A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  Christopher Middleton was Walser’s first translator into any language, and his two selections of Walser’s stories and translation of Walser’s schoolboy novel, Jakob von Gunten, remain in print. Middleton’s translations were my first, magnificent introduction to Walser’s work. Susan Bernofsky has translated Walser’s other three novels and four volumes of Walser’s stories, and many other fine translators have published Walser translations in periodicals and small-press books, or in Middleton’s Selected Stories. Almost all the pieces in A Schoolboy’s Diary are previously untranslated, but the four Fritz Kocher essays translated by Bernofsky—“Autumn,” “Careers,” “The Fair,” and “Music”—were needed for the complete series, and are included here in new translations. For thematic reasons I also included “Greifen Lake,” “A Story,” and “The Last Prose Piece” (previously translated by Bernofsky, the former as “Lake Greifen”), “The Rowboat” (previously translated by Tom Whalen, as “The Boat”), and “All Right Then” (previously translated by Mark Harman, as “Well Then”). I am adding my translations to the work of this distinguished company in the hope of further enriching English-language readers’ sense of Walser’s remarkable range and voice. If Walser had a hundred thousand translators, the world would be a better place.

  —DAMION SEARLS

  PART I

  “Fritz Kocher’s Essays—Relayed by Robert Walser”

  FRITZ KOCHER’S ESSAYS

  INTRODUCTION

  THE BOY who wrote these essays passed away not long after he left school. I had some difficulty convincing his mother, a dear and honorable lady, to allow me to publish them. She was understandably very attached to these pages, which must have been a bittersweet reminder of her son. Only after I promised to have the essays published unchanged, just as her little Fritz had written them, did she finally agree. The essays may seem unboyish in many places, and all too boyish in others. But please keep in mind that my hand has not altered them anywhere. A boy can speak words of great wisdom and words of great stupidity at practically the same moment: that is how these essays are too. I bade farewell to the boy’s mother as politely and gratefully as I could. She told me all sorts of qualities in the little fellow’s life that nicely overlap with the qualities of the schoolwork presented here. He was destined to die young, the jolly, serious laugher. It was not granted to his surely large and sparkling eyes to see anything of the wider world he so longed to reach. On the other hand, he was able to see clearly, in his way, as the reader will surely agree when he reads these essays. Farewell, my little friend! Farewell, reader!

  MAN

  Man is a sensitive creature. He has only two legs, but one heart, where an army of thoughts and feelings frolics. Man could be compared to a well laid out pleasure garden, if our teacher permitted such innuendoes. Now and then Man writes poetry, and when he is in this highest and noblest condition he is called a Poet. If we were all the way we should be, namely the way God has told us to be, we would be infinitely happy. Alas we abandon ourselves to useless passions that undermine our well-being only too soon and put an end to our happiness. Man should stand above his fellow creature, the animal, in all things. But even a foolish schoolboy can see people acting like irrational animals every day. Drunkenness is as hideous as a picture: Why do people indulge in it? It must be because from time to time they feel the need to drown their reason in the dreams that swim in every kind of alcohol. Such cowardice is fitting for a thing as imperfect as Man. We are imperfect in everything. Our inadequacy extends to every task we undertake and which would be so splendid if it didn’t proceed from mere greed. Why must we be this way? I drank a glass of beer once, but I will never drink another one again. Where will it lead? To noble endeavors? Certainly not. I promise loud and clear: I want to be a steady, upright person. Let all great and beautiful things find in me as ardent an imitator as fierce a protector. Secretly, I love art. But it’s not a secret anymore, not since right now, because now I’ve been careless and blabbed it. Let me be punished for that and made an example of. What makes a noble way of thinking not want to freely admit itself? Nothing less than a whipping in view, that’s for sure. What is a whipping? A scarecrow to frighten slaves and dogs! Only one specter scares me: baseness. Oh, I want to climb as high as is granted to any man. I want to be famous. I want to meet beautiful women and love them and be loved and petted by them. Even so, I will not give up any of my elemental power (creative power), instead I want to and I will get stronger, freer, nobler, richer, more famous, braver, and more reckless every day. I’m sure I’ll get an F for writing like this. But I say this is the best essay I’ve ever written. Every word comes from the heart. How beautiful it is, after all, to have a quaking, sensitive, choosy heart. That is the best thing about a person. A person who does not know how to preserve his heart is unwise, because he is robbing himself of an endless source of sweet inexhaustible strength, a wealth in which he exceeds all the creatures on earth, a fullness, a warmth that, if he wants to remain human, he will never be able to do without. A person with a heart is not only the best person but also the most intelligent person, since he has something that no mere bustling cleverness can give him. I repeat once again: I never want to get drunk; I don’t want to look forward to meals, since that’s beastly; I want to pray and, even more, work, since it seems to me that work is already a prayer; I want to be industrious and obey whoever deserves to be obeyed. Parents and teachers deserve it automatically. That’s my essay.

