Robert Walser: Selected Stories

[1914]

PAPA boxed my ears today, in a most fond and fatherly manner, of course. I had used the expression: “Father, you must be nuts.” It was indeed a bit careless of me. “Ladies should employ exquisite language,” our German teacher says. She’s horrible. But Papa won’t allow me to ridicule her, and perhaps he’s right. After all, one does go to school to exhibit a certain zeal for learning and a certain respect. Besides, it is cheap and vulgar to discover funny things in a fellow human being and then to laugh at them. Young ladies should accustom themselves to the fine and the noble — I quite see that. No one desires any work from me, no one will ever demand it of me; but everyone will expect to find that I am refined in my ways. Shall I enter some profession in later life? Of course not! I’ll be an elegant young wife; I shall get married. It is possible that I’ll torment my husband. But that would be terrible. One always despises oneself whenever one feels the need to despise someone else. I am twelve years old. I must be very precocious — otherwise, I would never think of such things. Shall I have children? And how will that come about? If my future husband isn’t a despicable human being, then, yes, then I’m sure of it, I shall have a child. Then I shall bring up this child. But I still have to be brought up myself. What silly thoughts one can have!

Berlin is the most beautiful, the most cultivated city in the world. I would be detestable if I weren’t unshakably convinced of this. Doesn’t the Kaiser live here? Would he need to live here if he didn’t like it here best of all? The other day I saw the royal children in an open car. They are enchanting. The crown prince looks like a high-spirited young god, and how beautiful seemed the noble lady at his side. She was completely hidden in fragrant furs. It seemed that blossoms rained down upon the pair out of the blue sky. The Tiergarten is marvelous. I go walking there almost every day with our young lady, the governess. One can go for hours under the green trees, on straight or winding paths. Even Father, who doesn’t really need to be enthusiastic about anything, is enthusiastic about the Tiergarten. Father is a cultivated man. I’m convinced he loves me madly. It would be horrible if he read this, but I shall tear up what I have written. Actually, it is not at all fitting to be still so silly and immature and, at the same time, already want to keep a diary. But, from time to time, one becomes somewhat bored, and then one easily gives way to what is not quite right. The governess is very nice. Well, I mean, in general. She is devoted and she loves me. In addition, she has real respect for Papa — that is the most important thing. She is slender of figure. Our previous governess was fat as a frog. She always seemed to be about to burst. She was English. She’s still English today, of course, but from the moment she allowed herself liberties, she was no longer our concern. Father kicked her out.

The two of us, Papa and I, are soon to take a trip. It is that time of the year now when respectable people simply have to take a trip. Isn’t it a suspicious sort of person who doesn’t take a trip at such a time of blossoming and blooming? Papa goes to the seashore and apparently lies there day after day and lets himself be baked dark brown by the summer sun. He always looks healthiest in September. The paleness of exhaustion is not becoming to his face. Incidentally, I myself love the suntanned look in a man’s face. It is as if he had just come home from war. Isn’t that just like a child’s nonsense? Well, I’m still a child, of course. As far as I’m concerned, I’m taking a trip to the south. First of all, a little while to Munich and then to Venice, where a person who is unspeakably close to me lives — Mama. For reasons whose depths I cannot understand and consequently cannot evaluate, my parents live apart. Most of the time I live with Father. But naturally Mother also has the right to possess me at least for a while. I can scarcely wait for the approaching trip. I like to travel, and I think that almost all people must like to travel. One boards the train, it departs, and off it goes into the distance. One sits and is carried into the remote unknown. How well-off I am, really! What do I know of need, of poverty? Nothing at all. I also don’t find it the least bit necessary that I should experience anything so base. But I do feel sorry for the poor children. I would jump out the window under such conditions.

Papa and I reside in the most elegant quarter of the city. Quarters which are quiet, scrupulously clean, and fairly old, are elegant. The brand-new? I wouldn’t like to live in a brand-new house. In new things there is always something which isn’t quite in order. One sees hardly any poor people — for example, workers — in our neighborhood, where the houses have their own gardens. The people who live in our vicinity are factory owners, bankers, and wealthy people whose profession is wealth. So Papa must be, at the very least, quite well-to-do. The poor and the poorish people simply can’t live around here because the apartments are much too expensive. Papa says that the class ruled by misery lives in the north of the city. What a city! What is it — the north? I know Moscow better than I know the north of our city. I have been sent numerous postcards from Moscow, Petersburg, and Holland; I know the Engadine with its sky-high mountains and its green meadows, but my own city? Perhaps to many, many people who inhabit it, Berlin remains a mystery. Papa supports art and the artists. What he engages in is business. Well, lords often engage in business, too, and then Papa’s dealings are of absolute refinement. He buys and sells paintings. We have very beautiful paintings in our house. The point of Father’s business, I think, is this: the artists, as a rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they aren’t allowed to understand anything about it. Or it is this: the world is big and coldhearted. The world never thinks about the existence of artists. That’s where my father comes in, worldly-wise, with all sorts of important connections, and in suitable and clever fashion, he draws the attention of this world, which has perhaps no need at all for art, to art and to artists who are starving. Father often looks down upon his buyers. But he often looks down upon the artists, too. It all depends.

No, I wouldn’t want to live permanently anywhere but in Berlin. Do the children in small towns, towns that are old and decayed, live any better? Of course, there are some things here that we don’t have. Romantic things? I believe I’m not mistaken when I look upon something that is scarcely half alive as romantic. The defective, the crumbled, the diseased; e.g., an ancient city wall. Whatever is useless yet mysteriously beautiful — that is romantic. I love to dream about such things, and, as I see it, dreaming about them is enough. Ultimately, the most romantic thing is the heart, and every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls. Our Berlin will soon burst at the seams with newness. Father says that everything historically notable here will vanish; no one knows the old Berlin any more. Father knows everything, or at least, almost everything. And naturally his daughter profits in that respect. Yes, little towns laid out in the middle of the countryside may well be nice. There would be charming, secret hiding spots to play in, caves to crawl in, meadows, fields, and, only a few steps away, the forest. Such villages seem to be wreathed in green; but Berlin has an Ice Palace where people ice skate on the hottest summer day. Berlin is simply one step ahead of all other German cities, in every respect. It is the cleanest, most modern city in the world. Who says this? Well, Papa, of course. How good he is, really! I have much to learn from him. Our Berlin streets have overcome all dirt and all bumps. They are as smooth as ice and they glisten like scrupulously polished floors. Nowadays one sees a few people roller skating. Who knows, perhaps I’ll be doing it someday, too, if it hasn’t already gone out of fashion. There are fashions here that scarcely have time to come in properly. Last year all the children, and also many grownups, played Diabolo. Now this game is out of fashion, no one wants to play it. That’s how everything changes. Berlin always sets the fashion. No one is obliged to imitate, and yet Madam Imitation is the great and exalted ruler of this life. Everyone imitates.