A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  Yes, goodness gracious, I am certainly a proponent of the slackard’s life, laziness, happiness, and peace; but alas I am also for the military. I think peace is nice and I think the military is nice. How can I make heads or tails of this strange contradiction? I cannot deny the peace-loving part of myself, but nor can I deny that I am a true friend of the soldier’s life. Anyway, I notice that this essay is about ready to draw to a close, and so I take my leave with all best regards until the next time I have the opportunity to take pen in hand.

  September 1915

  THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

  ONCE IT was great and powerful, with lordly gaze and posture, but then came a time when it forgot itself and permitted itself to be misused, and it turned ugly. Those who spoke it made it into a means of expression for everything banal, so that the whole world laughed at its low and sorry state. The whole beautiful thing collapsed. What had once been exemplary became a caricature. The splendid tree withered away, and still it fancied itself, as bad as it had become. Its disgrace lasted for a long time. Some people thought it was near death, and they were right. It died, that is to say, it crept around like a dead thing. No one thought it would ever regain its strength. It lost all its charm and attraction, sounded dry, hard, and clownish, and served the purposes almost solely of rude aggression and rough haste. Its ruined voice was the most unpleasant thing imaginable; most people found it horrific. Yes, it was sick, and it now lies downtrodden and crushed, and yet there are still those who love it as they always have, and who want to remain true to it, for they think that it is imperishable and that it will one day regain its beauty. In total silence, in dark and inconspicuous places, they nurse it back to health. Surely it will rise up once more and perfume the air and blossom and have its spring and ring out like birdsong. One won’t want to miss that. Those who believe in it have to be patient. Now it is tired, sleepy, with weary limbs and soundless words. It seems paralyzed, but it will leap again and dance and have all the agility it once possessed. Just wait until it has been restored. It is lost, it is crying, but it will find its way and laugh out loud. Then it will be like a summer garden, like a resurrected sun, and everything around it will be happy and rich and strong and good. And soft and natural. Then it will know itself once more, and all will delight in it. It will blast like a beatific wind across the earth and all things. Downcast now, it will rejoice. Desire and comfort will be felt by all who hear it speak. Maybe, when that day comes, I will lie beneath a fir tree on the grass and kiss it and once again be its poet.

  May 1919

  MORNING AND NIGHT

  EARLY in the morning, how good, how blindingly bright your mood was, how you peeked into life like a child and, no doubt, often enough acted downright fresh and improper. Enchanting, beautiful morning with golden light and pastel colors!

  How different, though, at night—then tiring thoughts came to you, and solemnity looked at you in a way you had never imagined, and people walked beneath dark branches, and the moon moved behind clouds, and everything looked like a test of whether you too were firm of will and strong.

  In such a way does good cheer constantly alternate with difficulty and trouble. Morning and night were like wanting to and needing to. One drove you out into vast immensity, the other pulled you back into modest smallness again.

  May 1920

  FLOWERS

  HOW QUIET you are, you dear, delicate flowers. You don’t move from place to place, you have neither eyes nor ears, and you never take a walk, which is so nice. Now and then you look like you can talk, but in any case you certainly have feelings and a sensitivity of your own. I often feel like you are pondering, with all kinds of thoughts. I’m doubtless deluding myself. But still, I think about you a lot and I would love to live with you, as one of you, I would happily be like you, let the sunshine caress me, rock and sway in the wind.

  May 1920

  THE LITTLE TREE

  I SEE IT even when I am not paying attention and walk right by it. It doesn’t run away, it doesn’t move at all, can’t think, doesn’t want a thing, no, only to grow, to exist in space and have leaves that one doesn’t touch, only looks at. Hurrying past in the shadows they cast are all sorts of busy people.

  Have I really never given you anything? But it doesn’t need any happiness. Maybe it is pleased when someone finds it beautiful. Do you think so, dear readers? What holy innocences it proclaims. It knows nothing, it is there entirely and only for my pleasure.

  Why does it have no way to perceive my love? We say something and mean well but no sense of hearing is granted it. Never does it see me smile at its greeting that it is not aware of itself. Or lie down at the feet of its being, like that woman departing forever painted by Courbet, to die!

  And yet I will live on, but then what will become of you?

  October 1925

  THE LAST PROSE PIECE

  THIS IS probably my last prose piece. There are all sorts of considerations that lead me to conclude that it is high time for a goatherd boy like myself to be done with the composing and submitting of prose pieces and abandon this clearly too difficult occupation. I am happy to look around for another line of work that might make it possible for me to eat my bread in peace.

  What have I been doing these ten long years? In order to be able to answer that question I must first sigh, second sob, and third start a new chapter or at least a fresh paragraph.

  For ten long years I have continually written little prose pieces, which rarely proved worth the trouble. What have I not had to endure! A hundred times over, I cried, “Never again shall I write and send out!” only to write and send out new productions every time on the same or at most the following day, to the extent that today I can hardly believe this course of action myself.

