The Tanners

It was decided they would spend the evening at the theater. They sent word to Kaspar, who showed up at the appointed hour at the theater, a white splendid building towering up beside the shore of the lake. When the curtain rose, it revealed a gray empty space. But this space soon came to life, when a dancer with bare legs and arms came on stage and began dancing to a soft music. Her body was veiled in a transparent, fluttering, flowing garment which appeared to mirror the lines of the dance in the floating air. You could sense the complete innocence and gracefulness of this dance, and it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone present to find her immodest or to ascribe impure intentions to the girl’s nakedness. Her dance often resolved into a simple striding, but this too remained a dance, and at some points the dancer appeared to be borne aloft upon her own waves. When, for example, she raised one leg and curled her lovely foot, she did so in such a novel

unperturbed manner that everyone thought: I have seen this before, but where? Or did I just dream it? There was something weighty about the girl’s dance, it seemed a part of nature. To be sure, measured strictly by the laws of ballet, her art was perhaps somewhat lacking, her abilities might seem paltry compared with the abilities and achievements of ballerinas. But by means of her girlishly bashful gracefulness alone she possessed the art of filling people with delight. When she sailed to the ground, with such sweet heft, and when she flew up to attain greater momentum, the wildness and innocence of her motions bewitched all the souls witnessing it. And as she moved, she too was exhilarated by her fleeting motions, and her arousal devised ever new flourishes to accompany the notes. Her hands resembled two beautiful white fluttering doves. The girl smiled as she danced, clearly this made her happy. Her artlessness was felt to be the highest art. At one point she flew in huge soft leaps, like a stag being pursued, from one beat to another. Like waves splashing up to crash down on a low shoreline, she’d seem to be dancing to scatter into spray, but next she went flowing off like a wide, sunny, powerful wave, like a wave in the middle of a lake, and now it was like a flurry of flakes and little stones, constantly changing and always poignant. The sensibilities of all who saw her danced along with her, filled with pleasure and pain. Some had tears in their eyes from watching this dance, pure tears of vicarious delight, vicarious dancing. How beautiful it was, when the girl had completed her dance, to see aged imposing women shoot passionately to their feet, waving their handkerchiefs and throwing flowers into the abyss of the stage to honor the girl. “Be our sister,” everyone’s smiles seemed to be asking. “What a joy it would be to call you my daughter if you so wished,” these ladies appeared to be exulting. Gazing at the young girl upon the stage, the hundred-headed audience forgot the boundary, the wall separating them from her. Innumerable arms arced through the air as though in imagined caresses; hands were trembling as they waved. Words shouted down to the stage were the inventions of pure joy. Even the cold golden statues adorning the stage appeared to wish to come to life and for once crown a head with the laurel wreaths they held in their gold hands. Simon had never before found the theater so beautiful. Klara was utterly delighted, who could have been otherwise on such an evening. Only Herr Agappaia remained silent and said not a word. Kaspar said: “I’m going to paint an ovation like this, what a splendid picture it would make.” “But difficult to paint,” Simon said, “this perfume and gleam of joy — this shimmer of delight, the coldness and warmth, the definite and blurry, the colors and shapes in this perfume, the gold and the heavy red, drowning like this in all the colors — and the stage, the tiny focal point and the small blissful girl standing upon it, the clothing of the women, the faces of the men, the boxes and all the rest — really, Kaspar, it would be quite difficult indeed.”