Robert Walser - A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

1917

A YOUNG man, about whose elegance, education, and background there could be no question, and who enjoyed the undoubtedly good fortune to be numbered among civilized people, had the following curious if not indeed frightful and horrific adventure one day on a visit to the Anthropology Museum. The young man, after looking around with all due fascination in the spacious chambers stuffed full of every imaginable object of interest, suddenly stood, he knew not how, before an ancient wooden figure, which, forbidding and ungainly as it was, made a powerful and subsequently overpowering impression on him, to such an extent that he felt himself as it were bewitched, body and soul, by the primitive idol, for such indeed it was. He couldn’t breathe, his heart was pounding, his blood was coursing like a swollen, raging stream through all his veins, his hair stood on end, his limbs trembled, and he was seized all of a sudden with a monstrous, harrowing desire to throw himself onto the ground in contrition and debasement and pray, as energetically as he could, to the terrible image that had been taken from the deserts of Africa; a barbarian ecstasy percolated through his soul, blinded and robbed of all reason. He emitted a shriek that echoed direly through the spacious hall, and only just enough comprehension was left to him as was necessary to gather himself up to a certain extent with a desperate jolt from the terrifying darkness descending all around his dear bright consciousness. This he did. With extravagantly tempestuous strides, as though a blaze had burst forth behind him, and forfeiting forthwith the eager scientific interest he had so recently evinced, he sped and dashed to the doors, and only when he found himself back in the open air and saw living breathing human beings around him once more did he recover from his panicky consternation, a story that made he who had experienced it stop and deeply reflect, a story at which, however, I merely ask the reader to smile.

1914

I WROTE and wrote, I didn’t leave my desk. Never had I written with such avidity. It was total dedication. Not one thought did I give to food, no more so to sleep. I say this to try to convey how singlemindedly devoted I was to my task. Was I not practically a typewriter? Did I not pour my whole being into this book? More and more furiously did the closely written manuscript pages multiply. I was downright drowning in paper. Just imagine! No days off. As many overtime hours as humanly possible. Not a thought for compensation; all my thoughts were on the work itself. What did I know or care about eight-hour days? Secretly, of course, I nourished great hopes and believed certain things, such as e.g. that the book would one day be read by others with as much pleasure as it had been written with by me. It continued to swell and grow almost against my will, and yet I continued to bust my brains over it. Little by little its dimensions attained considerable extent. A colleague expressed his admiration, and sincerely too. The manuscript already weighed two and a half pounds and appeared to be growing by the hour.

All four seasons of the year had passed. There was plenty of landscape available. Oftentimes I had it rain; by no means did I stint on sunshine. Now and then I ensured some snow and afterwards spring showers. The book lacked wanderings filled with various diversions as little as it did rooms full of visitors, streets full of people, Sundays with the sounds of church bells, lakeshores in the moonlight, women having love affairs, bandits in the Apennines. Is that nothing? When the book was finished, I ran to the publisher and from there to the printer and encouraged them both to hurry. They both smiled, since they both had experience in such things.

Every author has his circle of friends and acquaintances and so I sent the book to a personage who wrote back to thank me and say that for the time being he could praise only the book’s cover. Everything else he planned to partake of only when the occasion arose.

Try to feel what I felt: I was flabbergasted and, for a while, completely at a loss. This unique way of paying respect to a work of the pen made an impression on me of an experience that has shaped me and that therefore I here present to you.

January 1920

ONCE UPON a time there was a great talent who sat in his room all day long, looked out the window, and acted like a total do-nothing.

The great talent knew he was a great talent, and this stupid, useless knowledge gave him food for thought all day.

People in high places had said lots of very flattering things to the poor young great talent and had, correspondingly, given him money too. In their noble bounty, wealthy people enjoy supporting a great talent from time to time, but they expect in return that Mr. God’s Gift be appropriately grateful and also well-mannered.

Our shining talent here, on the other hand, was absolutely not grateful, well-mannered, and polite. In fact, he was the exact opposite — rude.

To take money, when you are a great talent, and on top of that to be rude: that is truly the highest pinnacle of rudeness. Dear reader, I tell you: a great talent like that is a monster; and I beg of you: never contribute anything to his advancement.

Our great talent here was supposed to go genteel and well-behaved out into the world in order to entertain ladies and gentlemen in a cute and talented way, but he was heartily willing to forego such an arduous fulfillment of his duties; he would much rather sit at home, dispelling his boredom with all sorts of selfish and wayward figments of the imagination.

Miserable, despicable scoundrel! What pride, what uncharitability, what an excessive lack of humility!

Anyone who supports great talents sooner or later runs the risk of having to lay a revolver on the table in front of him close at hand in order to be able to defend himself against possible stickups with a cocked and loaded weapon.

If I’m not mistaken, a great talent once wrote his benevolent, noble-hearted sponsor the following letter:

“As you well know, I am a great talent and as such in continual need of support. Where, my dear Sir, do you get the nerve to leave me in the lurch and hence to perish? I think I have every right to more fat advances. Woe is you, unhappy wretch, if you don’t send me ASAP enough for me to keep dawdling. But I am quite sure that you would never be foolhardy enough, and hence would never dare, to remain insensitive to the prospect of nefarious, predatory demands.”

Such endearing letters and others like them are what every gracious donor and patron of the arts receives as time goes by, and so I cry out loud to the world: Give a great talent no gifts and grant him no grants!

Our great talent here understood that he had to produce something, but he preferred to drift around on the streets and accomplished nothing.

As time goes by, after all, a sufficiently recognized and lauded talent quite naturally becomes a very comfortable eminence on its own.

Pricked by his conscience, the great talent finally did pull himself together out of his, so to speak, talent-rich jog-trot. He abandoned himself to the world, i.e., betook himself to the road and, far from any subsidies, became himself again.

By learning to forget that anyone was duty-bound to render him any assistance, he got used to being responsible for his own behavior once more.

A revival of integrity and a sudden impulse to be plucky now characterized him, raised him up, and these alone, people think, kept him from a miserable demise.

1918

A WOMAN who one day, as these things sometimes work out, had to see the dream of her life — the dream she had thought herself permitted to dream — dead and buried cried whole long days and weeks long over the loss of the aforesaid. But by the time she had finally cried out all her pain she had turned, almost astonishing even herself, into a mean, angry woman who from that point on had no need as deep and vital as the need to see other women properly toppled, embarrassed, and cast down through her efforts to make them unhappy. She began more and more to hate every cheerful female face, because every happy visage made her feel wounded and insulted. She felt moved to hatch plots and malicious plans against every last pleasure she caught sight of, since every jolly glance seemed to give her pain. Now is it right for an unhappy person to take his or her hatred of humanity so far? No, never! must come the resolute answer. This wicked woman, ruined by such manifold sorrow, by a striving after happiness in life that came to nothing, made it her sad task to cleverly bring young women and young men together, make them notice each other, bring them closer and closer together in friendship, and then, when their sweet friendship seemed ripe to her, tear the two of them apart again with cunning betrayals, crude tricks, cruel slander and deception. The sight of a sobbing, betrayed member of her own sex made her feel better and gave her pleasure. She did such things and others like them for quite a while, during which time the young women cheated of their joy and satisfaction continued to see her as a fine and noble lady. But little by little everyone noticed how wicked she was, and as soon as people achieved certainty on the matter her dangerous company was most rigorously avoided from then on, in such a way that the wicked woman soon had no further opportunities to cause unhappiness, do wicked deeds, and spread strife and discontent.