The Tanners

In the lady’s absence, Simon observed his surroundings. The lamps gave off a bright warm light. People were chatting unrestrainedly with one another. A few of them, now that night had fallen, were leaving because they still had to go back down the mountain to return to town. Two old men sitting cozily at a table struck him because of the tranquil way they sat there. Both of them had white beards and rather fresh faces and were smoking pipes, which gave them a patriarchal air. They didn’t speak to one another, apparently considering that superfluous. Now and then their respective pairs of eyes would meet, and then there was a shrugging of pipes and the corners of mouths, but this all occurred quite tranquilly and no doubt as a matter of habit. They appeared to be idlers, but calculating, premeditated, superior idlers — idle out of prosperity. Surely the two of them had taken up with one another only because they shared these same habits: smoking their pipes, taking little walks, a fondness for wind, weather and nature, good health, preferring silence to chatter, and finally age itself with all its special perquisites. To Simon the two of them appeared not lacking in dignity. One couldn’t help smiling a little at the appealing cordoned-off spectacle they presented, but this spectacle did not exclude reverence, which age itself demands as its right. A sense of purpose was expressed in their tranquil visages; they possessed a completeness that could in no way be disputed any longer. These old men were most certainly beyond entertaining uncertainties as to the path they’d chosen, even if it had been chosen in error. But then what did it mean to be in error? If a person picked an error as his lodestar at the age of sixty or seventy, this was a sacrosanct matter to which a young man must respond with reverence. These two old codgers — for there was certainly something codger-like about them — must have had some sort of procedure or a system according to which they’d sworn to one another to go on living until the end of their days; that’s how they looked, like two people who’d found something that worked and made it possible for them to await their end with equanimity. “The two of us have found it out, that secret”—this is what their expressions and bearing seemed to say. It was amusing and touching and no doubt worth pondering to observe them and attempt to guess their thoughts. Among other things, one quickly guessed that these two would always only be seen as a pair and never any other way, never singly, always together! Always! This was the main thought you felt emanating from their white heads. Side by side through life, maybe even side by side down into the abyss of death: This appeared to be their guiding principle. And indeed, they even looked like a couple of living, old, but nonetheless still jolly and good-humored principles. When summer came again, the two of them would be seen sitting outside on the shady terrace, but they’d still keep filling their pipes with a mysterious air and prefer silence to speech. When they left, it would always be the two of them leaving, not first one and then the other: This seemed unthinkable. Yes, they looked cozy, this much Simon had to give them: cozy and hardheaded, he thought, looking away from them to gaze at something else.

He cast fleeting glances at various people and discovered an English family with strange faces, men who appeared to be scholars and others to whom it would have been difficult to ascribe any sort of post or profession; he saw women with white hair and girls with their bridegrooms, observed people who — one could tell just by looking — felt somewhat ill at ease here and others who seemed just as comfortable as if they were sitting at home in the bosom of their families. But the hall was rapidly emptying. Outside winter was howling and one could hear the fir trees creaking as they knocked together. The forest lay a mere ten paces removed from the building, Simon knew well from earlier days.

While he was abandoning himself to his thoughts in this way, the proprietress reappeared.

She sat down beside him.

A silent change appeared to have taken place in her. She seized Simon’s hand: This was unexpected. — Hereupon she said quietly, overheard by no one, and unobserved: