The Tanners

After the meal, he had to help the girl clean the dishes, wash and dry them, and the girl was not a little surprised to see how nimble he was at this task. Where had he learned how? “I used to live in the country,” Simon responded, “and in the country one does such things. I have a sister there who’s a teacher, I always helped her dry the dishes.”

“That was nice of you.”

— 12–

To Simon it appeared quite marvelous to be laboring in this quiet kitchen in the middle of the big city. Who’d ever have thought it? No, human beings never quite managed to envision their futures. He who in earlier days had gone wandering freely across mountain meadows, sleeping like a hunter beneath the stars and gasping for breath when he discovered vistas that gave new expanse and depth to the earth below, who wished the sun were even hotter, the wind stormier, the nights darker and the cold more bitter when he ran around out of doors in all seasons and weather, searching, rubbing his hands together and puffing — now he was cooped up in a tiny kitchen drying a dripping plate while it was still warm. He was glad. “How glad I am to be so hemmed in, so confined, so enclosed,” he thought. “Why should a person always be hankering for wide open spaces, and isn’t longing so restrictive a sentiment? Here I am tightly squeezed in between four kitchen walls, but my heart is wide open and filled with the pleasure I take in my modest duty.”

He did find it a bit humiliating to be in a kitchen, occupied with a task ordinarily performed only by girls. It was a bit humiliating and a bit ridiculous, but nonetheless most certainly mysterious and odd. No one could possibly dream of finding him here. This thought had something gratifying and proud about it. Having such a thought could make one smile. The girl asked what he’d been in his former life, and he replied: “A copy clerk!” She couldn’t comprehend how a person could possess so little ambition as to leave behind his desk in order to creep into domestic service. Simon replied that his case, first of all, involved nothing that might be described as creeping, as she so charmingly expressed herself, and secondly it was still an open question which was preferable: sitting behind a desk or leading a plate wiper’s existence. He by far preferred the open, airy, warm, steamy, interesting kitchen to the dry-as-dust office where the air was usually stale and the general mood embittered. How could one feel bitter in a kitchen where a roast was stewing in the pan, vegetables cooking, soup steaming, the copper shining down so sweetly from the rack and the plates making such a friendly sound when one knocked them together. But being a servant, the spirited maiden rejoined — it wasn’t much, it didn’t amount to anything. He didn’t want to amount to anything, Simon said softly. She let that be the end of it, but she found he was a curious, difficult to understand person. But she also thought: “He’s decent,” and felt he might be “allowed some liberties.” Simon had just finished his drying when the lady walked into the kitchen and bid him come into the other room, she had a task for him. “What lovely task might she have for me,” Simon wondered, and he followed the woman striding on ahead. “During the afternoon, there’s nothing further for you to do, so you might as well read to my son and me. Do you know how to read aloud out of a book?” Simon said he did.

And then he read to them for a full hour. His breath was somewhat strained, but he read with accurate, clear, good enunciation, in a warm voice that demonstrated the reader was moved by what he read. The lady appeared pleased, and the boy was all ears to the very end, whereupon he thanked Simon graciously for the treat. Simon, whose cheeks were glowing bright red with emotion, found it lovely to be thanked. He betook himself, since for the moment he didn’t know what else to do, into the domestics’ quarters, which were lit up red by the evening sun, and began to smoke out the window.

“I disapprove of your smoking here,” said the woman, entering the room.

He, however, went on smoking, and she left again, rather miffed. “Certainly I can understand her disapproval, but must she really approve of everything about me? I’m not about to give up smoking. No, I won’t, devil take it! Even if twenty ladies were to come one after the other and forbid me to smoke.” He was furious, but at once his mood lightened again, and he said to himself: “I ought to have tossed the cigarette away; that was impertinent!”