  AUTUMN

  When Autumn comes, the leaves fall off of the trees onto the ground. Actually, I should say it like this: When the leaves fall, Autumn is here. I have to work on improving my style. Last time the teacher wrote: Style, wretched. It’s upsetting but there’s nothing I can do about it. I like Autumn. The air is fresher, the things on the earth look different all of a sudden, the mornings sparkle and are very beautiful and the nights are so wonderfully chilly. And still we take walks until very late. The mountain above the city is beautifully colored and it makes you sad when you think that these colors signal the general colorlessness to come. Soon the snow will be flying. I love snow too, even if it’s not so nice to wade around in it too long with cold wet feet. But why else are there warm felt slippers and heated rooms for later? Only the poor children tug at my heartstrings—I know they have no warm rooms in their houses. How horrible it must be to sit around and freeze. I wouldn’t do any homework, I would die, yes, stubbornly die out of spite, if I was poor. How the trees look now! Their branches pierce the gray air like thin, sharply pointed daggers; you can see the ravens you never see at any other time. You don’t hear any birds singing anymore. Nature really is great. The way it shifts colors, changes robes, puts on masks and takes them off again! It’s very beautiful. If I was a painter, and it’s not out of the question that I’ll become one someday, since after all no one knows what their destiny may be, I would be most fervently an Autumn painter. I’m only afraid that my colors wouldn’t be up to it. Maybe I still don’t understand it enough. And anyway, why should I worry at all about something that hasn’t even happened yet? Only the present moment should and must concern me deeply. Where did I hear that? I must have heard it somewhere, maybe from my older brother, who is in college. It will be Winter soon, the snow will swirl, oh how I’m looking forward to that! When everything outside is so white, everything in class is so right. Colors fill up your mind too much with all sorts of muddled stuff. Colors are too sweet a muddle, nothing more. I love things in one color, monotonous things. Snow is such a monotonous song. Why shouldn’t a color be able to make the same impression as singing? White is like a murmuring, whispering, praying. Fiery colors, like for instance Autumn colors, are a shriek. Green in midsummer is a many-voiced song with all the highest notes. Is that true? I don’t know if that’s right. Well, the teacher will surely be so kind as to correct it.—How everything in the world keeps going! Now it’s almost Christmas, then it’s just a short step to New Year’s, only a few more to Spring, and everything kee
ps moving forward step by step like that. You’d have to be crazy to try to count all the steps. I don’t like math. I’m bad at it even though my grades are pretty good. I will never go into business, I can feel that. I only hope my parents don’t try to apprentice me to a businessman! I would run away, and then what would they have? But have I said enough here about Autumn? I went on a lot about snow. That’ll get me a good grade on my report card this quarter. Grades are a stupid invention. In singing I get an A and I don’t make a single sound. How does that happen? It would be better if they gave us apples instead of grades. But then it’s true they would have to hand out way too many apples. Oh!

