Authors: Robert Walser
“You look so pensive, Simon,” the nurse said.
“Shall we go?” Simon asked.
The nurse had made himself ready, and the two of them walked the steep
paths together that led up the mountainside. The sun was glowing hot. They went
into a small, opulently overgrown beer garden and ordered a morning pint. When
they were about to leave again, the innkeeper’s pretty wife encouraged them to
stay, and indeed they remained until evening. “And this is how you can drink
away a bright summer’s day without even noticing,” Simon thought with a feeling
comprised of dizzy pleasure and a gentle, lovely, melodious ache. The colors
of
the evening amid the foliage were making him drunk. His friend gazed deeply and
with desire into his eyes and wrapped one arm around his neck. “Actually this
is
ugly,” Simon thought. On the path, the two of them addressed flamboyant words
to
all the women and girls they met. The workers were just coming home from work,
people who still walked in a hale, spry way, their shoulders rocking strangely
from side to side as though breathing sighs of relief. Simon discovered the most
splendid figures among them. When they reached the forest atop the mountain,
still warm though it was already tinged with darkness, the sun was just setting
down below in the distant world. They lay down among the green leaves and bushes
and were silent, just breathing as they lay there. And then came what Simon had
been expecting, his comrade’s approach, which, however, left him cold.
“There’s no point,” he said, “please stop,” and then, “listen, cut it
out!”
The nurse allowed himself to be mollified, but he was aggrieved;
people came by and they had to get up and leave the place. Simon thought: “Why
am I spending the day with such a person?” But immediately thereafter he
confessed to himself that he took a certain pleasure in this man, despite his
strange, unlovely inclinations. “Another person might despise the nurse,” he
thought further as they set out for home, “but I am the sort who considers each
and every person, his virtues and vices notwithstanding, worthy of my interest
and love. I shall never arrive at the point of despising other people, or
rather, I despise only cowardice and vacuousness, but it’s not hard for me to
find something interesting about depravity. Indeed, it sheds light on a great
many things, allows us to look more deeply into the world, it makes a person
more experienced and helps him judge more leniently and rightly. One must get
to
know all things, and one makes a thing’s acquaintance only by touching it
courageously. To avoid some person out of fear—I’d consider that unworthy.
Besides, having a friend is priceless! What does it matter if the friend is
somewhat unusual—”
Simon asked:
“Are you angry with me, Heinrich?”
But Heinrich wasn’t saying anything. His face had assumed a dour
expression. Once more they arrived at the beer garden whose delicate outlines
now lay in darkness. Colorful, shimmering lanterns lit up the dark foliage at
several points, sounds and laughter were emanating from within, and both of
them, drawn by the lusty fiery life there, went back in, where the innkeeper’s
wife gave them a friendly welcome.
The red dark wine was sparkling in the light glasses, the shimmering
lights conjoined with the heated faces, the leaves of the bushes touched the
dresses of the women, it seemed so natural to be spending the warm summer night
in a susurrating garden, drinking, singing and laughing. From the railway
station at the bottom of the hill, the noise of the trains rose up to the
revelers’ ears. A wealthy, tall, red-cheeked wine merchant’s son
applied himself to a bold philosophical conversation with Simon. The male nurse
was constantly contradicting everyone because he was vexed and disgruntled. The
waitress, a slim brunette, sat down beside Simon and allowed him to pull her
close to him to kiss her. She suffered the kiss willingly, with proud curved
lips that looked as if made to sip wine, laugh and kiss. The nurse’s mood was
becoming ever blacker, and he wanted to leave, but the others prevented him.
Then someone, a young, swarthy, dark-haired lad with a green hunter’s
hat, sang a song while his girl, nestled close against his chest, leaned in
close to sing along with him in soft happy notes. “This sounds so intoxicating,
dark and Mediterranean,” Simon thought: “Songs are always melancholy, at least
the beautiful ones are. They remind us that it’s time to go!” But he remained
a
long time still in the nocturnal garden.
