The Assistant

by Robert Walser

Silvi, on the other hand, was a not quite successful copy of her mother, a photograph reduced in scale but at the same time rather botched. Unfortunate child! What fault was it of hers that she had been photographed so poorly? She was thin and yet unwieldy. Her character, if one can speak of the character of a child, was inherently distrustful, and in her soul she appeared deceitful and false.

  How delightfully open and sincere Dorli was, by contrast, in every fiber of her being. This is why she was so beloved among everyone in the household and indeed in the neighborhood as well. People gave her presents and did as she asked. Joseph carried Dora around on his shoulders in the garden, she need only say: do, and he did. She had such a nice way of asking. Heaven itself seemed to be lying upon her lips when she asked for something. Tiny white clouds would appear then to be drifting out of this childish Heaven, and somewhere, you couldn’t help thinking, someone seemed to have started playing the harp. She asked and commanded all at once. A truly lovely request is always combined with a sort of irresistible command.

  Silvi was incapable of asking for things, she was too shy and disingenuous, she never quite dared; in order to ask for something, one must have an irrepressible, powerful trust both in oneself and others. If one is to find the lovely courage to utter a fervent plea, one must from the outset be firmly, indeed adamantly convinced that the request will be fulfilled, but Silvi was convinced of no one’s kindness, as she had been all too soon and incautiously inured to quite a different sort of treatment. A beaten-down slovenly little creature like Silvi can easily become more disagreeable to endure and more unsightly to behold with each passing day, for a small person like this will not only abandon all self-discipline and care, but indeed will exert herself—motivated by a secret, painful defiance no one would expect of such an undeveloped child—to goad the antipathy and disgust of those around her to ever higher levels by means of ever more loathsome conduct. In fact the case of Silvi was most peculiar: it was almost impossible to feel love for her when one was looking at her. One’s eyes always condemned her at once. Only one’s heart, provided one had one, would later speak in her favor, saying: Poor little Silvi!

  Of the boys, Walter was the more favored, and Edi, the younger one, the more neglected. But in certain families boys are held generally in higher regard than girls, making it impossible for a less loved boy to be denied all kind, warm affection as might be the case with an “ill-used” girl. In the Tobler family, too, it was like this: Walter and Edi, taken together, had a higher value than their female counterparts Dora and Silvi. Walter and Edi were quite different in nature: the former was rambunctious, given to pranks, but still open-hearted, while Edi liked to hide in the nooks and crannies of the house just like Silvi, his little sister, and like her he spoke very little. Edi never made fun of Silvi’s behavior, either; they had some sort of understanding that appeared all the more natural for being unspoken. They even played together. Walter would never have occupied himself seriously with Silvi. He made fun of her and mistreated her often, for he had been taught to think nothing of this.

  One thing more that must be said of Silvi was that she wet her little bed almost nightly despite the fact that she was woken by Pauline at regular intervals and placed on the chamber pot. This physical flaw was primarily responsible for the severe treatment imposed on the little girl, for everyone was firmly convinced that she was merely too lazy to wake up and get out of bed. Pauline was under orders from Frau Tobler to strike the child every time without exception when her sheets were soiled, and if boxing her ears did no good, Pauline was to take the carpet beater to her—perhaps that would have an effect—and Pauline carried out her mistress’s orders. And so in the middle of the night one often heard the most pitiable shrieks coming from the nursery, mixed with oaths and loudly shouted epithets which Pauline saw fit to apply to the youthful sinner. Every morning Silvi was made to carry the chamber pot she’d used during the night downstairs all by herself. This, too, was a directive from her mother, who was of the opinion that it was fitting for a soiler of bedclothes to see to such a task herself, as Pauline had her hands full with other matters. Then the wizened, disheveled little child could be found sitting with the aforementioned object, which she had, strangely, set down right beside herself upon one of the stair landings, looking for all the world as if she had been abandoned by all the good guardian angels that are generally said to look after poor, defenseless little children. When “to crown it all” she would become recalcitrant, she would be locked up in the cellar, and then there would be no end to the screaming and hammering against the locked cellar door, so that even the neighbors, simple working-class folk, couldn’t help but notice the cries emanating from the villa.

