The Tanners

Now Simon was no longer afraid of anything else occurring that night. He fell asleep, and when he woke up the next morning he saw his brother sleeping peacefully beside him in his bed. He could have kissed him. He got dressed as carefully as possible so as not to wake the sleeper, quietly opened the door and went downstairs. On the stairs he met Klara, who seemed to have been waiting there for some time. But Simon had scarcely said good morning before the woman, who appeared to be filled with violent emotion, threw her arms about his neck, drew him to her and kissed him lovingly. “I want to kiss you too, you’re his brother,” she said in a soft, urgent, rapturous voice.

“He’s still asleep,” Simon said. He was in the habit of gently brushing aside acts of tenderness not meant for him, but his equanimity only redoubled her agitation. She wouldn’t let him go on down the stairs, instead she held him even closer, seizing his head in her two hands and pressing kisses on his forehead and cheeks. “I love you like a brother. Now you are my brother. I have so little and yet so much, do you understand? I have nothing left, I have given it all. Will you shun me? No, you won’t, will you. Your heart is mine, I know it is — and having such a confidant makes me rich. You love your brother as no one does. With such strength and will. He told me about you. How beautiful you appear to me. You are so different from him. It’s impossible to describe you. He said this too, that one cannot quite grasp you. Yet how trustingly one throws oneself at you. Kiss me. I am yours in any way your heart desires. Your heart is what’s beautiful about you. Don’t say anything. I understand that one doesn’t understand you. You understand everything. You are fond of me, say yes, do. No, don’t say yes. It isn’t necessary, isn’t necessary at all. Your eyes have already said yes — I always knew it. I always knew there were people like you, don’t ever force yourself to behave coldly. He’s asleep? Oh, no, don’t leave yet! I must quarrel a bit more with you first. I am a foolish, foolish, foolish woman, don’t you agree?”

She would have gone on speaking in this tone, but Simon fended her off, quite gently, as was his wont. He told her he was going for a walk. She watched him walk away, but he paid not the least attention to her gaze. “I shall help her if she requires my services; of course I shall!” he said to himself. “Probably I would lay down my life for her, if her well-being required her to demand this; quite probably! Yes, it is fairly certain, considering that it would be for a woman like that. She’s got something about her. In a word: She holds sway over me, of course, but what’s the point of pondering this further? I have other things to think about. For example, I feel happy this morning — my limbs feel like fine flexible wires. When I feel my limbs, I am happy, and then I’m not thinking of any other person on earth, not a woman, not a man, I’m quite simply thinking nothing at all. Ah, how beautiful it is here in the forest on a sunny morning. How lovely it is to be free. Perhaps a soul is thinking of me at this moment, perhaps not — in any case, my soul isn’t thinking of anything at all. Such a morning always awakens a certain brutality in me, but this does no harm, on the contrary, it’s the basis for my selfless enjoyment of nature. Splendid, splendid. How the grass flashes in the sunlight. How the white sky burns all about the earth. This softening might come to me today. When I think about someone, I do so with abandon. But it’s more delicious to be as I am now. Lovely morning. Shall I sing you a song. It’s true, you yourself are a song. I’d much rather shout and run about like the devil, or fire off shots like that foolish devil Agappaia—”

He threw himself down upon the meadow and began to dream.

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