Authors: Robert Walser
But one might have just as much right to say that nobody ought to go to concerts,
or visit the theater, or enjoy any other kind of amusement as long as there are prisons
in the world and places of punishment with unhappy prisoners in them. This is of course
asking too much. And if anyone were to wait content and enjoying life until finally
the world should contain no more poor miserable people, then he would be waiting until
the gray impenetrable end of all time, and until the ice-cold empty end of the world,
and by then all joy and life itself would in all probability be utterly gone from
him.
A disheveled, discomfited, spent, and tremulous charwoman, extraordinarily weak and
weary, and yet hurrying along because she evidently still had many more things to
do, reminded me for an instant of spoiled, pampered little girls, or larger girls,
who are often ignorant, or seem to know what sort of delicate elegant occupation or
diversion to pass the day with, and who perhaps are never thoroughly tired, who consider
all day and for weeks on end what they can wear to increase the polish of their appearance,
and who have time and to spare for long meditations on the subject, whence continually
more and more exaggerated refinements wrap round their persons and sweet confectionlike
little forms.
But I am myself usually a lover and admirer of such amiable, utterly pampered moonbeam
maidens, beautiful, delicate, plantlike girls. A charming young thing could command
of me whatever might occur to her, I would blindly obey her. Oh, how beautiful beauty
is, and how charming is charm!
Once more I return to the topic of architecture and building, and here a bit, or spot,
of art and literature will need consideration.
But first a note: the cleaning of ancient, noble, dignified, historic places and buildings,
with their traceries of ornamental flowers, reveals considerable bad taste. Whoever
does this, or causes it to be done, sins against the spirit of dignity and beauty,
and injures the lovely remembrance of ancestors, who were as brave as they were noble.
Second, never garland and conceal the architecture of fountains with flowers. Of course,
flowers in themselves are beautiful; but they do not exist to declarify and erase
the noble austerity and austere beauty of images in stone. At any time the predilection
for flowers can deteriorate into a foolish mania. Personalities, magistrates, whom
this concerns, may make inquiries in the authoritative circles as to whether I am
right, and thereafter be kind enough to behave nicely.
To mention two beautiful and interesting edfices, which powerfully arrested me and
claimed my attention to an unusual degree, it may be said that as I followed my road
farther I came to a delightful, curious chapel, which I immediately named Brentano’s
Chapel, because I saw that it dated from the fantastical, golden-aureoled, half-bright
and half-dark age of the Romantics. I recalled Brentano’s great wild, dark, temptestuous
novel
Godwi.
Lofty, slender, arched windows gave this most original and peculiar building a delicate,
delightful appearance, and laid upon it the spirit of enchantment, spirit of inwardness
and the meditative life. There came to my mind fiery and profound landscape descriptions
by the poet mentioned above, particularly the account of German oak forests. Soon
after this I was standing in front of a villa called Terrasse, which reminded me of
the painter Karl Stauffer-Bern, who lived and stayed here for a time, and, simultaneously,
of certain very superb, noble edifices which lie on the Tiergar-tenstrasse in Berlin,
and which, owing to the austere, majestical, and simple classical style to which they
give expression, are congenial and worth seeing. To me, Stauffer’s House and Brentano’s
Chapel were monuments to two worlds which are to be strictly distinguished from each
other, each being in its curious way graceful, entertaining, and significant: here
a measured, cool elegance; there the exuberant, deep-minded dream, here something
subtle and beautiful, and there something subtle and beautiful, but in substance and
structure completely different from the other, although each lies near to the other
in point of time. Evening is now gradually beginning to fall upon my walk, and its
quiet end, I think, cannot any more be very far away.
Perhaps this is just the place for a few everyday things and street events, each in
its turn: a splendid piano factory and also other factories and company buildings;
an avenue of poplars close beside a black river, men, women, children, electric trams
croaking along, each with a responsible field marshal or general peering out, a troupe
of charmingly chequered and spotted pale-colored cows, peasant women on farm carts,
and the rolling of wheels and cracking of whips thereto appertaining, several heavily
laden, high-towering beer wagons and beer barrels, homeward-bound workers streaming
and storming out of the factories, the overwhelming sight and actuality of all this
mass, and the relevant curious thoughts; goods wagons with goods, coming from the
goods station, an entire traveling and wandering circus with elephants, horses, dogs,
zebras, giraffes, fierce lions locked in lion cages, with Singalese, Indians, tigers,
monkeys, and creepy-crawly crocodiles, girl rope dancers and polar bears, and all
the requisite opulence of camp followers, servants, packs of performers and staff;
further: boys armed with wooden rifles, imitating the European War as they unleash
all the furies of war, a small scoundrel singing the song “One Hundred Thousand Frogs,”
of which he is mightily proud; further: foresters and woodsmen with trucks full of
wood, two or three splendid pigs, whereat the lively imagination of the observer greedily
paints him a picture of the deliciousness and acceptability of a marvelously redolent,
already roast joint of pork, which is understandable; a farmhouse with a motto over
the entrance, two Bohemian, Galician, Slav, Wend, or even gypsy girls in red boots
and with jet-black eyes and ditto hair, at the sight of whom one thinks perhaps of
the plummy novel
The Gypsy Princess,
which actually happens in Hungary, though it makes little difference, or of
Preziosa,
which is of course of Spanish origin, but there is no need to take it literally.
