These days he resembled a person who’d lost some money and was exerting the full force of his will to get it back, but besides exerting his will was doing nothing else to this end.
Around Christmastime he went walking up the slope of the mountain. It was getting on toward evening and terribly cold. A biting wind whistled about people’s noses and ears, which grew red and inflamed from the cold. Simon automatically chose the path that once had led to Klara’s woodland home and now had been cleared and widened. Everywhere the trace of transforming human hands was visible. He saw a large but nonetheless charming building on the very spot where the wooden chalet used to stand that he’d gone into so often when Kaspar was still painting there, with the dear, peculiar woman living in it. Now a health resort had been established there, and it appeared to be quite popular, for any number of well-dressed people were going in and out. Simon spent a moment considering whether he too should go inside, but the bitter cold alone was enough to make the thought of a warm room filled with people agreeable. And so he went in. The warm acrid smell of fir twigs engulfed him, the entire large bright room, practically a ballroom, was trimmed and lined with fir branches, all but wallpapered with them. Only the proverbs painted on the white walls had been left exposed, and one could read them. At all the tables sat gay and solemn people, many women, but also men and children, seated singly at round little tables or else clustered in groups about a long table. The smell of the drinks and food combined with the yuletide scent of pines. Prettily dressed girls walked around, serving the guests in a friendly and at the same time utterly unhurried way that had nothing at all waitressly about it. It looked as if these enchanting girls were only waiting on table here as part of some smiling game, or as if they were merely providing this service to their parents, relatives, brothers, sisters or their children, for it all looked so parental and filial at the same time. A small stage that was also thickly framed with fir twigs stood at another end of the hall, perhaps intended for the performance of some Christmas play or a skit with some other charming content. In any case, it was a warm, friendly, hospitable-looking room, and Simon sat down alone at a round little table, waiting to see whether one of the girls would come over to him to ask what he desired. But for the time being none of them came. And so he remained sitting there quietly at the little table for quite some time, propping his chin in his hand as young men are wont to do, when suddenly a slender tall lady approached him; she gave him a friendly nod, and then, turning to one of the girls with an exclamation, asked how this young man could have been left sitting here for so long unattended. This reproach was delivered in manner more kind and laughing than serious, but in any case this lady was a sort of director or manager or whatever it was called.
“Please forgive us for leaving you alone so long,” she said, turning back to Simon.
“Oh, I don’t know what there is to forgive. I should be asking forgiveness instead for obliging you to reproach one of your serving girls. In fact I’m quite happy to be sitting here unnoticed, for in all honesty I can’t give the serving girl much by way of an order—”
“Eat and drink as much as you like. You don’t have to pay for anything,” the lady said.
“Is that just for me, or for everyone here?”
“Just for you, of course, and only because I shall give orders that no one is to ask anything of you.”
She sat down beside him at the small brown table:
“I’ve got a moment’s time to chat with you and don’t see why I shouldn’t. You appear to be a lonely young man, your eyes are telling me so, and they’re also saying quite clearly that the person to whom they belong feels a desire to come into contact with other people. I’m not sure why I can’t help taking you for a well-educated person. When I saw you sitting here, I at once felt an urge to speak with you. If I’d bothered to observe you with my keen lorgnette, I’d perhaps have discovered that you look somewhat tattered, but who would wish to learn to recognize people only with the help of glasses? As the director of this establishment, I have an interest in learning as accurately as possible who my guests are. I’ve made it my habit to judge people not by a shabby fedora but by the way they move, which explicates their characters better than good or poor items of clothing, and in the course of time I’ve found this to be the right path to follow. May God preserve me, if he means at all well by me, from becoming snobby or supercilious. A businesswoman who isn’t a good observer of human nature will in time come to make bad business decisions, and what does our ever-increasing knowledge of human nature teach us? The simplest thing in the world: To be kind and friendly to all! Are not all of us who live upon this lone lost planet brothers and sisters? Siblings! The brothers of sisters, sisters of sisters, and sisters of brothers? This can all be quite affectionate, and indeed it must always be so: above all in one’s thoughts! But then it must also burgeon and come to fruition. If an uncouth man or a female simpleton comes before me, what can I do? Must I immediately feel deterred and put off? Oh, not at all, not at all! I then think to myself: No, this person is certainly not so agreeable to me, I find him repulsive, he’s uncultured and presumptuous, but there’s no cause to make either him or myself all too conscious of this fact. I must dissemble a little, and then perhaps he will do so as well, if only out of indolence or stupidity. How nice it is to be considerate. I secretly carry a sacred, ardent conviction that this is true, and that’s all I can say on the subject. Or perhaps just this one thing more: A brother need not necessarily be one of the finest and most select individuals, and yet he can — perhaps, let us say, at a certain appropriate distance — be a brother. I’ve made this my own personal law, and it’s stood me in good stead. Many people come to like me whose first glimpse of me made them shrug their shoulders and grimace. Why should I not, with regard to so charming a principle as exercising an affectionate observant patience, be a tiny bit Christian? All of us perhaps have more need of Christianity now than ever before; but I’m speaking foolishly. You smiled, and I know perfectly well what you’re smiling about. You’re right, why do I have to bring up Christianity when it’s merely a question of simple sensible amicability? Do you know what? Sometimes I think to myself: Christian duty has in our lifetimes been quietly, almost imperceptibly giving way to human duty, which is far simpler and more easily put into practice. But now I must go. They’re calling me. Stay where you are, I’ll be back—”