Robert Walser - Berlin Stories

Papa can be charming, actually, he is always nice, but at times he becomes angry about something — one never knows — and then he is ugly. I can see in him how secret anger, just like discontent, makes people ugly. If Papa isn’t in a good mood, I feel as cowed as a whipped dog, and therefore Papa should avoid displaying his indisposition and his discontent to his associates, even if they should consist of only one daughter. There, yes, precisely there, fathers commit sins. I sense it vividly. But who doesn’t have weaknesses — not even one, not some tiny fault? Who is without sin? Parents who don’t consider it necessary to withhold their personal storms from their children degrade them to slaves in no time. A father should overcome his bad moods in private — but how difficult that is! — or he should take them to strangers. A daughter is a young lady, and in every cultivated sire should dwell a cavalier. I say explicitly: living with Father is like Paradise, and if I discover a flaw in him, doubtless it is one transferred from him to me; thus it is his, not my, discretion that observes him closely. But Papa may, of course, conveniently take out his anger on people who are dependent on him in certain respects. There are enough such people fluttering about him.

I have my own room, my furniture, my luxury, my books, etc. God, I’m actually very well provided for. Am I thankful to Papa for all this? What a tasteless question! I am obedient to him, and then I am also his possession, and, in the last analysis, he can well be proud of me. I cause him worries, I am his financial concern, he may snap at me, and I always find it a kind of delicate obligation to laugh at him when he snaps at me. Papa likes to snap; he has a sense of humor and is, at the same time, spirited. At Christmas he overwhelms me with presents. Incidentally, my furniture was designed by an artist who is scarcely unknown. Father deals almost exclusively with people who have some sort of name. He deals with names. If hidden in such a name there is also a man, so much the better. How horrible it must be to know that one is famous and to feel that one doesn’t deserve it at all. I can imagine many such famous people. Isn’t such a fame like an incurable sickness? Goodness, the way I express myself! My furniture is lacquered white and is painted with flowers and fruits by the hands of a connoisseur. They are charming and the artist who painted them is a remarkable person, highly esteemed by Father. And whomever Father esteems should indeed be flattered. I mean, it is worth something if Papa is well-disposed toward someone, and those who don’t find it so and act as if they didn’t give a hoot, they’re only hurting themselves. They don’t see the world clearly enough. I consider my father to be a thoroughly remarkable man, that he wields influence in the world is obvious. — Many of my books bore me. But then they are simply not the right books, like, for example, so-called children’s books. Such books are an affront. One dares give children books to read that don’t go beyond their horizons? One should not speak in a childlike manner to children; it is childish. I, who am still a child myself, hate childishness.

When shall I cease to amuse myself with toys? No, toys are sweet, and I shall be playing with my doll for a long time yet; but I play consciously. I know that it’s silly, but how beautiful silly and useless things are. Artistic natures, I think, must feel the same way. Different young artists often come to us, that is to say, to Papa, for dinner. Well, they are invited and then they appear. Often I write the invitations, often the governess, and a grand, entertaining liveliness reigns at our table, which, without boasting or willfully showing off, looks like the well-provided table of a fine house. Papa apparently enjoys going around with young people, with people who are younger than he, and yet he is always the gayest and the youngest. One hears him talking most of the time, the others listen, or they allow themselves little remarks, which is often quite droll. Father over-towers them all in learning and verve and understanding of the world, and all these people learn from him — that I plainly see. Often I have to laugh at the table; then I receive a gentle or not-so-gentle admonition. Yes, and then after dinner we take it easy. Papa stretches out on the leather sofa and begins to snore, which actually is in rather poor taste. But I’m in love with Papa’s behavior. Even his candid snoring pleases me. Does one want to, could one ever, make conversation all the time?

Father apparently spends a lot of money. He has receipts and expenses, he lives, he strives after gains, he lets live. He even leans a bit toward extravagance and waste. He’s constantly in motion. “Clearly he’s one of those people who find it a pleasure and, yes, even a necessity, to constantly take risks.” At our house there is much said about success and failure. Whoever eats with us and associates with us has attained some form of smaller or greater success in the world. What is the world? A rumor, a topic of conversation? In any case, my father stands in the very middle of this topic of conversation. Perhaps he even directs it, within certain bounds. Papa’s aim, at all events, is to wield power. He attempts to develop, to assert both himself and those people in whom he has an interest. His principle is: He in whom I have no interest damages himself. As a result of this view, Father is always permeated with a healthy sense of his human worth and can step forth, firm and certain, as is fitting. Whoever grants himself no importance feels no qualms about perpetrating bad deeds. What am I talking about? Did I hear Father say that?

Have I the benefit of a good upbringing? I refuse even to doubt it. I have been brought up as a metropolitan lady should be brought up, with familiarity and, at the same time, with a certain measured severity, which permits and, at the same time, commands me to accustom myself to tact. The man who is to marry me must be rich, or he must have substantial prospects of an assured prosperity. Poor? I couldn’t be poor.

It is impossible for me and for creatures like me to suffer pecuniary need. That would be stupid. In other respects, I shall be certain to give simplicity preference in my mode of living. I do not like outward display. Simplicity must be a luxury.

It must shimmer with propriety in every respect, and such refinements of life, brought to perfection, cost money. The amenities are expensive. How energetically I’m talking now! Isn’t it a bit imprudent? Shall I love? What is love? What sorts of strange and wonderful things must yet await me if I find myself so unknowing about things that I’m still too young to understand. What experiences shall I have?

1909

Translated by Harriet Watts

On Cornflower Day, when everyone struts around in blue, it became evident how much the writer of the present scientific treatise feels himself to be a good, innocent child of his times. Indeed, I have participated in each and every nice and nasty cornflower folly with joy, love, and delight, and I must have behaved, I believe, very funnily. Several proud and earnest nonparticipants cast severe looks in my direction, but me, happy me, I was as if intoxicated, and I made a pilgrimage, I must confess, while blushing, from one distillery to the next, while buying, all along the way from Münzstrasse to Motzstrasse, patriotic flowers. Clad in blue from head to foot, I seemed to myself most graceful, but what is more, I felt myself most vividly to be a respectable member of the upper classes. Oh, this sweet feeling, how it befogged me and how happy it makes me, the beautiful, yes perhaps even, depending on circumstances, noble thought that I might fling to left and right, with very graceful gestures, pennies, healthy, true, honest, honorable, well-behaved, good pennies, thereby accomplishing a goodly work. Now come what may, let it happen to me, poor devil that I am: I am pleased with myself, thoroughly so, and a feeling of peace has overcome me, I cannot express it in carefully chosen or unchosen words. In my hand, or fist, I held a thick, huge, and evidently imposing bouquet of freshly picked paper flowers, the fragrance of which captivated me. I discovered, by the way, that such flowers are sold at seven pennies a dozen. A waiter, as honest as he is stupid, who always says “Very well” when he takes an order, told me this in a series of mysterious whispers. I am always on an intimate footing with waiters and suchlike people. That’s just by the way.