanks are more silent and still than loquacious. The person obliged to feel gratitude acts in a certain way because he sees his counterpart doing so as well. Refined givers are almost even more diffident than takers, and they prefer for takers to take unselfconsciously, since this allows them, the givers, to give decorously, without fuss. The teacher, by the way, is my sister, but this circumstance wouldn’t prevent her from driving me, as a ne’er-do-well, from her doorstep if the desire happened to seize her. She is courageous and sincere. She received me with a mix of loving-kindness and distrust, as was quite natural, for how could she help but assume that if this good-for-nothing brother of hers came sailing and sauntering up to see her, his comfortably-settled sister, it had to be because in all God’s world he hadn’t the slightest notion where else to go. Certainly there was something disturbing and hurtful about this, for if truth be told I hadn’t written her a single letter for months, indeed years. She must have thought I was coming only out of concern for my own body, which at times might truly profit from a good whipping, rather than because I was worried about my sister and wished to see her. Things have changed meanwhile, these sensitivities have been put to rest, and now we live side by side not merely as blood relatives but as comrades who get along splendidly. Ah, in the countryside it’s simple enough for two people to get along. It’s customary here to thrust aside distrust and secrecy more quickly, and to love more cheerfully and brightly than in the thronging city with its hordes of people and constant woes. In the country, even the poorest man has fewer worries than a far less impoverished city-dweller — for in the city everything is measured by human words and human deeds — while worries here go on worrying as quietly as they may, and pain provides pain’s own natural surcease. In the city, everyone races about pell-mell trying to get rich (for which reason so many think themselves bitterly poor), while in the country, at least to a large extent, the poor are spared the insult of constantly being compared with the rich. They can peacefully go on breathing despite their poverty, for they have a whole sky above them to breathe! What is the sky in the city? — I myself have only a single small silver coin left by way of money, and this must cover the laundry. My sister, who has no secrets from me except those that are utterly unspeakable, has even confessed to me that her money has run out. Not that we’re starting to worry. We have the most luscious bread here, and fresh eggs and fragrant cakes, as much as we could wish for. The children bring us all of this, for their parents send it to school for Teacher. In the country, people know how to give in such a way that it does honor to the taker. In the city you practically have to be afraid to give because it’s begun to defile the taker, I truly cannot say for what reason, perhaps because in the city takers display insolence toward the kind givers. So then people take care not to display noble sympathies toward those suffering privation and give only furtively, or as a form of personal aggrandizement. What atrocious weakness, fearing the poor, and for this reason consuming one’s own riches alone rather than allowing oneself the glory attained, say, by a queen when she reaches out her hand to a lowly beggar-woman. I consider it a great misfortune to be poor in the city because a person isn’t allowed to ask for things, it being quite clear that benevolence is not the order of the day. One thing at least holds true: Better not to give nor feel pity at all than to do so unwillingly, conscious of having succumbed to a weakness. In the country, giving doesn’t make a person weak; people wish to give and sometimes give themselves entirely to the pastime of giving. If a person is wary of giving, he will surely himself — should he one day find himself trampled by destinies of various sorts and forced to ask for help — ask badly and accept what he is given gracelessly and with embarrassment, that is, in a beggarly fashion. How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows — this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present, and I find the picture disagreeable, it needs bettering. In the countryside, matters are still quite different. Here, a poor devil knows better where he stands; he can gaze up at the wealthy and well-off with a salubrious envy, and this is permitted, as it only serves to increase the grandeur of the object of these glances. In the country, the wish to possess a house of one’s own is a deeply rooted longing that reaches all the way up to God. For here, beneath the vast open sky, possessing a beautiful roomy house is heavenly. In the city, things are different. There an arriviste can dwell right beside a count of ancient lineage; indeed, money can raze houses and sacred old edifices at will. Who would wish to own a building in the city? There, owning a home is nothing more than a business, not a matter of pride and pleasure. City buildings are filled from top to bottom with the most different sorts of people, all of whom cross paths without knowing one another or expressing the desire to be allowed to make each other’s acquaintance. Is this a dwelling in the true sense? And long, long streets are filled with just such buildings, which certainly don’t deserve to be referred to as homes. In the countryside more happens, properly speaking, than in town; for while city-dwellers coldly, jadedly read of recent occurrences in the newspaper, news in the country passes feverishly, breathlessly from mouth to mouth. Something happens in the country perhaps once a year, but then it is an experience shared by all. A village with all its nooks and crannies is certainly almost always livelier and richer in intelligence than city folk generally assume. Many an old woman with facial features that would perhaps suit any fellow’s grandmother sits here behind white window-curtains with her store of enchantingly heartfelt tales, and many a village child is far more advanced in the education of her heart and mind than one might like to suppose. Often it’s happened that a village child like this, having been transferred to a school in town, has astounded her new classmates with her well-developed intellect. But let me not disdain the city and praise the country beyond its due. It’s just that the days here are so beautiful that one quickly learns to forget the city. They awaken a silent longing that draws one off into the distance — and yet one has no wish to go any farther. There is a going in all things and a coming in all. As the day takes its leave, it gives us in exchange the wonderful twilight when you can go strolling about on paths the evening appears to have discovered — paths you discover for the evening. The houses become more prominent, and their windows gleam. Even when it’s raining, it’s still beautiful; for then one thinks how good it is it’s raining. Since my coming here, spring has almost arrived, and it’s arriving more and more, you can leave your doors and windows standing open, and we’re starting to turn over the earth in the garden, everyone else h