“I had no intention of hurting your feelings.”
“In that case, how nice of you,” Simon said and gave a laugh. Then he added abruptly after a moment’s pause: “As for your story about my brother, by the way, it did in fact affect me. He’s still alive, my brother, and scarcely anyone still thinks of him; for when a person steals away, above all to such a dismal place, he’s soon stricken from people’s memories. The unfortunate! You know, I could argue that it would only have taken the tiniest alteration in his heart, perhaps a single teeny jot more in his soul, and he’d have been a productive artist whose work would have enraptured humankind. It takes so very little to make a person strong — and so very little, on the other hand, to thrust him into utter misfortune. What use is there talking about it. He’s ill, and he’s standing now on the side where there’s no longer any sunshine. I shall think of him more often now, for his misfortune is just too cruel. It is a misery even ten criminals wouldn’t deserve, much less him, who had such a heart. Yes, misfortune is sometimes far from lovely, I now freely confess this. I should warn you, sir: I’m a defiant person and like to go about making wild claims, which is no way to act. My heart is at times quite hard — particularly when I see that others are filled with pity. I feel such an impulse then to start raging and laughing in the middle of that nice warm pity. Very bad of me, very very bad! As for the rest, I am by no means a good man, far from it, but I hope one day I will be. It was a pleasure for me to be permitted to speak with you. The happenstance is always the most valuable. I would appear to have drunk rather a lot, and it’s so warm here in the barroom, that I feel an urge to go outside. Farewell, gentlemen! No, not au revoir. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t dream of it. I feel no urge at all to see you again. There are still so many people I have yet to meet, I can’t go about frivolously saying au revoir. That would only be a lie; for I have no desire to see you again unless it’s by chance, and then it will be a pleasure for me, though only to a certain extent. I don’t like to make a fuss and prefer to be truthful, this is perhaps my distinguishing characteristic. I hope it also distinguishes me in your eyes, though you are now gaping at me in a rather astonished and foolish way, as if you were insulted. Well, then, be insulted! Devil take it, what can I have said to insult you? Well?”
The innkeeper walked over and asked that Simon keep his voice down:
“It’s best you leave now, it’s time.”
And Simon allowed himself to be steered gently out into the dark alleyway.
It was a deep, black, humid night. It was as if the night were some creeping entity making its way along the walls. From time to time a tall building would be standing there, a dark shape, and then another one would glow yellow and white as though it possessed some magic power that made it luminous in the dark night. The walls of the buildings smelled so strange. Something moist and close emanated from them. Isolated lights now and then lit up a patch of street. Up above, the bold rooftops jutted out over the smooth high walls of buildings. The entire wide night seemed to have laid itself into this little tangle of alleyways in order to sleep here or dream. There were still isolated late-night individuals walking about. Here someone was staggering and singing as he went, another one was cursing loud enough to cleave the heavens in two, a third was already collapsed on the ground while a policeman’s helmet came glinting from behind the corner of a building. When you walked, your steps resounded beneath your feet. Simon encountered an old, inebriated man who was reeling from side to side the full width of the street. It was a wretched and at the same time jolly sight: the way the dark, awkward figure was being thrust back and forth as though shoved by an nimble, invisible hand. Then the old, white-bearded man dropped his walking stick and wanted to pick it up from the ground — no doubt a daunting task for this drunkard, who appeared about to fall down himself. But Simon, seized by a smiling merciful sentiment, hurried over to the man and his stick, picking up the latter and pressing it into the man’s hand, who murmured his thanks in the mysterious language of drunkenness, in a tone of voice that suggested he had cause to be still insulted. This sight immediately had a sobering effect on Simon, and he turned out of the old part of town into the newer, more elegant district. As he was crossing a bridge over the river that separated the two halves of the city from one another, he inhaled the strange perfume of the flowing water. He strode down the street in which he’d been addressed three weeks previous by that lady before the shop window, saw a light still burning in the home of his former mistress, reflected that she’d still been his mistress only yesterday, and then went on walking beneath the trees until he came to the broad dark lake lying there before him, appearing to be asleep across its entire splendid expanse. Such sleep! If an entire lake could sleep like that with all its bottomless depths — that was an impressive sight. Yes, it was certainly a strange thing, barely comprehensible. Simon went on gazing out at it for a while until he began to long to sleep himself. Oh, he would sleep excellently now. It would come over him so peacefully, and tomorrow he would remain lying in bed a long time, tomorrow was Sunday after all. Simon went home.