  Tobler knew little of all these things, he was so seldom at home—these days he had been traveling more and more often. Being so completely occupied with business concerns, he was scarcely able to devote himself to the upbringing and supervision of his children. A man like Tobler was happy to leave all domestic matters in the hands of his wife, for he himself, after all, was busy traveling and battling to defend the Advertising Clock and the Marksman’s Vending Machine. Responsibility was the domain of men, so it was certainly quite reasonable to leave the love and everyday toil up to the wives. The husband did battle with existence, and the wife was in charge of good behavior and peaceful comportment at home. Will it be shown to us how Frau Tobler was managing these tasks? Perhaps.

  Wherever there are children, there will always be injustice. The Tobler children formed a highly irregular quadrilateral. At the four corners of the square stood Walter, Dora, Silvi and Edi. Walter planted his feet down firmly and opened his impudent mouth to let out a vigorous laugh. Dora was sucking on her finger and glancing down at her servant Silvi, whose task it was to tie the princess’s shoes. Edi was carving away at some piece of wood he’d picked up in the garden, utterly immersed in the work being performed by the pocketknife he was employing for this task. Where was regularity to be found here? How could one be fair to each little mind, each little heart? Pauline was gazing out the kitchen window. This person from a distant stratum of society appeared, astonishingly, to have no sense of justice, or else she simply misunderstood what justice was. Now the irregular quadrilateral was shifting, the children scattered—each to his or her own activity—into the hours and days and secret sentiments of childhood, and also into the space surrounding the Tobler household, into sorrows and joys, humiliations and caressing words, into the living room and the sphere of everyday life, into nights of sleep and the endless stream of childish experience. Perhaps they even exerted a certain direction-influencing pressure upon the rudder of the good ship of Tobler’s enterprises. Who can know?

  In the course of the week, which, by the way, passed without incident, two people paid a visit to the Evening Star Villa one evening, Herr and Frau Dr. Specker. It was a nice cozy evening, as they say. Once again, a deck of cards was brought out, and everyone played Jass. “Jass” was the name given far and wide throughout the land to a popular card game that even boasted a national flavor and flair. Frau Tobler who, as has been previously intimated, had already achieved a certain level of mastery in this game, was instructing Frau Dr. Specker in its trickier ins and outs, as this lady was far less well-versed in them. The evening saw a great deal of laughter and joking. Joseph had been pressed into service as sommelier, he was to run down to the cellar to fetch the wine and then pour the contents of the bottles into glasses, and it became apparent in the course of all this that he possessed a certain pride, which struck Tobler as ridiculous, but it was counterbalanced by his sense of social tact, so that his employer was able, with no trace of embarrassment, to present and introduce him to their distinguished guests. “This is my clerk,” Tobler had declared in a loud voice, and at these words Joseph made a bow before the lady and gentleman from the village.

  What sort of people were these anyhow? He was a doctor, and as for the rest still quite young, and his wife appeared to represent nothing mor
e than the validation in female form that she was the doctor’s wife, that was all. She was the wife of her husband and as such behaved in a quiet, shy manner all evening long. Frau Tobler was fairly different in this regard, you could see there was something cryptic about her—particularly when you compared the two women—only slightly, to be sure, but there was certainly nothing in any way cryptic or secret about Frau Dr. Specker. They ate little pastries to accompany the wine, and the gentlemen smoked.

  “What a young, happy-looking fellow, this doctor,” Joseph thought while at the same time trying to play as cleverly and trickily as possible. He had been invited to join the game. Several times the doctor addressed questions to the assistant: where was he from, how long had he been living in Bärenswil and with the Toblers, did he like it up here, etc., and Joseph answered him in as much detail as was allowed by the natural reticence that persons from the lower walks of life are wont to display on such occasions. Meanwhile he made some rather foolish plays, and now the most glorious speeches explaining the rules were being directed at him from all four sides of the table, as though the task at hand were converting a hard-headed and slow-witted heretic.

  As for the rest, the conversation revolved around general topics, which, after all, is what made the evening so “cozy.”

