Authors: Robert Walser
What I saw was as small and poor as it was large and significant, as modest as it
was charming, as near as it was good, and as delightful as it was warm. Two houses
which lay close together in the bright sunlight, like lively and kindly neighbors,
these I delighted in. One delight followed the other, and in the soft confiding air
contentment floated to and fro and trembled as with joy restrained. One of the two
subtle little houses was the Bear Inn; the bear was admirably and comically depicted
on the inn sign. Chestnut trees overshadowed the delicate and pretty house, which
was assuredly inhabited by kind, pleasant, friendly people; it did not seem, like
some buildings, to be arrogant, but rather the very image of intimacy and trust. Everywhere
the eye looked lay splendid profusion of contented gardens, hovered green tangled
profusion of pleasant leaves. The second house, or cottage, in its evident delightfulness
and humility, was like a childishly beautiful page out of a picture book, a sweet
illustration, so charming and curious did it show itself to be. The vicinity of the
cottage seemed entirely beautiful and good. I fell immediately head over heels in
love with this pretty little house person, and I would have passionately liked to
go into it, in order to make my nest and lodging there and to live in the magic cottage,
the jewel, forever and content; but it is unfortunately just the most beautiful houses
which are occupied, and the person who looks for a dwelling to suit his presumptuous
tastes has a difficult time, because that which is empty and available is often frightful
and inspires horror. The pretty cottage was certainly inhabited by a little spinster
or grandmother; it had about it just such a smell, just such a look. It being permitted
to say so, I report in addition that on the wall of the cottage abounded wall paintings,
or noble frescoes, which were divinely subtle and amusing and showed a Swiss alpine
landscape in which stood, painted again, another house, to be accurate a Bernese mountain
farmhouse. Frankly, the painting was not good at all. It would be impudent to maintain
that it was. But, nonetheless,
to
me it seemed marvelous. Plain and simple as it was, it enchanted me; as a matter
of fact, any sort of painting enchants me, however foolish and clumsy it is, because
every painting reminds me first of diligence and industry, and second of Holland.
Is not all music, even the most niggardly, beautiful to the person who loves the very
being and existence of music? Is not almost any human being you please, even the worst
and most unpleasant, lovable to the person who is a friend to man? Painted landscape
in the middle of real landscape is capricious, piquant. This nobody will contest.
The fact that a little old lady may live in the cottage I certainly did not anyway
confirm or establish on record, and I have no desire at all to give it as gospel.
But I am surprised at myself that I should dare to use the word “fact” here, where
everything is, or should be, supple and as full of human nature as the thoughts and
feelings of a mother’s heart. Further, the cottage was painted blue-gray and had bright
golden-green shutters, which seemed to smile, and all around it in the magic garden
was a fragrance of most beautiful flowers. Over the little garden- or summerhouse
there bowed and twisted with enchanting grace a rosebush or bouquet full of the loveliest
roses.
Assuming I am not delirious, but hale and hearty, as I hope and would not like to
doubt I am, proceeding gently on my way I passed by a country barbershop, with whose
contents and owner, however, I have, it seems to me, no cause to concern myself, because
I am of the opinion that it is not yet urgently necessary for me to have my hair cut,
though this would be perhaps quite jolly and amusing. Further, I passed by a cobbler’s
workshop, which reminded me of the poet Lenz, a genius, but unhappy, who learned to
make, and made, shoes while his soul and spirit were unhinged. Did I not also look
in passing into a schoolhouse and into a friendly schoolroom, exactly when the schoolmistress
was issuing questions and commands? This is a favorable occasion on which to remark
how eagerly the walker for an instant wished he might once more be a child and a disobedient,
mischievous schoolboy, go to school again and be able to harvest and receive a well-earned
thrashing in punishment for naughtinesses and outrages committed. Speaking of thrashings,
our opinion might here be mentioned and interlarded that a countryman deserves to
be well and truly thrashed, if he is not hesitant to cut down the pride of the landscape
and the glory of his own hearth and home, namely his high and ancient nut tree, in
order to trade it in for despicable, wicked, foolish money. For I passed by a very
lovely farmhouse, with a high, splendid, and luxuriant nut tree; and here the thought
of trading and thrashing rose in my mind. “This high majestical tree,” I cried aloud,
“which protects and beautifies this house so wonderfully, spinning for it a cage of
such serious, joyous homeliness and intimate domesticity, this tree, I say, is a divinity,
a holy thing, and a thousand lashes to the unfeeling and impious owner of it if he
dare make all this golden, divinely green magic of leaves vanish to gratify his thirst
for money, which is the vilest and most contemptible thing on earth. Such cretins
should be kicked out of the parish. To Siberia or Tierra del Fuego with such defilers
and destroyers of what is beautiful. But, thank God, there are also farmers who have
hearts and senses for what is delicate and good.”
