The Walk

by Robert Walser

  Add I would, can, and I hope may (since nothing new and shrewd strikes me at the moment), that I carried in my pocket a polite, a delicious invitation from Frau Aebi. The invitation card humbly requested me, and encouraged me, to be so good as to appear punctually at half past twelve for a modest lunch. I firmly intended to obey the summons and to emerge promptly at the time stated in the presence of the estimable person in question.

  Since, dear kind reader, you give yourself the trouble to march attentively along with the writer and inventor of these lines, out forthwith into the bright and friendly morning world, not hurrying, but rather quite at ease, with level head, smoothly, discreetly, and calmly, now we both arrive in front of the above-mentioned bakery with the gold inscription, where we feel inclined to stop, horrified, to stand mournfully aghast at the gross ostentation and at the sad disfigurement of sweet rusticity which is intimately connected with it.

  Spontaneously I exclaimed: “Pretty indignant, by God, should any honourable man be, when brought face to face with such golden inscriptional barbarities, which impress upon the landscape where we stand the seal of self-seeking, money-grubbing, and a miserable, utterly blatant coarsening of the soul. Does a simple, sincere master baker really require to appear so huge, with his foolish gold and silver proclamations to beam forth and shine, bright as a prince or a dressy, dubious lady? Let him bake and knead his bread in all honour and in reasonable modesty. What sort of a world of swindle are we beginning, or have already begun, to live in, when the municipality, the neighbours, and public opinion not only tolerate but unhappily, it is clear, even applaud that which injures every good sense, every sense of reason and good office, every sense of beauty and probity, that which is morbidly puffed up, offers a ridiculous tawdry show of itself, that which screams out over a hundred yards’ distance and more into the good honest air: ‘I am such and such. I have so and so much money, and I dare make so bold as to make an unpleasant impression. Of course I am a bumpkin and a blockhead with my hideous ostentation, and a tasteless fellow; but there’s nobody can forbid me to be bumpkinish and blockheaded.’ Do golden, far-shining loathsomely glittering letters stand in any acceptable, honourably justified relation, in any healthy affinitive proportion to … bread? Not in the least! But loathsome boasting and swaggering began in some corner, in some nook of the world, at some time or other, advanced step by step like a lamentable and disastrous flood, bearing garbage, filth, and foolishness along with them, spreading these throughout the world, and they have affected also my respectable baker, spoiled his earlier good taste, and undermined his inborn decency. I would give much, I would give my left arm, or left leg, if by such a sacrifice I could help recall the fine old sense of sincerity, the old sufficiency, and restore to country and to people the respectability and modesty which have been plentifully lost, to the sorrow of all men who seek honesty. To the devil with every miserable desire to seem more than one is. It is a veritable catastrophe, which spreads over the earth danger of war, death, misery, hate, and injury, and puts upon all that exists an abominable mask of malice and ugliness. I would not have a simple workman a lord, nor a simple woman her ladyship. But everything nowadays is out to dazzle and glitter, to be new and exquisite and beautiful, be lord and lady, and so becomes horrible. But in time perhaps things will change again. I would like to hope so.”

  Now, as will soon be learned, I shall on account of this haughty bearing, this domineering attitude, take myself to task. In what manner will also soon be shown. It would not be good if I were to criticize others mercilessly, but set about myself only most tenderly and treat myself as indulgently as possible. A critic who goes about it in this way is no true critic, and writers should not practice any abuse of writing. I hope that this sentence pleases all and sundry, inspires satisfaction, and meets with warm applause.

  Left of the country road here, a foundry full of workmen and industry causes a noticeable disturbance. In recognition of this I am honestly ashamed to be merely out for a walk while so many others drudge and labour. I drudge away perhaps of course at times, when all these workmen have knocked off and are taking a rest. A fitter on his bicycle, a friend of mine from 135/III Battalion of the militia, calls to me in passing: “It looks to me you’re out for a walk again, working hours too!” I wave to him and laugh and blithely admit that he is right, if he thinks I am out for a walk.

  “They can all see that I am going for a walk,” I thought to myself, and I calmly walked on, without the least annoyance at having been found out, for that would have been silly.