  This same week also witnessed a minor incident of a moral and cultural nature in which Joseph’s predecessor, Wirsich, figured prominently, causing this person who had been ejected from the Tobler household to become once more a recurrent topic of conversation for several days. This is what happened:

  Along with Wirsich, the housemaid had been driven out of the Villa Tobler several weeks before, Pauline’s predecessor, whom Frau Tobler had found to be a young creature of robust and mischievous—i.e., larcenous—leanings who, according to the allegations of her former mistress, to which one could certainly lend credence, had stolen from her entire linens and other things. She was also let go because of her lustful ways and sensual nature that had prompted her to enter into perfectly cheeky and shameless sexual relations with Wirsich, goings-on that could not remain hidden from her employers, as they were being indulged in so conspicuously and, in point of fact, indecently. Besides which, this domestic was prone to hysteria, which appeared to pose a danger for the children. She had often appeared suddenly on the stairs or in the kitchen wearing only a chemise, and when she was reproached for this, she would absolutely and positively insist, with tears pouring from her eyes and with her plump body heaving convulsively, that she’d been unable to endure having clothes on her back a moment longer, that she was dying, and whatever other cynical, silly nonsense it might have been. Since the Toblers knew perfectly well what sort of nocturnal visits this concupiscent person was in the habit of paying to Wirsich in his tower room, they quite reasonably and appropriately deemed it advisable to sever the employer-employee relationship with this unhealthy noxious person and send her on her way.

  Now a letter from the hand of this very individual had just arrived at the Evening Star, addressed to Frau Tobler, and in it the former maidservant wrote in a disagreeably personal tone that rumors were circulating in the region where she lived, rumors to the effect that her former mistress had been having a love affair with Herr Tobler’s subordinate, Wirsich, which she, the maid, was in no way willing to believe, being convinced, to begin with, that only calumnious and lying tongues could have been capable of making such wicked claims. But she had felt duty-bound to inform Frau Tobler, who had so long been her employer, of this abominable slander, in order to warn her, etc.

  This letter, which was neither orthographically correct nor written in anything approaching a reasonable manner, transported its receiver into a state of the most passionate outrage, especially since the ostensible devotion of the domestic to her erstwhile employer expressed in it was just as fictitious as the presence of a nasty rumor about Frau Tobler’s conduct. She showed the letter to Joseph, it was around noon and they were sitting out in the summer house, Herr Tobler was somewhere or other, and she asked him, once he had finished reading the document, whether he would assist her in composing the vigorous response this boldfaced liar deserved.

  “Why not? Most willingly!” was Joseph’s reply to the agitated, indignant woman. Since he said these words in a rather dry tone of voice—for he felt almost insulted at the zeal with which she was entangling herself in this matter related to Wirsich—Frau Tobler believed he was less than willing to perform the favor she had requested, and so she declared that if he was not in fact willing, then she would certainly be capable of handling things on her own. After all, she had no intention of forcing Joseph to put himself out. It would appear that it gave him no pleasure to assist her, besides which his behavior towards her today was not as polite as one might wish.

  “What do you mean by ‘pleasure’?” Joseph retorted, nearly in a rage. “Give me strict orders. Tell me how you would like to have the letter written, and I’ll go down to the office, and in a few minutes’ time the work will be finished. There’s no need for any particular ‘pleasure’ to play a role.”

  This was unmannerly of him. Feeling this, Frau Tobler measured Joseph with an astonished look and then turned her back on him. Without a word, Joseph returned to his workplace.

  After a few minutes, Frau Tobler appeared in the office as well, still all worked up. She asked the assistant to give her pen and letter paper, sat down at her husband’s desk, thought for a moment and began to write. Since this was an unaccustomed activity for her, she paused several times during the exercise, sighing deeply and loudly at the wickedness of the common folk. Finally she was done, and then she found herself unable to resist the need to show the finished product to the correspondence clerk to hear his opinion of it. The letter was addressed to the mother of the treacherous maid and read:

  Respected madam!

