A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  Then the kid went for a walk and sat down on a park bench. It was midday. The sun was shining through the trees and making splotches on the path, on the faces of the strolling people, on the ladies’ hats, on the grass, that rascally sun. The sparrows hopped nimbly around and nannies rolled their little prams. It was like a dream, a mere game, a picture. The kid rested his head on his elbows and was absorbed in the picture. Suddenly he stood up and left. Well, it’s his business. Then the rain started falling and it washed away the picture.

  January 1905; 1914

  THE ISLAND

  TWO NEWLYWEDS from Berlin went on a trip. The journey was long. Finally, the young bride and groom arrived in a city built entirely from serious red stones, and a wide blue river flowed over them through it. A tall, majestic cathedral was reflected in the water’s surface. Still, to them the city did not seem made for longer stays, and they traveled onward, and since it was raining they opened a large umbrella and took shelter under it. They reached an old castle tucked away in a remote park and shyly went inside. A lovely stone spiral staircase, as if made for a ruling prince, led up to the second floor. Old, dark paintings hung on the high, snow-white walls. They knocked on a heavy old door. “Come in.” And there, sunk deep in mysterious, erudite work, sat an ancient little man at his desk. The couple from Berlin asked if they could stay in the castle, they liked it. But they couldn’t get anywhere with the old man, who only shook his head ponderously. So they went on. They ended up in a blizzard but worked their way out of it, and so their journey continued, through forests, villages, and cities. Nowhere could they discover any fitting place to spend a little time enjoying themselves, and on top of that the waiters in the hotels were fresh, the rascals. They spent one night in a hotel where there were admittedly the softest and most beautiful horsehair mattresses, and exquisite curtains over the windows, but the shamefully exorbitant prices practically gave them heart attacks. They went all the way to Venice, to the sneering Italians. The scoundrels, they sang serenades but pried loose the foreigners’ money with a crowbar for their trouble. Finally, fortune smiled upon them. They saw in the distance, in the middle of a charming lake, an adorable island shimmering light-green, and they steered toward it, and there they found it so beautiful that they couldn’t bear to leave. They stayed to live on the island. The beauty of its landscape was like a lovely sweet girl’s smile. They made their home there and were happy.

  1914

  [UNTITLED, CROSSED OUT]

  IF I WERE to take a trip in Switzerland, I would very probably get off the train in Basel first, spend the night in a hotel, and set out on foot early the next morning for a hike over the Jura Mountains. I picture the time of year as fall and my mood as passable. To sit in country inns and wait for lunch to be served is a savory treat and I would have the best possible conversations with the lady innkeepers and, where present, their daughters until the food came. Afterwards I would take to my feet again. Evening valleys would be roamed through. During the nights, ideally nice and chilly, the stars would shimmer and I would think back to the big city while hiking through the darkness, and it would seem very large and beautiful to me, like everything you can’t see clearly and understand. In the bright, hot midday sun I would stop for a moment to rest under a fir, beech, or oak tree, stretching out on the moss or grass. It is so nice to relax, but that presupposes a preceding strain or effort, just as there is nothing truly good in this world of ours except where something bad has had to have been overcome. But where am I? Am I actually on a hike right now? How is that possible?

  ca. 1910(?)

  THE HEATHSTONE

  IN THE forest, which draws me to it again and again because it is so beautiful, there stands, under the tall, slim, serious fir trees, a stone that people call the Heathstone, a dusky block of granite overgrown with moss that schoolboys like to clamber up, a wondrous testimony from ancient, wondrous times, and under its strange gaze you involuntarily come to a stop to reflect on life. Silent, hard, and tall it stands amid the lovely green homey forest, washed with countless rain showers, hidden in the realm of the silent faithful firs, an image of bygone days, expression of sheer eternal lastingness, and proof of the unthinkable age of the earth. I have often enough stood stock-still before the handsome stone, adorned with two marvelous old fir trees that have found room to grow majestically on the venerable rock. Today, too, I saw it again, and when I did, the following words, murmured quietly to myself, passed my lips: “Oh, how soft and weak and fragile human life is, after all, compared to your life, you old, indestructible stone. You have lived from the beginning of the world until today and you will live and stand there until the doubtful end of all life. Age seems to have solidified and strengthened you rather than damaging and weakening you. Everywhere around you, sensitive human beings die. Generations follow generations, which, like dreams, and similar to mere gentle breaths of wind, surface and vanish away again. You know no weakness. Impatience is foreign to you. Thoughts do not touch you and feelings do not approach you. And yet you live, you are living, you lead your stony existence. Tell me, are you alive?”—Full of strange questions, full of vague premonitions, I parted from my remarkable old stubborn stony hard companion, and I had the feeling that he was a magician, as though the woods were enchanted by him.

  1914

  TWO LITTLE THINGS

  I

  FIRST of all, everyone has to take care of himself, so that things can be easy and carefree everywhere. You have a tendency to always think about the other person and forget yourself. But does this other person thank you for that, and can he? No one likes to be thankful. Everyone wants whatever he is to be thanks to himself. “That’s entirely thanks to me” is something a person likes to say. Anyway, to the extent that you only just think about someone, you haven’t helped him do anything yet, even though you may well have already significantly neglected yourself. No one loves people who neglect themselves, you know.

