Robert Walser - The Tanners

Several weeks of marvelous summer passed in this way. Simon had never before experienced so marvelous a summer as this year, when he was spending so much of his life on the street looking for work. Nothing came of his efforts, but at least it was beautiful. When he walked in the evening through the modern, leaf-trembling, shadowy, light-flickering streets, he was always unceremoniously approaching people and saying something foolish, just to see how it would feel. But all the people just looked at him in bewilderment — they didn’t say anything. Why wouldn’t they speak to the one walking and standing there, why didn’t they ask him, their voices low, to come with them, go into a strange house and there engage in some activity only people of leisure indulge in, people who, like himself, have no other life purpose than watching the day pass by and evening arrive, in full expectation that evening will bring miracles and fantastical deeds? “I’d be prepared to undertake any deed, provided it was bold and required some derring-do,” he said to himself. For hours he sat upon a bench listening to the music that came murmuring from some regal hotel garden, as if the night had been transformed into soft notes. Nocturnal womenfolk passed by the solitary watcher, but they only needed to take a good look to know how things stood with the young man’s wallet. “If only I knew a single person whom I could touch for a bit of money,” he thought. “My brother Klaus? That wouldn’t be honorable; I’d get the money, but accompanied with a faint, sad reproach. There are people one can’t go begging to because their thoughts are too pure. If only I knew someone whose respect weren’t so important to me. No, I can’t think of anyone. I care about everybody’s respect. I’ll have to wait. You don’t actually need so much in summer, but winter’s on its way! I’m a bit scared of winter. I have no doubt that things will go badly with me this coming winter. Well, then I’ll go running about in the snow, even if I’m barefoot. What harm can come of it. I’ll keep going until my feet are on fire. In summer, it’s so lovely to rest, to lie upon a bench beneath the trees. All of summer is like a warm fragrant room. Winter is a thrusting open of windows, the winds and storms come howling and blustering in and that makes you have to move about. I’ll soon give up my laziness then. It’ll be fine with me, come what may! How long the summer seems to me. It’s only been a few weeks I’ve been living in summer, and it already seems so long. I think time must be sleeping and stretching out as it sleeps if you’re always having to think what to do next, just to get through the day on your few coins. Besides which, I believe that time spends the summer sleeping and dreaming. The leaves on the tall trees are growing ever larger, at night they whisper, and in the daytime they doze in the warm sunshine. I, for example, what do I do? When I have no work, I spend entire days lying in bed with the shutters closed, in my room, reading by candlelight. Candles have such a delightful smell, and when you blow them out, a fine, moist smoke floats through the dark room, and then a person feels so peaceful, so new, as if resurrected. How will I manage to pay my rent? Tomorrow it’s due. Nights are so long in the summer because you stroll and slumber all day long, and the moment night falls, you awaken from all sorts of confused buzzings and stirrings and begin to live. Now it would seem to me almost sinful to sleep through even a single summer night. Besides, it’s too humid to sleep. In summertime your hands are moist and pale as if they sense the preciousness of the fragrant world, and in winter they’re red and swollen as if angry about the cold. Yes, that’s how it is. Winter makes you go stamping around in a rage, whereas in summer you wouldn’t be able to find any cause for anger, except perhaps the circumstance that you’re incapable of paying your rent. But this has nothing to do with the beautiful summer. And I’m not angry anymore either, I think I’ve lost the talent for flying into a rage. It’s nighttime now, and anger is such a daylight phenomenon, as red and fiery as a thing can be. Tomorrow I’ll have a talk with my landlady—”

The next morning he inserted his head into the door of the room where his landlady lived and asked with intentionally precise intonation whether he might have a word with her, should she have the time.

“Of course! What is it?”

Simon said: “I can’t pay you this month’s rent. I won’t even try to explain how embarrassing this is to me. Anyone can say that in such a case. On the other hand, I assume it goes without saying that you consider me capable of striving to find a way and means to acquire a substantial sum of money such that I can eradicate my debt as quickly as possible. I know people who’d give me money if I so desired, but my pride forbids me to borrow money from people whom I prefer to have beholden to me. From a woman, to be sure, I’d accept a loan, in fact I’d do so willingly, for I have quite different sentiments regarding women, sentiments that must be judged by a different sort of honor. Would you, Frau Weiss, be willing to advance me the money, first of all the money to cover the rent, and then a small additional sum to cover my living expenses? — Is it now your impression that my behavior is outrageous? You shake your head. I believe you have some trust in me. You can see how I’m blushing at my own shameless request, you see me standing here not without embarrassment at this moment. But I’m in the habit of seizing resolves rather quickly and carrying them out promptly, even if this impulsiveness should take my own breath away. I’m happy to accept a loan from a woman because I’m incapable of deceit where women are concerned. With men I can lie when circumstances require, lie mercilessly, take my word for it. But with women never. Do you really wish to loan me so much? I could live on that for half a month. By then, many things will improve in my current situation. And I haven’t even thanked you yet. You see, that’s the sort I am. Only rarely in my life have I expressed feelings of gratitude to another person. Where gratitude is concerned, I’m a bungler. Well, I should also say, to be sure, that I’ve always, whenever possible, disdained acts of benevolence. A benevolent act! I truly feel at this moment what benevolence is. I really shouldn’t be accepting this money.”

“Just listen to you!”

“Well, I’ll take it then. But don’t fret about not having it returned. I’m temporarily overjoyed about this money. Money is something only a dunce could despise.”

“Are you leaving already?”

Simon had already gone back out the door and returned to his room. He found it uncomfortable, or at least acted as if he found it uncomfortable, to go on speaking about this matter. Besides, he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, and he wasn’t fond of giving long apologies or making promises when he’d asked someone for a favor and had it granted. If he himself were one day to be the giver, he wouldn’t demand excuses or assurances; it wouldn’t occur to him to do so. You should either have trust and sympathy and therefore give, or else just turn your back coldly on the petitioner because you find him distasteful. “She found me not at all distasteful, in fact I noticed that she gave me the money with a sort of eager joy. It’s all a matter of bearing when you wish to achieve an aim. It gives this woman pleasure to make me beholden to her, probably because in her eyes I’m a tolerable person. No one likes to give anything to disagreeable persons because you don’t want to have them beholden to you; after all, an obligation like the repayment of a debt brings people together, it rubs shoulders, binds, shares confidences and closeness, remaining always at one’s side. How utterly unenviable it is to have distasteful debtors — such people sit practically astride their creditors’ necks, it makes you want to forgive their debts just to be rid of them. It’s delightful when someone thoughtlessly, swiftly gives you something; what better attestation could there be to the fact that you still have people around who find you agreeable—”