The Assistant

by Robert Walser

  She drew him to her side at the window, and he began to tell her about the elastic factory, the English pound, his military service and Tobler’s business. Below them, in the meadows on the outskirts of town, a number of children were playing and making noise in the evening sunshine. Now and then a nearby locomotive sounded its whistle, or you could hear a drunkard singing and jeering, one of those fellows who were in the habit of spending their Sunday evenings howling out riotous and flaming red notes, as it were, to give the evening its character.

  The name and the story of the woman who now sat listening to her young acquaintance are quite simple.

  Her name was Klara, and she was a carpenter’s daughter. By coincidence, she came from the same region as Tobler and was therefore acquainted with the circumstances of his youth. Her upbringing had been strictly Catholic, but as soon as she went off into the world, her views changed dramatically, and she devoted herself to reading free-thinkers like Heine and Börne. She worked in a photography studio, first as a retoucher, then as receptionist and bookkeeper; the owner of the business fell in love with her, and she gave herself to him—not without considering the consequences of this unconventional arrangement: indeed, she awaited these consequences with a firm, liberated brow, feeling quite happy. She still was living in her father’s home, a younger sister had meanwhile died of consumption. She traveled to work each day and then back home, by train, a journey of an hour and a quarter. At around this time she received her first visits from Joseph. She took pleasure in this young man, who then was scarcely twenty years old, and loved listening to the outpourings of his imagination, which were youthfully and naturally unripe.

  What a strange world and age that had been. Under the label “socialism,” a notion at once disconcerting and enticing had cast its tendrils, like those of a luxuriant vine, into the minds and about the bodies of even the old and experienced, so that anyone who fancied himself a writer or poet, anyone who was young, quick to take action and seize a resolve, was preoccupied with the idea. Journals of this character and slant came shooting like flame-colored, enchantingly fragrant blossoms from the dark interiors of enterprising spirits into the public sphere, where they elicited both surprise and delight. Workers and their interests were in general, at the time, received with more élan than gravity. There were frequent parades, led sometimes by women waving blood-red or black banners high up in the air. All who had ever felt displeased with the circumstances and regimes governing the world now united, filled with hope and contentment, in this passionate movement of hearts and minds, and what was achieved, thanks to the adventurousness of rabble-rousers, incendiaries and windbags of a certain stripe—raising this movement to vainglorious heights on the one hand, and dragging it down into the gutter of everyday existence on the other—was noted by the enemies of this “notion” with a self-satisfied sneer. All the world, including Europe and the other continents, these young and only half-ripe enthusiasts insisted, was being joined and united by this idea into a joyous assembly of all mankind, but only he who worked had the right … —and so forth.

  At the time, both Joseph and Klara were utterly captivated by this perhaps noble and lovely blaze which, in their opinion, could not be extinguished by either water or defamatory speech, and which extended across the entire round, rolling earth like a red-hued sky. Both of them, as was the fashion in those days, were in love with “all mankind.”

  Often they sat for hours until deep into the night in the room where Klara lived in her father’s small house, speaking about the sciences and matters of the heart, whereby Joseph, shy as he generally was when interacting with others, always did most of the talking, which after all was appropriate, as his friend seemed to him like a revered teacher before whom he was to express his thoughts like school exercises learned more or less by rote for recitation. How lovely these evenings were. Whenever he went home afterward, the woman—who at the time was still a girl—would light his way down the stairs and say goodbye and adieu to him in her gentle voice. How her eyes gleamed when he turned back to catch one final glimpse of her.

  Then Klara had a baby and became a “free woman,” that is to say she found herself betrayed in the most callous manner by her gentleman friend, the photographer, who filled her with such profound disgust, that one day—she herself was living in the direst poverty—she simply showed him the door, saying only a single, short, peremptory word: “Go!” He was unworthy of her! She had to keep saying that to herself bravely, or else she would have succumbed to despair. But from then on she ceased to love “mankind” and instead worshiped her child.