  In my bright yellow English suit, which I had received as a present, I really seemed to myself, I must frankly admit, a great lord and grand seigneur, a marquis strolling up and down his park, though it was only a semi-rural, semi-suburban, neat, modest, nice little poor-quarter and country road I walked on, and on no account a noble park, as I have been so arrogant as to suppose, a presumption I gently withdraw, because all that is park-like is pure invention and does not fit here at all. Factories both great and small and mechanical workshops lay scattered agreeably in green countryside. Fat cosy farms meanwhile kindly offered their arms to knocking and hammering industry, which always has something skinny and worn-out about it. Nut trees, cherry trees, and plum trees gave the soft rounded road an attractive, entertaining and delicate character. A dog lay across the middle of the road which I found as a matter of fact quite beautiful and loved. I loved in fact almost everything I saw as I proceeded, and with a fiery love. Another pretty little dog scene and child scene was as follows. A large but thoroughly comical, humorous, not at all dangerous fellow of a dog was quietly watching a wee scrap of a boy who crouched on some porch steps and bawled on account of the attention which the good-natured yet still somewhat terrifying-looking animal chose to pay him, bawled miserably with fear, setting up a loud and childish wail. I found the scene enchanting; but another childish scene in this country-road theatre I found almost more delightful and enchanting. Two very small children were lying on the rather dusty road, as in a garden. One child said to the other: “Now give me a nice little kiss.” The other child gave what was so pressingly demanded. Then said the first: “All right, now you may get up.” So without a sweet little kiss he would probably never have allowed the other what he now permitted it. “How well this naive little scene goes with the lovely blue sky, which laughs down so divinely upon the gay, nimble, and bright earth!” I said to myself. “Children are heavenly because they are always in a land of heaven. When they grow older and grow up, their heaven vanishes and then they fall out of their childishness into the dry calculating manner and tedious perceptions of adults. For the children of poor folk the country road in summer is like a playroom. Where else can they go, seeing that the gardens are selfishly closed to them? Woe to the automobiles blustering by, as they ride coldly and maliciously into the children’s games, into the child’s heaven, so that small innocent human beings are in danger of being crushed to a pulp. The terrible thought that a child actually can be run over by such a clumsy triumphal car, I dare not think it, otherwise my wrath will seduce me to coarse expressions, with which it is well known nothing much ever gets done.”

  To people sitting in a blustering dust-churning automobile I always present my austere and angry face, and they do not deserve a better one. Then they believe that I am a spy, a plainclothes policeman, delegated by high officials and authorities to spy on the traffic, to note down the numbers of vehicles, and later to report them. I always then look darkly at the wheels, at the car as a whole, but never at its occupants, whom I despise, and this in no way personally, but purely on principle; for I do not understand, and I never shall understand, how it can be a pleasure to hurtle past all the images and objects which our beautiful earth displays, as if one had gone mad and had to accelerate for fear of misery and despair. In fact, I love repose and all that reposes. I love thrift and moderation and am in my inmost self, in God’s name, unfriendly toward any agitation and haste. More than what is true I
need not say. And because of these words the driving of automobiles will certainly not be discontinued, nor its evil air-polluting smell, which nobody for sure particularly loves or esteems. It would be unnatural if someone’s nostrils were to love and inhale with relish that which for all correct nostrils, at times, depending perhaps on the mood one is in, outrages and evokes revulsion. Enough, and no harm meant. And now walk on. Oh, it is heavenly and good and in simplicity most ancient to walk on foot, provided of course one’s shoes or boots are in order.

  Would the esteemed ladies and gentlemen, patrons and patronesses and circles of readers, while they benevolently tolerate and condone this perhaps somewhat too solemn and high-strutting style, now be so kind as to allow me duly to draw their attention to two particularly significant persons, forms, or figures, namely firstly, or better, first, to an alleged retired actress, and secondly to the most youthful presumed budding cantatrice? I hold these two people to be considerably weighty and therefore I believed it wise to announce and advertise them properly in advance, before they enter and figure in reality, so that an odour of significance and fame may run before these two gentle creatures, and they may be received and observed on their appearance with all distinction, due regard, and loving concern, such as one should, in my diminutive opinion, almost compulsorily accord to such beings. Then at about half past twelve the writer will, as is known, in reward for his many labours, eat, carouse, and dine in the palazzo, or house, of Frau Aebi. Till then, however, he will have to cover a considerable stretch of his road, and write a fair quantity of lines. But one realizes to be sure to satiety that he loves to walk as well as he loves to write; the latter of course perhaps just a shade less than the former.

