The Tanners

by Robert Walser

  Now Simon was no longer afraid of anything else occurring that night. He fell asleep, and when he woke up the next morning he saw his brother sleeping peacefully beside him in his bed. He could have kissed him. He got dressed as carefully as possible so as not to wake the sleeper, quietly opened the door and went downstairs. On the stairs he met Klara, who seemed to have been waiting there for some time. But Simon had scarcely said good morning before the woman, who appeared to be filled with violent emotion, threw her arms about his neck, drew him to her and kissed him lovingly. “I want to kiss you too, you’re his brother,” she said in a soft, urgent, rapturous voice.

  “He’s still asleep,” Simon said. He was in the habit of gently brushing aside acts of tenderness not meant for him, but his equanimity only redoubled her agitation. She wouldn’t let him go on down the stairs, instead she held him even closer, seizing his head in her two hands and pressing kisses on his forehead and cheeks. “I love you like a brother. Now you are my brother. I have so little and yet so much, do you understand? I have nothing left, I have given it all. Will you shun me? No, you won’t, will you. Your heart is mine, I know it is—and having such a confidant makes me rich. You love your brother as no one does. With such strength and will. He told me about you. How beautiful you appear to me. You are so different from him. It’s impossible to describe you. He said this too, that one cannot quite grasp you. Yet how trustingly one throws oneself at you. Kiss me. I am yours in any way your heart desires. Your heart is what’s beautiful about you. Don’t say anything. I understand that one doesn’t understand you. You understand everything. You are fond of me, say yes, do. No, don’t say yes. It isn’t necessary, isn’t necessary at all. Your eyes have already said yes—I always knew it. I always knew there were people like you, don’t ever force yourself to behave coldly. He’s asleep? Oh, no, don’t leave yet! I must quarrel a bit more with you first. I am a foolish, foolish, foolish woman, don’t you agree?”

  She would have gone on speaking in this tone, but Simon fended her off, quite gently, as was his wont. He told her he was going for a walk. She watched him walk away, but he paid not the least attention to her gaze. “I shall help her if she requires my services; of course I shall!” he said to himself. “Probably I would lay down my life for her, if her well-being required her to demand this; quite probably! Yes, it is fairly certain, considering that it would be for a woman like that. She’s got something about her. In a word: She holds sway over me, of course, but what’s the point of pondering this further? I have other things to think about. For example, I feel happy this morning—my limbs feel like fine flexible wires. When I feel my limbs, I am happy, and then I’m not thinking of any other person on earth, not a woman, not a man, I’m quite simply thinking nothing at all. Ah, how beautiful it is here in the forest on a sunny morning. How lovely it is to be free. Perhaps a soul is thinking of me at this moment, perhaps not—in any case, my soul isn’t thinking of anything at all. Such a morning always awakens a certain brutality in me, but this does no harm, on the contrary, it’s the basis for my selfless enjoyment of nature. Splendid, splendid. How the grass flashes in the sunlight. How the white sky burns all about the earth. This softening might come to me today. When I think about someone, I do so with abandon. But it’s more delicious to be as I am now. Lovely morning. Shall I sing you a song. It’s true, you yourself are a song. I’d much rather shout and run about like the devil, or fire off shots like that foolish devil Agappaia—”

  He threw himself down upon the meadow and began to dream.

  –4–

  That same morning Kaspar and Klara took a small brightly colored boat out on the lake. The lake was utterly placid, a gleaming motionless mirror. Now and then a steamer crossed before them, creating for a brief while broad gentle waves, and they sliced through these waves. Klara was clad in a snow-white dress; wide sleeves hung languidly from her beautiful arms and hands. She’d removed her hat: Absentmindedly, with a lovely gesture, she’d let her hair down. Her mouth was smiling across to the mouth of the young man. She didn’t know what to say, had no wish to say anything. “How beautiful the water is, it looks like a sky,” she said. Her forehead was as serene as their surroundings—lake, shore and cloudless sky. The blue of the sky had streaks of fragrant shimmering white in it. The white sullied the blue a little, seasoned it, made it more yearning and faltering and milder. The sun was half shining through, like sunshine in dreams. There was a certain hesitancy to everything, the air fluttered about their hair and faces—Kaspar’s face was solemn but serene. For a while he rowed with powerful strokes, then let the oars sink, and the boat bobbed on unguided. He turned around to look at the receding city, saw its towers and rooftops glittering faintly in the half-sun, saw industrious people hurrying across the bridges. Carts and wagons followed, the electrical tram jolted past making its peculiar sound. Wires were humming, whips were cracking, one could hear whistles and great resounding dins from somewhere or other. All at once the eleven o’clock bells rang out amid all the silence and distant trembling sounds. Both of them were feeling indescribable joy at this day, this morning, the sounds and colors. Everything was dissolving into perception and sound. Being lovers, they heard all things melded as a single sound. A simple bouquet lay in Klara’s lap. Kaspar had taken off his jacket and was now rowing again. Then came the stroke of noon, and all these working and professional people dispersed like a trampled anthill into all the streets and directions. The white bridge was swarming with nimble black dots. And when you considered that each dot had a mouth with which it was now planning to eat lunch, you couldn’t help bursting into laughter. What a singular image of life, the two of them felt, laughing. They now turned back as well; after all, they too were human and beginning to get hungry; and the closer they drew to shore, the larger the ants became; and then they disembarked and were dots themselves, just like the others. But they kept strolling blissfully up and down beneath the light-green trees. Many curious people turned to look at this strange pair: the woman in her long white gown whose train swept the ground and the churl of a lad who didn’t even have on clean trousers, who stood in such insolent contrast to the lady he accompanied. Thus do people wax indignant and form false judgments about their fellow man. All at once someone came striding quickly up to Kaspar. Indeed, it was someone who had every reason to greet him in this fashion, namely Klaus, who hadn’t seen his brother in years. Behind him came their sister and another gentleman, and now there was a general exchange of greetings. The stranger’s name was Sebastian.

  Simon was meanwhile sitting scarcely a thousand paces away in a dining establishment, a small room stuffed full of eating people. All sorts of folks came to eat here who had to eat cheaply and quickly. Simon was quite fond of the place, though it was utterly devoid of elegance and comfort. After all, he did have to watch his expenses. This dining hall had been established by a group of women who, taken all together, called themselves the Association for Moderation and the Public Good. Indeed, anyone who went there had to be satisfied with a perfectly moderate and scanty meal. And all were satisfied for the most part, aside from occasional petty, narrow-minded dissatisfactions. Everyone who frequented the place appeared content with the food, which consisted of a plate of soup, a piece of bread, a portion of meat, ditto vegetables and a miniscule, dainty dessert. The service left nothing to be desired beyond a bit more alacrity, and in fact all in all the waitresses were swift enough considering the large number of hungry eaters. Each received his meal promptly en
ough, though each felt some slight impatience for even prompter distribution. There was a constant stream of meals being served up, doled out and devoured. Some whose meals had already been put away may well have wished they hadn’t yet finished and cast envious glances at the ones still awaiting what was in fact quite agreeable to devour. Why did they eat so quickly? An absurd habit, gulping down one’s meals so fast. The service staff was made up of charming, delightful girls from the rural areas surrounding the city. At first these creatures made quite a few blunders, but soon they learned to hold their own and, by fending off what they must, give themselves time to fulfill the most urgent burning desires. Where so many desires are present, it’s necessary to differentiate and select among them. Now and then one of the originators of this establishment would come in, a benefactress, and observe the common folk at table. One such lady held a lorgnette to her eye to peer at the food and those devouring it.

