Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories

by Robert Walser

  (1930)

  Translated with Nicole Köngeter

  THE EQUESTRIENNE

  SHE GREW up in a town lying between pretty hills, where she went gaily to school in order to acquire knowledge and where it turned out she possessed a talent for counting correctly and writing legibly. Because of her industriousness, the teacher praised her and, at the same time, felt induced to severely admonish her for a certain willful wittiness she seemed to have been born with. Her companions coddled her, and perhaps that’s why she adopted a somewhat smug smile she relished as if it were a kind of sweet she had bought at the pastry shop and smacked up. Gradually turning into a beauty, an imperceptible event in that it happened naturally, her situation allowed her to meet other young people, among whom one lad distinguished himself by obtaining her permission to effect an adolescent kiss. With a daintily embroidered handkerchief in her hand, she wiped away the kiss, as if it was something worthy of disposal. Demonstrations of tenderness she found amusing. Her wish to accomplish something, to become somebody, left a deeper impression than being loved. The latter she figured she could appreciate later. Meanwhile, on a terrace, she helped secure the laundry on a line. The days passed her by like brightly costumed cavaliers, or ones less beautifully dressed; the nights she compared to an old, cackling crone. She was given the opportunity to learn the household thoroughly, which in no way disinterested her. The kitchen held unmistakable significance. To clean up a room or set a table was an occupation that afforded the body a pleasant amount of movement, which appeared to make her want to sing. To her, to serve was something enchanting. There was something regal in punctually, happily fulfilling commands. For a long time she had believed she was allowed the observation that nature had made to her a beautiful gift of her hands. She adored them, like one adores poets whose words delight and fortify. On her head a little hat sat that looked as if it were twittering, and she felt as though she had been destined to be borne by something dancing. She herself she thought too stately to flirt and dance. One day in church she heard a woman singing joyfully and timidly, bravely and beseechingly. Being beautiful is still a profession, she told herself, and after thinking about it for a while, devoted herself to riding. At first others found her riding droll, then elegant, even impressive, and under her, the horse, clopping with his legs the sand-strewn ground, was admired, just as she was, she who relayed to it, with an unparalleled gentleness, commands as to how it was to behave: The eyes of the one leading resembled those of the one obeying. Each complemented the other, made a commonality. Being their own respective masters, each was there for the other.

  (1930)

  SHE BETTERED HERSELF

  I BECAME aware of a not necessarily poorly composed little spouse story.

  Beautiful thoughts paid me a visit while I was reading the thoroughly mediocre tale I’m recounting here.

  A little woman resembled in pleasantness the sunshine.

  How tritely put!

  She loved luxury, seemed to be taken with expensive clothes, while her spouse couldn’t come up with a more civil objection to this than to point out to her the restraints on his income.

  Little angels cuddle me because I am courteous toward the discourteous one who thought her brave decent man had been placed on earth to be compliant.

  Wrinkles of concern began to show on his face, while the town hall stood there solemnly, and the tip of the church spire rose into the sky.

  People rushed through the numerous alleys, and in the department store goods were bought by and bestowed upon those who on the one hand wanted to possess them and on the other were having them offered.

  Over the houses of the town, regally smiling little clouds enchantingly swam.

  No one needed to bother with those aloft.

  I, too, would like to hover high over every question and be oblivious of my beauty.

  But back to human matters.

  Accounts needing to be settled were presented to the frivolous one by dapper errand boys with the alacrity of commission agents.

  To all such demands, however, she shook her head no, as if to suggest for the time being this was not to be.

  Little by little her neighbors learned she was insolvent.

  Liberally she spent money she didn’t have, competing in elegance with the cream of her sex.

  With domestic adroitness she organized cozy little festivities her husband both endorsed and excoriated.

  He had a business associate whose welcome orders he had been rejoicing in and who was a tasteful, charming bachelor with a rather considerable fortune.

  Both shook each other’s hands jovially, but in no way did this prevent something clandestine from going on.

  To the housewife, the colleague availed himself of the opportunity to appear chivalrous, that is, he ingratiated himself with her.

  Simultaneously condescending and respectful, he handed over the amounts her beautiful eyes solicited.

  In return he was allowed to help her dress.

  The fragrance rising from her bewitched him.

  By the way, often what doesn’t work for a husband, a suitor, if the circumstances are in his favor, accomplishes with ease.

  Supported by the evidence offered of his willingness to help, he nonchalantly but unambiguously encouraged the beneficiary of the aforementioned to become, as far as possible, a stronger person.

  At first she scoffed at his chiding, but soon discovered that something like a diversion, a relief resided in frugality.

  From then on she behaved as he wished.

  Whoever is to be educated needs to be flattered.

