The Tanners

  “I hear you’ve been working on a poem that’s to mirror the events of your life. How can you mean to portray a life when you’ve scarcely yet experienced one? Just look at yourself: How strong and young you are, and to think that youth and strength like this plans to cower behind a desk singing its life in verse. Save it for when you’re fifty. Besides, how shameful, a young man crafting poetic lines. That’s not work, it’s just a hiding-place for the idle. I wouldn’t be saying any of this if your life were completed and had been crowned by some great, extenuating experience that would justify a person letting his flaws, virtues and meanderings pass in review. You, however, appear never to have failed, nor to have carried out a good deed either. Start writing poems when you’ve established yourself either as a sinner or an angel. Or better yet, don’t write poems at all.”

  Kaspar had a low opinion of Sebastian; that’s why he was mocking him. He had no understanding whatever for tragic individuals, or rather, he understood them all too easily, all too well, and therefore had no respect for them. Moreover, he was in a diabolical mood this evening.

  Hedwig leapt to defend the poor insulted fellow who was unable to stand up for himself: “How awful of you to speak in such a way, Kaspar,” she cried to her brother with an ardor that sprang from her eagerness to defend the lad, “and certainly not clever either. You enjoy hurting a person who should be spared and respected by all for the sake of his unhappiness. Mock all you like. I know you regret your words. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d have to consider you a ruffian, a tormenter. It’s so easy to torment an unfortunate, defenseless person, one might as well torture some poor animal. The defenseless all too easily fill the strong with a desire to inflict pain. If you can feel strong, be happy, and leave the weaker ones in peace. You show your strength in a bad light, misusing it to torment the weak. Why isn’t it enough for you to stand on a firm footing, do you have to place your foot upon the necks of others, the hesitant seekers, making them doubt themselves even more and sending them plummeting down, down into the waters of despair? Must self-confidence, courage, strength and determination always commit the sin of pitilessly, tactlessly riding roughshod over others, even though these others aren’t in their way at all, they’re just standing there covetously listening to the peals of fame, respect and success ringing out? Is it noble and good to insult a soul filled with longing? Poets are so easily hurt; oh, one should never hurt poets. By the way, I’m not even speaking about you now, my little Kaspar; for have you yourself amounted to much of anything in this world? You yourself perhaps still amount to nothing and have no cause to scoff at others who amount to nothing as well. When you wrestle with fate, let others do the same as best they can. Both of you are already wrestling, so why battle one another? How foolish, how unwise. Both of you will find pain enough in the perils and meanderings and promises and failures in your art; must you insist on causing one another even more pain? In all truth, I’d be a poet’s brother if I were a painter. And never be so swift to look in scorn upon someone who is failing or appears lethargic or inactive. How quickly his sunshine, his poems can arise from these long, dull dreams! And where does that leave the ones who were so hasty with their scorn? Sebastian is struggling honestly with life, that in itself should be a reason to respect and love him. How can one mock him for his soft heart? Shame on you, Kaspar, and may you never again give me cause—if you have even a trace of love for your sister—to get worked up like this over you. I’d rather not. I revere Sebastian because I know he has the courage to admit his many failings. As for the rest, it’s all just idle chatter—feel free to leave if you prefer not to walk with us. What a face you’re making, Kaspar! Just because a girl who enjoys the privilege of being your sister happens to give you a lecture, is this grounds for anger? No, don’t be angry. Please. And of course you’re allowed to make fun of poetry. Why ever not. I was taking things too seriously a moment ago. Forgive me.”

  A delicate, shy but tender smile was playing in the dark about Sebastian’s lips. Hedwig devoted herself to flattering her brother until his mood improved. He then gave an imitation of her impassioned speech, causing all three of them to break out in resounding laughter. Sebastian in particular laughed himself silly. Gradually all had grown still and empty beneath the trees; people had returned to their homes, the lights were dreaming, but many lights had been extinguished as well, and the distance no longer glittered. There in rural parts, it seemed, lights were snuffed out earlier; the distant mountains now lay like dead black bodies, but still isolated human couples remained who weren’t making for home, but rather looked as if they meant to spend the entire night conversing wide-awake beneath the sky.

