The Tanners

Come visit me soon. I can give you shelter just as I would shelter a bride whom I assume to be in the habit of reposing on silk while servants wait on her. Admittedly I have no servants, but I do have a room fit for a born lord. The two of us, you and I, have just been offered a splendid chambre as a gift, it’s been laid at our feet. You can paint pictures here just as well as in your luscious fat landscapes, after all you have your imagination. It ought by rights to be summer now so that I might throw a garden party on the lawn in your honor, with Chinese lanterns and garlands of flowers, so as to receive you in a manner approaching what you deserve. Come all the same, but see to it your coming is quick, otherwise I’ll have to come get you. My lady and landlady is pressing your hand in hers. She is convinced that she knows you already just from my descriptions. Once she meets you, she’ll never want to meet anyone else again. Do you have a decent suit? Are your trousers not sagging too terribly about your knees, and does your head covering still merit the designation hat? Otherwise you may not appear before me. Just a joke, what silliness. Let your little Simon embrace you. Farewell, brother. I hope you’ll come soon—

* * *

Several weeks had passed, spring was beginning to return, the air was damper and softer, uncertain fragrances and sounds began to assert themselves, coming seemingly from beneath the earth. The earth was soft, one walked on it as on thick supple rugs. You thought you must be hearing birds singing. “Spring is on its way,” people on the street said to one another, awash in sensations. Even the stark buildings were taking on a certain fragrance, a richer hue. Such a peculiar state of affairs, and yet it was such an old, familiar phenomenon — but everyone perceived it as utterly novel, it inspired strange, turbulent thoughts, a person’s limbs, senses, heads, thoughts, everything was stirring as if all these things wished to start growing anew. The water of the lake gleamed so warmly, and the bridges snaking across the river appeared to arch more boldly. Flags were flapping in the wind, and it gave people pleasure to see them flap. And then the sunshine drove everyone out into the beautiful, white, clean streets in clusters and groups, where they remained standing, greedily luxuriating in the warm air’s kisses. Many coats of many people were cast aside. You could see the men moving more freely again, and the women had such strange expressions in their eyes, as though something blissful were emerging from their hearts. At night one heard the sound of vagabond guitars for the first time, and men and women stood amid a whirl of gaily frolicking children. The lights of the lanterns flickered like candles in quiet rooms, and when you went walking across the night-dark meadows, you could feel the blooming and stirring of the flowers. The grass would soon grow again, the trees soon begin again to pour their green over the low roofs of the houses and block the view from the windows. The forest would be luxuriant, voluptuous, heavy, oh the forest. — Simon was working once more at a large commercial firm.