Authors: Robert Walser
On the staircase as he was going out, Simon passed a dark fleeting
figure. “That must be this Artur,” he thought and went on his way. Night had
fallen. He set out upon a small narrow dirt path, turning around after he’d gone
a few steps: The window was now closed, and dark red curtains had been drawn
behind it, luminous in a curiously dismal way in the light of a lamp that had
no
doubt just been lit. A shadow moved behind the curtain, it was Klara’s shadow.
Simon walked on, slowly, deep in thought. He was in no hurry whatever to arrive
back in the city. No one was waiting there for him. The next day he would be
writing at the Copyists Bureau again. It was high time he at last put his
shoulder to the grindstone, worked, earned some money. Perhaps he might finally
find a post again somewhere. He laughed as he thought the word “post.” When he
arrived in town, it was already quite late. He went into a music hall that was
still open, hoping to amuse himself, but there wasn’t much of interest. He saw
the act of a comic whom he’d have liked to see vanish as an ordinary person
among the crowd watching him. In fact this comic deserved, based on his
performance, to have his ears boxed. But no! Soon Simon was feeling the most
emphatic pity for this poor wretch who was having to contort his legs, arms,
nose, mouth, eyes and even his poor bony cheeks, only to fail after all these
torments to achieve his goal of being comical. Simon would have liked to shout
out “Boo!” and then again nothing more than “Alas!” One could clearly tell, just
looking at the man, that he was honest, decent and not particularly cunning;
but
this made what he was doing on stage all the more horrid, for this was an
activity suitable only for people who must be equally supple and dissolute if
they wish to present a rounded, pleasing tableau. Simon had an inkling that this
comic had perhaps, not long ago, still been practicing some quiet solid
profession from which, no doubt because of some error or misdeed, he’d been
ejected. The entire man made a profoundly shameful, repulsive impression on him.
Then a petite young singer came on stage dressed in the short tight uniform of
a
hussar officer. This was better, for what this girl had to offer verged on the
artistic. Then came a juggler who, however, would have done better extracting
corks from bottles than balancing bottles on the tip of his nose, which he went
about in an utterly childish, tasteless fashion. He placed a burning lamp upon
his flat head and was insolent enough to expect the audience to see this as
artistic. Simon stayed long enough to hear a little boy singing a song that
pleased him, and then he immediately left the establishment on this good note,
going back out to the street.
Hardly any people were still walking about. There appeared to be a
dispute in progress in a side street, and indeed, as Simon drew closer, he
witnessed a violent scene: Two girls were striking one another, one using her
fists, the other a red parasol. This battle was illuminated by a lone,
melancholy lantern that in part lit up the girls’ faces. Of their clothing and
hats only rags remained, and all the while the two of them were screaming, not
so much out of fury as pain, and this pain wasn’t so much on account of the
blows as out of a leftover sense of shame at seeing themselves act in such a
miserably bestial way. A horrific battle but only a short one, it was soon ended
by a constable. He led away both girls along with an elegantly dressed gentleman
who appeared to have been the cause of the dispute. A postman had played the
role of snitch, and now he was putting on airs. The girls now directed the full
force of their fury at the postman, who as a result beat a quick retreat.
Simon went home. But when he reached the alley where he lived, he
caught sight of a group of people who were laughing and shrieking, and it turned
out to be a woman who was attracting the attention of these night owls. She held
a switch with which she was striking a drunkard who appeared to be her husband,
whom she had just dragged out of some little bar. All this while she was
shrieking, and as Simon approached, she cried out to him in loud shrieked words,
lamenting what a scoundrel she had for a husband. All at once from the top of
the building beneath which the group was standing, a stream of water came
shooting out, maliciously wetting the heads and clothes of those standing below.
It was a custom in this corner of the old part of town to pour water on
nocturnal revelers who got too noisy. This custom might well have attained a
venerable, hallowed age, but it was nonetheless always shockingly novel and
striking for those on whom it was brought to bear. Everyone directed
imprecations in the direction of the woman standing up above in a white mantilla
gazing down at them like a malevolent wicked spirit. Simon more than all the
others shouted up to her: “What in the world are you thinking of up there, you
woman or man in the window frame? If you have too much water, pour it on your
own head instead of other people’s. Your head may well be in more need of it.
What sort of manners is that, dousing the street in the post-midnight
hour and treacherously plunging people into a bath along with their clothes.
Were you not so high up, and I not so far below, I’d take a bite right out of
that apple-head of yours until your mouth watered! Good Lord, if there
is such a thing as justice, you should pay me a thaler for every drop that’s
sprinkled my shoulders, since it seems to me this would spoil your pleasure.
Withdraw from sight, you ghost up there, or you’ll tempt me to scale the wall
of
your building in order to ascertain whether you’re wearing woman’s or man’s
hair. The outrage of being sprinkled like this is enough to turn a man into a
devil!”
