The Assistant

by Robert Walser

  He laughed. Oh, how beautiful it was here. In the forest, every silence was redoubled. A broad ring of trees and bushes formed the first silence, and the second, an even more beautiful one, was formed by a person choosing a spot for his own. The way the brook was murmuring, you thought yourself already entangled in long cool daydreams, and when you gazed up into the green foliage, you found yourself in the midst of silver and golden and good world-views. The figures you invented yourself, drawn from a distant and close circle of acquaintances, were quietly whispering, they were saying something or perhaps only making faces while their eyes were speaking a profound, intimate language of their own. Feelings were stepping forward naked and courageous, and even the most delicately perceived sensation was met with a secret understanding suffused with longing. Lips and thoughts, requiring neither epochs nor roads on which to pass through life, kissed as soon as they recognized one another; you could see the joy burning upon these lips, and a friendly melancholy was singing from the thoughts that accorded well with brook, bushes and woodland silence. You only needed to think that evening would soon come, and at once all the familiar and unfamiliar landscapes appeared to be swimming in evening light. The forest above the dreamer’s head rose and fell and gently rocked and danced in the gaze lifted toward it, and there was nothing for the gazing eye to do but dance as well. How beautiful it is here, Joseph said to himself several times over. Suddenly a scene from his childhood appeared before him with great vividness.

  Back then, in the time of his youth, there had been a sort of ravine as well, but in fact it was more a sandstone hollow, but such a strange and delicate hollow as he never again beheld. This more or less round pit was situated at the edge of a large forest of beeches and firs and oak trees, he and his siblings discovered it one day while roaming about on an afternoon walk. This was also a Sunday in summer, perhaps it was even almost autumn. The children had run on ahead, thinking up games and trying them out, and behind them strolled their parents. The newly discovered hollow proved to be the most splendid of playgrounds, they decided to remain there and wait for their parents to catch up. The latter arrived, and they too found the place charming; there are spots in nature that simply enchant anyone who sees them, and this was one of them. The edges of the pit were overgrown with a veritable thicket of trees that was almost impenetrable, so that its discovery could in fact only have been made by curious children. There was, however, another reasonably wide opening in one spot where the pit could be comfortably entered. Mother sat down on a grassy bank and leaned her back against a fir tree. In the middle of the hollow was a small elevation of natural provenance that was so attractively set with young trees that it offered a most inviting spot for sitting and lying. Who could have failed to be captivated by it? This place, just as it was, appeared to have been created by the wistful hand of a nature-loving dreamer, but no, it was nature itself, its usual heedlessness notwithstanding, that was displaying here, so to speak, such delicacy of feeling by giving rise to this coziness and concord. All around the little elevation stretched and curved a pleasure ground, a woodland meadow strewn with the most fantastical grasses, herbs and wildflowers, which gave off a heady, romantic perfume. All that could be seen of the remaining world was a patch of sky that was truncated necessarily by the tall trees at the edge of the pit. The entire place resembled a corner in the rambling gardens of some manor house, not a chance woodland scene. The parents mutely observed their children running about, chasing one another up and down the steep sandy waves of the slope amid a din of laughter and shouts. These early voices. How wild they could all be then. The children were all happy that their mother was pleased with their hollow, that she was able to sit there quietly, caressed by all the advantages of so lovely a resting place. They knew the desires and needs of their mother’s spirit. And soon the entire place seemed to be filled with this friendly, pensive pleasure and with the childish surmise, belief and hope that they’d found just the thing. A strange enchantment of spirit made their vivacious games significantly more beloved and rapturous. Since their mother appeared to be content, they could allow themselves a degree of exuberance that exceeded what was ordinarily permissible. Every bourgeois household contains some oppressive misfortune, but here all sense of misfortune had been put aside, indeed, the world itself appeared to have been forgotten. From time to time the children glanced over at their mother to see whether or not she was cross, but no, she was gazing straight in front of her with a kindly and otherwise reticent expression. This was a good sign, and the grassy little hillock itself seemed from then on to have become sentient. “She’s in a good mood,” the children whispered to the leaves of the rustling trees. When their mother was able to smile—which was such a rare occurrence—then the entire surrounding world smiled at them as well. Mother was already ill in those days, she suffered from an excess of sensitivity. How sweet the children found the peaceful repose of this woman, who was being gnawed at by unhappiness from all sides. Unhappiness appeared to be banished from this cozy little corner, and so a joyousness was whispering and sighing within each blade of grass upon this small secluded woodland meadow, and a friendly belief in every fir needle. In their mother’s lap lay a few wildflowers, and her parasol lay beside her. Some book she’d been reading had slipped from her grasp. The face the children were afraid of looked so peaceful. It was all right, then, to frolic and shout and engage in boisterousness cavorting. Each of her features was saying: “Go on and frolic, it’s all right now. Frolic all you want, it doesn’t matter.” And the entire charming place appeared to be festively, rapturously spinning along with them in the whirl of their game.

  “That was a hollow, and this is only a wooded ravine, and the Tobler house is not far off, and it is an unforgivable sin to go on daydreaming when a person has left his twenty-third year behind him.”

  Joseph set off for home.

  *

  The Tobler house, how it stood there, solid and at the same time dainty, as though it were inhabited only by grace and contentment. Such a house was not easy to topple; industrious, skillful hands had assembled it to last with all its mortar, bricks and beams. Sea breezes could not knock it down, not even a hurricane. How could a few infelicitous business ventures harm such a house?

  Now every house, to be sure, consists of two halves, a visible and an invisible one, and of an external structure and an inner support, whereby the inner construction is perhaps just as important, indeed perhaps sometimes even more important in bearing and propping up the whole than the external one. What good is it for a house to be standing there attractive and pleasing if the people who live there are incapable of propping and shoring it up? In this regard, commercial and economic errors are of the utmost significance.

  To be sure, the Tobler house was still standing despite the fact that Herr Johannes Fischer had abruptly withdrawn his money-dispensing hand. Was there only a single person left on earth who was capable of floating a loan? If so, Tobler really would have to lose heart. But then how could it be that he was just now undertaking to have a grotto constructed in the garden? It would appear, quite simply, that the man had not yet suffered any losses whatsoever, otherwise he would hardly have been contemplating such a project.

  Down on the main road, people often stopped in their tracks, raised their heads up and gazed unhurriedly at the villa, and when you looked down on them from above, you couldn’t escape the impression that these chance observers were gladdened by the sight. But who wouldn’t feel glad, being permitted to look upon such a charmingly situated dwelling? The copper tower was worthy of interest in its own right—Lord knows this tower cost enough. The thought that the invoice for this tower was at this very moment lying down in the office in the cubbyhole for unpaid bills would not be so swift to occur to a person immersed in the contemplation of this house, for house and garden made far too prosperous an impression.

  No doubt the manager of the Bank of Bärenswil had found occasion to brood a little over the fact that it was cus
tomary in the Tobler household to send back bills presented for payment with the request for an extension. But he was careful not to express aloud these thoughts of concern and distrust that he had secretly begun to harbor. It might very well be just a passing crisis, and after all, a bank manager is not a washerwoman, but rather a man well acquainted with self-discipline who knows how destructive impertinent remarks can be for a striving and struggling businessman. To be sure, he was rather taken aback; he knit his brows a little in the privacy of his managerial office, raising his hand in the mildest of gestures, but he kept his peace—after all, he was laboring in the service of commerce and industrial development in this flourishing little town, and Herr Tobler was naturally a part of this, though recently things up at the Evening Star had appeared to be going a bit downhill. Banks and financial institutions are generally possessed of refined, tight-shut lips, and such mouths speak only when the certainty of absolute insolvency is literally present. So Tobler could go on laughing up his sleeve in the best of spirits. The secret of his difficulties lay hidden in the Savings Bank of Bärenswil as in a tightly sealed tomb.

  A person who still felt moved to join in heart-thrilling celebrations of gymnastics and song in the company of his wife and children must no doubt still have some secret source of credit flowing somewhere that he has not yet tapped only because he has not yet felt the need to avail himself of this last of all available resources. A person possessing such a stately wife who is politely greeted on all sides when she walks through the village—how could he be badly off?

  And things were indeed not so bad. Money might come raining into the technical office overnight, advertisements had been taken out, and for the moment all that was needed was patience, the profits would most certainly materialize soon. What wealthy and enterprising man could resist an advertisement headed: “Glorious Enterprise”? And once someone had come so far and taken the bait, they would most certainly know how to keep him. They wouldn’t go about things as they had with Herr Fischer, who, by the way, when one stopped to consider, had perhaps never intended to pursue the matter with appropriate seriousness, and who therefore didn’t deserve to be taken so seriously.

  Had the Advertising Clock suddenly proved a washout? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, the elegant wings of its advertising fields shone brighter and more resplendently than ever, and the Marksman’s Vending Machine? Hadn’t the fabrication of the very first specimen been underway for weeks now? Didn’t the most efficient and assiduous of mechanics turn up almost daily at the villa in order to play cards with Tobler? Other people played cards as well and enjoyed a glass of wine, and yet continued to prosper—why shouldn’t Tobler prosper as well? There seemed no reason why he should not.

  Moreover, Herr Tobler hadn’t come to “this lousy Bärenswil” in order to become prematurely fainthearted, he could just as easily have done this elsewhere if there were truly no help for it, and done so perfectly well. No, his main concern at the moment was to set an example for all those pikes and herrings, to rub their curious snide little noses in what could be accomplished by a sanguine, hardworking man, even at a point when the very boards of his own home and workplace were threatening to collapse. And this is why Tobler, unconcerned as to what might be whispered into various ears at public houses down in the village, was having the garden dug up to build a grotto—who cared if it wound up costing a whole hay cart full of cash!