— 15–
The next morning he didn’t wake up until the bells were ringing. From his bed, he noted that out of doors it must be a splendid blue day. The light flashing in the windowpanes suggested a glorious morning sky high up over the alleyway. Gazing at the wall of the building opposite, one was conscious of bright-golden intimations. It was difficult to think how dark and dismal this blotchy wall must look under a sky thick with clouds. One gazed at it for a long time, imagining what the lake must look like now with all the sails upon it in the golden blue morning weather. Certain mountain meadows, certain views and certain benches beneath the lush green trees, the forest, the streets, the promenades, the meadows upon the back of the broad mountain with its full complement of trees, the rampant green slopes and forest ravines, the spring and woodland brook with its large stones and water singing softly when you sat down beside it to be lulled to sleep. All these things could be seen quite clearly when Simon gazed over at the wall that after all was just a wall, but today was reflecting an entire vision of a blissful human Sunday, just because something like a breath of blue sky was bobbing up and down above it. And of course the bells were ringing all this time with their familiar notes, and bells, yes, they know how to awaken images.
Still lying there in bed, he resolved to be more industrious from now on, to study something, a language for example, and in general to start living a more regulated existence. He’d let so much slip through his fingers! Learning surely brought a person great pleasure. It was so lovely to engage in these heartfelt, vivid imaginings of how it would be to keep studying and studying assiduously, never once emerging from one’s studies. He sensed a certain human maturity within him: And how much lovelier all this studying would be if approached with the sum of this already attained maturity. Yes, that’s what he would do now: study, set himself tasks, and take pleasure in uniting both teacher and pupil within his own person. What about, for example, taking up a melodious language such as French? “I would learn words and imprint them firmly on my memory. My constantly active imagination would come to my aid. Tree: l’arbre. With all my feelings I would see this tree. Klara would come to mind. I’d see her in a white dress with wide folds beneath a broad, shady, dark green tree. In this way many things, things I had almost already forgotten, would return to me. My mind would grow stronger and more active in grasping. It blunts you if you never study anything. How sweet this smallness is, this beginner’s stage! I’m now finding this prospect vastly appealing and don’t understand how I could have been defiant and sluggish so very long. Oh, all sluggishness is just defiance, an insisting on one’s own knowledge and the putative superiority of this knowledge to that of other people. If only we knew how little we knew, things might still turn out well. Hearing the sound of the foreign word, I would think of the German one more warmly and spread its meaning out more fully before me in my thoughts, and so even my own language would become a new, richer sound filled with unfamiliar images. Le jardin: garden. Here I would think of Hedwig’s country garden that I helped plant when spring arrived. Hedwig! In a flash it would all come back to me, the things she said, did, suffered and thought during all the days I spent with her. I have no cause to forget people and things so quickly, above all my sister. After we’d already planted the garden it snowed again one night, and we were terribly worried that nothing would grow. That would have been quite a blow, for we were hoping to harvest a great many splendid vegetables from our garden. How lovely it is to be able to share one’s worries with another person. Just imagine how it must be to suffer the pains and fight the battles of an entire people! Yes, all these things would come to me if I were studying a language — and many others as well, so many that I can’t even imagine them yet! Just to study, to study, who cares what! I’ll also immerse myself in natural history, all on my own, without a teacher, using some inexpensive book that I can go and buy right away tomorrow, since today is Sunday, so of course all the shops are closed. All of this is quite feasible, clearly. Why else is one alive? Could it be I’ve stopped thinking I owe myself anything at all? I’ve got to pull myself together — it’s certainly high time.”