and the father in the tale. You see huts
assailed by icy blizzards, hazy visions of bodies blue with cold, love
of _somewhere else_.... Despite his huge jaw and unkempt mass of hair,
what benignity, mildness, and gentleness. It is as though he were
talking to little children gathered close about him.

Is time passing? No one notices it, we have forgotten it. Time escapes
youth gathered together and bound in a sheaf; it escapes Clara's bosom
from which a plaintive _lied_ is rising, while the hungry hands around
Dahlia, who is doling out the manna, make time tarry. A real poor folk's
supper, the supper of persons who are hungry at all hours. Thick slices
of rare meat on bread, solid pastry, big bright fruit. One should see
these robust young girls munching even the meat.

How fond I am of them all! Among them I feel for the first time what the
human voice really is; for the first time feel the warmth which is
shared and communicated from being to being, which makes of a single
entity a group of entities, of a field of separate ears of corn the
human harvest.

I wouldn't know how to choose among them. But one of the young men might
slightly frighten and disconcert me; his accent might seem barbarous. My
trim dress, my too-dainty shoes, and my fluffy blouses, all the things
that constitute my element, might cause me to feel compunction. And
maybe too I might feel ashamed of the hour I spend every morning
anxiously pressed close to the glass as if I were begging myself to be
beautiful.

I should have the same feeling on behalf of the girls as for myself; at
bottom I do not discriminate between men and women. I should go even
further. If friendship drew me to one of them, my compunction would
change to grief. Really, can one forgive Clara her over-trimmed dress
conceived in a nightmare? Can one forgive all of them their down-at-heel
shoes, the lack of care and regard for others that they show in their
appearance?

Should I adjust my days with no ups and downs in them to their volcanic
days? "What's it all coming to?" cries Trude sometimes, and throws
herself on her bed sobbing and losing herself in her emotions. Time
passes and dies--one day, two days--suddenly she rises. She has
forgotten her office, her meals, everything. She leans her forehead
against the window-pane, and her tears flow bitterly.

If we became intimate, would they forgive me my neat room, my
punctuality, my scrupulous adherence to rule and system, m