A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  He was almost never at home. Rainwater was utterly incapable of preventing him from going out. Every kind of weather was equally lovable and precious. Since the suit and hat he wore were not of the newest or most exquisite, he did not need to take any special care of them. As far as he was concerned, it could rain down upon his hat, shoes, clothes, nose, collar, forehead, hair, and hands as hard and as often as it felt inclined to.

  Sometimes, as an exception, he sat in his room and read or wrote something or another. The world was too beautiful for him to spend too much time slumped at home or, to put it perhaps with a slightly more appropriate delicacy, preferring to remain seated and pursue his studies.

  He lived in a kind of palace, French-style, that is to say on the sixth floor right up under the roof. His favorite book was Gotthelf’s Erdbeerimareili, a story that he sometimes used to read half out loud to himself, to which end his attic room seemed to serve perfectly as a recital hall. The recitator and the listening public were both, of course, him.

  The room’s window offered a truly very lively, entertaining, and exciting view of a bright and often crowded square, which bore some kind of stamp of Andalusia, i.e., Spain. Hans felt that it reminded him of Toledo, namely the square he was in love with and officially engaged to, which presumably was rather superfluous. Now he who felt that this or that reminded him of Granada, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, or Toledo had incidentally never actually been to such cities, from which one may conclude either that he liked to brag or liked to lie, or liked to fib, or liked to fantasize, poetize, and dream. It is all too easy for those who have an imagination and use it too to seem like scoundrels and cheats. Just by the by.

  Let an old tobacco pipe be mentioned here, but hopefully only in passing.

  Hans, who owned a total of five books, had to laugh heartily and often at such imposing institutions as the City Library, the Monastery Repository, or the State Chancellery. Rather often and regularly he drank tea, because such a drink or sip had, he fancied, an imagination-awakening effect, which was thoroughly stimulating.

  One day, he experienced an unforgettable, magnificent storm, by which he meant in particular a dusky street alongside the railroad tracks down which whizzed a raging tempest whirling up dust with astounding tempestuousness. All kinds of men, women, and children fled hastily from it as though from an unchained monster fast approaching. The flight, the dust, thick smoke, wet wind taken all together made a great impression and painted a frightening and at the same time exciting picture. Then thunder boomed, heavy rain pelted down on the roofs, streets, and hurrying people; lightning bolts tore through the sky; all at once the whole region was strangely dark. Later, though, the world looked friendlier and more cheerful than it had before the storm. With fresher breaths, people stepped back to their doors and out into the purified air where everything sparkled moistly and beckoned confidingly, streets, buildings, and trees adorably shimmering their hellos.

  Often he spent the whole day walking in the mountains, with a piece of cheese, chocolate, bacon, or sausage or an egg in his pocket, fighting off thirst, exhaustion, and hunger, which made him happy, since he was a great enthusiast for enduring the kind of strenuous bodily activity that filled his heart with ardent fire and soul with joyful pride.

  Lonely forests high in the mountains, trees here and there blown down by storms, delighted him. A spring, a well, or sometimes a glass of milk sufficed to liberate the weary wanderer from all sorts of fatigue. He won back his lost strength more rapidly than he would have thought he would, and quickly felt restored. Later, descending back to the lowlands, the people there, their residences, the fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, and all the other dear and gentle and eminently rational things—clambering more mildly down the steep cliffs back to culture, population, streets, and generally accepted circumstantialities of all kinds—was a new joy for him, which would then typically find its flowering flashing pinnacle in a half or sometimes even whole carafe of wine, by which I mean to say that the thirsty wanderer with love-filled spirit and suntanned face would stop in at an inn arbor or twilit gazebo where he would be practically beside himself with sheer enjoyment.

  “For someone who walks a lot, good sturdy well-nailed shoes are conceivably important,” he said to himself, and thereupon bought some snappy walking and hiking boots which seemed to possess no less sound a construction than magnificent a fit, and in so doing he told himself that it was a pleasure to be able to support local industries to this by no means insignificant extent.