  Simon was partial to these ladies and always felt happy when they came in, for it seemed to him as if these dear kind women were visiting a room filled with small poor children to watch them enjoying a feast. “Are not the masses like a big poor little child that must be given a guardian to watch over it?” something in him cried out, “and is it not better for it to be watched over by women, who after all are elegant ladies and have kindly hearts, than by tyrants in the old if admittedly more heroic sense?” —So many different sorts of people were eating in this dining hall, all united as a single harmonious family! Female students predominated. Did students have the time and money to lunch at the Hotel Continental? And then there were serving men in thin blue smocks with boots on their legs, large bristly moustaches and rather rectangular mouths on their faces. Could they help it if their mouths were rectangular? No doubt many a guest at the Hotel Royal displayed rectangular proclivities in the moustache region. To be sure, the angularity in that case was whitewashed with roundness, but what significance did this have? Maidservants without posts were represented as well, down-at-the-heels copyists, and outcasts in general: the penniless, stateless, even some who had not so much as an address to their names. Here one also encountered women of easy virtue: females with oddly coiffed hair, blue faces, chubby hands and expressions simultaneously shameless and demure. All these people—especially, of course, the holy rollers, a contingent of whom was present—displayed, as a rule, shy courteous behavior. Each gazed into the faces of the others while eating; not a word was spoken, except, now and then, a quiet, polite one. This was the visible blessing of the public good and moderation. Something comical, artless, subdued and yet also liberated rested upon these squalid individuals, in their manners, which were as colorful as the wings of a summer bird. Others comported themselves with more delicacy here than the most refined guest at the finest establishment. No telling who they were, what they had been in earlier days, before winding up at this public dining hall. After all, wasn’t life in the habit of jumbling together human fates as if shaking them in a dice cup? Simon was sitting in a little corner niche, a sort of window bay, eating butter with honey spread together on a slice of bread, and drinking a cup of coffee: “What need have I to eat more on such a beautiful day. Is not the blue sky of early summer peering sweetly through the window at my golden meal? Yes, this meal is most certainly golden. Just look at the honey: Hasn’t it a bright-yellow, sweet-golden appearance? Upon the little white plate this gold flows about so appealingly, and scraping off a bit with my knife point, I imagine I am digging for gold and have just discovered a treasure. The white of the butter lies delightfully beside it, and then comes the brown hue of the tasty bread, and most beautiful of all is the dark brown of the coffee in the delicate clean cup. Is there any meal on earth that could look more beautiful and appetizing? And I am sating my hunger quite excellently with it, and need I do more than sate my hunger to be able to say: I have eaten? There are people, I hear, who make a culture, an art out of eating; well, can I not say just the same of myself? Most certainly! It’s just that my art is a humble one and my culture more delicate, for I enjoy this modest fare more rapturously and voluptuously than others enjoy endless cornucopias of plenty. Besides, I don’t like it when meals drag on and on—I lose my appetite. What pleases me best is feeling the desire to eat again and again, and for this reason I eat sparingly and with delicacy. Which incidentally brings me another benefit as well: delectable conversations with ever new people.”

  Simon had scarcely murmured or thought these words when an old man with white hair sat down in the empty seat beside him. The old man’s face displayed a gray, haggard pallor, his nose was dripping, or rather, a large drop hung from his nose, unable to fall and yet heavy enough to fall. One was constantly expecting it to fall at any moment. But the drop clung on. The man ordered a dish of boiled potatoes and nothing more, and then he ate his potatoes, carefully sprinkling them with salt from the tip of his knife, with elaborate pleasure. But beforehand he folded his hands together and said a prayer to his Lord God. Simon allowed himself the following little prank: He secretly ordered a slice of roast meat from the serving girl and, when it arrived, he had a good laugh at the man’s astonishment when the plate was set down before none other than himself.

  “Why do you pray before you eat,” Simon asked simply.

  “I pray because I need to,” the old man replied.

  “Then I’m glad I saw you praying—I was just curious what sort of sentiment prompted you.”

  “One has many sentiments when one prays, young man! You, for example, surely do not pray at all. Young people today have no time for it, nor the desire. I can understand this. When I pray, I am merely continuing my habit, for I have grown used to prayers, and they give me comfort.”

  “Were you always poor?”

