Klamm—assuming that it was a lucky star, but you maintain that it was—was your star and so would remain constant to you and not leave you quite so quickly and suddenly as Klamm did.”
“Do you mean all this in earnest?” asked the landlady.
“Yes, in earnest,” replied K. immediately, “only I consider Hans’ relations were neither entirely right nor entirely wrong in their hopes, and I think, too, I can see the mistake that they made. In appearance, of course, everything seems to have succeeded. Hans is well provided for, he has a handsome wife, is looked up to, and the inn is free of debt. Yet in reality everything has not succeeded, he would certainly have been much happier with a simple girl who gave him her first love, and if he sometimes stands in the inn there as if lost, as you complain, and because he really feels as if he were lost—without being unhappy over it, I grant you, I know that much about him already—it’s just as true that a handsome, intelligent young man like him would be happier with another wife, and by happier I mean more independent, industrious, manly. And you yourself certainly can’t be happy, seeing you say you wouldn’t be able to go on without these three keepsakes, and your heart is bad, too. Then were Hans’ relatives mistaken in their hopes? I don’t think so. The blessing was over you, but they didn’t know how to bring it down.”