–16–
For the entire rest of that week, Simon carried on this otiose social
intercourse with the nurse, with whom he’d get into arguments and then make up
again. He played cards like someone who’d been doing so for years, and rolled
billiard balls around in the middle of the warm day while everyone possessed
of
hands was working. He saw streets filled with sunlight and alleyways in rainy
weather, but always through a windowpane, with a glass of beer in his hand; made
long, useless, wild speeches morning, noon and night among all manner of
strangers, until finally he saw he had nothing more to live on. And one morning
he didn’t go to visit Heinrich but instead made his way to a room where any
number of young and old men sat at desks writing. This was the Copyists Office
for the Unemployed, where people came who, owing to their particular life
circumstances, found themselves in such a position that securing employment in
a
regular place of business was out of the question. Individuals of this sort
worked for meager day-wages here, copying out addresses with hasty
fingers beneath the strict supervision of a supervisor or secretary—business
addresses for the most part, in lots of one thousand, for which large firms
contracted with the office. Writers brought in their scribbled manuscripts, and
female students their all but illegible dissertations so as to have them either
typed out on the typewriter or copied in a smooth clean hand. People who didn’t
know how to write but had something they needed written down brought their
documents here, where the work was quickly seen to. Cake-counter
ladies, waitresses, laundresses and chambermaids had their letters of
recommendation copied out tidily before proffering them for examination.
Benevolent associations turned in thousands of yearly reports that had to be
addressed and disseminated. The Association for Natural Healing had multiple
copies made of the invitations to their folksy lectures, and professors had no
end of work for the copyists, who in turn were happy to have the work. This
entire copying enterprise was supported by yearly subventions from the local
government and headed by an administrator—himself formerly unemployed—for whom
the post had been created to give him a suitable occupation for his old days.
He
was the scion, so to speak, of an old patrician family and had wealthy relatives
on the city council who didn’t want to sit back and watch one of their family
members go to ruin under shameful circumstances. And so this man became the king
and protector of all the vagabonds, lost souls and hard-luck cases,
and he discharged these duties with a casual dignity, as if he’d never in all
his wild days, some of which he’d spent on the road in America, tasted the
bitterness of deprivation.
Simon made a bow before the administrator of the Copyists Office.
“What do you want?”
“Work!”
“Today there’s nothing. Come back tomorrow morning, perhaps we’ll have
something suitable for you then. For now, write down your name, permanent
residence, place of birth, profession and age along with your current address
on
this sheet of paper, and then come back tomorrow at eight on the dot, otherwise
there won’t be any work left,” the administrator said.
He was in the habit of smiling as he spoke, and speaking through
his nose. What’s more, he always assumed an almost scornfully
mild-mannered tone in his dealings with the unemployed—
not
intentionally, that’s just how it happened to come out. His face, sunken and
ravaged, was the color of cold white lime and terminated in a ragged gray beard
with a point to it, as though the beard itself were a pointy scrap of his face
hanging down. His eyes lay deep in their sockets, and the man’s hands bore
witness to ill health and physical ruin.
The next morning at eight, Simon was already installed at the Office,
and a few days later he’d accustomed himself to his co-workers. These
were all people who at some point in their lives had succumbed to some form of
dissolution and lost the ground under their unsteady feet. There were people
there who because of some serious offense committed years before had spent time
in jail. An old, very handsome man was known to have spent years in prison
because of a heinous crime against morality he’d committed against his own flesh
and blood: his daughter, who denounced him to the judge. In all the time Simon
observed him, his silent strange face remained free of all expression, as though
silence and listening were native to that face and had become a necessity. He
worked calmly, peacefully and slowly, was handsome, looked at you calmly when
you looked at him, and appeared to be not in the least conscious of some
tormenting memory. His heart seemed to be beating as quietly as his old hand
was
working. No trace of a grimace could be remarked in any of his features. He
appeared to have atoned for and washed away everything that might ever have
disfigured or soiled him. His clothes were tidier than those of the
administrator, although he must have been poor. His teeth and hands were
curiously well groomed, as were his shoes and clothes. His soul appeared to be
calm and unusually pure. Simon thought of him: “Why not? Can’t sins be washed
away, and should a jail sentence destroy an entire life? No, one sees neither
a
sin once committed nor a jail term served when one looks at this man. He appears
to have forgotten both of them completely. There must be goodness and love in
this man, and great strength, really a huge amount of it—but all the same: how
strange!”