  (1930–1931)

  A WOMAN’S BOOK

  BOOK READING indeed requires good intentions. May I confess I’m unable to absorb Balzac’s Peau de chagrin in German translation? French enchants, is so seductive! Here, if I may be permitted, I would like to discourse on a book containing a plethora of landscapey things. How dessicatedly and gracelessly I say this, by the way. A dissatisfied woman, a woman who struggles, who would like to stay young for years to come, is being valiantly spread like a precious rug in need of brushing and a good shaking. I must stress, incidentally, that very few contemporary books, books of today, fall into my hands. I like reading folksy short stories. For example, recently a story came to my comparatively undivided attention that told of a craftsman living in a village with his wife and child, who, as they say, strays. His distinguishing mistake consists of his predilection for frequenting taverns. He develops an unseemly addiction, and while he’s failing to abstain, back at home his ailing child lies dying. His wife, who loves her husband, as is only proper, has quietly, or rather in a state of neglect, decided to bid adieu to her spouse, who, due alone to his avid pub patronage, had become guilty of neglectfulness. She implements her plan in a simple, respectable, trembling manner and with a magnanimity not to be mistaken. One evening the man comes home, as he so often does, cockeyed again and finds his wife gone, reads the letter she wrote him that, before taking leave of him for good, she had left on the table, wherein she states she cannot live with him any longer. But now back to my duties.

  A story can be movingly beautiful, a novel leave you cold. It may happen that a male or female author indulges in discoursing for two hundred printed pages on nothing but outrageously beautiful things, such as vibrant tulips, opulent terraces, shimmering streets, swelling, twirling, ripe fruits, exceptionally interesting men, enchantingly smiling girls, and towns resplendent with history. Famous authors can have a sobering effect, whereas a total unknown can invigorate us. The book I am reporting on here apparently was written by a thoroughly well-educated woman; I think this can be clearly felt and not doubted. That the book is a sophisticated one soon becomes obvious, or right away. Whether or not it can be perceived as a nice book remains for the reader to decide. A sophisticated book can refrain from being nice, while a nice book need not necessarily appear sophisticated. The protagonist of this work of prose apparently has a terribly thorough grasp of art, et
c., which evokes the impression that she can’t be a proper, hot-blooded, true heroine, as though, regarding her experience, she had to remain continuously impoverished and wretched. She sees, loves, looks at, embraces, beholds, and comprehends art, yet finds life far less manageable. Regarding the latter, she could almost be taken for a kind of schoolgirl, and appearing as such, while at the same time assuming an air of maturity, she will, just a tiny bit, have to suffer being pitied, that is, as usual, smiled upon. When I had finished reading the book in question, my smile was certainly somewhat mocking. The dissatisfied woman claims she remains young, but one doesn’t quite believe her. She tries a bit too hard to create the appearance of youth.

  The reader might note that actually none of this is so terribly significant. Nevertheless, I read this thoroughly uninteresting book with a certain satisfaction. In order to tackle it as bravely as possible, I read it quickly, grateful, so to speak, because I didn’t find it thrilling. Had it struck me as such, I might have had to envy its authoress. Can one be enthusiastic about an enthusiastically written book? The authoress herself might have had to catch her breath, so to speak, when authoring it. By the end I was under the impression it was necessary to offer the exhausted writer a foothold, that is to hold her up so she wouldn’t sink. Chivalrous of me, yes?

  (1931)

  Translated with Nicole Köngeter

  THE COFFEEHOUSE

  THERE was a coming and going, I mean, people arrived and departed, appeared and disappeared. Those entering the scene made their way to one of the numerous round or square tables, and those of a mind to leave the coffeehouse, who wanted to turn their backs on the characteristic redolence that resided there, intimated or made it understood they wished to pay. Paying what they might owe, they smiled, as if delighted to be permitted to splurge, to run up a bill.

  Here the latest hat styles were on display. Somehow, somewhere, a conversation materialized. Where it arose, there seemed to be evidence for the existence of witty and eloquent people. One could hear the clinking of little coffee spoons, sugar cubes dropping into the cups. Every item was treated with a certain finickiness, as if diffident behavior was the most refined one could imagine.

  The servers served with care, that’s to say as inconspicuously as possible. To serve and to be served weren’t so far away from each other. Difference doesn’t need to be emphasized or ascertained in a room whose purpose is comfort. The commanding command jovially, the serving serve genteelly.

  From time to time, the gérant, or manager, dropped in, as if it were becoming to quickly and nonchalantly examine the day’s business.

  It was exquisite the kind of connoisseurs in the art of living who theatrically came into their own there.

  Here and about, beneath the leaves of a plant, sat a woman waiting for the one to whom she had given permission to call upon her.

  The strong were made weak by the coffee because there exists in the powerful the need to be assailed by something unhealthy in order to become ill. It was as if the unchallenged were embarrassed by their imperturbability, and in addition it appeared as if wasting time was essential.