  A general store provided cheroots while a charming sunny stationery store offered the finest and most delicate writing- and letter-paper. What all couldn’t a person make off and scurry home with in exchange for cash money?

  Hans preferred to have himself shaved and barbered and his hair cut in a neighboring town, medieval in appearance and extremely homey in feel. While undergoing meticulous treatment from his admirably adroit coiffure-artist, he had as extensive and involved a conversation as he wanted with him about all imaginable hair and mustache eventualities, to the point where everyone in the whole friendly shaving room listened in eagerly and wondered in honest and sincere amazement.

  On expeditions and other investigative operations he always carried himself in more or less such a fashion that people, all indeed his dear fellow citizens, might take him for perhaps a notary, schoolteacher, junior curate, technical director, judiciary official, earnest tax collector, businessman, or architect. From which may plainly be seen that he always made an effort to come across as an individual and man of thoroughly resolute hue and career path, not like a fellow with neither character nor resolution.

  “Purposefully and goal-directedly should I and want I to move through the city, even when I am not by chance pursuing any goal whatsoever nor having the least shred of reasonable purpose in mind.”

  Some people took him for a random passing elegant foreigner, a richly furnished singular traveler. In general, however, he appeared to be an important, rushed, expert, busily mercantile sort of businessman, trotting rigidly along, about whom you could see that he had not the remotest idea of the possible existence of any time to waste.

  Schoolchildren would give him numerous polite greetings because they thought he was from the school committee. Did he not look almost like a supervisor, trustee, or member of the board of examiners? Could such a serious face possibly coexist with anything other than grades and semester report cards? Certainly not!

  As for his hat, its uniquely solemn stiffness and rare age alike surely suited it splendidly to speedy protective custody in a museum. Hans nonetheless held to the firm opinion that how probably formerly remarkably handsome his hat must no doubt have once been was apparent to all. Faded beauty, he told himself, was known to be able to make women intriguing, so why not hats for a change.

  Inordinately happy as Hans was to let things go with such thoroughly pleasant considerations, he thought that he would have to take great care to get a hold of some sturdy nice new item at the appropriate opportunity, no doubt next year. Since money was rather scarce with him, he could make such promises to himself with the most placid conscience and face.

  Insofar as he could recall to his fortunately rather good memory later, he saw at that time, that is to say, on one of the days that for various good reasons were significant to him since they represented to a certain extent a particular type of transition, namely the transformation from something old or tired and worn-out into something fully rejuvenated, youthful, new, or unused and unabraded, in an open field, an enraged, infuriated man, who, like a tragedian acting onstage and playing his role with whatever greater or lesser success, was talking out loud into thin air, gesticulating all the while in horrible fashion.

  For the rest of his life, Hans never forgot this wild, angry man. On the contrary, he always thought zealously and insistently about this no less lamentable, sad, and regrettable than comic and ridiculous figure.

  The weather itself was in harmony, so to speak, w
ith this man in the open field, acting almost exactly as raw and stormily as the man, who spoke or conducted a language with extra-loud words and screamed it out into the surrounding space, the way only a furiously defiant rebel against God and everything under the sun would call them forth in his mouth, by piling up the ferociously shattered tower of his outrage into the heavens like a gigantic tower, spreading terrible effects and slinging ghastly circumstances all about.

  Clearly the man was in an unbridled state of excitement. From his disgusting, horrible gestures that seemed to look like licking, devouring tongues of flame spoke and blazed contempt, rage, hate, and fury.

  Probably, though, he was very simply nothing but seriously mentally ill, for, on the whole, solitary individuals walk their path quietly and do not talk like that into empty space or with trees and winds who can have neither hearing nor understanding for the reckless performance of excited people.

  Nowhere in sight in the surrounding area was there anyone to whom the raging man could have been directing his furious declamation. In the closest proximity was only Hans, whom, however, the wild man with his back to him did not even see.