  II

  I was walking just so and while making my way along just so I ran into a dog, and I paid careful attention to the good animal, by which I mean to say that I looked at it for rather a long time. What a fool I am, am I not? For is there not something foolish about stopping on the street due to a dog and losing valuable time? But in making my way along just so I absolutely did not have the sense that time was valuable, and so, after some time, I continued on my leisurely way. I thought, “How hot it is today!” and indeed it was really very warm.

  1914

  BY THE LAKE

  ONE EVENING after dinner I hurried out to the lake, which was darkly shrouded in I no longer quite recall what type of rainy melancholy. I sat down on a bench under the loose branches of a willow tree and gave myself over to indefinite contemplation, wanting to convince myself that I was nowhere, a philosophy that put me into a curiously exciting state of contentment. How splendid it was, this picture of sadness on the rainy lake into whose warm gray water it was thoroughly and as it were carefully raining. I could see in my mind’s eye my old father with his white hair, which made me the insignificant, bashful schoolboy, and the picture of my mother mingled with the quiet, graceful rippling of the gentle waves. In the large lake, looking at me as much as I at it, I saw childhood also looking at me as though with clear, good, beautiful eyes. Soon I entirely forgot where I was; soon I remembered again. A few silent people walked warily back and forth on the promenade; two factory girls sat down on the bench next to mine and started chatting with each other; and out on the water, out there in the dear lake, where the lovely cheerful crying gently spread, nautical aficionados still sailed in sailboats and rowed in rowboats, umbrellas open over their heads, a view that let me imagine I was in China or Japan or some other equally dreamy, poetic country. It rained so sweetly, so softly on the water, and it was so dark. All my thoughts slumbered, then all my thoughts were wide awake again. A steamship pulled out onto the lake; its golden lights shimmered marvelously on the bare, silver-dark water bearing the beautiful ship as thoug
h happy about its own fairy-tale appearance. Night fell soon afterward, and with it came the friendly command to stand up from the bench under the trees, leave the promenade, and begin the walk home.

  January 1915

  (published with next two pieces as

  “Three Little Fabulations”)

  THE CITY

  I REMEMBER how beautiful our city was on spring evenings. The homey, wide old streets glowed in the dim light. Lively as our city is, numerous people no less free than calm and well-bred were walking upon its streets. The pretty shop windows shimmered. One of the streets was completely full of people from every walk of life. I heard the bright, easy chitchat and twittering of young girls. Men strode along or stood silently in casual groups in the middle of the street. Some were smoking pipes. In one of the quiet side streets, a band gave a concert. A large cheerful audience stood around and listened. All the people anyone could see were so peaceful, so charming; all the windows were open to let the mild night air into the dark rooms. It was as though the pretty, cheerful city were especially made for spring, as though there could now not be any spring anywhere else but just there. I was enchanted by everything I saw and everything I heard. All at once I felt ten years younger. The tall trees here and there in the parks were wonderful: majestic old chestnut trees with round, rich, dark crowns, and in other places slim pointed firs, whose tips seemed to instigate a friendship or love affair with the stars and the moon. Everywhere it smelled and murmured and resounded of spring, love, and charming companionableness. The night and the city seemed to me the very expression of harmlessness and carefreeness. I felt very gentle, and at the same time also so quiet. Solitude and sweetness, sincerities and secrecies had joined together into a single bond and sound. The buildings stood there, some pitch black, some brightly lit up by the streetlights, like friendly figures you could converse and associate with. The lights in the whole dear deep dark warm night warbled and whispered and offered up their sweet, tender secrets, and in the thick darkness under low-hanging tree branches I felt wrapped in another way in infinite well-being. Time seemed to stand still because it had to stop and eavesdrop on all the beauty and all the evening magic. Everything dreamed because it was alive, and everything lived because it was permitted to dream. Beautiful noble ladies strolled slowly by on their husband’s or lover’s arm. The whole city was out on a promenade, and huge, wonderful clouds floated in the sky like the beautiful bodies of gods, as though kind hands were resting on a forehead, as though good divinities wanted to protect the city from all evil. The streets looked so dainty in their nightdress, so diverting, so darling. Parents walked with their children and both, the parents as well as the children, felt good.