Embezzlement, theft, fraud and vagrancy all had their representatives
in the Copyists Office. Present as well were the merely unfortunate, greenhorns
who’d been duped by life and foreigners from abroad who simply found themselves
without a bite to eat because their hopes had been dashed. Surely there were
also notorious idlers and eternal malcontents. Every combination of culpability
and bad luck could be found there, along with that sort of frivolity which takes
pleasure in being so out-of-pocket. Simon might have used
this opportunity to make the acquaintance of man in his various guises, but he
wasn’t much thinking about observing other people, as he himself was kept as
busy as all the others filling out forms and sinking as if in a river amid the
life and bustle of the Copyists Office with all its cares, labors, little
incidents and questions. Someone who’s sunk beneath the surface of a thing
doesn’t think so much about the thing itself as about his own physical needs,
just like all the others. Everyone here was copying away to earn what they would
soon have to invest in food and drink if they wished to go on living. Their
earnings flowed down their throats, from hand to mouth. Simon also managed to
buy himself a straw hat and a pair of cheap shoes. But when he thought of the
rent for his room, he had to confess to himself that he wasn’t in a position
to
find the cash for this as well. Yet he was always tired and happy in the
evenings when he’d finished writing. He’d go walking then, in the company of
one
of his fellow scribes, through the city streets with his head held high,
absentmindedly smiling at the people walking past. He didn’t even have to make
an effort to achieve a beautiful proud posture; he stood up straight without
even trying, his chest broadened and stretched like a tightly-drawn
bow the moment he walked out the door of the Office and into the air. He
suddenly felt he was the born lord and master of his limbs and consciously
attended to each of his own footsteps. He now no longer kept his hands in his
trouser pockets, that would have struck him as undignified. In fact, he no
longer slouched at all but rather strolled with measured attentiveness, as if
he
were only just now, in his twenty-first year of life, beginning to
cultivate a beautiful firm gait. Looking at him, a person was not to think of
poverty; he was merely to sense that this was a young man who was just coming
from work and now permitting himself an evening stroll. The swift, bustling
world of the street enchanted his eye. When a carriage with a pair of dancing,
delicate horses passed by, he fixed his gaze on the gait of the trotting
animals, not deigning to cast even a brief glance at the gentlefolk sitting in
the wagon, as though he were a connoisseur of horses, interested only in them.
“How agreeable this is,” he thought. “A person really must learn to master his
gaze and send it only to places where it is seemly and manly for his eyes to
rest.” He cast sidelong glances at a number of women and had to laugh inside
to
see the sort of impression this made. And all the while he was daydreaming, as
always! Except that now he gritted his teeth while dreaming, no longer allowing
himself an indolent weary posture: “Even if I’m one of the poorest devils, it
wouldn’t occur to me to let this be evident in my person; on the contrary,
financial woes practically oblige one to assume a proud comportment. If I were
rich, I might possibly allow myself a certain negligence. But under these
circumstances, it’s out of the question, as a person must be conscious of
maintaining an equilibrium. I’m dog-tired, but I cannot help thinking:
Others have cause to feel weary as well. A person doesn’t live merely for
himself, but for others as well. You have an obligation to cut a stalwart
exemplary figure as long as you’re being observed, so that those of lesser
courage can take you as a model. You should give the impression of carefree
solidity, even if your knees are trembling and your stomach is warbling up into
your throat out of emptiness. Such things are a source of pleasure to a young
man who’s just growing up! The clock has not yet struck twelve, not for any of
us; after all, any person lying on the ground impoverished enjoys the prospect
of rising up again. I’ve a hunch that a proud free bearing can itself draw life
happiness to a person like an electrical current, and it’s certainly true that
you feel richer and more exalted when you walk about with dignity. Should you
happen to be in the company of a second ill-dressed poor devil, as is