  Accordingly, this rebel was speaking, in a pathological vituperation of everything around him that by absolutely no means brought him anything like relief, solely and exclusively with ghosts, nonexistent creatures of the imagination who were dry and withered through and through, or at best with a phantom or his own diseased fantasies which seemed to be at once tempting him and mocking him to the same immense extent.

  He fought against perfect nothingness, lashed out with ridiculous vehemence at absolutely invisible enemies all around him, defended himself in a life-and-death struggle against a completely imaginary overwhelming attack, and spoke to the figures and voices that either no one but he or perhaps not even he himself could see and hear.

  All of his tempestuous movements were utterly wasted, everything he said resounded unheard, and his dissolute behavior and actions were senseless insofar as there was no one to take notice of them and thus they had not the slightest effect on anything. This memory of someone naturally giving rise to disgust more than to pity nonetheless stayed with Hans as a stern example and warning, although shortly thereafter he was to be the spectator of a truly wonderful performance.

  At the proper time, that is, on the occasion of a nice charming run of business or run in the park that had proceeded very pleasantly and divertingly, he met two people, two little people, who stood, vis-à-vis the just previously discussed strange fellow and vicious chap who found himself in the murkiest possible conflict and quarrel with any and every social, civil, or human institutions, plans, regulations, and existences, in the most charming and pleasant contrast, namely two friendly beggars sitting peacefully next and close to each other on the ground at the edge of a forest, who seemed to him to be anything but hateful and misanthropic.

  Where the gloomy other man acted wild, insane, and dissolute, behaved in the most unseemly way imaginable, and thus gave rise to immediate dislike, these quiet folks here in a corner of the woods conducted themselves as gently and good-humoredly as they could, hence of course disseminating sympathy in such a way that Hans stopped next to them with a kind of delight.

  The sight that the beggar man and woman offered our passerby was moving, in fact clearly stirring, since it showed how two entirely impoverished people in isolation stuck together, faithful, honest, and solicitous, by sitting next to each other thoroughly unmiserable in their sorrow, instead innocent, affectionate, and warmhearted in their need, awaiting whatever came with a deep inner calm and in fact, it seemed, good cheer almost.

  Hans, moved for a moment by the winning picture, said in silence to himself the following words:

  “How warmly and intimately human suffering is painted here, presented as entirely harmless, natural, and appealing before the eyes of one who has happened by chance to wander past and see this charming if at the same time melancholy scene. Must not anyone with a heart capable of feeling sensations almost smile at such a picture and at the same time shed a tear?”

  It seemed to him as though heaven were wanting to shine an especially beautiful and radiant beam of light down upon this poverty that does not rail and rage but rather accepts in God’s name whatever fate and its dispensations command it to bear and endure.

  Everything faltered and came to a stop like pitch-black, moonless, starless midnight around the insurrectionist there in the open field; here, by the happy beggar couple, it resounded as though with love songs and melodies of peace, it flapped and fluttered as though with the wings of an angel, it was light like the realms where all good people imagine the saints live.

  Perhaps the rebel in the empty field had suffered an injustice, but what will come of anyone who can no longer bear injustice, no longer endure a hard fate? Don’t you agree, dear reader, that they who accept life in good spirits, whatever bad things life might also bring, are blessed?

  Words such as those given just above are actually what Hans says, not the author, who indeed would do best just to stay in the background and keep the most scrupulous silence, rather than pressing forward, which doesn’t look good at all.

  Tact and discretion are never anything other than attractive. Modestly stepping aside can never be recommended as a continual practice in strong enough terms.

  Such severe and merciless dealings with oneself as presented here may admittedly be somewhat strange.

  What blatant iron will and manifest adamantine discipline!

  Whereupon the forcefully reprimanded writer sits up, although in truth he is rather shy, straight and says, as apologetically as apparently unfortunately rather cockily, that the tempting smell and scent of rösti potatoes with bacon is wafting if he is not grossly mistaken into his nose!

  The matter must be looked into with the same promptitude as that with which it is reported that Hans has once again one fine Sunday afternoon, as on so many before, betaken himself on a jaunty and pleasant walk.