  Somehow she got by, she was courageous and had always been accustomed to putting her shoulder to the wheel. Soon she had acquired a camera of her own and set up her own darkroom, and while she was experiencing all the splendors of raising and caring for a small child—the difficulties, the joys and all the worries—she was turning out picture postcards and negotiating with shopkeepers and wholesalers like the sharpest of businessmen. She established a joint household together with a childhood friend who had suffered a fate similar to her own: the two of them shared a single apartment. This was one Frau Wenger, an intelligent but uneducated woman—a “brick,” as Klara called her. The husband of this woman was a member or soldier of the Salvation Army, although he was certainly a well-put-together individual in terms of sanity and temperament and by no means a religious zealot. He had joined forces with the zealots for purely practical reasons. “Just go on and join, Hans,” his own wife had said to him, “that’s the best place for you to get over your drinking.” Her Hans, you see, was a “drinker.”

  Joseph was a frequent and welcome visitor in this two-woman apartment. There was always bound to be something to eat or drink there, a cup of milk or a glass of tea, and time spent there was always filled with merriment, though it was impossible not to be conscious of the delicate boundaries always drawn around women with life experience. They would laugh, clearly of the opinion that laughter was a splendid activity now that they had put a bit of worldly life behind them. Klara’s little boy and his qualities would be discussed. Oh, they had experienced all sorts of things. Joseph, too, had stopped talking about “mankind.” Those days were long past. The more difficult a person found it to become “a proper human being,” the less inclined he was to resort to grandiose words, and it certainly was difficult to be “proper,” they felt this more clearly with each passing day.

  Bit by bit, Joseph’s visits became less frequent, and then it happened that he went an entire year without showing his face. One day, Klara received an oddly brief letter in which he asked permission to visit her again. She encouraged him to do so, and this was repeated several times more, always after lengthy absences.

  And now here he was sitting beside the window, and she was listening to all he had to tell.

  Klara, too, related various things, including that she would soon enter into married wedlock. The child must have a father, and she herself was in need of a man’s support, as these days she was often indisposed and incapable of enduring the life of commercial activity she had been leading for so long. She’d become too weak to go on living all alone and unloved, and was longing to have the weariness that had taken hold of her entire spirit stroked and caressed by a human hand and a gentle, accepting will. She was only a woman, only a woman filled with hopes. The man she had chosen had simply allowed himself to be moved, won over, and chosen by her—the whole business was far too simple to require being narrated at length. “He” loved her, she said, and all his wishes and desires revolved around making her happy. Wasn’t that the simplest thing in the world? And what did Joseph, whom she had known so many years, have to say to all this? Better he should hold his tongue, for she knew he was merely intending to utter some polite remark, she knew him and that was enough.

  With a smile, she reached for his hand and pressed it.

  All these things now in the past, she went on, all the lovely past things! How good they were, all these thi
ngs that had occurred, how “proper.” And all the various mistakes: how right and proper. And the thoughtlessness, how necessary it was! Youth must err, must speak and act without depth of thought for progress to occur. There would still be thoughts and feelings aplenty after one had begun to accumulate experiences, and eventually, in the course of a long life, youth would be extinguished.

  And the two of them now spoke of the past, each seizing the words and exclamations directly from the other’s lips, praising and repeating them.

  Reunions of this sort are characterized by the complete absence of discord, such a thing simply cannot arise. Each person thoughtfully and warmly repeats the memories being related by the other, the two sets of lips speak at once, and the words they utter are met with echoes and admiration, never with objections. If arguments occur, it is only, one would like to think, in the musical sense.

  Yes, the past came over them and rustled about their ears, making them gaze at the world backwards, as if looking downstairs from above. They didn’t have to force their memories to cooperate, either, for the memories were already sending their delicate arms and tendrils curling off in search of memorable items so as to fetch and carry them perceptibly closer to where the two were sitting.

