Robert Walser - Selected Stories

Now, as will soon be learned, I shall on account of this haughty bearing, this domineering attitude, take myself to task. In what manner will also soon be shown. It would not be good if I were to criticize others mercilessly, but set about myself only most tenderly and treat myself as indulgently as possible. A critic who goes about it in this way is no true critic, and writers should not practice any abuse of writing. I hope that this sentence pleases all and sundry, inspires satisfaction, and meets with warm applause.

Left of the country road here, a foundry full of workmen and industry causes a noticeable disturbance. In recognition of this I am honestly ashamed to be merely out for a walk while so many others drudge and labor. I drudge away perhaps of course at times, when all these workmen have knocked off and are taking a rest. A fitter on his bicycle, a friend of mine from 135/III Battalion of the militia, calls to me in passing: “It looks to me you’re out for a walk again, working hours too!” I wave to him and laugh and blithely admit that he is right, if he thinks I am out for a walk.

“They can all see that I am going for a walk,” I thought to myself, and I calmly walked on, without the least annoyance at having been found out, for that would have been silly.

In my bright yellow English suit, which I had received as a present, I really seemed to myself, I must frankly admit, a great lord and grand seigneur, a marquis strolling up and down his park, though it was only a semi-rural, semi-suburban, neat, modest, nice little poor-quarter and country road I walked on, and on no account a noble park, as I have been so arrogant as to suppose, a presumption I gently withdraw, because all that is parklike is pure invention and does not fit here at all. Factories both great and small and mechanical workshops lay scattered agreeably in green countryside. Fat cozy farms meanwhile kindly offered their arms to knocking and hammering industry, which always has something skinny and worn-out about it. Nut trees, cherry trees, and plum trees gave the soft rounded road an attractive, entertaining, and delicate character. A dog lay across the middle of the road which I found as a matter of fact quite beautiful and loved. I loved in fact almost everything I saw as I proceeded, and with a fiery love. Another pretty little dog scene and child scene was as follows. A large but thoroughly comical, humorous, not at all dangerous fellow of a dog was quietly watching a wee scrap of a boy who crouched on some porch steps and bawled on account of the attention which the good-natured yet still somewhat terrifying-looking animal chose to pay him, bawled miserably with fear, setting up a loud and childish wail. I found the scene enchanting; but another childish scene in this country-road theater I found almost more delightful and enchanting. Two very small children were lying on the rather dusty road, as in a garden. One child said to the other: “Now give me a nice little kiss.” The other child gave what was so pressingly demanded. Then said the first: “All right, now you may get up.” So without a sweet little kiss he would probably never have allowed the other what he now permitted it. “How well this naive little scene goes with the lovely blue sky, which laughs down so divinely upon the gay, nimble, and bright earth!” I said to myself. “Children are heavenly because they are always in a kind of heaven. When they grow older and grow up, their heaven vanishes and then they fall out of their childishness into the dry calculating manner and tedious perceptions of adults. For the children of poor folk the country road in summer is like a playroom. Where else can they go, seeing that the gardens are selfishly closed to them? Woe to the automobiles blustering by, as they ride coldly and maliciously into the children’s games, into the child’s heaven, so that small innocent human beings are in danger of being crushed to a pulp. The terrible thought that a child actually can be run over by such a clumsy triumphal car, I dare not think it, otherwise my wrath will seduce me to coarse expressions, with which it is well known nothing much ever gets done.”

To people sitting in a blustering dust-churning automobile I always present my austere and angry face, and they do not deserve a better one. Then they believe that I am a spy, a plainclothes policeman, delegated by high officials and authorities to spy on the traffic, to note down the numbers of vehicles, and later to report them. I always then look darkly at the wheels, at the car as a whole, but never at its occupants, whom I despise, and this in no way personally, but purely on principle; for I do not understand, and I never shall understand, how it can be a pleasure to hurtle past all the images and objects which our beautiful earth displays, as if one had gone mad and had to accelerate for fear of misery and despair. In fact, I love repose and all that reposes. I love thrift and moderation and am in my inmost self, in God’s name, unfriendly toward any agitation and haste. More than what is true I need not say. And because of these words the driving of automobiles will certainly not be discontinued, nor its evil air-polluting smell, which nobody for sure particularly loves or esteems. It would be unnatural if someone’s nostrils were to love and inhale with relish that which for all correct nostrils, at times, depending perhaps on the mood one is in, outrages and evokes revulsion. Enough, and no harm meant. And now walk on. Oh, it is heavenly and good and in simplicity most ancient to walk on foot, provided of course one’s shoes or boots are in order.

Would the esteemed ladies and gentlemen, patrons and patronesses and circles of readers, while they benevolently tolerate and condone this perhaps somewhat too solemn and high-strutting style, now be so kind as to allow me duly to draw their attention to two particularly significant persons, forms, or figures, namely firstly, or better, first, to an alleged retired actress, and secondly to the most youthful presumed budding cantatrice? I hold these two people to be considerably weighty and therefore I believed it wise to announce and advertise them properly in advance, before they enter and figure in reality, so that an odor of significance and fame may run before these two gentle creatures, and they may be received and observed on their appearance with all distinction, due regard, and loving concern, such as one should, in my diminutive opinion, almost compulsorily accord to such beings. Then at about half past twelve the writer will, as is known, in reward for his many labors, eat, carouse, and dine in the palazzo, or house, of Frau Aebi. Till then, however, he will have to cover a considerable stretch of his road, and write a fair quantity of lines. But one realizes to be sure to satiety that he loves to walk as well as he loves to write; the latter of course perhaps just a shade less than the former.

In front of a very attractive house I saw, very close to the beautiful road, a woman seated on a bench, and hardly had I glimpsed her when I plucked up the courage to speak, addressing her, in the most polite and courteous terms possible, as follows:

“Forgive me, a person utterly unknown to you, if at the sight of you the eager and assuredly saucy question forces itself to my lips, whether you have not perhaps been formerly an actress? For in fact you seem very much indeed like a once great, indulged, celebrated actress and stage artist. Certainly you quite rightly wonder at my so amazingly rash address and obstreperous inquiry; but you have such a beautiful face, such a pleasant, charming, and, I must add, interesting appearance, present such a beautiful, noble, fine aspect, look so candidly, majestically, and calmly out of your eyes upon me and upon the world in general, that I could not possibly have compelled myself to pass you by without daring to say something civil and flattering to you, which I hope you will not hold against me, although I am afraid that I deserve correction and admonishment on account of my frivolity. When I saw you I thought for a moment that you must have been an actress, and today, I mused, you sit here beside the simple, though at the same time beautiful, road, in front of the pretty little shop, whose owner you appear to me to be. You have perhaps before today never been so unceremoniously addressed. Your friendly and moreover graceful aspect, your hospitable, beautiful appearance, your equanimity, your fine figure, and this noble, cheerful air in your advancing years (this I trust you will allow me to observe) have encouraged me to engage with you in intimate conversation on the open road. This fine day also, delighting me as it does with its freedom and gaiety, has kindled in me a joyousness, in consequence of which I have perhaps gone too far with the unknown lady. You smile! Then you are in no way angered by the unconstrained quality of my utterance. I think it, if I may say so, well and good when from time to time two persons who are unacquainted freely and harmlessly converse, for which converse we inhabitants of this wandering curious planet, which is a puzzle to us, do, when all is said and done, possess mouth and tongue and linguistic capacity, which last is as a matter of fact both curious and fair. In any case, the moment I saw you, I liked you profoundly; but now I must reverently ask your pardon, and I would ask you to rest assured that you inspire me with the warmest feelings of respect. Can this full confession that I was very glad when I saw you cause you to be angry with me?”