Berlin Stories

by Robert Walser

  “I am poor, and I am steeling myself for even more poverty,” I wrote, as I recall, to delightful Auguste, who had been my sweet little lady friend, “and you will probably never again respond to a letter containing such doleful confessions. I understand you womenfolk; you are only lovely, good, and kind to those who visibly enjoy good fortune in this world. Penury, indigence, and misfortune repulse you. Forgive the anguish that is not ashamed to write such things. What am I capable of offering you when I am scarcely able to keep my own head above water? Clearly things are over between us, no?, for you will surely find it expedient to shun me. This I can understand. And I as well am joyfully taking leave of you today, because now it is time for me to invest what strength I possess in fighting an all too unlovely struggle for survival. Oh, all those rose scenes, that divine, gay exuberance you bestowed on me, that laughter! I shall always be prepared to think back on a happiness whose mischievous originator you were. Let me kiss you once more in thought, tenderly, as if we were still entitled to dally thus. No doubt you have already begun to forget me. And so adieu forever.” —I have interposed this letter in order to offer the reader a brief, elegant diversion. The letter remained unanswered, and this is what I’d expected, well-acquainted as I was with my clever little Auguste. Despite all her amusing diminutiveness, she was a soul of great resolve. She went on her way, and this pleased me. But now back to Frau Scheer. Back to the matter at hand.

  Around the neighborhood, in the shops, at the grocer’s or hairdresser’s, on the street and on the stairs, people spoke of that stingy old witch, that “Scheer,” and all too cheap and superficial phrases were invoked to condemn her. The picture of her being sketched out had nothing at all to do with reality and truth. Later on it was an easy matter for me to see through it all. Meanwhile I was gradually coming into contact and acquaintance with this so widely discussed and disparaged woman. She complained about my taciturnity and reticence, but I found it appropriate to continue to be reticent and taciturn. I realized she was utterly abandoned. Apart from a lady of quite elegant appearance who came to the house now and then, and apart from Emma, her former maid, who came every day to offer her a small amount of assistance in the household, no one ever visited. The visitors she did receive—who made their presence known with larger and smaller amounts of noise—were workmen and businessmen of all sorts; Frau Scheer was a landowner and real estate investor on a grand scale. Or else there would be a ring or a knock at the door, and tenants would uneasily enter, either coming to pay the rent that was due or bounding up to declare that they were in no position to pay. Or then I would suddenly hear shouting and hurled invectives in the hall. This would be some person who believed himself unfairly treated. And so Frau Scheer had to telephone the local police station for help, whereupon policemen appeared, and thus the dwelling of a woman who had enormous sums of money at her disposal witnessed one unlovely scene after another, countless unfortunate incidents, so that the lady and mistress of this home found it a comfort and experienced the greatest refreshment and relief when she was able to sit quietly in her room in the evening and weep, simply that: weep undisturbed.

  My room and Frau Scheer’s writing and living room lay side by side, and often I heard through the thin wall a sound that I was only ever able to explain to myself with the thought that someone was weeping. The tears of a wealthy, stingy woman are surely no less doleful and deplorable, and speak a surely no less sad and moving language than the tears of a poor little child, a poor woman, or a poor man; tears in the eyes of mature human beings are appalling, for they bear witness to a helplessness one might scarcely believe possible. When a child cries, this is immediately comprehensible, but when old people are induced or compelled to weep despite their advanced years, this reveals to the one hearing and seeing this the world’s wretchedness and untenability, and such a person cannot escape the oppressive, devastating thought that everything—everything—that moves upon this unfortunate earth is weak, shaky, and questionable, the quarry and haphazard plaything of an insufficiency that has entwined itself about all that exists. No, it is not good when a human being still weeps at an age when one should consider it a divinely lovely activity to dry the tears of children.