  The extent of my submissions will probably never be matched. It stands alone. Due to its drollness it really belongs affixed to an advertising pillar so that all can marvel at my guileless fidelity. Nothing of its like will ever happen again. With respect to the production and releasing out into the world of appropriate prose pieces I manifested an unspeakable avidity and indescribable perseverance. It flew out from my watchmaking studio or dressmaker’s/shoemaker’s shop in every direction like doves from a dovecote or bees from a beehive. Flies and mosquitoes buzz hither and thither no more busily than did the prose pieces I sent winging their way to all sorts of editors and publishers.

  What did messieurs the librarians do with all the sketches, studies, and essays I heaped upon their heads? They read them, nosed them, eyeballed them, took them under consideration, and then put them neatly back into their folders or drawers where they remained safe and sound awaiting their respective appropriate opportunities.

  And did said opportunity hasten to show its face? It most certainly did not! It never seemed to be in much of a hurry to turn up. Sometimes it took years before it arrived, during which span of time an unfortunate man in his attic room tore out his hair.

  What I joyfully wrote and shooed forth was thrown into as it were solitary confinement, where it slowly shriveled up. Lines, sentences, pages died heartrending deaths in the air of the drawer, death by drying up and withering. I saw what I had so briskly brought forth turn dull, pale, and wan.

  One time, a fresh young verdant rosy-cheeked pretty round prose piece spent six whole years sitting in a barren, desolate place, where eventually it became completely scraggly and dried up. When at last it came to light, i.e., appeared in print, I had to cry for joy, behaving like a poor father overcome with tender feelings.

  What doesn’t a person experience who gets it into his head to write prose pieces and send them off to all kinds of editors in the hope that these pieces might correspond to their wishes and fit their needs? If anyone intending to throw himself into or upon the writing of prose pieces should ask my advice, I would advise against, by telling him that I consider his intention unfortunate.

  The day-, night-, comic, tragic, melodramatic, show, farcical, doorical, decorative, and art
istic pieces I constantly, hopefully sent out proved to be unusable most of the time, rarely if ever fit the needs, and generally utterly failed to correspond to the wishes.

  Did I let these betrayed hopes deter me? Not a chance! Again and again I found the courage to produce and hand in, complete and send out. For ten years I indefatigably stuffed people’s mailboxes, pockets, and warehouses full of material and provisions, which made the Herr Bosses laugh themselves silly.

  I filled other people’s gaps with prose pieces. My mind goes numb to think of it. Ministers shook with laughter when they saw my cartloads arrive. I took up whole freight trains with my missives. And whatever I let fly was graciously received.

  Where other people had bright heads and were clever right down to their fingertips, I was dumb all the way to the top and another three feet up too. While I went around naked, luxury and prosperity reigned among other doubtless nice people. Whenever I emptied out my own drawer, I felt strange. But in creating a yawning emptiness for myself, I was eagerly ensuring abundance for otherwise nice and charming other people. Oh how the gods and demigods made fun of this humble submitter’s simplemindedness! Many a time they were afraid they would burst with laughter. On the one hand, exuberance; on the other hand, tears. On one side, giants; on the other side, dwarfs. Here masters; there slaves.

  Whenever I humbly inquired whether my little children were being well taken care of and were nice and healthy, or even if they were still alive, I would receive the shattering comeback: “None of your business.” So, his own children were no longer any of their father’s business, and the things and thingumajigees produced from the sweat of my own brow were now things about which I did not have the least right to speak.

  One time, I was told: “We lost your prose pieces in the chaos and hubbub. Please don’t hold it against us and please send us something new. We would like to lose that too, whereupon you can send in something new yet again. Work hard. Bite back any superfluous ill temper. We do feel bad for you.”

  What good would it have done me to cry “Never again shall I write and send in!”? Did it not give additional luster to my reputation as the most gentle-spirited of men for me to squander a few more new and beautiful prose pieces that same day or the one following? As God is my witness, a donkey is piled high with burdens, and as long as there are sheep in this world the wolves will have a field day, but I would rather be humble and keep quiet, and busily, dutifully write more nice little prose pieces. Should anyone intending to fling himself into the sending out of prose pieces ask my advice, I would advise against, by telling him that I find his intention comic.

  “Take that! I want to take revenge on you so that you will learn to tremble and beg for forgiveness,” one of the dervishes who dispose over prosperity and indisposition wrote me one day, as though life were a card game.

  Once something has finally been made perfect, with trouble and care, and a poor, scrawny, fragile little prose piece begging for mercy appears in print, the author faces new problems, namely the never sufficiently esteemed public. I would rather deal with I don’t know what than with people who take an interest in the products of my pen. Someone said to me, “Aren’t you ashamed to go before the public with such scribbling?” That’s the thanks you get if you try to earn your bread by supplying your fellow man with prose pieces.

  I intend to adapt to everything happily, as long as I no longer have to rely on false hopes. Finally I am free, and I rejoice, and if I don’t rejoice then at least I laugh, and if I don’t laugh then at least I take a deep breath, and if I don’t take a deep breath then at least I rub my hands together, and if someone with certain intentions were to ask me for advice, I would advise him against, by telling him what I would tell anyone who sought such information from me in that connection.