  Somewhere in the dark, poeticizing in solitude, sympathetically guarded by a waitress, a play-constructing or novel-drafting poet paid homage to the elegant notion that in the coffeehouse it was he who reigned supreme over fantasy and creativity.

  Newspapers were requested and read more or less attentively.

  The famous and the unfamous came into contact.

  Apparently the coffeehouse originated in the Orient and somehow is connected to storytelling, along with the beauty and significance of idleness, which is a cultural characteristic underestimated by those not readily capable of understanding that activity and industriousness wish to be interrupted.

  One lives off the other. There are those who place orders and those who take them, that is, those who initiate the production and dispense the money that’s earned, and the ones who produce and thus benefit from the worthlessness of those able to exist without working. If everyone is industrious, they stand, as it were, in each other’s way, and something essential in the whole apparatus doesn’t function, an imbalance occurs, with which words I mean to have disclosed the excellence of the coffeehouse.

  (1931)

  LITERARY SWITZERLAND

  ONCE THE Romans roamed through Switzerland disseminating culture. There might already have been settlements of significance that preceded them. Painfully and persistently the native language evolved, passing through innumerable tutorials. The plough and scythe came into use, and for the entirety of the population the question of clothing remained preeminent. With the church striving to achieve glory and with this well-meant intention seeking realization, here and there, under favorable circumstances, literary efforts begin to stir under the auspices of an ever-expanding religion. At this juncture the author would like to allude to the castles that still to this day in every way satisfy the eyes. Reputable women wanted to be revered in poems. Where monasteries already existed, in which determinedly abstinent individuals busied themselves performing intellectual tasks that in no way can be praised highly enough, the founding of a civic society in towns, including the establishment of public offices and the requisite public order, slowly began to thrive. Leaving aside a few important points that history provides insight into and not wanting to play the professor but instead intent only on offering a few lines that should more or less be of interest, quietly I speak of new and cultured times, regrettably ignoring the battles to which armories and museums bear potent witness. Those neighbors who ceded victory to the Swiss made the latter drunk with victory, causing them to become reckless, which, in turn, proved a condition rendering them susceptible to having to be taught a lesson or two themselves. The gulled learn more and imprint to memory far better things than those who witness the embarrassment of others. Something similar happened here as well.

  Somewhere abroad writers began to attract attention, like Cervantes and Shakespeare, whose stories and plays were received with pleasure and amazement. Households saw themselves expanding, research found favor, the modern woman began to emerge from her chrysalis. In the century of delicate manners and lace cuffs, Jean-Jacques Rousseau beneficially and temporarily resided on an island in Lake Biel. Said person spread far and wide an abundance of tender, sentimental influences and what we might call landscape-appreciation effects. The upper crust and the sentimental began to swoon over nature, gazing into the heavens with hand on heart. Imperceptibly we pay a profitable visit to socialism, from which grew the wonderful poetic flower Gottfried Keller, whose talent was such as to seduce readers into believing that poets easily accomplished what they set out to do and that writing was mere child’s play. Meyer wrote in an elegant, country-manor way, Gotthelf in a rustic reformation style. Switzerland rose to eminent literary fame. Numerous foreigners traveled to Zurich to see what a region pervaded by the breath of poetry might look like.

  The height of aestheticism had been reached. Thus, because a commensurate number of writers threw themselves into churning out books, in time a kind of decline had to set in. As a result of their multifarious appearances, the success of literary practitioners inevitably became modest. First, the effects lessened; second, somehow protests were made against the unceasing exploitation of national life. A country and its people don’t want to be constantly described, depicted, and reproduced, but rather left in peace.

  The Swiss writer isn’t discouraged but instead has reason to attribute what he is unable to accomplish with ease to all sorts of things that refrain from occurring.

  (1931–1932)

  Translated with Nicole Köngeter

  EMBONPOINT

  WHAT AN exemplary figure he appeared to be! Simple and strong (as the opening words of my essay read) seemed the will of this exponent of stupendousness. His pronounced steps were the opposite of circumspection. The assurance of his corporeal as well as intellectual behavior could scarcely be doubted. Somewhere the thoughtful and
deliberate tiptoed about. He was different; he was a brutal, grim, inexorable, staunch tackler of things, matters, necessities, and affairs demanding fearlessness. Forthrightly and courageously he looked around him, and whoever observed him looking about were themselves compelled to believe in him. He inspired the young to carry their heads high and to make their chests playgrounds of splendid and solemn conviction. Those who were like him grasped his hand in a comradely fashion. The shrewd and the sophisticated, the reluctant and the complex, as reflected in their reserve, bestowed upon him the silence and discretion of their contempt. Out of a kind of necessity he despised his despisers. Meanwhile he aged.