Robert Walser - Selected Stories

Serious, and astonished, the girl listened to the words I spoke, though I uttered them certainly more for my own delight than in any hope that the little thing might appreciate and understand them, for she lacked the necessary maturity.

From afar I can already see a railway crossing which I shall have to traverse; but, at present, I have not got that far; for I shall have, it must be clearly realized, two or three important commissions to execute, and several insuperable arrangements to make. On these commissions a report must be drawn up, or delivered, in as much detail, and with as much precision, as possible. It will generously be permitted me to remark that I have in passing to present myself with all expediency at an elegant gentleman’s outfitters or tailor’s workshop to discuss a new suit which I must try on and have tailored. Second, I have to pay off heavy taxes in the local office or town hall; and third, I ought to take a noteworthy letter to the post office and throw it into the letter box. It will be seen how much I have to do, and how this apparently idle and easygoing walk is full of practical business affairs, and people will therefore, I hope, be so good as to excuse my loitering, appreciate my delays, and approve the long-winded discussions with professional and clerical people; yes, perhaps even welcome them as acceptable adjuncts and contributions to the entertainment. For all consequent lengths, breadths, and heights I humbly request in advance the reader’s pardon. Has a provincial or metropolitan author ever been more diffident and courteous toward the circle of his readers? I hardly think so, and therefore, with my conscience utterly clear, I continue my little chat and narrative and report the following:

God bless my soul! It’s high time I went over to Frau Aebi for my dinner, or lunch. This very minute it is striking half past twelve. As luck would have it, the lady lives very near indeed to where I am standing; I need only slip, smooth as an eel, into the house, as into a loophole, and as into a shelter for poor starvelings and pitiful distressed gentlefolk.

FRAU AEBI

received me most magnanimously. My punctuality was a masterpiece. It is known how rare masterpieces are. Frau Aebi smiled when she saw me arriving, really most kindly. She offered me, in a cordial and winning way, which in a manner of speaking enchanted me, her nice little hand, and led me at once into the dining room, where she requested me to sit at the table, a request which I naturally and with the utmost conceivable pleasure, and completely without restraint, fulfilled. Without making the least ridiculous fuss, I began harmlessly and without reserve to eat and stoutly help myself, and I was a long way from guessing what was in store for me. Anyway, I began boldly to help myself and stoutly to eat. Such boldness, as is well known, costs not much in the way of sacrifice. With some surprise, however, I observed that Frau Aebi was watching me with something like devotion. This was quite noticeable. Obviously, it moved her deeply to watch how I helped myself and ate. This curious situation astonished me, but I attributed no major significance to it. The moment I wanted to supply a little conversation and diversion, Frau Aebi stopped me and said that she declined all forms of diversion with the greatest pleasure. This curious phrase took me aback, and I began to be anxious and afraid. Quite secretly I began to be terrified in Frau Aebi’s presence. When I wanted to stop cutting it up and popping it in, because I distinctly felt that I was full, she said to me in an almost delicate manner and tone of voice, through which gently shuddered a maternal rebuke: “But you are not eating! Wait, I’ll cut you another big juicy slice.” A sense of dread rippled through me, and I plucked up the courage to object, politely and courteously, that my main purpose in coming here had been to deploy a certain intellectuality, whereupon Frau Aebi, smiling most captivatingly, said that she did not think this to be at all necessary. “I cannot possibly go on eating,” I said, in a dull muffled voice. I was almost suffocating, and was already perspiring with terror. Frau Aebi said: “I cannot possibly believe that you want to stop cutting it up and popping it in, and I do not think that you are really full at all. Quite definitely you are not telling the truth when you say that you are just about suffocating. I am compelled to consider that as mere politeness. I decline any form of intellectual chat, as I have already said, with pleasure. Certainly your main purpose in coming to me was to prove and demonstrate that you have a good appetite and are a big eater. This consideration I cannot under any circumstances forego. I would cordially ask you to be sensible and accommodate yourself to the inevitable; for I can assure you that there is no possibility that you will leave this table before you have eaten up and polished off everything that I have cut, and will cut, off for you. I am afraid you are helplessly vanquished; for you must realize that there are housewives who compel their guests to help themselves and pack themselves to the brim, until they burst. A deplorable, lamentable fate awaits you; but you must endure it bravely. Each of us in due course has to make some great sacrifice. So obey and eat. For to obey surely is sweet. What harm is done, if you perish in the attempt? Here, this most delicate, delicious, and large slice you must certainly demolish, I know you will. Courage, my good friend! We all need to be brave. What worth are we, if we persist forever steadfast in our own will? Concentrate all your strenth, and compel yourself to do the loftiest deed, to endure the most difficult trial, and to survive the most arduous struggle. You cannot believe how glad I am to watch you eat till you drop unconscious. You cannot imagine how disappointed I would be if you were to refuse me this; but you will do it, won’t you? You’ll bite your best and help yourself, won’t you, even if you are so full that your back teeth are floating?”

“Terrible woman! What do you want with me?” I exclaimed and sprang up from the table and made as if to rush out and away. Frau Aebi, however, held me back, laughed aloud and cordially, and confessed that she had permitted herself a joke with me, which I would please be so good as not to grudge her. “I only wanted to give you an example of how it is done by certain housewives, who almost overflow with kindness toward their guests.”

At this I had to laugh to myself, and I may admit that in her exuberance I liked Frau Aebi very much. She wanted to have me near her the whole afternoon, and was almost a little indignant when I told her that it was, unfortunately for me, an impossible thing for me to afford her my company any longer, because I had to settle certain important affairs, which I could not put off. It was extremely flattering to me to hear Frau Aebi so vigorously regretting that I had to leave again so soon and wanted to. She asked me if it was really so pressingly urgent to abscond and vanish, whereupon I gave her the most holy assurances that only the most pressing urgencies had the ability and power to draw me away so soon from such a pleasant house and from such an attractive, esteemed person, with which words I look my leave of her.

It was now meet to conquer, master, surprise, and abash in his unshakable convictions an obstinate, recalcitrant tailor, or marchand tailleur, a person obviously in every respect convinced of the infallibility of his doubtless eminent skill, and completely saturated with a sense of his own efficiency. The crippling of a master tailor’s fixity of mind must be considered one of the most difficult and hazardous tasks which courage can undertake and daredevil determination determine to carry forward. Of tailors and their opinions I have a comprehensive, constant, and intense fear; I am not at all ashamed of this sad admission; for fear is, in this instance, explicable and understandable. I was, then, prepared for trouble, perhaps even for trouble of the worst and most terrible kind, and I armed myself for this highly perilous attack with qualities such as courage, scorn, wrath, indignation, disdain, even the disdain of death; and with these indubitably very appreciable weapons I hoped to advance, successfully and victoriously, against biting irony and mockery lurking under a simulation of friendliness. It turned out otherwise; but I will be silent on this point till later, particularly as first I still have to dispatch a letter. For I have just decided to go first to the post office, then to the tailor, and only after this to pay my taxes. Besides, the post office, a tasteful building, lay right in front of my nose; and I blithely went in and besought the responsible post office official for a stamp, which I stuck upon the envelope. While I then circumspectly slipped the same down into the letter box, I examined and weighed pensively, in my mind, what I had written. As I very well knew, the contents were as follows: