Rainer Maria Rilke

When I stepped away from the window, the evening clouds were still there. They seemed to be waiting. Should I tell them a story too? I proposed it. But they didn’t even hear me. To make myself understood and to diminish the distance between us, I called out: “I am an evening cloud too.” They stopped still, evidently taking a good look at me. Then they stretched towards me their fine, transparent, rosy wings. That is how evening clouds greet each other. They had recognized me.

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"We are lying over the earth,” they explained, “more exactly, over Europe. And you?”

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I hesitated. “There’s a country here—”

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“What does it look like?” They inquired.

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“Well,” I answered, “twilight, with things—”

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“Europe’s like that too,” laughed a young girl-cloud.

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“Possibly,” I said, “but I have always heard that the things in Europe are dead.”

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“Yes, of course!” said another cloud scornfully. “What nonsense that would be—living things!”

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“All the same,” I insisted, “mine are alive. So that’s the​​ difference. They can become various things, and one that comes into the world as a pencil or a stove, need not yet despair on that account of advancing in life. A pencil may someday turn into a staff, or, if all goes well, into a mast; and a stove at least into a city gate.”

“You seem to me to be a very simple-minded evening cloud,” said the youngster who had already expressed herself with so little reserve.

An old man-cloud feared she might have offended me. “There are all sorts of countries,” he said kindly. “I once chanced to come over a small German principality, and I’ve never to this day believed that that belonged to Europe.”

I thanked him and said: “I see it will not be easy for us to come to an understanding. Allow me, and I will simply tell you what I saw below me recently; that will probably be the best way.”

“Please do,” agreed the wise old man-cloud in the name of all the rest.

I began: “People are in a room. I am fairly high up, you must know, and so it is that to me they look like children; therefore I shall simply say: children. So then: Children are in a room. Two, five, six, seven children. It would take too long to ask them their names. Besides, they seem to be having an earnest discussion, so there’s a good chance that a name or two will be given away in the course of it. They must have been at it for some time already, for the eldest (I observe that they call him Hans) is saying in a tone of finality:

‘No it certainly cannot remain like this. I have heard that parents used always to tell their children stories in the​​ evening—or at least on evenings when they had been good —till they went to sleep. Does anything like that happen now?’ A short pause, then Hans answered himself: ‘It doesn’t happen, anywhere. I for my part—and also because I’m fairly grown-up—would gladly let them off those few wretched dragons that would bother them so, but still, they should by rights tell us there are fairies, brownies, princes, and monsters.’

‘I have an aunt,’ a little girl remarked, ‘and she sometimes tells me...’

‘Oh, go on,’ Hans cut her off, ‘aunts don’t count, they tell lies.’ The whole assembly was much taken aback by this bold, but uncontradicted assertion. Hans went on: ‘Besides, we are above all concerned with our parents, for it is their duty, in a way, to instruct us in these matters; others do it more out of kindness, we can’t expect it of them. But just listen now: what do our parents do? They go around with cross, annoyed faces, nothing suits them, they shout and scold, and yet they are really so indifferent that if the world came to an end they would hardly notice it. They have something which they call “Ideals.” Perhaps those are some sort of small children that may never be left alone and that make a lot of trouble; but then they shouldn’t have had us? Well, I think it’s like this, children: that our parents neglect us is sad, certainly. But we would put up with that if it were not a sign that grown-ups generally are growing stupider, deteriorating, if one may say so. We cannot hinder their decline; for all day long we cannot exert any influence on them, and when we come home late from school, nobody will expect us to sit down and try to get them interested in​​ something sensible. And it really does hurt when one has been sitting and sitting under the lamp and Mother cannot even understand the Pythagorean proposition. Well, that’s how it is. So the grown-ups will be growing stupider and stupider . . . no matter: what can we lose by it? Culture? They take off their hats to each other, but if a bald spot comes to light, they laugh. Anyhow, they’re always laughing. If we hadn’t sense enough to cry now and then, even these matters would get entirely out of balance. And they’re so arrogant: they even declare that the Emperor is a grownup. I’ve read in the newspapers that the King of Spain is a child, and it’s the same with all kings and emperors—don’t let them talk you into anything! But apart from everything superfluous they’ve got, the grown-ups have something that most certainly cannot be indifferent to us—I mean, God. I’ve not seen him with any one of them yet—but that’s just what looks suspicious. It has occurred to me that in their distraction and fuss and haste they may have lost him somewhere. But he is something absolutely necessary. All sorts of things can’t happen without him: the sun can’t rise, babies can’t come, and even bread would stop; even if it does come out of the baker’s, God sits and turns the big mills. It is easy to find lots of reasons why God is something we cannot do without. But this much is certain: the grown-ups aren’t bothering about him, so we children must do it. Listen to a plan I’ve thought out. There are just seven of us children. Each of us must carry God about with him for one day, then he will be with us the whole week and we shall always know where he is at the moment.’