  These Bärenswilers must not be allowed to triumph, that would be the last straw! It was crucial to use every means at one’s disposal to spoil the pleasure it would give these people if Tobler were forced simply to toddle off into the distance like a jumping jack in a Punch and Judy show. No, things had not yet come to that. And to spite them all, Tobler was planning to send out invitations to a party celebrating the opening of the grotto—the moment it was even approaching completion—to the most respected citizens of the village, the ones who still had halfway decent intentions regarding him, so that they might see how firmly and serenely he looked upon and grappled with life.

  A person who felt such responsibility for his family as Tobler did, who had a wife and four children to take care of, would not so swiftly be expelled from a place and spot he had come to acquire and inhabit. Just let a few of them come and try it—he would drive them off with blows glinting and flashing from his bare wrathful eyes. And if that wasn’t enough for these bacon and sausage eaters, well then he might easily enough take a notion to seize one or the other of them with his own two hands and heave him over the garden fence, he would certainly not stand on ceremony in such a case.

  But things were far from being in so dire a state. The firm of C. Tobler, Inventor still enjoyed unlimited credit among the craftsmen and businessmen of Bärenswil. Paperhanger and joiner, locksmith and carpenter, butcher and wine merchant, bookbinder and printer, gardener and furrier all delivered their labor and wares to the Evening Star Villa without demanding immediate payment, as they unquestioningly believed that their bills would be settled at a convenient future moment. There was no sign of any sort of whisperings or rumblings in the public houses down in the village, and by laying into the members of his household, Tobler appeared merely to be practicing in advance for such a situation, an occurrence which in any case would arise only when an individual or business transaction had provoked his ire.

  The Tobler house was still releasing the odors of the most fragrant cleanliness and respectability into its beautiful surroundings—and how! Framed by flashes of gleaming sunshine, raised up by a green hill that laughed wonderfully down at the lake and the level plain, surrounded and embraced by a truly magnificent garden it stood there: pure modest, lucid joy. It was no coincidence that strollers who happened to pass by gazed so long at it, for it was truly a delight to behold. Its windowpanes and white cornices gleamed so brightly, the beautiful tower beckoned with its coppery brown, and the flag that had been left standing atop it after that nocturnal celebration entwined with gaily majestic motions, with quiverings, coilings and flame-like furlings about the slender, sturdy pole. This house expressed two divergent sentiments in its construction and site: exuberance and serenity. To be sure, it was also just a tiny bit ostentatious, and it was different from the mansions of older vintage that were hidden deep within their dear, ancient gardens, but the villa was lovely, and a person who lived there and found himself plagued by the thought that he might be forced one day to leave it in dishonor would indeed have every right to be in low spirits, this was quite understandable.

  But pursuing such trains of thought was something Herr Tobler did not permit himself.

  Si-vi, Si-vi!

  How piercing this sounded. And yet it didn’t even cut properly. A crude kitchen knife that hadn’t been sharpened in years would still be able to call out “Sivi” just as effectively as Pauline, who had a speech defect that prevented her from articulating the “1.” But this housemaid had an excellent understanding of how to issue orders where Silvi was concerned. When it was Dora that was being addressed, Pauline’s stentorian voice subsided to a whispery purr. She always called Dora “Do-li,” for in this case the weakness of her tongue extended to the “r” in the nickname “Dorli,” though she pronounced the “1,” which was certainly curious, as she never managed to say it when crying “Si-vi.” But “Si-vi” had a spiky sound to it, and the intention was to wound Silvi, to cause her pain even when merely shouting out her name; no one ever spoke lovingly to this little girl.

  Even the child’s own mother could not abide her, and so it was no doubt quite natural that all the others despised her a little, too. Dora, on the other hand, was made of sugar, at least this is what you thought at the outset, for cries of “Dorli, dear Dorli!” came ringing and piping solicitously out from every nook and cranny until it seemed there had to be a snow-white confectioner’s shop just around the corner. Dora was almost not made of flesh and blood—everything about her was almonds, tarts and cream, at least that’s how it appeared, for the air around her was always fill
ed with pleasantries, sweets, curtsies and caresses.

  When Dora fell ill, she was loveliness personified. She lay then, bedded in pillows, upon the daybed in the sitting room, a toy in her hand and an angelic smile upon her lips. Everyone went up to her and said flattering things to her, even Joseph did this, he was practically compelled to do so, he couldn’t help himself, for this little girl was truly beautiful. She took after her father, with the same dark eyes, the same full face, one and the same nose, really his living image.