The Assistant

by Robert Walser

  “You are a curious mix of cowardice and boldness, Joseph. You can balance on narrow window ledges and swim far out into the lake late in autumn without the slightest thought of fear. You can even insult a woman without losing your composure. But when it is time to take responsibility for a perfectly innocent failing before your lord and master, you’re frightened. You truly force a person to conclude that either you are utterly devoted to your master, or you secretly hate him. Which should one believe? What can it mean for a man to harbor such unmistakable respect for another? Especially at this particular moment, when Tobler’s position in the world appears so precarious, how could one not be surprised to witness such affectionate esteem? I can’t make heads or tails of you. Are you magnanimous? Or mean-spirited? Go back to work. I have to keep my emotions in check, but in your presence I cannot. And in the future do not fear my husband, he hasn’t bitten anyone’s head off yet.”

  These words were spoken in the living room. Somewhat later Joseph surprised Frau Tobler upstairs at the door to her bedroom wearing a negligee, by chance she’d left the door standing open. Thinking nothing in particular, she stood with bare arms beside the washstand and was occupied with putting her hair in order. When she heard and saw Joseph, she gave a shriek and slammed the door shut. What splendid arms! the assistant thought, and continued on his way upstairs. He meant to look for something in the attic rubbish. Instead of what he was looking for, he found an old pair of Tobler’s high-shafted boots that were apparently no longer in use. He gazed at these tall boots for an unreasonably long time, then burst into laughter at his own absent-mindedness.

  Then Silvi appeared, she was carrying some laundry in her hands that she had been instructed to hang up in the attic to dry. She remained standing there before Joseph, looking at him as if she had never before laid eyes on him. What a child! Then she spread out her things, but instead of going back downstairs, she poked about—senselessly, it appeared—in an open crate, addressing all manner of incomprehensible questions to the young man observing her. He soon found the sight of Silvi unbearable and went downstairs.

  In the office: “Frau Tobler is surprised at my behavior. Yet I am all but astonished at hers. How can she take it upon herself to speak such words to me, she, the anything but independent woman, Silvi’s mother? I am on the point of telling her to her face what a neglectful parent she is, what a mother raven. To be sure, I am only a clerk in the Tobler household. But since this house is swaying on its foundations, my own post might as well rock a little as well.”

  At the door to the living room, Frau Tobler stood speaking into the telephone with great agitation. Apparently there was once more some disagreeable matter to be dealt with. Her back was trembling, and her shoulders rose and fell violently. She spoke severely, imperiously. Could the person on the other end be an impertinent creditor? Her voice sounded so high it was threatening to burst its own sounds and chords. At last she was finished. She turned a face to Joseph that was as proud as it was pain-filled. She had been weeping as she spoke.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “Oh,” she said, “the contractor, the one who built the grotto. He wants money. But, as you no doubt heard, I put him in his place.”

  What place that was she didn’t say. But whether or not she could have said this, the assistant no longer had the courage to accuse her of being a bad mother.

  He could very well have answered the telephone himself, she went on. Hadn’t he heard it ringing? No? Then he should always leave the door to the office slightly ajar, then he’d hear it all right.

  Joseph had heard it ringing perfectly well, but had been too indolent and had thought to himself: “Let her answer the phone herself for once, that might do her haughtiness some good.”

  Walter came and reported that Edi, his brother, had stuck out his tongue and thumbed his nose at a man in Bärenswil. Edi had snuck into the man’s garden to get some pears, but he’d been surprised there and had his ears boxed. From a distance, Edi had then shouted all sorts of bad words at the man.

  Frau Tobler said she’d have to inform her husband.

  “In your shoes, Frau Tobler,” Joseph interjected, “I would punish the boy myself—severely, if you like—but I would never go and ‘inform my husband.’ To begin with, Herr Tobler, as you yourself know better than anyone, is sufficiently occupied with other matters, and secondly you are, after all, Edi’s mother and in just as good a position to gauge the severity with which the rascal deserves to be punished. If Herr Tobler comes home tonight only to hear—as he so often does—complaints of this sort from your lips, he might easily fly into a rage, and the punishment could all too quickly become more cruel than just. Please consider, my lady, the fury provoked in your husband when you annoy him with matters of this sort, which indeed are not terribly important, just at a moment when he’s hoping to rest for a while in the bosom of his family from all his undertakings and schemes for raising money, and you will have no choice but to admit, inclined as you might be to suspect me of insulting you, that I am right. Forgive me. I have spoken in the interests of the Tobler household, I cherish this home, and my one wish is to be of use here. Are you angry with me, Frau Tobler?”

  She smiled and said nothing, apparently finding it unnecessary to utter a single word in response. She went out to the kitchen, and he downstairs to the office.

  Herr Tobler came home for dinner, a rare occurrence. In a dark, choked voice, he asked how things were at home; he was in a foul humor. Joseph immediately felt uneasy upon hearing this voice. How the voice impressed itself upon him! Did Tobler have to come home in time for supper just to see how his assistant was enjoying his meal? Joseph nearly lost his appetite, and he resolved to run down to the post office immediately after supper. Tobler had taken off his overcoat with effort. It occurred to Joseph that perhaps it would’ve been good had he leapt from his chair to help his master out of his coat. Possibly this would have caused a significant improvement in Tobler’s mood, the wretchedness of which was plain to see. Why this absence of courtesy? Would such an act have harmed his sense of masculine honor? How honorable was it just to sit there, anxiously hoping there would not be a scene? Tobler’s demeanor always made Joseph fear a scene. Yes, there was something about this man that appeared just barely held in check, something piled up in a thick red heap, something clattering and faintly crackling within him. It looked as if there might be an explosion at any moment. Under circumstances such as these, it was truly inappropriate to think of injuries to one’s honor—rather, the main thing was to do what was good, necessary and likely to avert an outburst of rage. One took hold of an overcoat, and the entire family evening might be saved. Tobler could be so enchantingly affable when he was in good spirits, generous even. But Joseph had been ashamed to be so polite, and there was something else as well: the woman now opened her mouth, just as if it were on springs and had been mechanically activated, and in an infuriating tone of voice recounted the story of Edi’s transgression.

  Tobler walked up to his son and gave him such a blow on his little head that a strong man might have been knocked down by it, much less a little mite of a thing like Edi. Everyone in the room was trembling. Frau Tobler cast her eyes down, shamefaced. She now regretted having spoken. Tobler drove Edi into the dark next-door room, slapping him and thrusting him before him. Walter, the little snitch, had turned deathly pale. Dora was clutching her mother’s arm. The mother had the courage to say that it was enough, Tobler should calm himself. Tobler was moaning.

  “An incomprehensible woman,” Joseph murmured to himself.

  So now this had to happen, at a time when every voice and every mouth in the entire village was speaking against him, Tobler said, sitting down at the table. Such mischief-makers! So that anyone who pleased could now point a finger at him, the father who was raising these brats, and say they were just imitating their old man. He couldn’t so much as set foot in the house without being confronted with some unpleasantness or other. With things
like this, how was a person supposed to have the courage to imagine that a change for the better might still be possible? Having such children was a punishment in itself. All this had only come about because he’d thought it his duty to maintain them, clothe them and feed them properly, devil take it. He’d send them to school barefoot, the rascals, and give them dry bread to eat instead of meat. He’d beat time for them quite differently than what they were used to. But in fact he didn’t have to do any of these things, these changes would come about of their own accord. Soon enough there would be nothing left to eat, and then he’d see how differently this brood of his would act.

  To talk like that was a sin, Frau Tobler said: he had said enough.

  *

  Tobler did not institute a new regimen in his household, the baton beating time and the key remained unchanged at the Evening Star. The conductor had too many other things on his mind, and the assistant conductor was too modest a soul, too easily contented. One didn’t even have to pay him his long-overdue salary. He was satisfied with the idyllic surroundings, with what was there. Clouds and breezes were still drifting about the Tobler residence, and as long as these entities were of a mind to remain there, the assistant too was unencumbered by thoughts of departure.

  One day it snowed. First snow of the year, how thick with memories you are to look upon! Past experiences fling themselves to the earth along with you. The faces of one’s father and mother and siblings emerge distinctly and meaningfully from your wet, white veils. One cannot help but be in grave and merry spirits when you arrive with your countless flakes. One might take you for a child, for a brother or a sweet, timid sister. One holds out one’s hand to catch you, not all of you, just little bits of you. The bucket that wants to catch you would have to be as wide and immense as the earth. Dear first snow, come snowing down. It looks so splendid, this soft thing you’re spreading quiet as can be across Tobler’s house and garden.

  “It’s snowing!” Frau Tobler exclaimed in astonishment. The children came running into the warm room with shouts and with snowflakes on their red faces and bits of snow in their hair. Soon Pauline would have to dig and sweep pathways into the snow so Herr Tobler’s feet and shoes would not get too wet.

  Tobler wasn’t yet sending his sons to school barefoot, either. There was time enough for such measures. And there was still plenty to eat in the pretty little villa despite the blustering flurries outside, the cold and damp. Joseph put on his overcoat when he went to the post office, it was a hand-me-down, but it kept him warm and looked quite smart on him. Frau Tobler asked the assistant to bring her something to read from the village, reading was beginning to be just the thing for the long nights. One couldn’t play Jass after supper every single day. Joseph stopped by the lending library and fetched and ferried home reading matter. The girls went out into the snow wearing small, red, thick coats and carrying sleds so as to ride down the hill, but this didn’t go so well, the young snow was too wet and did not yet cling well to the stony earth. Leo, the dog, helped them all cavort about.

  How true it is that each of the four seasons has its own particular scent and sound. When you see spring, you always think you’ve never seen it like this before, never looking so special. In summer, the summery profusion strikes you as new and magical year after year. You never really looked at fall properly before, not until this year, and when winter arrives, the winter too is utterly new, quite quite different from a year or three ago. Indeed, even the years have their own individual personalities and aromas. Having spent the year in such and such a place means having experienced and seen it. Places and years are intimately linked, and what about events and years? Since experiences can color an entire decade, how much more powerfully and swiftly they can color a short year. A short year? Joseph was by no means satisfied with this expression. Just a moment before he had been standing before the villa and, lost in thought, said to himself: “Such a year, how long and full it is.”

  And this long year hadn’t just whizzed by him; only now when he stopped to consider did it seem possessed of wings, feathers and downy-lightness. It was now mid-November, but, thinking back, he felt he had displayed just this mien and just these manners to the world last May already. As his friend Klara said, he changed little.

  And the world, was it changing? No. A wintry image could superimpose itself upon the world of summer, winter could give way to spring, but the face of the earth remained the same. It put on masks and took them off again, it wrinkled and cleared its huge, beautiful brow, it smiled or looked angry, but remained always the same. It was a great lover of make-up, it painted its face now more brightly, now in paler hues, now it was glowing, now pallid, never quite what it had been before, constantly it was changing a little, and yet remained always vividly and restlessly the same. It sent lighting bolts flashing from its eyes and rumbled the thunder with its powerful lungs, it wept the rain down in streams and let the clean, glittering snow come smiling from its lips, but in the features and lineaments of its face, little change could be discerned. Only on rare occasions might a shuddering earthquake, a pelting of hail, a deluge or volcanic flare disturb its placid surface, or else it quaked or shuddered inwardly with worldly sentiments and earthly convulsions, but still it remained the same. Regions remained the same; skylines, to be sure, were always waxing and expanding, but a city could never fly off and find somewhere else to live from one hour to the next. Streams and rivers followed the same courses as they had for millennia, they might peter out in the sand, but they couldn’t suddenly leap from their beds into the light open air. Water had to work its way through canals and caves. Streaming and burrowing was its age-old law. And the lakes lay where they had lain for a long, long time. They didn’t leap up toward the sun or play ball like children. Sometimes they became indignant and slapped their water in waves together with a great whooshing noise, but they could transform themselves neither into clouds one day nor wild horses one night. Everything in and upon the earth was subject to beautiful, rigorous laws, just like human beings.

