A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  Early one morning, he stood by the divinely glittering lake, near the landing, where he was witness to an utterly charming and poetic scene, namely by virtue of the fact that a group of schoolgirls was just returning home from their summer field trip in a ship sparkling magnificently in the morning sunshine.

  The adorable thing about it was that the children were met by a stately choir or municipal band with lovely, graceful, cheerful melodies, giving them a reception as ceremonious as it was amusing and which looked extraordinarily lovely in the bright, happy landscape. Hans had never seen anything like it before, and just as little would anything nearly as nice subsequently ever come before his eyes again.

  The beholder could never forget how the wonderful lake sparkled, everything light blue and light green and fairy white, how the whole surroundings smiled as though with darling, innocent girl’s lips, how all the brightly clad children marched on one after the other to brisk and lively music, strolled along into the city, instantly taking on shape and form at such a charming opportunity and turning as it were into the fluttering of doves, the twittering of swallows, or, better yet, a roundelay of angels dancing in the air, everything seeming so sweet and good and kind and happy and merry, and he impressed it upon his memory far too firmly to ever again be able to let it fall away much less throw it off.

  Still, even other than that there were things he saw that he later liked thinking back on.

  For example, while standing by the lake in an evening rain shower, he saw people, holding umbrellas open over their heads and their clothes, gondoling comfortably back and forth across the lake deep into the night, a variety of conveyance that gave him a vivid picture of the customs and traditions in China or Japan, although his feet and shoes had never in his life trod upon either the former or the latter, nor had he seen either with his own eyes. On the other hand, a friend who had been there had told him a lot of stories about it.

  A majestic boulevard of chestnut trees leading out to the lake, resembling a high, green hallway, a sap-green convent passageway or church nave, a corridor or a beautiful, sprightly grotto, and then again perhaps bearing some similarity to a long oval sultan’s tent full of greenish decorative paintings and stage scenery, in any case unique and of very probably princely splendor in its way, in fact downright bewitching, just as likely to be found in some castle grounds or somewhere like that as where it actually was in fact to be found, and, incidentally, dating from the era of foreign rule or the time of the French, during which it was said to have been planted on the orders of a general, army corps commander, or imperious conqueror—Hans never stopped admiring or in other words continually admired it anew.

  Such a long sentence may well give rise to some amazement. On account of its audacity it does doubtless deserve our notice. How lamentable that writers would rather express themselves simply and easily comprehensibly than capriciously and complicatedly.

  Hans loved five to eight nearby communities and localities as dearly as if every single one of these thus-favored villages were his very own homeland and birthplace. He always made sure to dutifully and lovingly alternate the paying of visits to the various villages, perhaps giving slight preference to one or another of them without for all that meaning this partiality all too seriously, since in the end they were all fully equal in his affections.

  He kept in living and faithful memory a companionable, gentle, old, good meadow path under the shadow of the tall walnut trees with a sweet, beautiful girl coming home from work who might well have made quite a good match for him as a wife under certain circumstances if she liked him, which he never dared to convince himself she did, since he told himself with rather good reason that such presumption and brazen impertinence would be fresh.

  Likewise, a wide country road, swimming, shining in the light of the sunset, completely deluged with liquid yellow or gold, with all sorts of pretty factory girls, whose faces, expressions, gestures, and figures were wonderfully wreathed in the bewitching phosphorescent flames of evening, stuck with him and clung faithfully to him—a sight that gave rise to the thought that he would have truly loved to put his arms around and caress every one of these young, sweet, feminine fellow human beings, which naturally could have proved to be a bold and thus difficult undertaking given their considerable number.

  Another time, somewhat later of course, namely already in the middle of the following snowy, foggy winter, he saw on that same road two children standing right next to each other in silence, with the wild gypsyish hair of children surrounding their little faces, looking deeply out into the space before them from strange black eyes.

  This and other things came to mind again and again in later years. Again and again it was like seeing each thing again, finding it again. Various and sundry things seen long before would sometimes occur to him new and fresh again, which made him happy.

  To see an object again at a later hour purely through mere reflection may perhaps be more beautiful than the moment itself of actual experience and perception, he felt and said.

  In general, children deeply moved him and their games delighted him. Was there not, alighting upon the children’s games and children’s groups to be seen here and there on the village streets alongside all the nice, old-fashioned architecturalities, always both the trace of grace and the allure of the poor?

  Children are always poor and defenseless, after all, no matter how powerful, prosperous, and defenseful their parents might be. For Hans, every child was beautiful in the entirely unique way children are, he himself sometimes did not know quite why.

  “Do I deserve so many pleasures?” he oftentimes asked himself when he found himself particularly well entertained by a lovely view, a good sentiment, or an especially rich feeling. Sometimes the world seemed to him unutterably good, warm, and bright. He had a tendency to stand still before certain beauties of landscape, architecture, or whatever other natural sort, like a painter who starts sketching out hues and outlines in his imagination as soon as he sees. Some of the things he liked to look at reminded him of the strange paintings of Cézanne. Another occasion might bring to mind the magnificent painter Renoir. Upon catching sight of a waving yellow cornfield with a delightful hot summer wind sweeping through it, playing gracefully with the stalks, he could not help but think of van Gogh, who painted such things with a perhaps almost terrifyingly ardent love.