  With the exception of her niece, wife of the Cantonal Executive Councillor So-and-so, with whom she maintained, or so it seemed, amiable relations, Frau Scheer seemed to be on irrevocably bad terms with all her relatives. Some of them, I was later told, were her mortal enemies as a result of a vicious and deep-rooted feud. If what I heard people saying immediately following Frau Scheer’s death is true—namely, that one of her sisters had been living in the most squalid circumstances without receiving any support whatever from wealthy Frau Scheer, and that she even tormented and oppressed this sister so as to mock her misery on top of everything else while remaining utterly unmoved by it—of course this information casts a peculiar light on this friend of mine, and I am wondering with some degree of urgency whether she truly was capable of such dastardly, merciless conduct. Her relatives seemed to have the worst possible opinion of her. To be sure, one mustn’t underestimate the role played in this by personal animosity. They tried to present Frau Scheer to me as a heinous actress whose mind was entirely filled with insatiable egotism. Hatred, distrust, wickedness, and duplicity, they averred, were the purpose and meaning of her depraved, corrupt existence. I listened to all these things without saying much in reply, but meanwhile was thinking thoughts of my own, for these people who were doing their best to make me think of the unfortunate woman in bad and bleak terms by no means struck me as being so terribly pure of heart and good themselves. At the same time it pained me that Frau Scheer no longer had even a good remembrance in this world where she had so struggled and suffered. But here I must draw attention to yet another strange circumstance, for I may not leave anything important unmentioned that might be able to give life to or illuminate my subject. In Frau Scheer’s immediate neighborhood, a young, pretty girl—a real goose, by the way, the little daughter of a police inspector—was generally thought to be poised to inherit Frau Scheer’s fortune. I often saw this girl at the apartment, and I have to say that this rather silly little thing of eighteen who was presumptuous enough to surround herself with all sorts of fond, happy illusions, did not make a particularly favorable impression on me. If the gullible parents of this girl indulged frivolous hopes with even more frivolous complacence, then they found themselves utterly deceived in a quite instructive way. For later on not so much as a single dotted i was found in favor of Little Miss Cheeky, and the hope-filled damsel inherited not a penny. This should be the fate of all those who are not ashamed to base their prospects on the death of a fellow human being.

  Frau Scheer possessed a by no means unattractive if slightly stout figure. At times she displayed a quite winsome, graceful bearing. Dressed in her Sunday best, she looked every bit the grand, elegant lady. But on several occasions I saw her on the street coming back from her buildings, and each time I was shocked at her downcast, crestfallen appearance. Her weary, dragging gait said with sorrowful plainness: “I shall die soon.” As she walked like this, she gazed up at the sky. One often sees women casting their eyes up to heaven in this way. Sometimes her eyes were filled with dreadful entreaties for a bit of love. When she smiled in gay spirits, there was something profoundly captivating about her. In her youth she must have been loveliness itself. She herself once smilingly confessed that as a child she’d been the family darling. On the inside, perhaps, she had remained a dreamy small-town girl. Poor little thing! Poor deceived dreamer! Frau Scheer had very delicate, tiny feet. In her kitchen, on the kitchen floor, I often saw her charming, snug little booties, which interested me greatly because they looked as if they wished to relate the life story of their mistress. The fanatical love of money that resided within her and the strange, passionate pleasure she took in acquiring it seemed to me genuine small-town idiosyncrasies. In her youngest years she had once traveled with her husband to Switzerland, and eve
n as an old woman she spoke with the most charming enthusiasm of this country’s beauties. She had seen Lucerne and ascended to the top of the Rigi. A remark she made in passing revealed that she had been a devoted cyclist. Admittedly these are trifles, but these trifles mean a great deal to me, and I am incapable of coldly passing over these trivialities. Besides which, I don’t really consider anything trivial. Frau Scheer was kind enough to encourage me to walk around in her apartment without ceremony as though the apartment belonged to me, and of course I was glad to take advantage of such agreeable freedom. The apartment contained nothing else of particular note. In the woman’s study, there were always piles of business papers lying about waiting to be dealt with. The kitchen was visibly unclean, the salon teeming with disorder and dust. Frau Scheer was utterly devoid of domesticity despite the fact that she owned fifteen buildings. How often she sighed. Sometimes it seemed to me when I saw her like this that I was about to witness her collapsing beneath the burden of her work.

  I recall that the two of us stood one night conversing at the door to my room. It was the first time in quite a while that I had spoken with her at length in such a friendly way. She listened to me with a silent, lovely, very tender attentiveness. My loquaciousness seemed to be giving her the greatest pleasure. She too spoke. Frau Scheer always spoke with admirable lightness. “How cold, stiff, and reserved you’ve been,” she said, “even though we’ve lived so long together under a single roof. That has often hurt me, but now I am all the happier to hear you speak to me in such an agreeably friendly, familiar way. You’ve always kept to yourself, scarcely bothering to greet or even look at me, this caused me pain. And yet, as I now see and hear, you can be so very kind. Sometimes I thought, because you once said to me that you love solitary walks and often go into the woods, that you might be contemplating doing yourself harm, or else that something unfortunate might befall you there in the forest. Fortunately, though, I see you standing before me in good health, and I am glad.” “Forgive me if I’ve ever been discourteous,” I said. She replied with obvious kindness: “It doesn’t matter.” She stood there with such a touchingly beautiful, youthfully fresh lightness, and I secretly reproached myself for my earlier behavior. I held out my hand to indicate to her that I did indeed value the friendliness and confidingness of this moment as something humanly beautiful, and she pressed my hand with marked pleasure. This was a peculiar hour filled with simple, strong warmth; I shall remember it forever.