  In front of a very attractive house I saw, very close to the beautiful road, a woman seated on a bench, and hardly had I glimpsed her when I plucked up the courage to speak, addressing her, in the most polite and courteous terms possible, as follows:

  “Forgive me, a person utterly unknown to you, if at the sight of you the eager and assuredly saucy question forces itself to my lips, whether you have not perhaps been formerly an actress? For in fact you seem very much indeed like a once great, indulged, celebrated actress and stage artist. Certainly you quite rightly wonder at my so amazingly rash address and obstreperous inquiry; but you have such a beautiful face, such a pleasant, charming, and, I must add, interesting appearance, present such a beautiful, noble, fine aspect, look so candidly, majestically, and calmly out of your eyes upon me and upon the world in general, that I could not possibly have compelled myself to pass you by without daring to say something civil and flattering to you, which I hope you will not hold against me, although I am afraid that I deserve correction and admonishment on account of my frivolity. When I saw you I thought for a moment that you must have been an actress, and today, I mused, you sit here beside the simple, though at the same time beautiful, road, in front of the pretty little shop, whose owner you appear to me to be. You have perhaps before today never been so unceremoniously addressed. Your friendly and moreover graceful aspect, your hospitable, beautiful appearance, your equanimity, your fine figure, and this noble, cheerful air in your advancing years (this I trust you will allow me to observe) have encouraged me to engage with you in intimate conversation on the open road. This fine day also, delighting me as it does with its freedom and gaiety, has kindled in me a joyousness, in consequence of which I have perhaps gone too far with the unknown lady. You smile! Then you are in no way angered by the unconstrained quality of my utterance. I think it, if I may say so, well and good when from time to time two persons who are unacquainted freely and harmlessly converse, for which converse we inhabitants of this wandering curious planet, which is a puzzle to us, do, when all is said and done, possess mouth and tongue and linguistic capacity, which last is as a matter of fact both curious and fair. In any case, the moment I saw you, I liked you profoundly; but now I must reverently ask your pardon, and I would ask you to rest assured that you inspire me with the warmest feelings of respect. Can this full confession that I was very glad when I saw you cause you to be angry with me?”

  “It is far rather a pleasure for me,” said the beautiful woman happily. “But, in reference to your supposition, I must prepare you for a disappointment. I have never been an actress.”

  At this I felt moved to say: “Not long ago I came into this region out of cold, forlorn, and narrow circumstances, inwardly sick, completely without faith, without confidence or trust, without any finer sort of hope, a stranger to the world and to myself, and hostile to both. Timidity and mistrust took me prisoner and accompanied my every step. Then, little by little, I lost my ignoble, ugly prejudices. Here I breathed again more quiet and free – and became again a better, warmer, and happier man. The terrors which filled my soul I saw gradually vanish; misery and emptiness in my heart and my hopefulness were slowly transformed into gay content and into a pleasant, lively sympathy, which I learned to feel anew. I was dead, and now it is as if someone had raised me up and set me on my way. Where I thought I must meet with much that is repulsive, hard, and disquieting, I encounter charm and goodness, I find all that is docile, familiar, and good.”

  “So much the better,” said the woman, and her face and voice were kind.

  As the moment seemed to have come to conclude this conversation, somewhat truculently begun, and to withdraw, I presented my compliments to the woman whom I had taken for an actress, but who was now unfortunately a great and famous actress no longer, as she herself had found it necessary to protest, with, I should add, an exquisite and very scrupulous courtesy, bowed to her and quietly, as if nothing had ever happened, walked on my way.

  A modest question: An elegant milliner’s under green trees, does this perhaps by now arouse exceptional interest and evoke possibly a little if any applause?