As regards the tree, the greed, the countryman, the transportation to Siberia, and
the thrashing which the countryman apparently deserves because he fells the tree,
I have perhaps gone too far, and I must confess that I let my indignation carry me
away. Friends of beautiful trees will nevertheless understand my displeasure, and
agree with my so energetically expressed regret. For all I care, the thousand lashes
can be returned to me forthwith. To the expression “cretin” I myself deny applause.
The expression is coarse, and I dislike it, and I therefore beg the reader’s forgiveness.
As I have already had to beg his forgiveness several times, I have become quite a
dab hand at self-excuse. “Unfeeling and impious owner” also I had no real need to
say. The mind gets overheated, and this ought to be avoided. That is obvious. My grief
over the downfall of a beautiful, tall, ancient tree can still stand, and I certainly
make the worst of it; nobody can hinder me from that. “Kicked out of the parish” is
an improvident phrase, and as for the thirst for money, which I have called vile,
I suppose that I have myself at some time or another offended, fallen short, and sinned
in this respect, and that certain wretchednesses and vilenesses have not remained
utterly alien and unknown to me. These words show that I practice a policy of softheartedness,
which has a beauty that is not to be found anywhere else; but I consider this policy
to be indispensable. Propriety enjoins us to be careful to deal as severely with ourselves
as with others, and to judge others as mildly and gently as we judge ourselves, which
latter we do, as is well known, at all times instinctively. It is delicious, is it
not, the way I neatly correct my mistakes and smooth over the offenses? In making
admissions I prove myself peace-loving, and in rounding off the angles and making
soft what is rough I am a subtle, delicate attenuator, show a sense of good tone,
and am diplomatic. Of course I have disgraced myself; but I hope that my good will
is appreciated.
If anybody still says now that I am indiscreet, imperious, and a despot blundering
about at will, then I maintain, that is to say, I dare to hope that I have the right
to maintain, that the person who says such a thing is sorely mistaken. With such continual
considerateness and gentility, perhaps no other author has ever thought of the reader.
Well, now I can obligingly attend to a château and aristocratic palace, and as follows:
I politely play my trump card; for with a half-ruined stately home and patrician house,
with an age-gray, park-surrounded, proud knight’s castle and lordly residence such
as now enters my view, one can make a great song and dance, excite respect, arouse
envy, inspire wonder, and pocket the proceeds. Many a poor but elegant man of letters
would live with the greatest of pleasure, the highest satisfaction, in such a castle,
or stronghold, with courtyard and drive for haughty carriages embossed with coats-of-arms.
Many a poor but pleasure-loving painter dreams of residing temporarily on delicious
old-fashioned country estates. Many a city girl, educated but perhaps poor as a church
mouse, thinks with melancholy rapture and idealistic fervor of ponds, grottoes, high
chambers and placidities, and of herself waited upon by hurrying footmen and noble-minded
knights. On the lordly residence I saw here, that is, rather in it than on it, could
be read the date 1709, which naturally quickened and intensified my interest. With
a certain rapture I looked as a naturalist and antiquary into the dreaming, ancient,
curious garden, where, in a pool with a pleasant splashing fountain, I discovered
and proved with ease the presence of a most peculiar fish, which was one meter in
length; namely, a solitary sheatfish. Likewise I saw and established with romantic
bliss the presence of a garden pavilion in Moorish or Arabian style, beautifully and
opulently painted in sky-blue, mysterious star-silver, gold, brown, and noble, serious
black. I supposed and sensed at once with the most subtle intelligence that the pavilion
must date from, and have been erected in, about the year 1858, a deduction, conjecture,
and scenting-out which perhaps entitles me sometimes confidently to read with a rather
complacent expression on my face, and in a rather self-confident manner, a pertinent
paper on the subject in the Town Hall Chambers, before a large and enthusiastic public.
