Authors: Robert Walser
Simon went home. He’d made it his habit to amble homeward each day at
a certain hour when evening was approaching, usually with his gaze lowered to
the brown dark earth, to make the tea at home, in the preparation of which he’d
developed a skill that always struck the right balance, for it was a matter of
using not too little and not too much of this noble fragrant plant, keeping the
crockery meticulously clean and placing it in an appetizing, graceful way upon
the table, preventing the water from boiling away on its spirit burner, and then
combining it with the tea in the prescribed manner. For Hedwig it provided some
modicum of relief that all she had to do to have tea was pop out of the
classroom for a moment before rushing back to work. In the morning when he got
up, Simon would put his bed to rights, then go to the kitchen to make the cocoa,
which, to Hedwig’s pleasure, came out quite tasty; for with this task, too, he
was always in hot pursuit of the best way to give an undertaking, modest as it
might be, the required perfection. He also took it upon himself as a matter of
course, without previous study or particular exertion, to light the fire in the
heating stove and keep it burning, and to clean Hedwig’s room, whereby his skill
in manipulating the long broom very much came in handy. He would open the
windows to allow fresh air to enter the room, but he closed them again promptly
when he thought it was time, in order to achieve a room that was both warm and
nice-smelling. Everywhere in the room, in little pots, flowers that
had been snatched from their natural environment went on blooming, distributing
their fragrance between these four narrow walls. The windows had simple but
charming curtains, which added considerably to the brightness and friendliness
of the room. On the floor lay warm rugs that Hedwig had had made from
gathered-up scraps of cloth by unfortunates serving prison terms, who
carried out tasks of this sort exceptionally well. A bed stood in one corner,
in
the other a piano, and between them was an old sofa with a flowered cloth
slipcover, an adequately large table before it, chairs on either side; and then
there was a washstand in the room, a small writing table with a blotting pad
and
a bookshelf filled with books; and a small inverted crate on the floor that,
covered with a soft cloth, served for sitting and reading, as reading sometimes
made one feel the need to be close to the floor and fancy oneself an Oriental;
further, a little sewing table with a sewing basket containing all those
fantastical items indispensable to a girl who sets any store in housekeeping;
a
round, odd stone bearing a postmark and stamp, a bird, a stack of letters and
postcards; and on the wall a horn for blowing into, a cup to drink from, a
walking stick with a large crook, a backpack with a canteen, and the
tail-feather of a falcon. Also hanging on the walls were Kaspar’s
paintings—a crepuscular landscape with a forest; a rooftop seen from a window;
a
foggy gray city (to Hedwig particularly lovely); a bit of river in voluptuous
evening hues; a field in summer; a Don Quixote; and a house nestled against a
hill in such a way that one could borrow the words of a poet to declare: “O’er
yonder stands a house.” Upon the piano, whose top was covered with a silken
scarf, stood a bust of Beethoven in a greenish shade of bronze, several
photographs and a small, dainty empty jewelry box, a keepsake from their mother.
A curtain that looked like a theater curtain separated the two rooms and the
two
sleepers. In the evening, the teacher’s room appeared particularly cozy when
the
lamp was lit and the shutters closed; and in the morning, the sunlight would
awaken a sleeper who was anything but eager to emerge from her bed but in the
end had no choice.
The notaries left Simon in the lurch, not a single one contacted him.
As a result, he found himself compelled to earn money in other ways, since he
hoped to demonstrate to his sister his good intentions when it came to sharing
household expenses. He took up a sheet of paper and wrote:
COUNTRY LIFE
I arrived here in a house in the country along with the snow, and
although I am not the master of this house, nor harbor any ambition to become
master, I can nonetheless feel myself to be at home here and am perhaps in this
way happier than the owner of the stateliest dwelling. Not even the room I’m
living in belongs to me; it belongs to a gentle, dear teacher who has taken me
in and feeds me when I am hungry. It pleases me to be the sort of fellow who
depends on the kind mercy of others, for in general I like depending on someone
so I can love this person and keep a close watch to see whether I haven’t
forfeited his kindness. One might well associate a quite particular sort of
conduct with this sweetest of all unfreedoms: conduct that lies halfway between
insolence and tender, soft, natural attentiveness, and at this I excel. Above
all one must never allow one’s host to perceive one’s gratitude; this would be
displaying a faint-heartedness and cowardice that can only insult the
giver. In your heart you worship the kind person who has summoned you under his
roof, but it would bespeak a lack of sensitivity to press your thanks
insistently upon him—he doesn’t want such thanks, as his generosity wasn’t and
isn’t motivated by the wish to receive something beggarly in return. Under
certain circumstances, giving thanks is only a form of begging, nothing more.
