Then Witte would speak. Would inform us that we were standing here at the bier of a friend. And, in accordance with his principle in all situations of life, he would be the exemplary, living proof of this fact: he would stand there, dynamic, at the flowery bier of the vanished friend as though on a conquered peak on which he had just planted the flag.

His word was bronze. It gave eternal value to the personality of the deceased. But it also raised an admonishing finger at the human foibles that the dear departed had sloughed off with his corporeal envelope (and as whose dismal witness I sat here, to the side, on the poor sinner’s bench). In this sense, you see, this man (wide sweep of the hand across the flower hill) died vicariously for all of us: filled with the most splendid promise and endowed with all the gifts to make all the expectations about him come true, but foundering on the all-too-human: this gave his premature decease the character of a sacrificial death. Here he lay as a symbol of the fine possibilities inherent in every human being and, alas, not always reaching development because of the all-too-human, a martyr to earthly imperfection (three powerful coughs into the fist, thorax pumped up for the grand finale): here he lies, cleansed of all the slag that marred his earthly travels (involuntary glance at me) and obfuscated his rich talents, so that his road of life was not, alas, a trajectory that hit the bull’s-eye of self-realization. But this very failure lends redemptive value to his demise: he died for the average man. His fate is that of most people: much promise and even more expectation sinfully lost to time—Ecce homo! (involuntary scraping of Herr von Rönnekamp’s feet).

Witte lapses into silence. His head sinks upon his chest. The club cocarde fades. Now he is no longer the victor on the conquered peak. He stands by the bier of the departed like an elephant hunter, with the sportsmanly hunter’s humility before his vanquished noble prey. Then his giant figure detaches itself from the flower hill and, with a sunken head, strides past the pastoral nightshade plant (two nuns humbly bowing to one another as they pass in the cloister), returns to his seat, devoutly lifts the black hat (which the aunt, after holding it in her lap for a while, eventually placed on his chair), and once again covers the now unoccupied surface with the seat of his pants.

And again, a whispering moves through the rows of leave-takers, like evening wind soughing in the foliage of a weeping willow. And (spurred by a poke in his ribs from Carlotta) Scherping rises most ceremoniously and turns and coils in front of his chair like a puppy getting ready to lie down and sleep; and, with a slight bow that tenses the seat of his trousers, he places his black Sunday hat on the chair as gingerly as if he were inserting a brick into a basket of eggs; and he turns toward the flower hill and stares at it with such a painfully pleasurable look, as if extracting a dagger from deep within his heart and feeling as he does so a cunning delight. And then he resolutely heads for the place where Witte was standing; and, while walking, he sends a quick, ironic snort through his nostrils, pulls his head in between his shoulders, like Rumpelstiltskin, and begins to speak. And he says: If it must be so, then he too does not wish to refrain from casting a few words into the grave of the deceased, his dear editor and difficult friend. And now he stands in front of the flower hill like a Baltic beachgoer before his prizewinning sand castle: smirking awkwardly in joyful anticipation of the free beer that the resort provides for the prizewinners.