  “How often I was moody and ungenerous,” Joseph said regretfully. And Klara replied that he was the only one who always came back again to see her:

  “A long time may pass between your visits, but you always come back. You are fond of making yourself scarce, yet meanwhile a person cannot help but feel that you are thinking of her. And then one day you return, and one feels surprised at how little you have changed, how wonderfully you’ve managed to remain just the same as ever. And one speaks with you as if you’d just run out to the corner bakery rather than putting a year-long hole in a friendship, the way it always is with you, the eternal fugitive, it’s as if you’d never left. Other men, Joseph, can stay away forever, life thrusts them in new directions, and they never again return to the site of their old friendships. But life has neglected you a little, you see, and this is why you have such a lovely ability to remain true to your own inclinations. I wish neither to wound you nor praise you, neither would be sincere, and a more direct approach has always worked well for both of us, hasn’t it? Let’s remain what we’ve always been to one another: you to me and I to you!”

  Night had fallen during this conversation. They took leave of one another.

  “Will you come again soon?”

  Putting on his hat, Joseph remarked that it was, after all, a matter of indifference—seeing as he always managed to remain just the same as ever—whether he came again decades later or four days from now.

  Because of these words, they parted coldly.

  And now, Mr. Clerk, or however you prefer to be addressed, you are back in the Villa Tobler, make no mistake, and, in the guise of a bird beating its wings above your apparently rather poetically-minded head, the Advertising Clock is hurtling back and forth. Sunday, that softest of days, is over now, and the hard, rugged workday has just grabbed hold of you; you’ll have to puff yourself up to full height to have any chance to withstand its powerful waves. Just go on being “the same as ever,” as your friend Klara has put it—this will do less harm than if you suddenly resolve to turn over a new leaf. It isn’t really possible to turn over a new leaf just like that, from one day to the next: make a note of this, if you will. But when “life has neglected you,” to quote yet another of those feminine maxims—one which would appear to be quite appropriate—then you have no choice but to struggle against this neglect, which is in fact unworthy, are you listening, and not just sit about in the brightest-broadest daylight and then on evenings full of melancholy sunsets chat with old ladyfriends about “days gone by.” All such activities should be avoided in future. On the contrary, you have to remind yourself of your duties, for it happens to be the case that Sundays and Sunday outings do not go on forever, and you will surely concede that duty has heretofore been a tiny bit “neglected” by a certain assistant, just as life itself has neglected the gentleman in question. And as for the absence or lack of wits—can this problem now be eliminated for good? Filling up a head can’t be done overnight, it requires steady labor. Simply refuse to tolerate indolence in yourself and in this way, one would like to believe, things will gradually begin to accumulate in your head.

  The Advertising Clock is sprawled on the ground in defeat, wailing for a bit of solvent capital. Go to it and give it your support so that it may gradually, one limb at a time, rise up again and successfully imprint itself on people’s opinions and judgments once and for all—a task that is worthy, if you will, of your mental abilities, and useful to boot. See to it as well that bullets soon come flying out of the Marksman’s Vending Machine, don’t hesitate so long, just give the handle a good yank, and the machine so ingeniously conceived and constructed by your master, Herr Tobler, will soon enough spring into motion. No feelings now. You can’t always be going out for a stroll, you must also accomplish things, and you’ll also have to take a closer look at that drill one of these days, not weeks from now but rather as swiftly as possible, so that you’ll be possessed of the requisite knowledge pertaining to all aspects of the Tobler enterprises.

  All too modest a responsibility for the same young man who is permitted to assist Frau Tobler—a circumstance he holds in high regard—in hanging out the wash in the garden. One must also consider those things that lie hidden, for they are crucial in an engineering bureau. Stringing up clotheslines, my dear sir, my dear sprinkler and hoser-down of the garden, is not what you were summoned to the top of this green hill to perform. You are certainly quite fond of watering the garden, aren’t you? Shame on you! And have you given even the slightest thought to the patented invalid chair? No? Good Lord above, what a clerk. You deserve to be “neglected by life.”