Then there’s another thing: In the country, thanks are more silent and still
than loquacious. The person obliged to feel gratitude acts in a certain way
because he sees his counterpart doing so as well. Refined givers are almost even
more diffident than takers, and they prefer for takers to take
unselfconsciously, since this allows them, the givers, to give decorously,
without fuss. The teacher, by the way, is my sister, but this circumstance
wouldn’t prevent her from driving me, as a ne’er-do-well,
from her doorstep if the desire happened to seize her. She is courageous and
sincere. She received me with a mix of loving-kindness and distrust,
as was quite natural, for how could she help but assume that if this
good-for-nothing brother of hers came sailing and sauntering
up to see her, his comfortably-settled sister, it had to be because in
all God’s world he hadn’t the slightest notion where else to go. Certainly there
was something disturbing and hurtful about this, for if truth be told I hadn’t
written her a single letter for months, indeed years. She must have thought I
was coming only out of concern for my own body, which at times might truly
profit from a good whipping, rather than because I was worried about my sister
and wished to see her. Things have changed meanwhile, these sensitivities have
been put to rest, and now we live side by side not merely as blood relatives
but
as comrades who get along splendidly. Ah, in the countryside it’s simple enough
for two people to get along. It’s customary here to thrust aside distrust and
secrecy more quickly, and to love more cheerfully and brightly than in the
thronging city with its hordes of people and constant woes. In the country, even
the poorest man has fewer worries than a far less impoverished
city-dweller—for in the city everything is measured by human words and
human deeds—while worries here go on worrying as quietly as they may, and pain
provides pain’s own natural surcease. In the city, everyone races about
pell-mell trying to get rich (for which reason so many think
themselves bitterly poor), while in the country, at least to a large extent,
the
poor are spared the insult of constantly being compared with the rich. They can
peacefully go on breathing despite their poverty, for they have a whole sky
above them to breathe! What is the sky in the city? —I myself have only a single
small silver coin left by way of money, and this must cover the laundry. My
sister, who has no secrets from me except those that are utterly unspeakable,
has even confessed to me that her money has run out. Not that we’re starting
to
worry. We have the most luscious bread here, and fresh eggs and fragrant cakes,
as much as we could wish for. The children bring us all of this, for their
parents send it to school for Teacher. In the country, people know how to give
in such a way that it does honor to the taker. In the city you practically have
to be afraid to give because it’s begun to defile the taker, I truly cannot say
for what reason, perhaps because in the city takers display insolence toward
the
kind givers. So then people take care not to display noble sympathies toward
those suffering privation and give only furtively, or as a form of personal
aggrandizement. What atrocious weakness, fearing the poor, and for this reason
consuming one’s own riches alone rather than allowing oneself the glory
attained, say, by a queen when she reaches out her hand to a lowly
beggar-woman. I consider it a great misfortune to be poor in the city
because a person isn’t allowed to ask for things, it being quite clear that
benevolence is not the order of the day. One thing at least holds true: Better
not to give nor feel pity at all than to do so unwillingly, conscious of having
succumbed to a weakness. In the country, giving doesn’t make a person weak;
people wish to give and sometimes give themselves entirely to the pastime of
giving. If a person is wary of giving, he will surely himself—should he one day
find himself trampled by destinies of various sorts and forced to ask for
help—ask badly and accept what he is given gracelessly and with embarrassment,
that is, in a beggarly fashion. How reprehensible it is when those blessed with
commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into
indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a
connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of
relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful
lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances
for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet
lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you
are
oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their
ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor
manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what
things look like in our cities at present, and I find the picture disagreeable,
it needs bettering. In the countryside, matters are still quite different. Here,
a poor devil knows better where he stands; he can gaze up at the wealthy and
well-off with a salubrious envy, and this is permitted, as it only
serves to increase the grandeur of the object of these glances. In the country,
the wish to possess a house of one’s own is a deeply rooted longing that reaches
all the way up to God. For here, beneath the vast open sky, possessing a
beautiful roomy house is heavenly. In the city, things are different. There an
arriviste can dwell right beside a count of ancient lineage; indeed, money can
raze houses and sacred old edifices at will. Who would wish to own a building
in
the city? There, owning a home is nothing more than a business, not a matter
of
pride and pleasure. City buildings are filled from top to bottom with the most
different sorts of people, all of whom cross paths without knowing one another
or expressing the desire to be allowed to make each other’s acquaintance. Is
this a dwelling in the true sense? And long, long streets are filled with just
such buildings, which certainly don’t deserve to be referred to as homes. In
the
countryside more happens, properly speaking, than in town; for while
city-dwellers coldly, jadedly read of recent occurrences in the
newspaper, news in the country passes feverishly, breathlessly from mouth to
mouth. Something happens in the country perhaps once a year, but then it is an
experience shared by all. A village with all its nooks and crannies is certainly
almost always livelier and richer in intelligence than city folk generally
assume. Many an old woman with facial features that would perhaps suit any
fellow’s grandmother sits here behind white window-curtains with her
store of enchantingly heartfelt tales, and many a village child is far more
advanced in the education of her heart and mind than one might like to suppose.