  A letter has reached me from the hand of your daughter, my former housemaid, and allow me to say right off that this letter is an impertinent and despicable piece of writing. Under the pretext of faithfulness and devotion to an employer, this letter comes out with the crudest possible insults pertaining to a woman who, because she was kind-hearted and forbearing, is now being punished for not having been able to be merciless and hard. Know, respected madam, that this disgraceful daughter of yours stole from me while she was in my employ, and that I could hand her over to the authorities if I so wished, but a woman like myself seeks to avoid such things. Let me be brief: See to it, respected madam, that this good-for-nothing keeps her mouth shut. I know who it is that is spreading wicked and shameless remarks about my person and what the rumors are. It is none other than this same insolent person who herself violated all standards of decorum and virtuous conduct while under my roof, and what is more did so together with the very individual with which this lying gossip is now attempting to place myself, her former mistress, in sordid alliance. This letter has put me in a state of the utmost agitation—you should know this, madam! And now keep an eye on this malicious creature, this is my friendly and sisterly advice to you, for you, as I certainly am happy to assume, are a worthy woman and cannot help it if that utterly outrageous daughter of yours is a wicked hag. Should you fail to do this, I shall be forced to have recourse not to lengthy and good-natured words such as these but rather, as you can no doubt imagine, to criminal law. The high regard in which the world holds a lady cannot prevent her, when necessary, from appearing before the court of public righteousness to see a calumniator of her honor brought to justice.

  With this, respectfully yours,

  Frau Carl Tobler.

  Having glanced over this letter, Joseph said that he found it good, but that it appeared to him somewhat too pompous. Such a style as Frau Tobler had employed was better suited to the Middle Ages than today’s world, which was in the process of gradually—if only to the outside observer—blurring and obliterating long-standing social distinctions of rank and birth. For one woman not born into royalty to write so brusquely to another c
ould only produce bad blood and thus fail to achieve the desired effect of the letter as a whole. Affluence, as a rule, did well to not strike too lofty a tone with poverty, rather it appeared to him nothing more than proper and fitting to begin by addressing the maid’s mother simply as “Dear madam” so as to make the letter’s tone somewhat warmer and at the same time more polite, which certainly couldn’t hurt, in his opinion. Frau Tobler, he could see, was not used to writing letters. This was evident from the presence of the many infelicities he had noticed, and if she permitted, he would gladly sit down and correct her charming little essay.

  Laughing, he went on to remark that he would also excise the claim that the girl was a thief, although he himself did not for a moment doubt the truth of what Frau Tobler was saying, but it was nonetheless possible that certain inconveniences could result from the assertion and produce more annoyance than satisfaction. Did she have any proof?

  Frau Tobler assumed a thoughtful expression, and a moment later said that she wanted to write a second letter. She was less worked up now, she said, and thus hoped to be able to write more calmly and gently. But the letter as a whole had to be written in a vigorous tone, otherwise there was no point to it. Otherwise she would rather not send a letter at all.

  As she wrote, unbeknownst to her she was observed by Joseph, who was gazing at her back and nape. Her beautiful, feminine hair was tapping at and touching her slender neck with its curly little locks. How slender she was in general, this lovely woman. There she now sat, immersed in her efforts to pen a letter using her sense and understanding, in accordance with the theories and methods of proper writing, to a woman who perhaps could scarcely read. Joseph now involuntarily regretted, observing her like this, having remonstrated with her on account of her upper-class pride, which in point of fact he found enchanting. He was moved by something about this feminine back, whose garments fell into darling little folds whenever the body beneath them shifted a little. Was this woman beautiful? In the generally accepted sense of the word, surely not—quite the opposite. But even this opposite did not conform to anything generally accepted. Joseph would no doubt have gone on with these and other reflections if the writing woman had not turned around. Their eyes met. Those of the assistant evaded those of the woman, which was more or less the appropriate thing. Joseph felt, and could not help feeling, that it would have been well-nigh cheeky to endure the woman’s gaze which, yet again, was filled with that astonishment that so splendidly mirrored the pride which—one could not deny it—was very becoming to her. What were assistants’ eyes good for if not for evasion and casting down, and what other expression could be more natural for this other set of eyes than the expression of being amazed and astonished? Accordingly, he bent down over his work again, although work was not, at this moment, his primary concern.