Further, in the way of shops: paper, meat, clock, shoe, hat, iron, cloth, grocery,
spice, fancy goods, millinery, bakery, and confectionery shops. And everywhere on
all these things delicious evening sun. Further, much noise and uproar, schools and
schoolteachers, the latter with weighty and dignified faces, landscapes and air and
much else that is picturesque. Further, not to be overlooked or forgotten: signs and
advertisements, as: “Persil,” or “Maggi’s Unsurpassed Soups,” or “Continental Rubber
Heels Enormously Durable,” or “Freehold Property for Sale,” or “The Best Milk Chocolate,”
and I honestly know not what else. If one were to count until everything had been
accurately enumerated, one would never reach the end. People with insight feel and
observe this fact. A placard or board struck me especially; it read as follows:
“F
ULL
B
OARD AND
L
ODGING
or elegant gentlemen’s
pension
recommends to elegant or at least better-off gentlemen its first-class cuisine, which
is such that we can with a clear conscience say that it will gratify the most pampered
palate and delight the liveliest appetite. Nevertheless, preferably we decline to
consider all-too-hungry stomachs. The culinary art we offer is adjusted to higher
education, by which we hope to indicate that we are pleased to see only really well-educated
gentlemen banqueting at our tables. Rascals who drink their weekly or monthly wage,
and who are thus unable to pay promptly, we have not the remotest desire to meet;
rather, in respect of our honored guests, we insist on delicate conduct and pleasing
manners. Charming, polite young ladies are in our house in attendance at the deliriously
laid, tasteful tables, which are decorated with all sorts of flowers. We make this
clear, so that Prospective Gentlemen may understand that elegant behavior and really
jolly and correct conduct are required of the likely resident from the moment he sets
foot in our estimable, respectable establishment. With libertines and rowdies, boasters
and swaggerers we quite resolutely refuse all contact. Such persons who have cause
to believe that they are of this type will be so good as to remain at a distance from
our first-rate institute and spare us their objectionable presences. Every nice, delicate,
polite, courteous, elegant, obliging, friendly, cheerful, not excessively gay and
cheerful but rather quiet, above all solvent, steady, punctually paying gentleman
guest, on the other hand, will really be in every respect welcome, and he will be
attended to most elegantly and treated as courteously and nicely as is humanly possible;
this we promise faithfully, and we intend
to
keep this promise continually, the pleasure is ours. Such a nice, charming gentleman
will find at our tables delicacies whose like he would have great trouble to find
elsewhere; for from our exquisite cuisine proceed veritable masterpieces of culinary
art; this everyone will have the occasion to prove who wishes to sample our excellent
Gentlemen’s Pension to which we heartily extend our invitation at all times. The food
which we place on our tables surpasses in quality as in quantity all reasonably healthy
belief, and no fantasy, however strong, can even approximately conceive the delectable,
luscious tidbits which we are accustomed to bring forth and display before the joyfully
astonished eyes of gentlemen diners here assembled. But, as has already been stressed
several times, only gentlemen of the better type come into consideration, and we take
the liberty, in order to avoid errors and to remove doubts, of publishing our conception
of such persons: in our eyes, he alone is a gentleman of the better type who seethes
with elegance and superiority, and who is just simply far better than the other ordinary
people. People who are no more than ordinary do not suit us at all. A gentleman of
the better type is, in our opinion, only he who entertains a fair number of vain and
foolish ideas about himself, and who above all imagines that his nose is better than
any other good and sensible human nose whatsoever. The conduct of a gentleman of the
better type clearly exhibits this peculiar prerequisite, and it is upon this that
we rely. Whoever is merely good, upright, and honorable, and shows no other important
merits, should not trouble us; for to us he does not seem to be a gentleman of the
more elegant, of the better type. For the selection of only the most elegant and superior
gentlemen of the better type, we possess the most subtle intelligence. We can see
at once from the gait, the tone of voice, from the way of making conversation, from
the features of the face, from the movements of the body, and particularly from the
clothes, the hat, the stick, the flower in the buttonhole, which either exists or
does not, whether a gentleman belongs among the better gentlemen, or does not. The
acumen we possess in this respect borders on magic, and we make so bold as to contend
that we credit ourselves with a certain genius in these matters. Well, now it is clear
what sort of gentlemen we indicate, and if a person comes to us and we can tell from
afar that he is unsuitable for us and our establishment, then we tell him: ‘We very
much regret, and we are really very sorry.’”