  Since I frequently found myself idle for lack of regular employment, while Frau Scheer was overburdened, I offered my services to her when the opportunity presented itself so that I might assist her with her many business dealings, and she did not for a moment hesitate to acquiesce to my proposal. How lovely it is, and how good it feels to lend a hand to a person in need of help. It makes me deeply happy today, when all of this lies far in the past, that I did manage, while there was still time, to set aside my indifference, coldness, and lack of sympathy and enter into a good relationship with this woman in which sympathy played an important role. It seemed to me as if this were making me much younger again. I wrote letters, ran this and that errand, received covetous and pressing visitors in Frau Scheer’s absence, took delivery of payments, for which I issued receipts with my nicest and warmest thanks, prepared contracts, ran and strolled about as a delegate and private secretary, as messenger and commissioner and confidant, stopping by all sorts of institutes and buildings, a task in which my sound knowledge of the area, acquired earlier in the course of many pleasurable walks, stood me in good stead. As a punctual and trusty Scheer employee, I inspected newly constructed buildings, during which it pleased me to assume the most severe, unrelenting office and business expression when dealing with craftsmen and handymen in order to assure myself of being highly respected by people who are not so fond of showing respect; my head was filled with parcels of land, leases, mortgages, properties, and buildings, and I was the consummate surveyor, inspector, and administrator. I often found myself walking and ambling through heavily populated streets and alleyways carrying ready cash to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand, and many a cautious bank official at first hesitated a little before paying out to me these high, alarming sums, no doubt wondering how a wealthy woman could dare place such great trust in such a one as me. When I returned home, I always received a touchingly beautiful and grateful smile as a reward for my assiduous, honest, and upright services. Lord knows it’s true that service of this sort always gave and gives me great and joyful pleasure.

  Frau Scheer in her turn was in no way lacking in attentiveness toward me insofar as she took no rent from me at all. And so I lived there free of charge; she also took pleasure in cooking for me in her spare time. This is a matter in which, as you can imagine, I was happy to let her have her way. First off, my own affairs were, as I have already emphasized, in a sorry state, and secondly I saw with my own eyes and smelled with my nose and in general quite clearly noticed with what genuine womanly pleasure this woman ran down to the market to purchase greens and other foodstuffs, ever conscious of her role as industrious housewife caring for her charge. If I didn’t eat much, she was insulted, and it would have made her deathly unhappy if I had refused to eat at all. In my opinion, a person must at times submit to accepting kindness and generosity—after all, there are times one must submit to their opposite. When I rejected, rather brusquely, all the other good things Frau Scheer was prepared to give me, she would say, “What a wicked man you are,” and was dissatisfied with me. The poor woman, she was dreaming! She forgot who she was. She forgot her sad, unlovely existence, her frailty and her melancholy age. She forgot the world’s unrelentingness, and if something or other reminded her of this again, her eyes would instantly fill with tears. She rhapsodized like a girl of twenty, and when she was then reminded of her age and all the evil in this world, her face involuntarily assumed an evil aspect: the face of evil, greedy Frau Scheer. After all, her life was coming to an end, and let no one try to tell me that battlefields and other horrors are any more terrifying and horrific than the end of any human existence. All endings are cruel, and every human life is a heroic life, and dying—everywhere, and under no matter what circumstances—is equally bleak, cruel, and sad, and every human being must prepare himself for the poorest and worst exigencies, and every room in which a dead person is laid out is a tragic room, and there was never a human life that lacked tragedy of the most sublime sort.

  “I would so dearly love to be born anew, to start living all over again, to be very small and young so as to start life once more from the beginning, but then I would like to live quite differently than before. I would like to be an inconspicuous, poor woman, to be good and gentle and love my fellow human beings so as to be loved by them in return and be welcome everywhere I go. And my joie de vivre should not be of such a sorrowful bent. It should be quite, quite different. My God, I am so unhappy to be dying because I would so love to be walking better paths. You understand, don’t you, and you respect me a little, and you care for me a little bit too. Everyone despises and abhors me, mocks me and wishes for bad things to befall me. My great wealth! What should I do with it now, what good comfort does it offer me? I should like to give you a million of your own! But what would I be giving you? I should like to give you far, far more than that. I should like to make you happy, but I can’t see with what. I am very fond of you, and that is possibly enough for you, for I noticed long ago that you are easily contented. It isn’t possessions that give you joy. You too have honor, and you take meticulous care to preserve it. So let me at least say to you that your presence brings me great joy. I thank you for having been willing to interact with me a little, and for being friendly to me from time to time.” She spoke these words to me in her room one night. I didn’t quite know what to say in response, and so I drew the conversation to other matters.

  I still remember one New Year’s Eve when I stood together with Frau Scheer at the open window. Everything outdoors was swathed in thic
k fog. We were listening to the New Year’s bells. The following autumn she fell ill, and the doctors recommended an operation. Forced to make a decision, she entered the clinic from which she never returned. She left no testament. All attempts to look for one turned up nothing. Her estate was divided among her relatives. As for myself, I soon left town. I felt the urge to revisit my distant homeland, the sight of which I’d had to do without for so many years.

  1915

  The Millionairess