  Thus winter arrived all around Tobler’s house.

  About this time there came a Sunday on which Joseph decided for a change to take a train to the capital to amuse himself once more. In the city, he discovered fog in the streets, wet leaves upon the ground, benches in the parks on which one was no longer able or eager to sit, and in the winding little alleyways he found noise and, in the evening, raucous drunkards before the numerous bars. He had spent half an hour with his Frau Weiss in order to explain to her who Tobler and Frau Tobler were, but a secret shame and impatience had prevented him from staying too long in the company of this calm, easy-going woman, he had gone out again into the Sunday-night streets and had visited a few public houses of a dubious sort so as to “amuse” himself. Was he the man to succeed in such a venture? In any case, he had drunk quite a lot of beer, and in the tavern known as the Winter Garden he had gotten into a quarrel with some young, dandified Italians at the bar. In this very place, he clambered onto the little variety stage before the eyes of all present, to their enormous delight, and began to lecture the juggler who was presenting himself there on the laws of taste and of manual dexterity, until at last he was ejected from the tavern by a handful of waiters.

  In the cold night, he sat down on a bench in one of the little parks to let the harsh, imperious weather blow the intoxication from his head and limbs. A proper storm wind was howling and shaking the branches of the park’s trees. This, however, appeared a matter of complete indifference to a second person who seemed likewise to be taking a rest here at this nocturnal hour, for he had made himself at home on a bench across from Joseph. What sort of a person might this be, and what had caused him to sit down in this exposed, inconsiderate stormy night like Joseph? Was such a thing done? The assistant, sensing some misfortune or pain, walked over to the resting, dark figure—and saw it was Wirsich.

  “You here? How have things been with you, Wirsich?” he asked, astonished. His intoxication had suddenly lef
t him. For a long time, Wirsich gave no answer. Then he said:

  “How have things been? Bad. Why else would I be lying here in the rain and cold? I am unemployed and have lost my footing. I’ll become a thief, and they’ll send me to prison.”

  He burst into loud, wretched sobs.

  Joseph offered his predecessor in Tobler’s office a gold coin. Wirsich took it, but then let it fall to the ground. The assistant shouted at him:

  “Don’t be so hard-headed, man. Take the money. Tobler himself gave it to me today hesitantly enough. Up at the Evening Star it seems we too are now, as it were, out of funds, but we are not by any means ready to lose heart. You, Wirsich, have no right to say you’re being forced to turn to stealing. One should smite one’s own mouth before saying such a thing. Why stealing? Is there not a copyists’ bureau for the unemployed? But you are probably ashamed to go there to see the gentleman who runs this bureau, who is a very, very dear, gentle-minded and experienced individual. We at the Evening Star were one day open-minded enough to visit this very office and there procure for ourselves a young man who was perhaps in fact not entirely capable but at any rate certainly useful and pliant, Joseph Marti by name, for Herr Wirsich was no longer willing to trod the straight and narrow path. Go now and get to work, and everywhere you go tomorrow morning ask if there is work for you, and be convinced: somewhere and somehow you will be given some! What a way to act. Surely you will be sent away disdainfully and coldly in some places, but then you’ll just have to keep looking until you find the thing that puts you in a position to become a human being once more. No one should permit himself to think of stealing. Your healthy mind should be and remain your ruler, do not antagonize it until it becomes a scoundrel and a fool. And now in your shoes I would take this money that was given to you not by me but by Tobler and find some sensible bed for the night, for the sleep that will prepare you for all these other things. Tell me, how is your mother?”