Robert Walser - A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

As previously mentioned, he later used to recall with great clarity, once all sorts of external circumstances had long since forced entirely different impressions upon him, that beautiful evening hour he experienced back then by the lake, where he could abandon himself to his thoughts unmolested, which gave him keen pleasure; where the waves beat against the warm, friendly shore with delightful, painstaking splashes while familiar, heart-captivating figures rose up out of the soft, dark water into the air, with meaningful, noble gestures, such as, for example, the form of his old father, and the face of his dear mother.

A magnificent gentleness and nostalgic beauty lay over the landscape. The high mountain, drawn down by gentle forces, sank mildly with a wonderful gesture into the depths, where the smooth surface of the water gracefully reflected it. The large lake resembled a child who is completely silent because asleep and dreaming. The calm reigning everywhere all around was made yet stronger, and bigger, by the delicate rush of the rain; the silence, rustling noiselessly back and forth like an evening bird, experienced no lessening from the timorous light wind shyly wafting from the west. On the evening and, later, the nighttime water, several boats or barques, as if set in motion by harmonious feelings of home and carried onward by beautiful premonitions, floated past the figure sitting on his bench in a silence that might perhaps have been only slightly disturbed now and then by a late promenader’s footsteps.

As far as he can now recall, it was on the following day that he stood on the high cliffs right next to the lake, from which he looked down, with eyes as amazed as they were contented, into the brightly glittering gentle valleys sparkling with sunny objects and patterns. Everything on land, on water shimmered, shone. The lake was like a happy smile. The nearby forest was still wet with raindrops. Hans pondered where he wanted to walk, then slid into the forest, slipping between the wet branches. He found the green, moist, warm shrubs and underbrush magnificent. Passing by splendid oak trees, he walked back uphill. Down below, the tidy little city lay spread out before him like a toy, presenting a marvelous view. These bright, warm colors were like a many-voiced song. Green and blue and white were the prominent tonic notes, reigning everywhere. That afternoon, he showed up so punctually for lunch that he was astounded himself. In those days, he knew how to manage his walks so that he never missed a mealtime.

He was almost never at home. Rainwater was utterly incapable of preventing him from going out. Every kind of weather was equally lovable and precious. Since the suit and hat he wore were not of the newest or most exquisite, he did not need to take any special care of them. As far as he was concerned, it could rain down upon his hat, shoes, clothes, nose, collar, forehead, hair, and hands as hard and as often as it felt inclined to.

Sometimes, as an exception, he sat in his room and read or wrote something or another. The world was too beautiful for him to spend too much time slumped at home or, to put it perhaps with a slightly more appropriate delicacy, preferring to remain seated and pursue his studies.

He lived in a kind of palace, French-style, that is to say on the sixth floor right up under the roof. His favorite book was Gotthelf’s Erdbeerimareili , a story that he sometimes used to read half out loud to himself, to which end his attic room seemed to serve perfectly as a recital hall. The recitator and the listening public were both, of course, him.

The room’s window offered a truly very lively, entertaining, and exciting view of a bright and often crowded square, which bore some kind of stamp of Andalusia, i.e., Spain. Hans felt that it reminded him of Toledo, namely the square he was in love with and officially engaged to, which presumably was rather superfluous. Now he who felt that this or that reminded him of Granada, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, or Toledo had incidentally never actually been to such cities, from which one may conclude either that he liked to brag or liked to lie, or liked to fib, or liked to fantasize, poetize, and dream. It is all too easy for those who have an imagination and use it too to seem like scoundrels and cheats. Just by the by.

Let an old tobacco pipe be mentioned here, but hopefully only in passing.

Hans, who owned a total of five books, had to laugh heartily and often at such imposing institutions as the City Library, the Monastery Repository, or the State Chancellery. Rather often and regularly he drank tea, because such a drink or sip had, he fancied, an imagination-awakening effect, which was thoroughly stimulating.

One day, he experienced an unforgettable, magnificent storm, by which he meant in particular a dusky street alongside the railroad tracks down which whizzed a raging tempest whirling up dust with astounding tempestuousness. All kinds of men, women, and children fled hastily from it as though from an unchained monster fast approaching. The flight, the dust, thick smoke, wet wind taken all together made a great impression and painted a frightening and at the same time exciting picture. Then thunder boomed, heavy rain pelted down on the roofs, streets, and hurrying people; lightning bolts tore through the sky; all at once the whole region was strangely dark. Later, though, the world looked friendlier and more cheerful than it had before the storm. With fresher breaths, people stepped back to their doors and out into the purified air where everything sparkled moistly and beckoned confidingly, streets, buildings, and trees adorably shimmering their hellos.

Often he spent the whole day walking in the mountains, with a piece of cheese, chocolate, bacon, or sausage or an egg in his pocket, fighting off thirst, exhaustion, and hunger, which made him happy, since he was a great enthusiast for enduring the kind of strenuous bodily activity that filled his heart with ardent fire and soul with joyful pride.

Lonely forests high in the mountains, trees here and there blown down by storms, delighted him. A spring, a well, or sometimes a glass of milk sufficed to liberate the weary wanderer from all sorts of fatigue. He won back his lost strength more rapidly than he would have thought he would, and quickly felt restored. Later, descending back to the lowlands, the people there, their residences, the fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, and all the other dear and gentle and eminently rational things — clambering more mildly down the steep cliffs back to culture, population, streets, and generally accepted circumstantialities of all kinds — was a new joy for him, which would then typically find its flowering flashing pinnacle in a half or sometimes even whole carafe of wine, by which I mean to say that the thirsty wanderer with love-filled spirit and suntanned face would stop in at an inn arbor or twilit gazebo where he would be practically beside himself with sheer enjoyment.

“For someone who walks a lot, good sturdy well-nailed shoes are conceivably important,” he said to himself, and thereupon bought some snappy walking and hiking boots which seemed to possess no less sound a construction than magnificent a fit, and in so doing he told himself that it was a pleasure to be able to support local industries to this by no means insignificant extent.

A general store provided cheroots while a charming sunny stationery store offered the finest and most delicate writing- and letter-paper. What all couldn’t a person make off and scurry home with in exchange for cash money?

Hans preferred to have himself shaved and barbered and his hair cut in a neighboring town, medieval in appearance and extremely homey in feel. While undergoing meticulous treatment from his admirably adroit coiffure-artist, he had as extensive and involved a conversation as he wanted with him about all imaginable hair and mustache eventualities, to the point where everyone in the whole friendly shaving room listened in eagerly and wondered in honest and sincere amazement.