  “Always.” —

  As the old man spoke this word, the clean yet nonetheless musty and squalid dining room was suddenly graced by the appearance of beautiful Frau Klara. Every hand holding a fork, a spoon or a knife, or the handle of a cup hesitated for a moment before going on with its work. Every mouth popped open, and all eyes were riveted at the sight of a figure so unlikely to have any business in such a place. She was the consummate lady, never more so than at this moment. It was exactly—even for Simon’s eyes and senses—as though from an open fluttering sky an angel had emerged and was now floating down to earth and visiting some dark hole in order to bring happiness to those who lived there simply with her heavenly appearance. This is just how Simon had always imagined a benefactress visiting the poor and wretched, people who possessed nothing more than the questionable privilege of being constantly flogged with worries as if with birch canes. In this charitable establishment it appeared to come quite naturally to Klara to comport herself like a regal remote creature that had just flown here from distant borderlands, from a different world and walk of life. Precisely this splendor and radiance compelled all these timid persons to gape, struggle for breath and use their free hands to steady the hands holding their knives for fear they might drop them, they were trembling so. Klara’s beauty suddenly, painfully, gave them something to consider. All at once it occurred to every one what other things existed in this world besides harsh labor and the fear of not making ends meet. Health like this—this luxuriant, voluptuous, smiling charm—had nearly vanished from their imaginations; life in all its bleak unsavory ordinariness was slipping through their fingers, ground down in worry and squalid graspings. All these things now occurred to them—though perhaps not in each case wit
h such great clarity—occurred tormentingly, for a torment it is to behold beauty whose very scent intoxicates but which can kill a person whose thoughts take the liberty of smiling along with beauty’s smile. All of them therefore frowned involuntarily, showing grimacing faces to the woman towering over them, for they were seated on low chairs, squeezed into narrow spaces, while she in her loftiness stood erect above them. She seemed to be looking for someone. Simon kept quiet in his corner, steadily smiling at the woman as she peered about. And it was a long time before she noticed him, although the room was relatively small; it must have been strenuous to accustom her eyes to this jumbled dark hodge-podge and pick out individual figures such as she wasn’t in the habit of noticing at all. She was about to withdraw again, having grown somewhat impatient, when her eyes swept over Simon and recognized him. “So here’s where you’re sitting, all tucked away in a corner?” she said, and with the greatest joy sat down beside him, on the chair between her young friend and the old man, whose nose still bore the large glistening drop. The old man was asleep. It was not permitted to sleep in such establishments, but it was a quite common occurrence for old people to fall asleep here after eating, out of sheer exhaustion they could no longer control. Perhaps this old man had a long fruitless peregrination through all the city’s streets behind him. Quite possibly he’d asked for work everywhere his thoughts could even faintly suggest he try. Growing ever more weary, he had perhaps nonetheless tried to achieve something this day, might have expended his last resources scaling a mountain, for the city extended up the mountainside, and at the mountain’s summit he was rejected just as swiftly as down below; and so he went back down again, his heart filled with death, his strength shattered, until he came to this place. The very thought that this old man might, as one could suppose, have gone out looking for work, that he still had the will to work, old as he was—there was something piteous and horrifying about the very idea. But this was a thought that lay quite near at hand. This old man had no other home than this dining establishment, but even here only during certain hours, for afterward the restaurant was closed. Perhaps this was why he prayed: to give the awful seriousness of his situation a soft soothing melody. This was why he said: “I need to pray.” So it wasn’t at all sanctimoniousness but just the utterly plaintive need to sense the presence of a hand that wished to caress him, the hand of a child or daughter softly, consolingly stroking his old creased forehead. Perhaps the old man had begotten daughters—and what about him now? It was easy to give in to such thoughts, sitting there beside the old man watching him sleep like this, his head strangely immobile, hands propping his chin. Klara said: “Your brother has come, Simon, in his officer’s uniform, and your sister too, and one other gentleman named Sebastian.” Hearing these words, Simon paid what he owed, and the two of them left together. When they were gone, one of the serving girls noticed the sleeping man, gave him a shake and declared with mock severity: “No sleeping! You there! Can’t you hear? You mustn’t sleep!” At this, the old man woke up.