The Tanners

“Now it’s unlikely they’ll disturb me again and prevent my sitting here with you, people are starting to leave. Tell me, who are you, what’s your name, where are you from? You look as if one must ask these things. You emit a certain wondering and amazement, not amazement that you yourself feel — it’s rather the person sitting in front of you who feels amazed, observing you. One wonders about you, feels amazed, and then is filled with a longing to hear you talk, imagining what it must be that is speaking within you. A person involuntarily worries on your account. One goes away from you and does one’s work, and then suddenly one’s taking mercy on you by thinking about you. It isn’t pity, for pity is something you by no means inspire, nor is it truly mercy, strictly speaking. I don’t know what it could be: curiosity, perhaps? Let me reflect for a moment. Curiosity? A desire to know something about you, just one little thing, some sound or note. One has the impression one already knows you and finds you not terribly interesting but nonetheless listens and listens, just in case you say something that might be worth hearing from your lips a second time. Looking at you, a person can’t help feeling sorry for you: casually, condescendingly, looking down on you from above. You must have something profound about you, but no one seems to notice because you make no effort at all to let it shine forth. I’d like to hear what you have to tell. Do you have parents still, and siblings? Just looking at you, one cannot help assuming your sisters and brothers must be important people. You yourself, however, a person cannot help considering utterly insignificant. Why is this? It’s so easy to feel superior to you. But one need only speak with you a short while to realize one’s succumbed to the sort of error liable to occur when speaking to so even-tempered a person, someone who’d scorn the notion of snapping to attention and who has no wish to look better or more dangerous than he is. You don’t look particularly interesting, let alone dangerous — and women are what you get when you combine the need for tenderness with a lust for unadulterated danger, a constant source of peril. Of course you won’t hold what I’ve just said against me, for you hold no grudges. One doesn’t know where one stands with you. Would you tell me your story, I’m so eager to hear it! Do you know, I’d very much like to be your confidante, even if only for an hour, and perhaps even if it’s just in my imagination. When I was upstairs just now I felt such an urge to hurry back to you as if you were an important personage who mustn’t be kept waiting and whose good graces and even condescending respect it’s crucial to enjoy. And what I found was a person whose cheeks glow more brightly when I come running up! How silly of me, but isn’t this odd all the same? All right now, I shall sit quietly now and listen to you—”

Simon said to her: