Robert Walser - Berlin Stories

He has long, narrow hands, sensitive hands. Certain satirical illustrators like nothing better than to have a go at such hands to exploit them in their drawings. My intention here is to offer up a serious character study, and since this is the case it is crucial to pay very close attention to ensure that no feature appears in exaggerated form.

Colleague Kutsch!

This is a word he’s not terribly fond of, he’d prefer not to be anyone’s colleague, he’s a sort of up-high person always tugging his collar up about his ears. When you give his hand a good squeeze, it makes a cracking sound, and when he’s wearing his hat, he has a quite interesting head.

He’s constantly afraid people might be poking fun at him, but there are certain individuals you cannot faithfully portray without poking a bit of fun.

One night Kutsch left a hastily penned drama lying in the coffeehouse, on one of those coffeehouse sofas upon which the habitual aesthete is wont to fling himself down to sip coffee and stare into space. Some other fellow found the play, picked it up, put it in his pocket, brought it home, copied it over, completed it, prepared it for staging, and then had it put on in a first-rate theater, where it was a success.

This one too was based on a story by Maupassant. Yes, indeed. In the work of Maupassant, that loutish peasant from Normandy, great quantities of “Life” are stored away, anyone who’s read him must surely have noticed this.

Kutsch studies his subject matter rather than life itself; the life he has heretofore experienced still leaves much to be desired. He writes for the papers and reviews books, that’s what he’s experienced, and this, in his opinion, is not particularly striking as experiences go.

What a shame he wasn’t born in — let’s say for example — the time of Louis XIV in France; surely he’d have shown some of those brilliant scalawags just having their heyday at the time what he was capable of.

The thing is: Kutsch can do anything, and he wants everything too, but in fact he does nothing at all. He writes critiques of novels because he himself is an epic author through and through; he reviews plays because he himself is thoroughly possessed by the devil of this discipline; and he writes about poetry because he himself ought to have written some poems if only he’d wanted to.

He’ll be angry when he reads this. I shall say to him: Here, take this! And shall press into his hand the modest, though for him not negligible, honorarium I shall have received for this sketch.

Sometimes those who poke fun have the extravagant habit of being philanthropic.

My God, Kutsch is so impoverished, so abandoned by all the world. Keep in mind that he strives only for what is noble and first-rate. He is not merely a person like any other, just as most people are not merely people like any other.

I, however, most definitely number among the hundred thousand. I am virtually indistinguishable from a household servant, and am glad to be so ordinary.

Did you catch the undercurrent of vindictive envy?

Why should I envy Kutsch? On the contrary, I pity him. After all, I’m writing an essay on him, and so I must of necessity feel he is beneath me, since otherwise I could hardly be writing “on” him.

This ignoble practice of just going and writing about living human beings as though they were dead. And then this Kutsch isn’t even interesting, I hear the reader protest.

1907

The weather was fabulous. On such a splendid day, Kitsch and Kutsch had no desire to stay home, and so they readied themselves to go out and then hurried down to the street. Fabulous, this light in the street, Kutsch murmured as the two of them marched vigorously forward, and Kitsch as well said: Fabulous. Soon a plump woman came walking toward them, and at once this woman was declared fabulous by the two promenaders. They boarded the “electric”—how utterly fabulous, Kutsch opined once more, scratching at his youthful beard, riding along like this, and Kitsch lost no time in agreeing emphatically with his companion. A girl with “fabulous eyes” was sitting in the car. Suddenly a light rain began to fall: Fabulous!

After a while our Kitsch and Kutsch got out again and went to an art salon. The art dealer was looking out the window of his shop, and this nearly appeared fabulous to the two of them, which would have gone like this: How fabulous, the way this fellow is looking out his shop window. But they avoided giving spoken expression to this thought because they sensed it wasn’t right to always go on saying exactly the same thing. Half a minute later they were standing before a Renoir: Simply fabulous! shot out of their mouths. Kutsch once more began to scrape away at his beard with his fingers, but already his colleague had discovered something that was a full ten fables more fabulous than the Renoir, namely an old Dutch artist. Something like this, they said, was more than fabulous, and both of them felt like shouting.

Then they departed. Outdoors meanwhile a fine crust of snow had fallen, quite fabulous-looking; the snow was so black, a bluish black, it was simply — well, they contained themselves, after all you don’t always want to go on saying exactly the same thing. They ran into a painter. It wasn’t long before the painter was telling them that he knew nothing more fabulous than Paris. Kitsch and Kutsch found it distasteful to go about saying that Paris was fabulous, and soon they were treating this unsuspecting painter and his fee-fi-fo-fum-fabulous Paris with contempt. As soon as they were alone once more, things started right back up again, but they found it appropriate; this time it was a pond. They stood upon a bridge, and there below them lay the pond in all its fabulousness. All at once they spoke of poems by Verlaine — Kutsch clapped his hands and cried: Fabulous. Then Kitsch started smiling. Now he’d figured it out, he said to himself: How base it was to go on fabulousing like that at every paltry opportunity. One minute later he crumpled to the ground, felled by the fabulous sight of a woman’s blue skirt. That blue is magnificent, Kitsch said, getting to his feet again with effort. He’d twisted his ankle. And from this moment on they always used the word magnificent, never again fabulous.

1907

Do you know the mountain halls on Unter den Linden? Perhaps you’ll try going there someday. The price of admission is a mere thirty cents. Even if you see the cashier eating bread or sausage, you needn’t turn away in disgust, instead just take into account that it’s her supper she’s eating. Nature demands its rights everywhere. Wherever Nature is found, there is meaning. And now you’ll step inside, going into the mountains. And here you will encounter a huge figure, a sort of Rübezahl or mountain spirit — he’s the publican here, and you’ll do well to salute him by doffing your hat. He appreciates such gestures, and he’ll thank you courteously for your politeness by half rising from the chair on which he sits. Flattered in your soul, you now approach the glacier, which is the stage: a geological, geographical, and architectural curiosity. As soon as you’ve sat down, you’ll receive a drink proposal tendered by a perhaps moderately pretty waitress. Well, no use being dissatisfied with what’s available. Even on theater nights, there may be no great abundance here of feminine charms. Watch out that not too many glasses of apple wine sloshed and splashed to the brim are grouped about your paying person. The girls are all too quick to attach themselves to gentlemen who pity them. Pity is unsuitable when it’s a matter of artistic enjoyment. Have you been attending to the performance of this dancer? Kleist too waited many years for recognition. Go ahead and applaud valiantly, even if it almost displeased you. Now, what have you done with your alpenstock? Left it at home? Next time, for better or worse, you’ll have to come properly equipped when you head to the mountains, just in case. One cannot be too careful. And who is this ravishing alpine-shepherd’s-hut princess now approaching with dainty step? It’s the resident sweet young thing, and she’s hoping you’ll treat her to a walloped-full glass of beer to the tune of fifty cents. Will you be able to resist these lips, these eyes, this sweet, foolish request? You’d be lamentable if you could. Now the crevasse in the glacier-stage opens once more before you, and a Danish songstress sprinkles you with notes and snowflakes of grace. You’re just taking a sip of your cow-warm mountain milk. The publican is making his watchful bouncer rounds through the establishment. He sees to decorum and proper behavior. Do pay the place a visit, why don’t you, eh? You might even meet me again someday there. But I shan’t even recognize you. It’s my habit to sit there in silence, under a magic spell. I quench my thirst, melodies rock me to sleep, I dream.