presently the case, all the more cause to walk with head erect, thereby gently
and vigorously apologizing, as it were, for the other’s inferior hairstyle and
posture before people who may be taken aback to see two individuals who comport
themselves so differently strolling along as cozy as can be, clearly intimate
friends, in this elegant street. A thing like this brings you respect, fleeting
as it might be. Certainly it’s charming to think you stand out agreeably from
a
companion who doesn’t yet quite have what it takes or never will. Incidentally
my companion is an older, unfortunate man, the former owner of a
basket-weaving shop, who has sunk in life thanks to all sorts of
adversity and now is a copyist for daily hire, just like me, except that I don’t
look entirely like a copyist and day laborer but rather more like a mad
Englishman, whereas my comrade looks like someone painfully longing to return
to
former better days. His gait and the way his head is constantly, sweetly,
touchingly wobbling speak of his misfortunate in quite shameless words. He’s
an
older man and no longer wishes to impress; all he wants is to hold himself a
little bit upright. Me he impresses; for I know his pain and understand what
a
heavy burden he carries. I feel proud to be walking beside him through an
elegant part of town, and press myself impertinently close to him to demonstrate
my unabashed affection for his paltry suit. I’m receiving many astonished
glances, many a splendid eye is looking at me in a strangely quizzical way,
which can only amuse me—to so-and-so with all that! I speak
loudly, emphatically. The evening is so beautifully suited to speaking. I worked
all day long. It’s a splendid thing to have worked all day and then in the
evening be so beautifully weary and at peace with all things. To have not a
worry, scarcely even a thought. To be allowed to stroll along so frivolously,
with a sense of having done no harm to any man. To look around to see if you’re
meeting with approval. To feel you’re now a bit more deserving of love and
respect than before, when you were just a malingerer whose days sank one behind
the other into an abyss and drifted away on the air like smoke. To feel much,
so
very much, on a gift of an evening such as this! To see the evening as a gift,
for this is what it is to those who sacrifice their days to work. Thus one gives
and receives in turn—”
Simon was noticing more and more that the Copyists Office was a small
world all its own within the larger world. Envy and ambitions, hate and love,
preferential treatment and honesty, vehement and modest natures manifested
themselves here in microcosm, where only the pettiest advantages were at stake,
just as clearly and unmistakably as anywhere people struggled to make a living.
There were no sentiments or urges that could not find themselves actualized
here, if only on a paltry scale. Glorious troves of knowledge, to be sure, were
of little use in the Office. A bearer of such knowledge could put it to use here
at most improvisatorially, it could boost his standing, but it wouldn’t help
him
to acquire a better suit. Several members of the copyists fraternity spoke and
wrote three languages to perfection. They were put to work translating, but
doing so didn’t earn them any
more than the loutish address writers and
manuscript copiers
received—the Copyists Office did not allow any one
individual to rise within its ranks, that would have contradicted its own goals
and purpose. After all, the point of its existence was to permit the unemployed
to eke out a meager existence, not to disburse high, outrageous salaries. A
person had to consider himself fortunate to find work at all at eight in the
morning. Often enough it happened that the administrator would say to a group
of
waiting men: “Terribly sorry. Unfortunately there’s nothing today. Come back
at
ten. Perhaps some jobs will have come in by then!” and then at ten: “You’d
better try again tomorrow morning. Not too likely anything else will turn up
today.” The ones thus rejected, a group that included Simon on more than one
occasion, then walked slowly and gloomily, one after the other, back down the
stairs and onto the street where they remained standing for a little while in
a
nice round group, as though feeling the need to reflect first for a moment, only
then to disperse again in all directions, one after the other. It was no
pleasure to go rambling about the city streets with no money in one’s pocket,
each of them knew this and each one thought: “What will it be like when winter
comes?”