  These were approximately Joseph’s own thoughts when he awoke in his bed on Monday morning. He got up and was about to swap his nightshirt for a day shirt, but then became immersed in contemplating his legs for a solid minute. After the legs had been inspected, his bare arms became the subject of study. Joseph stood before the mirror and found it most interesting to turn this way and that, observing his body. A good proper body, and healthy, capable of enduring exertions and deprivations. It was surely an outright sin for a person equipped with such a torso to remain lying in bed longer than was needed to take his rest. Someone who pushed a heavy wheelbarrow all day long couldn’t have more healthy, more solidly constructed limbs than these. He got dressed.

  And did so quite slowly. After all, there was plenty of time, a few minutes wouldn’t make much difference. To be sure, Tobler’s opinion on this matter diverged from his, as Joseph had already had occasion to experience, but Tobler himself was Mondaying today. Mondaying meant stretching out in bed longer than usual, letting oneself go and indulging oneself a bit more than on any other workday, and Tobler was a real champion in Monday lounging, he wouldn’t be putting in an appearance down in the realm of technical solutions and problems until half past ten.

  This morning Joseph’s hair appeared extraordinarily difficult to brush and comb. His toothbrush recalled bygone days. The soap with which he wanted to wash his hands slipped from his grasp and shot beneath the bed, and he had to bend down and retrieve it from the farthest corner. His collar was too high and too tight, although it had fit perfectly the day before. What marvels. And how tedious this all was.

  In some other place and at some other hour, all this would perhaps have struck him as agreeable, instructive, nice, fine, amusing, even enchanting. Joseph recalled certain times in his life when buying a new necktie or a stiff English hat had sent him into a frenzy. Half a year before, he had experienced just such a hat scenario. It had been a quite good normal hat of moderate height, the sort that “better” gentlemen are in the habit of wearing. Joseph, however, felt nothing but distrust for this hat. A thousand times he placed it upon his head, standing before the mirror, only to
set it back on the table. Then he moved three steps away from this charming eyesore and observed it the way an outpost observes the enemy. Nothing about it was in any way objectionable. Hereupon he hung the hat up on its nail, and there too it appeared quite innocuous. He tried putting it on his head again—oh horror! It seemed bent on trying to split him in two from top to bottom. He felt as if his very personality had become a bleary, caustic, bisected version of itself. He went out onto the street, and found himself reeling like a despicable drunkard—he felt lost. Stepping into a place of refreshment, he took off his hat: saved! Yes, that had been the hat scenario. He had also experienced collar scenarios in his lifetime, as well as coat and shoe scenarios.

  He betook himself downstairs to breakfast, where he ate without restraint, all but indecently. No one else, incidentally, was in the room, but even so! All the more reason! Even when one was all alone, there was no cause to disregard the propriety of table manners. How in the world had he worked up such an appetite? Because it was Monday? No, he was simply deficient in character, that was all. He took such childish pleasure in slicing himself a piece of bread, and yet it was Tobler’s bread, not his, and then it so filled him with delight to dish out the fried potatoes, and whose fried potatoes were these if not Tobler’s? He found it so astonishingly agreeable to eat a bit more than his hunger required, and whom was he harming by doing so? After he had finished, he ought by rights to have gotten up so as to begin work, but what’s to be done when one finds oneself stuck and unable to arise from the dining table? Then Pauline arrived and chased him off with her disagreeable appearance.

  Down in the office. The first thing was to pace back and forth a little, after all that was standard procedure, that’s how a person always begins when he’s resolved to get to work. Was Joseph one of those individuals who always begin some piece of work by first taking a breather and only afterward, when they have finished work, that is, half-finished it, do they begin to display some energy, which suggests perhaps that the impetus behind this energy is merely the wish to indulge in some cheap amusement? In a leisurely fashion, he lit one of the familiar cheroots, which always sweetened the thought of getting down to work, and soon he was puffing away like a member of a smoking club.