Here arose a great embarrassment. How was that to​​ be done? Could one take God into one’s hand or put him in one’s pocket? Then a little boy said:

‘Once I was all alone in the room. A little lamp burned beside me and I sat up in bed and said my evening prayer —very loud. Something moved inside my folded hands. It was soft and warm and like a little bird. I couldn’t open my hands, because the prayer wasn’t over. But I wanted very badly to know and I prayed awfully fast. When I got to the Amen, I went like this’ (the little boy stretched out his hands and spread out his fingers) ‘but there was nothing there.’

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This they could all picture to themselves. Even Hans had no suggestion. They were all looking at him. And then he suddenly said: ‘How stupid! Any thing can be God. One has only to tell it.’ He turned to the red-haired boy standing next him. ‘An animal can’t do that. It runs away. But a thing, you see, stays where it is; you come into the room, by day, by night: it is always there, it can very well be God.’ Gradually the others became convinced of this. ‘But we need a small object,’ he continued, ‘something one can carry with one everywhere, otherwise it’s no good. Empty all your pockets.’

At that some very strange things appeared: scraps of paper, penknives, erasers, feathers, bits of string, pebbles, screws, whistles, chips of wood, and much else not to be distinguished from this distance or for which I lack a name. And all these things lay in the children’s shallow hands, as though frightened at the sudden possibility of turning into God, while any of them that could shine a little, shone in order to please Hans. The choice hung in the balance a​long time. At last there was found in little Resi’s possession a thimble which she had taken from her mother one day. It was bright, as though made of silver, and for its beauty’s sake it became God. Hans himself put into his pocket, for he had the first turn, and the other children followed him about all day long and were proud of him. Only it was hard to agree on who should have it next day, so Hans in his foresight then and there drew up the program for the whole week, so that no quarrel should break out.

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This arrangement proved on the whole thoroughly expedient. One could see at first glance who had God. For that particular child walked rather more stiffly and solemnly and wore a Sunday face. For the first three days, the children spoke of nothing else. At every instant one of them was asking to see God, and though the thimble hadn’t changed a whit under the influence of its great dignity, the thimblyness of it now seemed but a modest dress about its real form. Everything proceeded as arranged. On Wednesday Paul had it, on Thursday little Anna. Then came Saturday. The children were playing tag and romping in breathless confusion, when Hans suddenly called out: “Who has God now?’ They all stood still. Each looked at the other. Nobody remembered having seen him for the last two days. Hans counted off whose turn it was; the fact came out: it was little Marie’s. And now they were asking little Marie without more ado to produce God. What was she to do? The little girl scratched around in her pockets. Then only did she remember that he had been given to her in the morning; and now he was gone—she had probably lost him here while playing.

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And when all the other children went home, little Marie stayed behind on the green, searching. The grass was fairly high. Twice people passed and asked whether she had lost anything. Each time the child answered: ‘A thimble’ —and went on looking. The people helped her for a time, but soon tired of stooping, and one man advised as he left: 'You had better go home now, you can always buy a new one.’

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But still little Marie went on searching. The meadow grew more and more mysterious in the dusk, and the grass began to get wet. Then another man came along. He bent over the child: 'What are you looking for?’ This time little Marie, not far from tears but brave and defiant, replied: ‘I am looking for God.’ The stranger smiled and took her simply by the hand, and she let herself be led as though all were well now. On the way the stranger said: ‘And just look, what a beautiful thimble I found today!’—”

The evening clouds had long been impatient. Then the wise old man-cloud, who had grown fat in the meantime, turned to me:

“Pardon me, but may I ask what the country is called —over which you... ?”

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But the other clouds ran laughing into the sky and dragged the old fellow along with them.