  When Hans was standing on a hill one time, from where he could see spread out enticingly before him an extensive rich river region with all sorts of scattered fields, stands of trees, villages, church spires, and castle towers, he said to himself, “This beautiful segment of the globe, so radiant before me, inhabited by friendly human creatures, does it not from this distance look almost like a painting by a Dutch Old Master?” Nature often reminded him of art in this way, which was entirely natural, since after all in the end all art emerges from loving, maternal nature.

  The grazing of the cows on the high mountain meadows, along with the charming, melodious tinkling of the bells so delightfully bound up with it; the beautifully free way the peaceful animals stood and lay around; the loafing of a certain, apparently unfortunately entirely useless average or exceptional person who clearly had inordinate amounts of time available for lying in the grass; on the one hand the echoing of and on the other hand the conscientious listening to just these soothing and sanctifying sounds, hearing this high, pure voice of ancient times, the trees and the good blue sky at peace all around, the cliffs, the quiet mountain cabins: all this absolutely refused to leave the memory of an extremely unserviceable but nonetheless still arguably otherwise quite nice, well-mannered, polite and respectable individual, namely Hans, nor did he want it to, since he seized with pleasure and an unquestionably heartfelt delight at all times upon anything beautiful and invigorating.

  Of the bright, clear vineyard country by the lake with its cozy wine villages, the imposing boulders and outcroppings, the delicate, slender church spires, the graceful walls supporting the vines, and the
steep, precipitous, narrow streets running through it all; of the good men and women he saw busily, undourly creating, building, and working, which made him, I should rather hope, not only marvel at but even be properly ashamed of his own laziness, which in turn, thank God, will have filled him with some serious concern; of the subsequent eventual sitting inside in the pub over a lightly foaming and sparkling white wine, which in his prominent or negligible opinion tasted excellent; of the venerable old lady by the pub window; of the dark-tabled, amiable room itself with several depictions on the wall from the world-famous story of the prodigal son mentioned in a charming novella by Pushkin alongside other attractive illustrations: of all this, and of the arbor and outdoor seating on the lakeside where it was so marvelous to sit in the evenings, he (you know who I mean) thought with no less pleasure than of various other happy, pleasant things.

  Architectural matters, such as for instance certain medieval castles and seats of nobility on the lake, or, in the city, the city’s church on its magnificent raised platform, or an old fountain crowned with the striking, impressive figure of a man-at-arms, of necessity remained no less memorable than various nearly just as meaningful and beautiful things like for example a round fortress tower with merlons and embrasures, which would not have been out of place in Damascus or somewhere else like that, or a nicely situated swan rookery, where ducks, geese, pigeons, sparrows, chickens, and swans could be observed as well as fed, or several and similar other items.

  Since all of these things literally swarmed and seethed to be diligently, properly stored up in his memory, there always remained a large number left over that he should have paid equal attention to, although there was in fact no possible way he could have possessed enough brainpower to do so.

  But at least there was the day when he helped two poor village schoolboys pull and push their cart for a ways, an occurrence or diminutive incident that stayed with Hans always, the same way a faithful, obedient dog makes sure to run after his master or mistress always. However trivial the little event might have been in and of itself, it nonetheless burrowed its way deeply into his inner life. The deed took place on a steep mountain road, where the two boys were struggling to try to move a cart from the spot where it found itself. One of them even started crying because the difficult task just did not want to be accomplished. In vain was one desperate expenditure of strength after another sacrificed to the attempt.

  Now since our Mister Hans happened to come walking down the road just then and saw the desperate situation, he helped push, thereby making the thing progress nice and quickly. When the little lads politely thanked the grown-up passerby for his assistance, he thought and said to himself:

  “How beautiful it is to be able to lend a hand and help someone. How happy this most charming of all little adventures makes me. How the tear-stained face before me has just this minute been transformed into an unclouded, satisfied, noticeably smiling one.

  “Often enough have I longed to be able to do some small good in the world, something kind in some way. And now a modest opportunity to be good-hearted, feel human sympathy, and help out has just presented itself.”

  The fact is, Hans had for the longest time held it against himself that all he did was roam around for himself, free and easy, neither attached to other people nor bound up in some way with rough-and-tumble day-to-day working life but rather just flitting past human beings and social conditions, not so much standing on his own two feet in life itself as alas instead simply strolling past it, admittedly in no sense inattentive to the cares and joys of his fellow man but still in truth moving past them too quickly, too exclusively concerned with himself, and therefore only looking on at active, suffering life rather than actually living it—too much the spectator and correspondingly much too little the active participant, the essentially affected party concerned.