  I firmly believe it does, and so I dare to communicate the most humble observation, that as I walked and marched along on the most beautiful of roads a somewhat foolish, juvenile, and loud shout of joy burst from my throat, a throat which did not itself consider this, or anything like it, possible. What did I see and discover that was new, astounding, and beautiful? Oh, quite simply the above-mentioned milliner’s and fashion salon. Paris and St. Petersburg, Bucharest and Milan, London and Berlin, all that is elegant, naughty, and metropolitan, drew close to me, emerged before me, to fascinate and to enchant me. But in the capitals of the world one misses the green and luscious embellishments of trees, the embellishment and beneficence of friendly fields and many delicate little leaves and, last but not least, the sweet fragrance of flowers, and this I had here. “All this,” so I proposed to myself as I stood there, “I shall certainly soon write down in a piece or sort of fantasy, which I shall entitle ‘The Walk.’ Especially this ladies’ hat shop may not be omitted. Otherwise, a most picturesque charm would be missing from the piece, and this lack I shall know as well to avoid as to circumvent and render impossible.” The feathers, ribbons, artificial fruits and flowers on the nice quaint hats were to me almost as attractive and homely as nature herself, who, with her natural green, with her natural colours, framed and so delicately enclosed the artificial colours and fantastic shapes of fashion that the milliner’s might have been simply a delightful painting. I rely here, as I said, on the most subtle understanding of the reader, of whom I am honestly afraid. This miserable and cowardly confession is understandable. It is the same with all the more courageous authors.

  God! what did I see, likewise under leaves, but a bewitching, dainty, delightful butcher shop, with rose-red pork, beef, and lamb displayed. The butcher was bustling about inside, where his customers stood also. This butcher shop is certainly as well worth a shout as the shop with the hats. Third, a grocer’s might merit a quiet mention. To all sorts of public houses I come later, which is, I think, quite soon enough. With public houses, doubtless one cannot begin late enough in the day, because they produce consequences which everybody knows, knows indeed to satiety. Even the mos
t virtuous person cannot dispute the fact that he is never master of certain improprieties. Luckily, however, one is of course – human, and as such easily pardonable. One simply appeals to the weakness of the system.

  Here once again I must take fresh bearings. I assume that I can effect the reorganization and regrouping of forces as well as any field marshal surveying all circumstances and drawing all contingencies and reverses into the net of his, it will be permitted me to say, genius for computation. In the daily papers at present an industrious person can read such things every day, and he notes such expressions as “flank attack.” I have recently come to the conclusion that the art and direction of war is almost as difficult, and requires almost as much patience, as the art of writing, the converse being also true. Writers also, like generals, often make the most laborious preparations before they dare march to the attack and give battle, or, in other words, fling their produce, or a book, into the book market, an action which serves as a challenge and thus vigorously stimulates very forceful counterattacks. Books attract discussions, and these sometimes end in such a fury that the book must die and its writer despair of it all.

  I hope no estrangement will ensue if I say that I am writing all these I trust pretty and delicate lines with a quill from the Imperial High Court of Justice. Hence the brevity, pregnancy, and acumen of my language, at certain points well enough perceptible, at which now nobody need wonder any more.

  But when shall I come at last to the well-earned banquet with my Frau Aebi? I fear it will take quite a time, as considerable obstacles must first be put aside. Appetite in unstinted abundance has been long enough present.

  As I went on my way, like a better sort of tramp, a vagabond and pickpocket, or idler and vagrant of a sort finer than some, past all sorts of gardens planted and stuffed full with placid, contented vegetables, past flowers and fragrance of flowers, past fruit trees and past beansticks and shrubs full of beans, past towering crops, as rye, barley, and wheat, past a wood-yard containing much wood and wood shavings, past juicy grass and past a gently splashing little waterway, rivulet, or stream, past all sorts of people, as choice trade-plying market women, tripping past, and past a clubhouse decoratively hung with banners flying for a celebration, or for joy, and also past many other good-hearted and useful things, past a particularly beautiful and sweet little fairy apple tree, and past God knows what else in the way of feasible things, as, for example, also strawberry bushes and blossoms, or, even better, gracefully past the ripe red strawberries, while all sorts of more or less beautiful and pleasant thoughts continued to preoccupy me, since, when I’m out walking, many notions, flashes of light, and lightning flashes quite of their own accord intrude and interrupt, to be carefully pondered upon, there came a man in my direction, an enormity, a monster, who almost completely darkened my bright and shining road, a tall, lanky beanpole of a fellow, sinister, whom I knew alas only too well, a very curious customer; namely the giant