"And
where's this man from, now?" he asks. In a moment I am enveloped by the
spirit of the town.
I walk up to the churchyard. Here, too, care has been taken to provide
equipment for the winter. Bundles of straw have been fastened round plants
and bushes; many a delicate monument is protected by a tall wooden hood.
And the hoods again armoured with a coat of paint. As if some provident
soul had thought: Well, now, I have this funeral monument here; with
proper care it may be made to last for generations!
There is a Christmas Fair on, too, and I stroll along to see. Here are
skis and toboggans, butter scoops and log chairs from the underworld,
rose-coloured mittens, clothes' rollers, foxes' skins. And here are
horse-dealers and drovers mingling with drunken folk from up the valley.
Jews there are, too, anxious to palm off a gaudy watch or so, for all
there is no money in the town. And the watches come from that country up
in the Alps, where Bocklin--did not come from; where nothing and nobody
ever came from.
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