The Tanners

That same morning Kaspar and Klara took a small brightly colored boat out on the lake. The lake was utterly placid, a gleaming motionless mirror. Now and then a steamer crossed before them, creating for a brief while broad gentle waves, and they sliced through these waves. Klara was clad in a snow-white dress; wide sleeves hung languidly from her beautiful arms and hands. She’d removed her hat: Absentmindedly, with a lovely gesture, she’d let her hair down. Her mouth was smiling across to the mouth of the young man. She didn’t know what to say, had no wish to say anything. “How beautiful the water is, it looks like a sky,” she said. Her forehead was as serene as their surroundings — lake, shore and cloudless sky. The blue of the sky had streaks of fragrant shimmering white in it. The white sullied the blue a little, seasoned it, made it more yearning and faltering and milder. The sun was half shining through, like sunshine in dreams. There was a certain hesitancy to everything, the air fluttered about their hair and faces — Kaspar’s face was solemn but serene. For a while he rowed with powerful strokes, then let the oars sink, and the boat bobbed on unguided. He turned around to look at the receding city, saw its towers and rooftops glittering faintly in the half-sun, saw industrious people hurrying across the bridges. Carts and wagons followed, the electrical tram jolted past making its peculiar sound. Wires were humming, whips were cracking, one could hear whistles and great resounding dins from somewhere or other. All at once the eleven o’clock bells rang out amid all the silence and distant trembling sounds. Both of them were feeling indescribable joy at this day, this morning, the sounds and colors. Everything was dissolving into perception and sound. Being lovers, they heard all things melded as a single sound. A simple bouquet lay in Klara’s lap. Kaspar had taken off his jacket and was now rowing again. Then came the stroke of noon, and all these working and professional people dispersed like a trampled anthill into all the streets and directions. The white bridge was swarming with nimble black dots. And when you considered that each dot had a mouth with which it was now planning to eat lunch, you couldn’t help bursting into laughter. What a singular image of life, the two of them felt, laughing. They now turned back as well; after all, they too were human and beginning to get hungry; and the closer they drew to shore, the larger the ants became; and then they disembarked and were dots themselves, just like the others. But they kept strolling blissfully up and down beneath the light-green trees. Many curious people turned to look at this strange pair: the woman in her long white gown whose train swept the ground and the churl of a lad who didn’t even have on clean trousers, who stood in such insolent contrast to the lady he accompanied. Thus do people wax indignant and form false judgments about their fellow man. All at once someone came striding quickly up to Kaspar. Indeed, it was someone who had every reason to greet him in this fashion, namely Klaus, who hadn’t seen his brother in years. Behind him came their sister and another gentleman, and now there was a general exchange of greetings. The stranger’s name was Sebastian.