  Simon and Klara were sitting, immersed in long hushed conversation, upon a bench. They had so many things to say to one another, they could have talked on and on forever without stopping. Klara would have gone on speaking about Kaspar, and Simon of the woman seated beside him. He had a strange, free, open way of speaking about people who were his immediate companions, who sat or stood beside him listening to what he said. This came about of its own accord, he always felt most strongly about whoever was occasioning his speech, and so he spoke of them and not of others who were absent. “Doesn’t it torment you,” she asked, “that we speak only of him?” “No,” Simon replied, “his love is my love. I always asked myself whether either of us would ever fall in love. I always saw this as a marvelous thing for which neither of us was good enough. I’ve read a great deal about lovers in books, I’ve always loved lovers. Even as a schoolboy I spent hours bent over books of this sort, trembling and shaking and fearing along with my lovers. It was almost always a proud woman and a man of an even more unbending nature, a laborer in a work shirt or a lowly soldier. The woman was always a fine lady. A common pair of lovers wouldn’t have piqued my interest in those days. All my senses grew up with these books, perishing again and again when I closed their covers. Then I stepped into life and forgot all these things. I became obsessed with questions of freedom, but I dreamt of experiencing love. What good would it do me to be angry that love has now arrived but not for me? How childish. I am almost even happy that this love desires not me but another, I would like to witness this first and only later experience it. But I shall never experience love. I think life has other plans for me, other intentions. It forces me to love everything it throws my way, every being. I am allowed to love you, too, Klara, if only in a different, perhaps a foolish way. Isn’t it silly that I know perfectly well that, if you should wish it, I could die for you, would willingly do so. May I not die for you? I’d find this so perfectly natural. I place no value on my life, I value only the lives of others, and nonetheless I love life, but I love it only because I hope it will give me the opportunity to throw it away in some respectable fashion. Isn’t it idiotic to speak in this way? Let me kiss your two hands so you’ll feel how I belong to you. Of course I am not yours and you will never demand anything at all of me, for what could it possibly occur to you to ask of me? But I love women of your sort, and it is agreeable to give gifts to a woman one loves, and so I am giving you myself, since I don’t know what would make a better present. Perhaps I can be useful to you, I can jump about for you with these legs of mine, I can hold my tongue when you want someone to keep silent for you, I can lie if you happen to find yourself in the position of requiring a shameless liar. There are quite noble instances of this sort. I can carry you in my arms, if you should happen to fall down, and I can lift you over puddles to keep your feet from getting di
rty. Take a look at my arms. Don’t they look as though they were already lifting and carrying you? How you would smile if I were to carry you, and I would smile as well, for one smile, as long as it is not indelicate, always calls forth another. This gift that I am giving you is a portable, eternal one; for man, even the simplest of men, is eternal. I shall belong to you even when you have long since ceased to be anything at all, not even a grain of dust; because a gift always outlives its recipient so that it can mourn its lost owner. I was born to be a gift, I’ve always belonged to someone or other, and it’s always filled me with chagrin to spend a day wandering about without finding anyone to whom I could offer myself. Now I belong to you, though I know how little I mean to you. You have no choice but to not value me highly. It often happens that one scorns a gift. My soul, for example, is filled with scorn when I think of presents. I virtually abhor receiving gifts. This is why fate has willed me to be loved by no one; for fate is good and all-seeing. I would be unable to endure being loved, but I find the absence of love endurable. One mustn’t love a person who insists on loving, one would only be disturbing him in his devotions. I wouldn’t want you to love me. What’s more, the fact that you love another makes me so happy; for now, please understand me, you are clearing the way for me to love you. I adore faces that turn away from me, toward some other object. The soul, which is a painter, loves this sort of allure. A smile is so lovely when it crosses lips one surmises rather than sees. This is how you’ll please me—do you suppose there’s no need to? But no, now I remember: you don’t have to please me, you’ve no need to at all; for I am incapable of judging you, at most I might manage a plea; but I no longer know what I am saying.”

  Klara was in tears over his declaration. She had long since drawn him close to her and with her beautiful hands, which had grown cool in the night air, was touching his burning cheeks. “What you just said to me, there was no need for you to say it, I knew these things already, already knew them, already—knew.” —Her voice took on that tenderness we employ when we wish to convince animals we’ve hurt a little to feel love and trust for us again. She was happy, her soft voice resonating with long high notes of joy. Her entire body appeared to be speaking when she said: “You do well to love me now that I’m compelled to love. Now my love will be twice as joyful. Perhaps I shall be unhappy some day, but how blissful I’ll be in my unhappiness. Only once in our lives do we women feel joyous at being made unhappy, but we know how to savor this unhappiness. But how can I be speaking to you of pain? Just look how indignant I am at having spoken like this—how can I dare to have you at my side and not believe in my own happiness? You make a person believe, you make belief possible. Remain my friend always. You are my sweet boy. Your hair glides through my hands, and your head, full of such unfathomable thoughts of friendship, rests in my lap. How beautiful this makes me feel; you’re making me feel like this—you must kiss me. Kiss me, kiss me on the mouth. I wish to compare your kisses, Kaspar’s and yours. I want to imagine it is him kissing me when you kiss me. A kiss is such a wonderful thing. If you kiss me now, it will be a soul kissing me, not a mouth. Did Kaspar tell you how I kissed him and how I asked him to kiss me too? He should kiss differently, he must learn to kiss like you, but no, why should he kiss like you? The way he kisses, I must kiss him back at once, but you kiss in such a way that a person has to let you kiss her again, just like now. Remain fond of me, remain as dear as you are, and kiss me one more time so that, as you said before, I’ll feel that you belong to me. A kiss makes this so comprehensible. This is how women like to be instructed. You have quite a good understanding of women, Simon. One shouldn’t be able to tell this just by looking at you. Now come, let us go.”

  They got to their feet, and when they had walked a little way they met the three others. Hedwig took her leave of her brothers and Frau Klara. Sebastian accompanied the girl. When the two had walked some distance away, Klara quietly asked Kaspar: “Can you trust your sister to the company of this gentleman?” Kaspar replied: “Would I be allowing this if it weren’t all right?”

  When they got home, they heard a shot ring out in the forest. “He’s shooting again,” Klara said quietly. “What’s the point of these shots?” Kaspar asked, and Simon, laughing, interjected the swift reply: “He’s shooting because things still seem odd to him. There’s still a sort of idea behind it, and when that ceases to interest him, he’ll soon give it up, you’ll see.” Once more they heard a shot. Klara furrowed her brow with a sigh, then attempted to suffocate her apprehension with laughter. But this laughter sounded harsh, and for a moment both brothers flinched.

  “You’re acting strange,” Aggapaia said to his wife, suddenly appearing at the front door just as they were about to go in. She remained silent as though she hadn’t heard him. Then all of them went to bed.

  This same night Klara, being unable to sleep, wrote a letter to Hedwig:

  My dear girl, sister of my Kaspar, I must write to you. I cannot sleep, cannot find rest. I am sitting here half-clothed at my desk, involuntarily thrust to and fro by dreams. I feel as though I could write letters to all the world, to any random stranger, any heart; for to me all human hearts tremble with warmth. Today when you pressed my hand you looked at me for such a long time, questioningly and with a certain severity, as though you already knew how things stood with me, that I was in a bad way. Could it be that I appear bad in your eyes? No, I feel certain you won’t condemn me when you know everything. You’re the sort of girl one doesn’t wish to keep secrets from, but the sort one wishes to tell everything, and I do wish to tell you everything so that you’ll know everything, so that you’ll be able to love me; for you will love me once you know me, and I so long to be loved by you. I dream of having all beautiful, intelligent girls gathered around me, as friends and advisors, but also as my pupils. Kaspar tells me you want to be a teacher and sacrifice yourself to the education of young children. I too wish to be a teacher, for women are born educators. You wish to become something, be something: This suits you well, and corresponds to my image of you. It also corresponds to this age we live in, and the world, which is a child of this time. This is lovely of you, and if I had a child, I would send it to study with you, I would entrust it to you completely so that it would become accustomed to revering and loving you as a mother. How the children will look up to you, look to see whether there is severity or benevolence in your eyes. How they will lament in their small, blossoming hearts when they see you arrive for class with a worried expression; for your soul is comprehensible to children. You will not have to spend long with poorly behaved children; for I imagine that even the most poorly behaved, poorly brought-up among them will quickly come to feel ashamed of their misbehavior and will regret having caused you pain. To obey you, Hedwig, how sweet that must be. I should like to obey you, to become a child and feel the pleasure of being allowed to be obedient to you. And you intend to move to a small, quiet village? All the lovelier! Then you will have village children to teach, and they are even better to educate than children from the cities. But even in the city you would be successful. You long for the countryside, the cottages and the little gardens before them, the human faces one sees there, the river that goes rushing past, the lonely, enchanting shore of the lake, the plants one searches for and finds in the silent forest, the animals in the countryside and the entire country world. You will find all these things; for this is where you belong. One belongs in the place one longs for. Surely you wil
l one day find there the answer to the question of what one must do to be happy. You are already happy now, and I can feel quite well how dearly I would love to possess your good cheer. When one sees you, one would like to imagine one has known you a long time and that one even knows what your mother looks like. Other girls one might find pretty, even beautiful, but just looking at you is enough to make a person wish to be known and loved by you. There is something enticing, something almost grandmotherly in your bright young face; perhaps it’s the country air you have about you. Your mother grew up on a farm? What a beautiful, dear farmwife she must have been. She suffered a great deal in the city, Kaspar once told me; I can believe it; for I see her as if she were standing here before me, this mother of yours. I understand she behaved haughtily and suffered on this account. Of course; because in the city one isn’t allowed to display such pride as in the country, where a woman can easily imagine herself the mistress of all she surveys. I’m hoping to please you a little by speaking of your mother, whom you tended and cared for when the poor thing was broken and ill. I’ve seen a picture of your mother too, and I shall honor and love her if you’ll allow me. If you give your permission, I’ll do so even more warmly. If only I could see her, could throw myself at her feet, take her hand and press my lips to it. How much good this would do me. It would be like a provisional, paltry, incomplete payment of a debt; for I am her debtor, and yours as well, Hedwig. Your brother Kaspar was no doubt often unkind and treated you harshly; for young men must often be hard on those who love them best if they are to clear themselves a path out into the world. It makes sense to me that artists must often shake off love as a hindrance. You saw him when he was very young, a mere schoolboy going to school, you reproached him for his poor conduct, argued with him, you both pitied and envied him, protected and warned him, scolded and praised, you shared with him his first, awakening sentiments and told him it was good to feel things; you withdrew from him when you realized his aspirations were different from yours; you gave him leave to do as he pleased, hoping he would prosper and not fall. When he was gone, you longed for him and ran to throw your arms about his neck on the day of his return, and at once you went back to taking him under your wing; for he is the sort of person who seems constantly in need of a wing to rest under, constantly. Thank you for this. I haven’t breath enough, heart enough, words enough to thank you. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to. Perhaps you want nothing to do with me. I am a sinner, but perhaps sinners deserve to be permitted to learn what a person must do to appear humble. I am humble, not defeated, certainly not broken, but rather filled with flaming, suppliant, imploring humility. I wish to make good again with humility what I have done wrong out of love. If you place any value on having a sister who is happy to be your sister, I am at your service. Do you know what your brother Simon has given me? He has given me himself, as a gift, he has thrown himself away on me, and I should like to throw myself away on you. But, Hedwig, one cannot throw oneself away on you. After all, this would mean wanting to give you little. But I am a great deal happier ever since Kaspar embraced me. Now I’m starting to boast and speak pridefully, let me stop. I’m going to see if I can fall asleep. The forest is sleeping too, why should people be unable to sleep. But I know I’ll be able to sleep now.