Two or three readers will perhaps raise a few doubts about the authenticity of this
notice, insofar as they will tell themselves that it is hardly believable.
Perhaps there were a few repetitions here and there. But I would like to confess that
I consider man and nature to be in lovely and charming flight from repetitions, and
I would like further to confess that I regard this phenomenon as a beauty and a blessing.
Of course, one finds in some places sensation-hungry novelty hunters and novelty worshippers,
spoiled by overexcitement, people who almost every instant covet joys that have never
been seen before. The writer does not write for such people, nor does the composer
compose for them, nor does the painter paint for them. On the whole I consider the
constant need for delight and diversion in completely new things to be a sign of pettiness,
lack of inner life, of estrangement from nature, and of a mediocre or defective gift
of understanding. It is little children for whom one must always be producing something
new and different, only in order to stop their being dissatisfied. The serious writer
does not feel called upon to supply accumulations of material, to act the agile servant
of nervous greed; and consequently he is not afraid of a few natural repetitions,
although of course he takes continual trouble to forfend too many similarities.
It was now evening and I came to a quiet, pretty path or side road which ran under
trees, toward the lake, and here the walk ended. In a forest of alders, at the water’s
edge, a school for boys and girls had assembled and the parson or teacher was giving
instruction in botany and the observation of nature, here in the midst of nature,
at nightfall. As I walked slowly onward, two human figures arose in my mind. Perhaps
because of a certain general weariness, I thought of a beautiful girl, and of how
alone I was in the wide world, and that this could not be quite right. Self-reproof
touched me from behind my back and stood before me in my way, and I had to struggle
hard. Certain evil memories took control of me. Self-accusations made my heart deeply
and suddenly a burden to me. Flowers meanwhile I searched for and picked all around
me, partly in the little forest, partly in the fields. Gently and softly it began
to rain, whereupon the delicate countryside became even more delicate and still. It
seemed to me that tears fell, and while I was gathering flowers I listened to the
soft weeping which rustled down upon the leaves. Warm, gentle summer rain, how sweet
you are! “Why am I picking flowers here?” I asked myself, and looked down pensively
to the ground, and the delicate rain increased my pensiveness till it became sorrow.
Old, long-past failures occurred to me, disloyalty, hatred, scorn, falsity, cunning,
anger, and many violent unbeautiful actions. Uncontrolled passion, wild desire, and
how I had hurt people sometimes, and done wrong. Like a packed stage of scenes from
a drama my past life opened to me, and I was seized with astonishment at my countless
frailties, at all unfriendliness and Iovelessness which I had caused people to feel.
Then there came before my eyes the second figure, and suddenly I saw again the poor,
weary old forsaken man whom I had seen a few days before, lying on the ground in the
forest, and he looked up, so pitiful, deathly and pale, lamentable, so sorrowful and
weary to death, that the sad sight of him had terrified me and choked my soul. This
weary man I now saw in my mind’s eye, and a feeling of weakness took hold of me. I
felt the need to lie down somewhere, and since a friendly, cozy little place by the
lakeside was nearby, I made myself comfortable, somewhat tired as I was, on the soft
ground under the artless branches of a tree. As I looked at earth and air and sky
the melancholy unquestioning thought came to me that I was a poor prisoner between
heaven and earth, that all men were miserably imprisoned in this way, that for all
men there was only the one dark path into the other world, the path down into the
pit, into the earth, that there was no other way into the other world than that which
led through the grave. “So then everything, everything, all this rich life, the friendly,
thoughtful colors, this delight, this joy and pleasure in life, all these human meanings,
family, friend, and beloved, this bright, tender air full of divinely beautiful images,
houses of fathers, houses of mothers, and dear gentle roads, must one day pass away
and die, the high sun, the moon, and the hearts and eyes of men.” For a long time
I thought of this, and asked those people whom perhaps I might have injured to forgive
me. For a long time I lay there in unclear thought, until I remembered the girl again,
who was so beautiful and fresh with youth, and had such soft, good, pure eyes. I vividly
imagined how charming was her childish, pretty mouth, how pretty her cheeks, and how
with its melodious sweetness her bodily form had enchanted me, how I had asked her
a question a while ago, how in her doubt and disbelief her lovely eyes had looked
away, and how she had said no when I asked her if she believed in my sincere love,
affection, surrender, and tenderness. The situation had obliged her to travel, and
she had gone away. Perhaps I would still have had time to convince her that I meant
well with her, that her dear person was important to me, and that I had many beautiful
reasons for wanting to make her happy, and thus myself happy also; but I had thought
no more of it, and she went away. Why then the flowers? “Did I pick flowers to lay
them upon my sorrow?” I asked myself, and the flowers fell out of my hand. I had risen
up, to go home; for it was late now, and everything was dark.