The Tanners

Still lying there in bed, he resolved to be more industrious from now on, to study something, a language for example, and in general to start living a more regulated existence. He’d let so much slip through his fingers! Learning surely brought a person great pleasure. It was so lovely to engage in these heartfelt, vivid imaginings of how it would be to keep studying and studying assiduously, never once emerging from one’s studies. He sensed a certain human maturity within him: And how much lovelier all this studying would be if approached with the sum of this already attained maturity. Yes, that’s what he would do now: study, set himself tasks, and take pleasure in uniting both teacher and pupil within his own person. What about, for example, taking up a melodious language such as French? “I would learn words and imprint them firmly on my memory. My constantly active imagination would come to my aid. Tree: l’arbre. With all my feelings I would see this tree. Klara would come to mind. I’d see her in a white dress with wide folds beneath a broad, shady, dark green tree. In this way many things, things I had almost already forgotten, would return to me. My mind would grow stronger and more active in grasping. It blunts you if you never study anything. How sweet this smallness is, this beginner’s stage! I’m now finding this prospect vastly appealing and don’t understand how I could have been defiant and sluggish so very long. Oh, all sluggishness is just defiance, an insisting on one’s own knowledge and the putative superiority of this knowledge to that of other people. If only we knew how little we knew, things might still turn out well. Hearing the sound of the foreign word, I would think of the German one more warmly and spread its meaning out more fully before me in my thoughts, and so even my own language would become a new, richer sound filled with unfamiliar images. Le jardin: garden. Here I would think of Hedwig’s country garden that I helped plant when spring arrived. Hedwig! In a flash it would all come back to me, the things she said, did, suffered and thought during all the days I spent with her. I have no cause to forget people and things so quickly, above all my sister. After we’d already planted the garden it snowed again one night, and we were terribly worried that nothing would grow. That would have been quite a blow, for we were hoping to harvest a great many splendid vegetables from our garden. How lovely it is to be able to share one’s worries with another person. Just imagine how it must be to suffer the pains and fight the battles of an entire people! Yes, all these things would come to me if I were studying a language — and many others as well, so many that I can’t even imagine them yet! Just to study, to study, who cares what! I’ll also immerse myself in natural history, all on my own, without a teacher, using some inexpensive book that I can go and buy right away tomorrow, since today is Sunday, so of course all the shops are closed. All of this is quite feasible, clearly. Why else is one alive? Could it be I’ve stopped thinking I owe myself anything at all? I’ve got to pull myself together — it’s certainly high time.”

And he leapt out of bed as though he felt the need to get started with his new plans right this minute. Quickly he got dressed. The mirror told him that he looked quite nice indeed, which satisfied him.

As he was about to go downstairs, he came upon Frau Weiss, his landlady and room-letter. She was dressed all in black and held a small prayer book in her hand, having just returned from church. She gave a cheerful laugh as she beheld Simon and asked whether he hadn’t wanted to go to church himself.

He responded that he hadn’t been to church in many years.

The entire kindly face of the woman flinched as she heard these words, which she found unsuitable coming out of a young man’s mouth. She wasn’t angry, for she was by no means an intolerant holy roller, but she couldn’t restrain herself from telling Simon he wasn’t really doing what he should. Besides which, she added, she didn’t believe him; he didn’t have that look. But if it were in fact true, she hoped he’d keep in mind that it wasn’t right never to go to church.