  THE FIRE

  A lonely wanderer strides across the pitch-black field. The stars shining above him are his only companions. He walks sunk in thought, suddenly he notices overhead a dark red in the sky. He stops and stays still, thinks a moment, and turns back toward the city on the path he has just walked: He knows that a fire has broken out. He walks faster but is too far away from the city to get there one two three. We will leave him scurrying along and look to see how the inhabitants of the city are reacting to the fire that has so terrifyingly broken out in their midst. A man is hurrying through the quiet streets and waking up all the sleepers with numerous blows on his horn. Everyone recognizes the unique, ghastly sound of the fire horn. Everyone who is able to jump up jumps up, throws some clothes on, rubs his eyes, pulls himself together, takes to his feet, and rushes through the streets, which by now are full of people, to the site of the fire. It is to be found on the main street, and is one of the most important buildings in the community. The fire is spreading wildly. It is as though it had a hundred slippery, volatile arms reaching out in all directions. The fire department has not yet arrived. Fire departments are slow everywhere, but especially in our city. But now it would really be better if it came, the situation is getting scary. This fire, which, like all savage elements, has no rational mind, is acting totally crazy. Why are the human hands to rein it in not yet near? Must people be at their laziest on just such a terrible night as this? There are a lot of people standing on the square. It’s true, I’m there and the teacher is there and everyone in our class. Everyone gawks in amazement.—Now, finally, the firemen, looking half asleep, arrive and start performing their duties. These consist for the time being of running back and forth and shouting back and forth in a totally useless way. Why all that screaming? A firm command and silent obedience—that would really be much better. The fire has turned into a raging fire. Why did they have to give it enough time to become a raging fire? It devours, it tears, it hisses, it rages, it is like a glowing red-colored drunkard smashing and destroying everything it can get its hands on. The house is ruined in any case. All the beautiful valuable things lying piled up inside it burn: just as long as no people perish. But it almost looks like the most terrible thing has come to pass. A girl’s voice cries out from the smoke and fiery blaze. You poor girl! Her mother, down in the street, faints. A traveling salesman catches her. Oh, if only I were big and strong! How I’d like to defy the flames and leap as a heroic savior to the aid of the girl! Are there no heroes anywhere in sight? Now would be the chance to reveal what a brave and courageous person you are. But wait, what’s that? A thin young man in shabby clothing has already mounted the rungs of a tall ladder and is climbing ever higher, into the smoke, into the blaze, now he’s terrifyingly visible again for a moment and now he disappears again and then he turns—oh, the sight!—with the girl in one arm and he comes back down the ladder carefully holding on with the other arm and he gives the mother, who has meanwhile recovered somewhat, back her daughter, who is practically smothered with hugs and kisses. What a moment! Oh, if only I could have been that good brave man! Oh, to be such a man, to become such a man! The house burns down to the ground. On the street, mother and daughter hold each other in their arms, and the man who saved her has vanished without a trace.

  “The Fire”

