Robert Walser - A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

On expeditions and other investigative operations he always carried himself in more or less such a fashion that people, all indeed his dear fellow citizens, might take him for perhaps a notary, schoolteacher, junior curate, technical director, judiciary official, earnest tax collector, businessman, or architect. From which may plainly be seen that he always made an effort to come across as an individual and man of thoroughly resolute hue and career path, not like a fellow with neither character nor resolution.

“Purposefully and goal-directedly should I and want I to move through the city, even when I am not by chance pursuing any goal whatsoever nor having the least shred of reasonable purpose in mind.”

Some people took him for a random passing elegant foreigner, a richly furnished singular traveler. In general, however, he appeared to be an important, rushed, expert, busily mercantile sort of businessman, trotting rigidly along, about whom you could see that he had not the remotest idea of the possible existence of any time to waste.

Schoolchildren would give him numerous polite greetings because they thought he was from the school committee. Did he not look almost like a supervisor, trustee, or member of the board of examiners? Could such a serious face possibly coexist with anything other than grades and semester report cards? Certainly not!

As for his hat, its uniquely solemn stiffness and rare age alike surely suited it splendidly to speedy protective custody in a museum. Hans nonetheless held to the firm opinion that how probably formerly remarkably handsome his hat must no doubt have once been was apparent to all. Faded beauty, he told himself, was known to be able to make women intriguing, so why not hats for a change.

Inordinately happy as Hans was to let things go with such thoroughly pleasant considerations, he thought that he would have to take great care to get a hold of some sturdy nice new item at the appropriate opportunity, no doubt next year. Since money was rather scarce with him, he could make such promises to himself with the most placid conscience and face.

Insofar as he could recall to his fortunately rather good memory later, he saw at that time, that is to say, on one of the days that for various good reasons were significant to him since they represented to a certain extent a particular type of transition, namely the transformation from something old or tired and worn-out into something fully rejuvenated, youthful, new, or unused and unabraded, in an open field, an enraged, infuriated man, who, like a tragedian acting onstage and playing his role with whatever greater or lesser success, was talking out loud into thin air, gesticulating all the while in horrible fashion.

For the rest of his life, Hans never forgot this wild, angry man. On the contrary, he always thought zealously and insistently about this no less lamentable, sad, and regrettable than comic and ridiculous figure.

The weather itself was in harmony, so to speak, with this man in the open field, acting almost exactly as raw and stormily as the man, who spoke or conducted a language with extra-loud words and screamed it out into the surrounding space, the way only a furiously defiant rebel against God and everything under the sun would call them forth in his mouth, by piling up the ferociously shattered tower of his outrage into the heavens like a gigantic tower, spreading terrible effects and slinging ghastly circumstances all about.

Clearly the man was in an unbridled state of excitement. From his disgusting, horrible gestures that seemed to look like licking, devouring tongues of flame spoke and blazed contempt, rage, hate, and fury.

Probably, though, he was very simply nothing but seriously mentally ill, for, on the whole, solitary individuals walk their path quietly and do not talk like that into empty space or with trees and winds who can have neither hearing nor understanding for the reckless performance of excited people.

Nowhere in sight in the surrounding area was there anyone to whom the raging man could have been directing his furious declamation. In the closest proximity was only Hans, whom, however, the wild man with his back to him did not even see.

Accordingly, this rebel was speaking, in a pathological vituperation of everything around him that by absolutely no means brought him anything like relief, solely and exclusively with ghosts, nonexistent creatures of the imagination who were dry and withered through and through, or at best with a phantom or his own diseased fantasies which seemed to be at once tempting him and mocking him to the same immense extent.

He fought against perfect nothingness, lashed out with ridiculous vehemence at absolutely invisible enemies all around him, defended himself in a life-and-death struggle against a completely imaginary overwhelming attack, and spoke to the figures and voices that either no one but he or perhaps not even he himself could see and hear.

All of his tempestuous movements were utterly wasted, everything he said resounded unheard, and his dissolute behavior and actions were senseless insofar as there was no one to take notice of them and thus they had not the slightest effect on anything. This memory of someone naturally giving rise to disgust more than to pity nonetheless stayed with Hans as a stern example and warning, although shortly thereafter he was to be the spectator of a truly wonderful performance.

At the proper time, that is, on the occasion of a nice charming run of business or run in the park that had proceeded very pleasantly and divertingly, he met two people, two little people, who stood, vis-à-vis the just previously discussed strange fellow and vicious chap who found himself in the murkiest possible conflict and quarrel with any and every social, civil, or human institutions, plans, regulations, and existences, in the most charming and pleasant contrast, namely two friendly beggars sitting peacefully next and close to each other on the ground at the edge of a forest, who seemed to him to be anything but hateful and misanthropic.

Where the gloomy other man acted wild, insane, and dissolute, behaved in the most unseemly way imaginable, and thus gave rise to immediate dislike, these quiet folks here in a corner of the woods conducted themselves as gently and good-humoredly as they could, hence of course disseminating sympathy in such a way that Hans stopped next to them with a kind of delight.

The sight that the beggar man and woman offered our passerby was moving, in fact clearly stirring, since it showed how two entirely impoverished people in isolation stuck together, faithful, honest, and solicitous, by sitting next to each other thoroughly unmiserable in their sorrow, instead innocent, affectionate, and warmhearted in their need, awaiting whatever came with a deep inner calm and in fact, it seemed, good cheer almost.

Hans, moved for a moment by the winning picture, said in silence to himself the following words:

“How warmly and intimately human suffering is painted here, presented as entirely harmless, natural, and appealing before the eyes of one who has happened by chance to wander past and see this charming if at the same time melancholy scene. Must not anyone with a heart capable of feeling sensations almost smile at such a picture and at the same time shed a tear?”

It seemed to him as though heaven were wanting to shine an especially beautiful and radiant beam of light down upon this poverty that does not rail and rage but rather accepts in God’s name whatever fate and its dispensations command it to bear and endure.

Everything faltered and came to a stop like pitch-black, moonless, starless midnight around the insurrectionist there in the open field; here, by the happy beggar couple, it resounded as though with love songs and melodies of peace, it flapped and fluttered as though with the wings of an angel, it was light like the realms where all good people imagine the saints live.