  One time, it happened that he went walking with an old gentleman, whose white hair made a deep impression on him, up a moderately high hill. Several cherry trees adorning the road were thickly covered with ripening red fruit, smiling out from the soft pale green of the foliage like a kind of cheerful eye.

  The two of them walked into the nearby forest. Before they reached it, they passed through a little newly built area or nice outlying district.

  The old man proved to have the liveliest interest in everything that looked in any way worth seeing, in a manner that made his old age give an impression of utmost youth.

  The sight of the pleasant green forest, which looked like a green capital city, ceremonial residence, king’s palace, and amiable-solemn high cathedral in green in one, gave great pleasure to the old man’s ancient eyes and heart. Hans noticed this and it made him happy. To be permitted to see someone made happy makes us happy ourselves, provided we are decent people.

  Out from the sweetly hidden depths of the forest came the sounds of the woodland birds, an army as unwarlike as it was invisible, performing an afternoon concert in the best possible way, which would have been able to satisfy even the most spoiled and fastidious ears.

  Visibly glad as he was about his well-preserved health, which allowed him to hike in the mountains in order to enjoy the lovely view in person even in this his time of old age, the old man expressed the opinion, almost with pride but in any case with uncommon good spirits, that his old legs did his bidding better than young legs did that of most young people. Hans, contemplating the January snow on the old man’s head with a certain amount of pity, could not do enough to approve the vitality and joie de vivre he saw the man displaying.

  “If accumulated years and long since entered-upon fragility are still able to greet the world so joyously, how committed in every sense to good humor and grateful affirmation of life must not those who are still young and strong feel?” was the noble thought that came to his consciousness in the company of the old man.

  On August First, which as is well known is our fatherland’s most beautiful holiday, all sorts of boat rides were organized on the lake in the evening under flashing, hissing fireworks. Rowboats and sailboats glided this way and that through the water while a large crowd of cheerful people stood and promenaded on the streetlight-bedecked shore. Rockets flew high into the night sky only to rain back onto the lake as a scintillating spray of fire, a spectacle that looked almost like a Venetian night. The incandescent spheres of fireworks shone down from above; through the silent blackness of the night shot magnificent if admittedly artificial stars. Farther off in the distance, high atop the mountains, the memorial fires burned. The night was still and warm, like a carefully locked room or like a high, beautiful, dark, aristocratic hall where everyone involuntarily falls silent because unnecessary noise seems inappropriate.

  On the nearby forested mountains, among all sorts of scattered, light-green hazelnut shrubs and isolated taller trees standing all around, Hans found places to play and rest that were more lovely that any you could have probably ever seen anywhere else. There were places there that Hans could tear himself away from only with great difficulty, since they invited him to remain in what seemed like everlasting sitting and lying by offering the wanderer and mortal creature an uninterrupted slumber.

  Hans lay down, now here, now there, on the green, soft, familiar ground thickly covered with sweet-smelling grass and wildflowers, looked up at the sky, and stood up and kept walking so that he could soon thereafter lie back down again once more in the meadow under some other tree in some other little clearing.

  In such a way, he spent the most beautiful hours. It seemed to him that he had never before felt so easy and light. No longer did his happy heart encounter anything dark, at most only something half dark every now and then. Illusions took possession of his unconstricted soul. He threw himself into the arms of the enjoyment of outdoor nature much like the way a lover throws herself into those of her beloved, a mother into those of her child, a wife into those of her faithful and good husband, or a friend into those of his friend, to hold fast, full of trust, to the good and the bea
utiful.

  As he lay there quietly, he saw people come and go who took just as great if not even greater pleasure in the beauty and freedom, breath and movement, ease, calm, and peace spread out all around him as he, and who felt if not happier than he about all these straightforwardnesses and suchlike reverberations then certainly just as happy.

  His lazy loafing increased noticeably from day to day, not entirely unlike the waters of a great flood. Hans thought: “I really do have to see to it soon that I start to work hard.” Iron resolutions and steadfast vows are after all inherently beautiful things. Hans did not however for all that start to work hard for a long time. Maybe it would come to him later, he consoled himself.

  Plucking and eating whole hand- or fistfuls of wild strawberries he found very pleasing. Possibly the time will come one day when anyone caught in such states of idleness or sluggardly activities is thrown in jail and sentenced to hard labor.

  Hans was glad he did not live in Sparta, where something like that could happen to him. He definitely preferred Athens.

  On one of his multifarious exploratory expeditions, which he naturally was rarely or never in the habit of letting stray beyond his close vicinity, he met on a lonely mountaintop an old farm laborer with whom he formed an extraordinarily suitable, warm, although only fleeting friendship. In the course of their enjoyable conversation it came out that the laborer was an openhearted, poor, truly very poor, and, it bears repeating, poor man. Yes, there are poor, unspeakably laboriously and hardworking people forced to swallow the bitterest fate in this seemingly often so free and rich and happy-go-lucky world.