On What's in a Name

People Met

*

(translated from the German by Michael Hofmann)

I have met people who,

asked after their names,

shyly—as if they had no title

to an appellation all to themselves—

replied “Fräulein Christian” and added:

“like the first name,” they wanted to make it easy for the other,

not a difficult name like “Popiol” or “Babendererde”—

“like the first name”—please, don’t burden your memory overmuch!

I have met people who

grew up in a single room with their parents

and four brothers and sisters, and studied at night

with their fingers in their ears at the kitchen table,

and grew up to be beautiful and self-possessed as duchesses—

and innerly gentle and hard-working as Nausicaa,

clear-browed as angels.

I have often asked myself and never found an answer

whence kindness and gentleness come,

I don’t know it to this day, and now must go myself.