  It goes without saying that at the first hint of spring I used to write a merry spring piece, in the fall season a brownish autumn piece, and for Christmas a Christmas or snowstorm piece. In future I intend to forego such things and never again do what I have done for ten long years. At last I have drawn a firm line under the truly astoundingly great column of figures and am done with pursuing that for which I am not sufficiently intelligent.

  Had I the audacity to send in refractory and unvarnished truths, I would surely have been enlightened with the following words: “Don’t you know that there is mighty little freedom anywhere you look? That everyone conforms damned well to everyone else? Put that in your pipe and smoke it or write it and be glad if you can get away with it.”

  Things don’t look good for me. No doubt about that. Earlier it was easy, I used to put an ad in the paper: “Young man seeks occupation.” Today I have to say: “Man alas no longer young but rather already somewhat elderly and worn-down begs for mercy and a refuge.” Times have changed, and the little years flit by like snow in April. I am a poor man, no longer young, with just the ability necessary to turn out prose pieces, like this for example:

  “Trot, trot, trot. What’s wrong with me? Am I stupid? What will become of me? An office boy, or what? I am strongly considering the necessity of some such thing. One, two, three and four, five and six. Between sleeping and waking I heard a voice saying that as though it would continue for all eternity. Oh, a cry escaped me then, and more than ever before I was aware of the sum total of my smallness. No, a person is not large, he is weak and helpless. Well that’s that.”

  I sent “Trot, Trot, Trot” to twenty-one to thirty-eight editors in the hope that it might fit a need, but twenty-one to thirty-eight times this hope turned out to be false, and this little Gothic piece failed to meet with a favorable reception anywhere.

  Thirty to forty superiors refused to take this unquestionably superlative piece. Instead they rejected it as firmly as could be and sent it straight back to me.

  One of these dictators wrote to me: “Mon dieu, what are you thinking?” Another opined: “Ach, why don’t you pass along your fairy-tale piece to The Venetian Night, I’m sure they’ll be tremendously happy to get it. As for us, we would ask to be spared any further trot, trot, trotting and five-to-sixeries.”

  I sent “Trot, Trot, Trot” to the abovementioned newspaper, which thanked me politely by saying: “Ach, we would much rather you had understood that this charming piece was not quite right for us.”

  “If at first you don’t succeed,” I thought, and I sent the piece to Cuba. They don’t seem interested in it at all. I think the best thing for everyone would be for me to sit in the corner and keep quiet.

  October 1919

  PART III

  HANS

  WHEN HANS, somewhat later, after much in his life had changed and he found himself occupied with entirely different things, thought back every now and then to that time, which he had primarily spent sauntering, strolling, and ambling around, the first thing he liked to remember, with a deep inner pleasure, was how one evening, after dinner, when it was just beginning to darken, he went out to the nearby lake where he sat down on a bench provided for such restful sojourns under the finely forking, delicate branches of a willow tree, so that, while in conformity to the gloomy weather it was raining out of the gray summer evening sky into the lake as though crying as if out of tear-filled eyes, he could sit for an hour there and dream.

  As previously mentioned, he later used to recall with great clarity, once all sorts of external circumstances had long since forced entirely different impressions upon him, that beautiful evening hour he experienced back then by the lake, where he could abandon himself to his thoughts unmolested, which gave him keen pleasure; where the waves beat against the warm, friendly shore with delightful, painstaking splashes while familiar, heart-captivating figures rose up out of the soft, dark water into the air, with meaningful, noble gestures, such as, for example, the form of his old father, and the face of his dear mother.

  A magnificent gentleness and nostalgic beauty lay over the landscape. The high mountain, drawn down by gentle forces, sank mildly with a wonderful gesture into the
depths, where the smooth surface of the water gracefully reflected it. The large lake resembled a child who is completely silent because asleep and dreaming. The calm reigning everywhere all around was made yet stronger, and bigger, by the delicate rush of the rain; the silence, rustling noiselessly back and forth like an evening bird, experienced no lessening from the timorous light wind shyly wafting from the west. On the evening and, later, the nighttime water, several boats or barques, as if set in motion by harmonious feelings of home and carried onward by beautiful premonitions, floated past the figure sitting on his bench in a silence that might perhaps have been only slightly disturbed now and then by a late promenader’s footsteps.

  As far as he can now recall, it was on the following day that he stood on the high cliffs right next to the lake, from which he looked down, with eyes as amazed as they were contented, into the brightly glittering gentle valleys sparkling with sunny objects and patterns. Everything on land, on water shimmered, shone. The lake was like a happy smile. The nearby forest was still wet with raindrops. Hans pondered where he wanted to walk, then slid into the forest, slipping between the wet branches. He found the green, moist, warm shrubs and underbrush magnificent. Passing by splendid oak trees, he walked back uphill. Down below, the tidy little city lay spread out before him like a toy, presenting a marvelous view. These bright, warm colors were like a many-voiced song. Green and blue and white were the prominent tonic notes, reigning everywhere. That afternoon, he showed up so punctually for lunch that he was astounded himself. In those days, he knew how to manage his walks so that he never missed a mealtime.