Make the language easy to use without any mental burden? But you do realize programming is not easy, especially when you're aiming for high performance. How can you make a language easy to use "without any mental burden"? Programming is hard, programming well and with performance in mind is even more so. Some things you just can't magically make easy.
I actually feel the exact opposite when I program in C. C is so bare that most of my time is spent building the correct constructs I need to solve my problem. C++ on the other hand has a decent set of high level features that makes it easier for me to focus on the problem.
You can write a C++ program to solve a problem that looks almost exactly like the C program you would write. But C++ brings a couple of nice features, like resource management with constructors/destructors and type-safe data structures that you just can't have in C.