  It was impossible for him to remember clearly after the fact every particular little detail concerning that lovely afternoon. He knew only that it was warm and nice out, and that the walker sat down first on a boulder in the fields but later for half an hour on the banks of a bluely quietly delightfully flowing stream. A man passing by said: Hello. To our hero, surely more of an idyllic than a dramatic, more of a comic than a tragic hero, it felt wonderful to be able to respond to this polite greeting in a free and natural way, to sit amid the green under a blue sky with just a few clouds, and to gently regard the merry area lying all around him, which, for as far as he could see, was green, yellow, blue, and white, and through which breathed a wafting, childishly gentle, adorable wind from some, Hans himself was not quite sure which, direction.

  He felt the urge to stand up and keep walking. Near an old and honorable building, formerly a monastery, he had himself brought across the river. The ferryman struck him as a figure from Dürer. The battles of Grandson and Murten came clearly into his mind, and yet the beautiful, good, calm, and cheerful country gave off the pleasant scent of peace, unremitting love of one’s neighbor, lasting amicable accord, harmony, fidelity, and kindheartedness more than that of tumult, clashing weapons, battle cries, hostilities, and brutal disturbance of tranquillity.

  Beautiful, respectable houses and cheerful parks stood and lay peacefully thereabouts. An attractive antiquity enveloped every object. Hans abandoned himself to a dream in which he was once again a little boy gently strolling into the Sunday evening light with his father and mother and brothers and sisters. While he dreamed along these lines, it seemed as though everything around him had turned infinitely soft and lovely, and he found it impossible to suppress a sweet feeling of melancholy.

  But soon enough he was cheerful again. Love of humanity and the sorrows thereof, a lust for life and the pain therefrom rose exquisitely up like tall ghostly shapes in the pale, golden air of the summer evening. Softly the figures seemed to wave to him. A scent of
river water spread through the region. Later, he was sitting in front of a stately guesthouse where, while couples strolled modestly down immaculate country roads and horse-drawn carts, bicycles, parents with children, and all sorts of other Sunday people passed slowly or rapidly by, he chatted excitedly with the comely hostess.

  The calm of Sunday, the joy and calm of evening, ambled softly but majestically past, with wide eyes, as breath, memory, and feeling. From the picturesque village’s chimneys puffed and smiled a bluish dinnertime smoke sighing softly through the still air. Now, in every kitchen, so Hans thought, they were making coffee and rösti, and having said this to himself he felt a most vigorous desire to once again dig in to some rösti himself.

  He left the guesthouse. Numerous busy fisherman lined the evening canal. The railroad bridge shimmered silver and pink. What a monstrous wave of enchantment flooded in from everywhere across the whole world and covered everything.

  Hans stepped into a village grocery store that was completely full of the smell of rösti, which made him practically perish with cravings, although of course he did not dare to say anything since it was hardly proper to step into a building without so much as a by your leave and help eat dinner.

  In any case, he had been able to chat with a guesthouse hostess, which, admittedly, was certainly not much, but surely was also not little. He valued constructive conversations highly.

  To secretly relish the beautiful figure of Frau B—— (whom he referred to as “the Oriental”) was either not at all or very important to him, depending on whether such behavior seemed pleasant to him at that particular moment. He always gave over a bit of time to suchlike and similar things. In the evening, on the promenade, he would now and then stroll along close behind the abovementioned lady, thinking all the while that it might perhaps be nicer for him if he were arm in arm with her instead, but nonetheless just the enjoyment of her captivating gait as well as the sight of her bewitching back left him fully satisfied. Enthusiasts are happy with little, in fact even often extremely miniscule things. One time, he met her on the lakeshore, where she cast him a fleeting glance that seemed to contain a certain quantity of regard. As a result, Hans flew straight, without in the least pausing to reflect upon whether such a journey was a good idea, to seventh heaven and remained there for a rather long time fully out of his senses.