The Tanners

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: