A poor bed warms me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty. And in winter she is most faithful to me.
With a wickedness do I begin every day: I mock at the winter with a cold bath: on that account grumbles my stern house-mate.
Also do I like to tickle him with a wax-taper, that he may finally let the heavens emerge from ashy-grey twilight.
For especially wicked am I in the morning: at the early hour when the pail rattles at the well, and horses neigh warmly in grey lanes:-
Impatiently do I then wait, that the clear sky may finally dawn for me, the snow-bearded winter-sky, the hoary one, the white-head,-
-The winter-sky, the silent winter-sky, which often stifles even its sun!
Did I perhaps learn from it the long clear silence? Or did it learn it from me? Or has each of us created it himself?
Of all good things the origin is a thousandfold,- all good roguish things spring into existence for joy: how could they always do so- for once only!
A good roguish thing is also the long silence, and to look, like the winter-sky, out of a clear, round-eyed countenance:-
-Like it to stifle one's sun, and one's inflexible solar will: verily, this art and this winter-roguishness have I learned well!
My best-loved wickedness and art is it, that my silence has learned not to betray itself by silence.
Clattering with diction and dice, I outwit the solemn assistants: all those stern watchers, shall my will and purpose elude.
That no one might see down into my depth and into my ultimate will- for that purpose did I create the long clear silence.