Often it’s happened that a village child like this, having been transferred to
a
school in town, has astounded her new classmates with her
well-developed intellect. But let me not disdain the city and praise
the country beyond its due. It’s just that the days here are so beautiful that
one quickly learns to forget the city. They awaken a silent longing that draws
one off into the distance—and yet one has no wish to go any farther. There is
a
going in all things and a coming in all. As the day takes its leave, it gives
us
in exchange the wonderful twilight when you can go strolling about on paths the
evening appears to have discovered—paths you discover for the evening. The
houses become more prominent, and their windows gleam. Even when it’s raining,
it’s still beautiful; for then one thinks how good it is it’s raining. Since
my
coming here, spring has almost arrived, and it’s arriving more and more, you
can
leave your doors and windows standing open, and we’re starting to turn over the
earth in the garden, everyone else has already done so. We’re the late bloomers,
as befits us. An entire cartload of black, moist, expensive soil has been
delivered, and this must be
mixed with the dirt already in the garden.
This will be a job which—
implausible as it may sound when I say
so—I’m looking forward to. I’m not a born lazybones, really not; I’m a
ne’er-do-well only because various offices and notaries
public are refusing me employment since they don’t have any idea how useful I
could be to them. Every Saturday I shake out the rugs, which is work of a sort,
and I’m industriously learning to cook, also a form of ambition. After the meal
I dry the plates and chat with the teacher; for there is much to be said and
discussed, and I love chatting with a sister. In the morning I sweep the room
and carry packages to the post office, then return home and set to pondering
what else there is to do. Ordinarily there’s nothing, and so then I go down into
the forest and sit beneath the beech trees until the time has come, or I believe
the time has come, for me to return home. When I see people at work, I
involuntarily feel ashamed that I have no occupation, but it seems to me that
beyond feeling this shame there’s nothing I can do. To me it’s as if the day
has
been tossed into my lap by a benevolent god who likes to give things to
good-for-nothings. I demand of myself nothing more than the
willingness to work, and the resolve to seize hold of any job I should espy
before me—and that way things go well. This outlook, you see, accords quite
splendidly with country living. You mustn’t overdo it all too much here,
otherwise you lose your view of the lovely whole, along with your perspective
as
an observer—for even a looker-on must, in the end, exist in the world.
The only pain I feel is occasioned by my sister, as I am incapable of repaying
the debt I owe her and must watch her laboriously fulfilling her sour duties
while I lie about daydreaming. Later ages will punish me for my malingering if
intervening earlier ones haven’t done so already, but I believe I am pleasing
to
my God just as I am; God loves the happy and hates the sad. My sister is never
sad for long; for I am constantly cheering her up and giving her something to
laugh about by behaving ludicrously, for which I have a talent. But it is only
my sister laughing at me, only she who finds me appealingly comical—with others,
I comport myself in a dignified manner, though not stiffly. If one doesn’t wish
to be taken for a scoundrel, it’s one’s duty to justify one’s existence to the
outside world through serious behavior. Country people are quite sensitive about
the comportment of young people, whom they wish to see courteous, staid, and
modest. I shall conclude here and hope I’ve earned some money with this essay;
if not, I nonetheless found it most interesting to write, and my doing so has
caused several hours to pass. Several hours? Indeed! For in the country a person
writes slowly—you’re constantly being interrupted, your fingers have become less
nimble, and even your thoughts wish to think in a country manner. Farewell,
cosmopolitans!