Then very probably the press would mention my paper, which could only mean an extreme
pleasure for me; since sometimes it mentions all sorts of things with not even one
small dying word. As I was studying the Arabian or Persian garden pavilion, it occurred
to me to think: “How beautiful it must be here at night, when everything is veiled
in an almost impenetrable darkness, when all around it is quiet, black, and soundless,
pines gently towering out of the darkness, midnight feelings arrest the solitary wanderer,
and now a lamp, which spreads a sweet yellow light, is brought into the pavilion by
a beautiful, richly jeweled noblewoman, who then, impelled by her peculiar whim and
moved by a curious access of soul, begins, at the piano, with which in this case our
summerhouse must naturally be equipped, to play music to which, if the dream be permitted,
she sings in a delightfully beautiful, pure voice. How one would listen there, how
one would dream, how happy one would be made by this night music!”
But it was not midnight and far and wide neither a courtly Middle Ages nor a year
1500 or 1700, but broad daylight and a working day, and a troupe of people, together
with a most uncourtly and unknightly, most crude and most impertinent automobile,
which came my way, rudely disturbed me at my wealth of learned and romantic observations,
and threw me in a trice out of the domain of castle poetry and reverie on things past,
so that I cried out instinctively: “It really is most vulgar the way people impede
me here from making my elegant studies and from plunging into the most superb profundities.
I could be indignant; but instead I would rather be meek, and suffer, and endure with
a good grace. Sweet is thought about beauty and loveliness that are passed away, sweet
is the noble, pale image of drowned and perished beauty; but on the world around and
on one’s fellow men one has not therefore the right to turn one’s back, and one may
not think that one is entitled to resent people and their contrivances because they
disregard the state of mind of him who is absorbed in the realms of history and thought.”
“A thunderstorm,” I thought as I walked on, “would be beautiful here. I hope I shall
have the opportunity to experience one.”
To a good honest jet-black dog who lay in the road I delivered the following facetious
address: “Does it not enter your mind, you apparently quite unschooled and uncultivated
fellow, to stand up and offer me your coal-black paw, though you must see from my
gait and entire conduct that I am a person who has lived a full seven years at least
in the capital of this country and of the world, and who during this time has not
one minute, let alone one hour, or one month, or one week, been out of touch or out
of pleasant intercourse with exclusively cultured people? Where, ragamuffin, were
you brought up? And you do not answer me a word? You lie where you are, look at me
calmly, move not a finger, and remain as motionless as a monument? You should be ashamed
of yourself!”
Yet actually I liked the dog, who in the loyal-hearted watchfulness and humorous repose
and composure he displayed looked magnificent, uncommonly good, and because his eyes
twinkled at me so merrily, I spoke with him, and because he really did not understand
a word, I could venture to scold him, which however, as will have been observed from
the comic manner of my address, cannot anyway have been meant unkindly.
Catching sight of an elegant, well-starched gentleman strutting and waddling and prancing
toward me, I had the melancholy thought: “And poor little ill-dressed neglected children?
Is it possible that such a well-dressed, elaborately groomed, splendidly tailored
and upholstered, beringed and jewelbehung, spick-and-span beau of a gentleman does
not give a moment’s thought to poor young creatures who go about often enough in rags,
show a sad lack of care and attention, and are lamentably neglected? Is the peacock
not a little uneasy? Does this Adult Gentleman who goes about so beautifully not feel
in any way whatsoever concerned when he sees dirty speckled little children? It seems
to me that no mature man ought to want to appear all elegance as long as there are
children who have no finery to wear at all.”