blue

She does the conversion quickly—about three hundred fifty schillings. To make this much money at home, she’d have to work for four months, a third of a year, sitting at the office from eight until noon, from two until six precisely, and here it just flies into your hand in ten minutes. Can it be true, was there some mistake? Incredible! But the bil

The path’s gradual turns and the buoyancy of the air draw her upward. A sprint like this warms the blood in no time. She tears off her gloves, sweater, hat: the skin should have a chance to breathe in this rousing chill, not just the lips and lungs.

As she anxiously and reverentially hides the bills like loot in her suitcase, shivers of dread and pleasure run down her spine. Her conscience can’t grasp this contradiction: at home money has to be saved so patiently, coin by dark heavy coin, while here it casually flutters into your hand. A violent, fearful shudder runs through her entire being—a

The puffy-eyed night clerk shows ill-humored surprise at the sight of this excessively early guest, but sleepily doffs his cap. Poor fellow, so here too there’s hard work, unseen labor, ill-paid drudgery, there’s such a thing as having to get up and be on time. But let’s not think about that. What’s it to me? I don’t want to be aware of anyone but

Or you can think about nothing at all and just laze mindlessly, time belongs to you, not the reverse. You’re not driven onward by that frantic mill wheel of hours and seconds, you glide through time, eyes closed, as though in a rowboat with oars pulled in. Christine lies there, enjoying this new feeling, her blood pulsing pleasantly in her ears lik

Christine is instantly awake. Taking care of her mother has accustomed her to being alert at the slightest touch. “Am I late already?” she stammers guiltily. All office workers are afraid of being late for work. For years she’s gone to sleep afraid and awakened afraid at the first blast from the alarm clock. The first thing she does is check the ti

In her sleep the frightened girl has drawn her arms over her chest, as though to protect herself. This simple gesture is touching, childish, as is the half-open, almost frightened mouth; the eyebrows too are somewhat raised, as though she’s in the grip of a dream. Even in her sleep, her aunt thinks with sudden clear-sightedness, even in her sleep s

For this quiet, unprepossessing, passive man who has no garden in front of his subsidized flat, books are like flowers. He loves to line them up on the shelf in multicolored rows; he watches over each of them with an old-fashioned gardener’s delight, holds them like fragile objects in his thin, bloodless hands.

She pleases him, this shy slip of a girl who doesn’t dare to look up, who’s so unlike those flappers over there, whom he detests in a grouchy sort of way because a gramophone always rattles to life when they show up and because they sashay through the room as no woman in Holland ever would have in his day.