Simon was whipping himself into a frenzy with this vulgar speech. It
did him good to be able to shout and bluster. A few moments later, after all,
he’d be lying in bed fast asleep. How tedious it was always to be doing exactly
the same thing. Starting tomorrow, he would resolve to become a different
person. The next day, sitting in the Copyists Office, filled with and distracted
by his thoughts of Klara, he made many slips of the pen, causing the secretary
of the Office, a former staff captain, to reproach him and threaten that he’d
be
given no more work if he didn’t intend to go about it more conscientiously.
–18–
Autumn came. Simon had walked so many more times though the nocturnal
warmth of the alley, and he walked there still, but now the season was no longer
mild. You could tell the trees out in the meadows must be losing their leaves
even if you didn’t go there yourself to watch the leaves falling. Even in the
alleyway you could feel it. One sunny autumn day Klaus had arrived, a scholarly
project and plans had brought him to the region for a day. Lured by the
beautiful sunshine, the two of them walked out into the high hilly fields, not
saying much and carefully avoiding all-too-intimate topics of
conversation. The path led them through a forest and then out again past wide
expanses of meadow whose late, succulent grass Klaus admired along with the
brown-spotted cows grazing there. Simon had found it lovely, a bit
pensive but nonetheless lovely, to be walking there beside Klaus without much
fuss or conversation through the autumnal lowlands, listening to the cowbells,
speaking a few words but more often gazing off into the distance than speaking.
Then they ascended a wooded hill at a comfortable, leisurely pace, for Klaus
wished not to leave behind a single twig or berry without lovingly observing
it;
then they arrived at the top beside a lovely forest’s edge where the unspeakably
mild, caressing, autumnal evening sun received them, and where once more an open
vista lay before them, a view down into a valley in which a glimmering white
river snaked along between yellow treetops and the little woods sticking out,
passing a charming red-roofed village amid the brown slopes of the
vineyards that couldn’t help but bring joy to all who saw them. Here they’d
thrown themselves down upon the meadow and for a long time lay there quietly,
without speaking, letting their eyes feast on the vast expanses of land and
their ears on the sound of the bells, both of them thinking that somehow,
somewhere sounds can be heard in every landscape even when no bells are ringing,
and then they’d had one of those silent conversations, more felt than spoken,
that cannot be written down and have no other purpose than establishing
goodwill, conversations that aren’t trying to say anything at all but whose
scents and sounds and intentions nonetheless remain unforgettable. Klaus had
said: “Certainly if I can be allowed to imagine things might still turn out well
with you, I’d be of better cheer. The thought of you becoming a useful,
purposeful, fulfilled human being has always filled my heart with the loveliest
chiming and pealing. You’re as well equipped as anyone to enjoy people’s
respect, and on top of this you have qualities others lack, though in you
they’re too ardent and avid. You’ve just got to dampen your avidness and stop
making demands on yourself so testily. This harms a person, it wears you down
and eventually turns you cold, take my word for it. If you happen not to find
every last little thing in this world to your liking, this is not by a long shot
grounds for feeling resentment. Others’ opinions and dispositions must prevail
as well, and overly good intentions are far more likely to poison a man’s heart
than their opposite, though that too is a malaise. You possess, it seems to me,
too much desire to leap about. Running yourself breathless while chasing after
some goal gives you pleasure. That won’t do. Let every day take its calm,
natural, rounded-off course, and be a bit more proud of having made
things comfortable for yourself, as after all is fitting for a human being. It’s
our duty to set an example for others of how to live a life of ease with dignity
and a certain gravitas, for we live surrounded by quiet pensive cultural worries
that are far removed from the hot resentful breath of the scufflers and
brawlers. You have—I must say this to you—something savage about you, and then,
in the blink of an eye, you can change course and display a tenderness that then
requires too much tenderness on the part of others to survive. Many things that
should hurt you don’t offend you in the least, while you allow yourself to be
wounded by quite ordinary things, natural products of the world and of life.
You
must try to become one of a multitude, then things will surely go well for you,
as you know no weariness when it comes to fulfilling demands, and once you’ve
won people’s love, you’ll feel the urge to prove to them that you deserve it.
The way you are now, you’re just slinking around corners and expiring in
sentimental longings not truly worthy of a citizen, human being and above all
a
man. So many things occur to me that you might undertake and do to solidify your
standing, but in the end I must leave to you the labor of giving shape to your
own life, for advice is rarely worth a fig.
”
—Simon said then: “Why
are you filled with worries on so beautiful a day when looking out into the
distance can make a person dissolve in happiness?” —
Then the two of them chatted about nature and forgot all serious
matters.
The next day Klaus departed.
Then winter arrived. How strange: Time marched right past all good
intentions just as surely as past the bad qualities one hasn’t yet overcome.