  FRIENDSHIP

  What a precious flower friendship is. Without it, even the strongest man could not live long. The heart needs a kindred, familiar heart, like a little clearing in the forest, a place to rest and lie down and chat. We can never value our friend highly enough, if he is a true friend, and can never run away fast enough if he betrays our friendship. O, there are false friends, whose only goal in life is to wound, to hurt, to destroy! There are people who zealously strive to seem to be our friends, only so that they can injure and damage us all the more thoughtlessly and deeply. I don’t actually know any friends like that, but I have read about them in books, and what it says in them must be true since it is written in such a clear and heartfelt way. I have one friend, I would rather not say his name. It is enough that I am certain of him as mine, completely mine. Where is the happiness, the calm, the enjoyment that can compare to this? I don’t know of any. Any such calm I mean. My friend is surely thinking of me during this hour of class, as surely as I am thinking of him and mentioning him. In his essay I am playing the leading role as much as he, the good fellow, is playing the leading role here in mine. Oh, such clear communication, such a firm bond, such mutual understanding! I cannot begin to understand it, but I let it happen all the more calmly since it is good and I like it. My unpracticed pen cannot express how good it is, how much I like it. There are many varieties of friendship, just as there are many varieties of betrayal. You should not confuse one with another. You should think it over. There are some who want to cheat and deceive us, but they can’t, and others who want to stay true to us for all eternity but they have to betray us, half consciously, half against their will. Still others betray us just to show us that we were deceived when we thought they were our friends. I like that kind of enemy. They teach us something and leave us with nothing to trouble us except the disappointment. Still, that is very troubling! Who would not want a friend he could both love and admire! Both—love and admiration—are indispensable feelings for true friendship. You can love a toy without admiring it. In fact you can even love things you despise. But you cannot love and at the same time have a low opinion of a friend. It’s impossible, at least that’s how it seems to me. Mutual respect is the only soil in which such a tender plant can grow. I would rather be hated than despised, and rather not be loved than be loved the way you are when someone despises you at the same time. Nothing offends a noble creature more than contempt. A noble creature has only other noble creatures as friends, and noble friends tell you when they can no longer respect you. Thus true friendship is a school for fine and beautiful character. And to practice such behavior is a pleasure greater than ten other pleasures, even a hundred. Oh, I am all too aware of the sweet delights of noble friendship. One more thing: Funny, silly people have a hard time making friends. People don’t trust them. And if they mock and criticize, they don’t deserve to be trusted either.

  POVERTY

  Someone is poor when he comes to school in a torn jacket. Who would deny that? We have several poor boys in our class. They wear tattered clothes, their hands freeze, they have dirty faces that are not beautiful and unclean behavior. The teacher treats them more roughly than us, and he is right to. Teachers know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t want to be poor, I’d be ashamed to death. Why is being poor such a disgrace? I don’t know. My parents are well off. Papa has a carriage and horses. He couldn’t have them if he was poor. I see poor, ragged women on the street all the time and I feel sorry for them. Poor men, on the other hand, produce a kind of indignation in me. Poverty and dirt doesn’t look good on men and I have no sympathy for a poor man. I have a kind of special liking for poor women. They can ask for money so beautifully. Men who beg are ugly and ashamed and so it’s right to loathe them. There is nothing uglier than begging. Every kind of begging is a sign of an unreliable, unproud, yes even dishonest character. I would rather die on the spot than open my mouth to make an improper request. There are some requests that are prouder and more beautiful than anything in the world: asking someone you love for forg
iveness after you have offended them. For example: your mother. Admitting your mistake and making up for it with humble, modest behavior could not be farther from contemptible, in fact it is necessary. To beg for bread or for help is bad. Why do there have to be poor people with nothing to eat? I think for someone to approach his fellow man for food or clothing is not dignified. Being needy is as horrible as it is contemptible. My teacher laughs at my essays, and when he reads this one he will laugh twice as hard. So what! To be poor? Does that mean not to own anything? Yes, and property is necessary for life, just like breathing for running. If you run out of breath you fall down on the street and other people have to run to help you! There is one good thing about poverty, I’ve read in books, that it awakens charity in the minds of the rich. But I say, since after all I have a voice of my own and this is my essay, that it only makes them hard and cruel. The consciousness in the hearts of the rich people who see other people suffering and know that it is in their power to improve their situations makes them arrogant. My father is gentle and kind, cheerful and just, but to poor people he is hard and snappy and not at all gentle. He screams at them and you can tell that they irritate and annoy him. He talks about them with disgust and with hate mixed in. No, poverty has no good consequences. It makes most people sad and unfriendly. So I don’t like the poor boys in our class, because I can tell that they envy my nice clothes and are happy to see me do anything wrong in class. They could never be my friends. I don’t feel anything for them, because I pity them. I don’t respect them, because they see me as an enemy for no reason. And if they do have a reason—well, unfortunately time’s up.