Robert Walser - The Tanners

Rosa laughed. “What a scoundrel you are. But do go on, it’s quite interesting, what you’re saying.”

“The world is in point of fact marvelous,” Simon continued, “I can be sitting here with you and no one can stop us from chatting for hours. I know you like listening to me. It’s your opinion that my way of speaking is not without grace, though now I find myself compelled to laugh horribly inside because I’ve said this. But it’s my habit to say anything and everything that comes to my mind, even if it should happen to be, for example, self-praise. I can also criticize myself with just the same lightness — I’m even pleased when I have occasion to do so. Why shouldn’t we say whatever’s on our minds? How much is lost if you insist on first examining everything at length. I don’t like to spend too long considering before I speak, and whether the words are suitable or not, out they come! If I am vain, my vanity will inevitably come to light; if I were miserly, there would be miserliness speaking in my words; if I am decent, then doubtless my respectability will peal out from my lips; and if God had made an honest man of me, stalwartness would emanate from me regardless of what I was saying. In this respect I find myself free of worries, because I know myself and us a little and because I would be ashamed to display timidity while speaking. If, for example, I insult, wound, injure or annoy someone with words, can’t I make this bad impression disappear again with the next few words? I never start thinking about how I am speaking until I notice disagreeable wrinkles on the face of my listener, such as those I now see on your face, Rosa.”

“It’s something else—”

“Are you tired?”

“Go home now, why don’t you, Simon. It’s quite true I’m feeling tired. You’re sweet when you talk. I’m very fond of you.”

Rosa held out her little hand to her young friend, who kissed it, said good night and departed. When he was gone, little Rosa sat there for a long time crying quietly to herself. She was weeping over her beloved, a young man with curls on his head, an elegant gait, an aristocratic mouth, but a dissolute lifestyle. “And so you love the one who doesn’t deserve it,” she said to herself, “and yet should I love out of reason, out of wishing to assign value? How laughable. What do I care about what is valuable — all I want is what I love.” Then she went to bed.

One day Simon rang the bell rather shyly — it was noon — before an elegant house standing off on its own in a garden. The bell sounded to him as if a beggar had rung it. If he himself were sitting inside the house just now, as its owner for instance who was perhaps eating lunch, he would have turned indolently to his wife and asked: Who could be ringing the bell just now, surely a beggar! “When you think of elegant people,” he thought as he waited, “you always picture them at the dinner table, or in a carriage, or getting dressed with the help of male or female servants, while you always imagine a poor man standing outside in the cold with his coat collar drawn up, as mine is now, waiting before a garden gate with a pounding heart. Poor people have, as a rule, rapid, pounding, ardent hearts, while those of the rich are cold, roomy, upholstered, well-heated, and nailed shut! Oh, if only someone would rush fleet-footed to the door, what a relief that would be. There’s something constricting about standing and waiting at a wealthy portal. Despite my little bit of worldly experience what weak legs I am standing on.” —And indeed he was trembling when a girl came hurrying up to open the door for the one standing outside. Simon always had to smile when someone opened the door and invited him in, and now, too, this smile was in evidence, a smile that resembled a timid appeal and perhaps could be seen on many other faces as well.

“I’m looking for a room.”

Simon removed his hat before a beautiful lady who appeared and looked the newcomer up and down with great attentiveness. This pleased Simon, for he believed it was her right to do so, and because her air of friendliness was unabated.

“Would you like to come with me? There, up the stairs.”

Simon invited the lady to precede him. To do so, he gestured with his hand, actually employing his hand for this purpose for the first time in his whole life. The woman, opening a door, showed the young man the room.

“What a beautiful room,” cried Simon, who was truly astonished, “far too beautiful for me, unfortunately, far too elegant for me. I am, you should know, so very poorly suited to such an elegant room. And yet I would dearly love to inhabit it — all too dearly, far far too dearly. In fact, it wasn’t right to show me this chamber. It would have been better had you shown me the door at once. How do I come to be casting my gaze into such a gay, beautiful space — it’s as if it were made for a god to dwell in. What beautiful dwellings are inhabited by the well-to-do, the ones who possess something. I have never possessed anything, have never been anything, and despite the hopes of my parents will never amount to anything at all. What a lovely view from the windows, and such pretty, shiny furniture, and such charming curtains — they give the room a girlish look. I would perhaps become a good, tender person here, if it’s true, as people say, that surroundings can change a person. Might I gaze at it for a little while longer, remain standing here one more minute?”

“Of course you may.”

“I thank you.”

“What sort of people are your parents, and, if I may ask, in what sense are you ‘nothing,’ as you expressed yourself a moment ago?”

“I’m unemployed.”

“That wouldn’t matter to me. It all depends!”

“No, I have little hope. Though admittedly I shouldn’t be saying such things if I am to speak with perfect truthfulness. I’m overflowing with hope. Never, ever does it abandon me. — My father is a poor but joyful individual who would never dream of comparing his currently bleak circumstances with his glory days. He lives like a lad of twenty-five and can’t be bothered to ponder his condition. I admire him and seek to emulate him. If he can still be cheerful in his snowy old age, it must be his young son’s duty, thirty times — indeed one hundred times — over, to hold his head high and meet people’s gazes with eyes that flash like lightning. But the gift of thought was given to me — and to my brothers even more than me — by our mother. My mother is dead.”

A dismayed “ah” came from the mouth of the lady, who was still standing there kindly.

“She was a good-hearted woman. We children always, constantly still speak of her whenever and wherever we’re reunited. We live scattered all across this round, wide world, and this is excellent, for we all have such heads on us, you see, that they shouldn’t come together for very long. There’s a ponderousness to each of us that would be burdensome if we appeared together in human society. But this is something that, thank goodness, we avoid, and each of us knows perfectly well why that’s imperative. And yet we love one another with appropriate fraternal love. One of my brothers is a fairly prominent scholar, another a stock market specialist, and yet another nothing more than just my brother, for I love him more than a brother — and thinking of him, it never occurs to me to emphasize any of his qualities except simply the fact that he is my brother: mine, someone who looks just like me, and nothing more. I would like to live here in your home together with this brother of mine. The room is large enough for both of us. But no doubt this isn’t possible. What does the room cost?”

“What does your brother do?”

“He’s a landscape painter! How much would you charge for the room? — Oh, that much? This is assuredly not too expensive for this room, but for us it’s far too much. Besides which, come to think of it, now that I am peering at you more keenly: The two of us would hardly be suitable, strolling in and out of this house as though we belonged here. We are still so coarse, you’d be disappointed in us. What’s more, our habits are a bit rough on duvet covers, furniture, linens, window curtains, doorknobs and stair landings — you’d be horrified and would lose your temper with us, or perhaps you would forgive us and strive to turn the other cheek, which would be even more humiliating. I don’t wish to be the cause of your having trouble with us at some later point. Surely you would! Do hear me out. I can see it all perfectly clearly. Basically, the two of us have, in the long run, little respect for anything fine and delicate. People such as ourselves should be left standing before wealthy garden gates — free to make derisive remarks about all the splendor and attention to detail. We are great deriders! Adieu!”