There was something beautiful, accepting and forgiving in this passage of time.
It swept past both the beggar and the president of the Republic, the strumpet
and the lady of refinement. It made many things appear small and unimportant,
for it alone represented the sublime and the grand. What could life’s hustle
and
bustle signify, all those stirrings and strivings, compared to this loftiness
that paid no heed to whether a person became a man or a simpleton, and found
it
a matter of indifference whether or not one desired what was right and good.
Simon loved to hear the rustle of seasons overhead, and when one day snow flew
down into the dark, black alleyway, he felt joy at seeing the progress of
eternal welcoming nature. “Nature is snowing, it’s winter, and, fool that I am,
I believed I wouldn’t experience another winter,” he thought. It seemed to him
like a fairy tale: “Once upon a time there were snowflakes that, not having
anything better to do, flew down to earth. Many of them flew into the field and
remained lying there, others fell upon rooftops and remained lying there, and
yet more and different ones fell upon the hats and caps of the rapidly hurrying
people and remained lying there until they were shaken off, and a few, a very
few, flew into the loyal dear face of a horse that stood hitched to a cart and
remained lying upon the horse’s long eyelashes, one snowflake flew in through
a
window, but what it did there is something no one knows, in any case it remained
lying there. In the alley it’s snowing, and in the forest high up on the
mountain—oh, how beautiful it must be now in the forest. A person could go
there. With any luck it’ll still be snowing in the evening when the lanterns
are
lit. Once there was a man who was all black, he wanted to wash, but he had no
soapy water. As he now saw that it was snowing, he went out into the street and
washed with snow water, which made his face as white as snow. This was something
for him to boast about, which he certainly did. But he got a cough and now he
was constantly running around coughing, for one entire year this poor man was
forced to cough, until the next winter came. Then he ran up the mountain until
he was sweating, and still he was coughing. His coughing just wouldn’t stop.
Then a small child came up to him, it was a beggar child with a snowflake in
its
hand, the flake looked like a small, delicate flower. ‘Eat the snowflake,’ the
child said. And now this big man ate the snowflake, and his cough was gone. Then
the sun went down and everything was dark. The beggar child sat in the snow and
yet didn’t freeze. At home it had been given a beating, it didn’t know what for.
It was just a little child and didn’t know anything yet. Even its little feet
weren’t cold, and yet they were bare. In the child’s eye a tear was glistening,
but it wasn’t yet clever enough to know it was crying. Perhaps the child froze
to death during the night, but it felt nothing, felt nothing at all, it was too
small to feel anything. God saw the child, but this did not move Him, He was
too
big to feel anything—”
These days Simon was forcing himself to leap out of bed early despite
the wintry cold that reigned in his room, even if there was nothing in
particular he had to do. Then he’d simply stand there, gritting his teeth,
waiting for an occasion for action to present itself. There was always something
or other to do. After all, he could always while away the time by rubbing his
hands or back, or else try walking across the floor on his hands. He always had
to be exerting his will in some way, even in the most ridiculous fashion, as
this drove away thoughts and steeled and enlivened the body. Every morning he
washed in cold water from top to bottom until he was glowing, and he didn’t
deign to put on a coat before going out. This season he intended to teach
himself to ward things off! He used his coat to wrap his feet in when he sat
at
the table reading. He acquired a pair of bulky, sturdy shoes such as recruits
wear in the military so he could wade up the mountain in the deep snow at any
time. That would teach him to so much as glance at elegant footwear. With such
a
solid pair of shoes, one stood twice as firmly in the world. The main thing now
was to keep one’s feet on the ground and stand firm. If he could just keep his
head high, something was sure to turn up for him of its own accord, something
proper he could grasp hold of. Starting over from the beginning, even if it was
for the fiftieth time now, what did it matter. As long as his gaze and mind
remained alert, the thing he needed was sure to come.
These days he resembled a person who’d lost some money and was
exerting the full force of his will to get it back, but besides exerting his
will was doing nothing else to this end.