  January 1915

  SPRING

  THE FRESH spring green looks like a green fire. Blue and green flow together into a single resonating sound. I don’t think I have ever seen the world look so beautiful and felt so content. How good it felt to be able to walk on the craggy stones. The surface of the earth felt like my secret brother. The plants had eyes that cast gazes full of love and friendship. The bushes spoke in a sweet voice and the lovely melancholy-happy birdsong rang out from everywhere. In the evenings, it was mysteriously beautiful in the fir forests—the firs standing there like fantastic creatures, so noble, so majestic, so delicate. Their branches were like arms earnestly pointing this way and that. How nice the sunlight was on cheery, bright mornings, almost too nice. It turned me into a little child again every time, in all that happiness, surrounded by all that color. I almost wanted to fold my hands together into a trusting prayer. “How beautiful the world is,” I said silently to myself again and again. Standing on the hill I looked down at the charmingly shimmering plains, at the city with its pretty buildings and streets, and little figures were moving through the streets: They were my fellow citizens. It was all so peaceful and so charming, so clear and so rich in secrets. Oh, how beautiful it was on the cliffs above the lake, which was like a gentle smile in its color and outline—a smile containing the best will in the world and the most graceful goodness, a smile that can only be smiled by lovers, who always have a certain similarity to children. I always walked along the same path, and every time it seemed entirely new. I never tired of delighting in the same things and glorying in the same things. Is the sky not always the same, are love and goodness not always the same? The beauty met me with such silence. Conspicuous things and inconspicuous things held hands with each other like children of the same mother. What was important melted away, and I devoted undivided attention to the most unimportant things and was very happy doing so. In this way the days, week, months went by and the year ran quickly round, but the new year looked much the same as the previous one and again I felt happy.

  January 1915

  A SCHOOLBOY’S DIARY

  AS A SECONDARY-SCHOOL student it is truly time to think about life a little more seriously. So: That is what I will attempt to do now. One of our teachers is named Wächli. I have to laugh whenever I think about Wächli; he really is too funny. He always boxes our ears, but these strange boxings of the ear do not hurt at all. The man has never learned how to hit in a way you can really feel. He is the most sweet-tempered, jolly person in the world, and how we torment him! It is not gallant. We schoolboys are decidedly not noble creatures; we lack the beautifully proper social graces many times over. Why is it that we overwhelm precisely a Wächli with our jokes? We are cowards; we deserve an Inquisitor to discipline us. If Wächli is happy and contented, just then is when we behave in such a way that his cheerful, satisfied mood has no choice but to depart immediately. Is that good and right? Hardly. If he gets mad we just laugh at him. There are people who are so funny when they get mad! Wächli definitely seems to belong to this category. He makes use of the cane very seldom; he rarely gets so angry that he needs to reach for this vile implement. He is tall and fat in shape and his face is tinted purplish red. What else should I say about this Wächli? In general, I would say, he picked the wrong line of work. He should have been a beekeeper or something along those lines. I feel sorry for him.

  Blok (that’s our French teacher’s name) is a tall, scraggly man with an unsympathetic nature. He has thick lips and eyes that one might also call thick and puffy; they look like his lips. He talks cruelly and fluently. I hate that. I am a good student otherwise, but with Blok I have primarily only failures to report. But he’s the one who ruins class for me. You’d have to be a hardy fellow to do well with Blok. He never loses his temper. How painful that is for us schoolboys: to feel that we are totally incapable of annoying this leather satchel of a man in any way. He is like a wax statue and there is something creepy and horrible about that. He must have a deeply hateful character and a ghastly family life. God save a boy from a father like that. My father is a jewel: I feel that especially vividly when I look at Blok. How stiffly he always stands there: It is as though he was half made of wood and half made of iron. If you can’t come up with any answers in his class, he makes fun of you. Other teachers would at least get mad. That’s good for a student, since you expect it. Honest fury makes a good impression on a boy. But no, he just stands there coldly, this Blok, and pronounces his praise or blame. His praise is slimy, it doesn’t warm you at all; you have no idea what to do with his criticism, coming as it does from a totally dry and indifferent mouth. In Blok’s class, you curse school. And he’s not a real teacher at all. A teacher who doesn’t understand how to touch people’s souls . . . But what am I talking about? The fact is, Blok is my French teacher. It’s sad, but it’s a fact.

  Neumann, nicknamed Neumeli: Who can keep from rolling with laughter when describing this teacher? Neumann is our gym teacher and simultaneously our penmanship teacher; he has red hair and gloomy, careworn, sharp facial features. He is a very, very unhappy man maybe. He always gets so insanely angry. We have him completely under our thumbs; he is completely in our power. People such as him instill no respect, only occasionally fear, namely when they seem like they’re a
bout to go out of their minds with rage. He cannot keep himself under even the slightest bit of control, instead all his feelings seem to plunge down into a pit of anger at the slightest opportunity. Of course we do give him reasons to get angry. But why does he have such ridiculous red hair? Such an excessively henpecked manner? One of my classmates is named Junge; he says he wants to be a cook when he grows up. This Junge has a wonderfully pronounced backside. Whenever he has to do forward bends, Junge’s backside sticks out even more crazily. You laugh when that happens, and Neumann has a terrible hatred for students laughing. It really is something dreadful—such total, intermingling and interringing classroom laughter. When a whole class laughs out loud like that, what kind of means should a teacher use to quiet it? Dignity? That’s no use. Someone like Neumann has no real dignity. I like gym class very much and I want to kiss dear Junge. Immoderate laughter is so pleasant. I am nice to Junge; I like him very much. We go for lots of walks together, and when we do we talk about what real life has in store for us.