Around Christmastime he went walking up the slope of the mountain. It
was getting on toward evening and terribly cold. A biting wind whistled about
people’s noses and ears, which grew red and inflamed from the cold. Simon
automatically chose the path that once had led to Klara’s woodland home and now
had been cleared and widened. Everywhere the trace of transforming human hands
was visible. He saw a large but nonetheless charming building on the very spot
where the wooden chalet used to stand that he’d gone into so often when Kaspar
was still painting there, with the dear, peculiar woman living in it. Now a
health resort had been established there, and it appeared to be quite popular,
for any number of well-dressed people were going in and out. Simon
spent a moment considering whether he too should go inside, but the bitter cold
alone was enough to make the thought of a warm room filled with people
agreeable. And so he went in. The warm acrid smell of fir twigs engulfed him,
the entire large bright room, practically a ballroom, was trimmed and lined with
fir branches, all but wallpapered with them. Only the proverbs painted on the
white walls had been left exposed, and one could read them. At all the tables
sat gay and solemn people, many women, but also men and children, seated singly
at round little tables or else clustered in groups about a long table. The smell
of the drinks and food combined with the yuletide scent of pines. Prettily
dressed girls walked around, serving the guests in a friendly and at the same
time utterly unhurried way that had nothing at all waitressly about it. It
looked as if these enchanting girls were only waiting on table here as part of
some smiling game, or as if they were merely providing this service to their
parents, relatives, brothers, sisters or their children, for it all looked so
parental and filial at the same time. A small stage that was also thickly framed
with fir twigs stood at another end of the hall, perhaps intended for the
performance of some Christmas play or a skit with some other charming content.
In any case, it was a warm, friendly, hospitable-looking room, and
Simon sat down alone at a round little table, waiting to see whether one of the
girls would come over to him to ask what he desired. But for the time being none
of them came. And so he remained sitting there quietly at the little table for
quite some time, propping his chin in his hand as young men are wont to do, when
suddenly a slender tall lady approached him; she gave him a friendly nod, and
then, turning to one of the girls with an exclamation, asked how this young man
could have been left sitting here for so long unattended. This reproach was
delivered in manner more kind and laughing than serious, but in any case this
lady was a sort of director or manager or whatever it was called.
“Please forgive us for leaving you alone so long,” she said, turning
back to Simon.
“Oh, I don’t know what there is to forgive. I should be asking
forgiveness instead for obliging you to reproach one of your serving girls. In
fact I’m quite happy to be sitting here unnoticed, for in all honesty I can’t
give the serving girl much by way of an order—”
“Eat and drink as much as you like. You don’t have to pay for
anything,” the lady said.
“Is that just for me, or for everyone here?”
“Just for you, of course, and only because I shall give orders that no
one is to ask anything of you.”
She sat down beside him at the small brown table:
“I’ve got a moment’s time to chat with you and don’t see why I
shouldn’t. You appear to be a lonely young man, your eyes are telling me so,
and
they’re also saying quite clearly that the person to whom they belong feels a
desire to come into contact with other people. I’m not sure why I can’t help
taking you for a well-educated person. When I saw you sitting here, I
at once felt an urge to speak with you. If I’d bothered to observe you with my
keen lorgnette, I’d perhaps have discovered that you look somewhat tattered,
but
who would wish to learn to recognize people only with the help of glasses? As
the director of this establishment, I have an interest in learning as accurately
as possible who my guests are. I’ve made it my habit to judge people not by a
shabby fedora but by the way they move, which explicates their characters better
than good or poor items of clothing, and in the course of time I’ve found this
to be the right path to follow. May God preserve me, if he means at all well
by
me, from becoming snobby or supercilious. A businesswoman who isn’t a good
observer of human nature will in time come to make bad business decisions, and
what does our ever-increasing knowledge of human nature teach us? The
simplest thing in the world: To be kind and friendly to all! Are not all of us
who live upon this lone lost planet brothers and sisters? Siblings! The brothers
of sisters, sisters of sisters, and sisters of brothers? This can all be quite
affectionate, and indeed it must always be so: above all in one’s thoughts! But
then it must also burgeon and come to fruition. If an uncouth man or a female
simpleton comes before me, what can I do? Must I immediately feel deterred and
put off? Oh, not at all, not at all! I then think to myself: No, this person
is
certainly not so agreeable to me, I find him repulsive, he’s uncultured and
presumptuous, but there’s no cause to make either him or myself all too
conscious of this fact. I must dissemble a little, and then perhaps he will do
so as well, if only out of indolence or stupidity. How nice it is to be
considerate. I secretly carry a sacred, ardent conviction that this is true,
and
that’s all I can say on the subject. Or perhaps just this one thing more: A
brother need not necessarily be one of the finest and most select individuals,
and yet he can—perhaps, let us say, at a certain appropriate distance—be a
brother. I’ve made this my own personal law, and it’s stood me in good stead.
Many people come to like me whose first glimpse of me made them shrug their
shoulders and grimace. Why should I not, with regard to so charming a principle
as exercising an affectionate observant patience, be a tiny bit Christian? All
of us perhaps have more need of Christianity now than ever before; but I’m
speaking foolishly. You smiled, and I know perfectly well what you’re smiling
about. You’re right, why do I have to bring up Christianity when it’s merely
a
question of simple sensible amicability? Do you know what? Sometimes I think
to
myself: Christian duty has in our lifetimes been quietly, almost imperceptibly
giving way to human duty, which is far simpler and more easily put into
practice. But now I must go. They’re calling me. Stay where you are, I’ll be
back—”