To be robust means not spending time on thought but quickly and quietly entering into what has to be done. To be wet with the rains of exertion, hard and strong from the knocks and rubs of what necessity demands. I hate such clever turns of phrase. I was intending to think of something quite different. Aha, yes, that’s what it was, it’s about Herr Benjamenta. I’ve been with him in the office again. I keep teasing him about the job I am to get, and soon. So this time I asked again how things stood now, if I could reckon. . .et cetera. He started to get furious. Oh, he keeps getting furious now, and I’m always very daring when I excite him. I asked in a very loud voice, abruptly and shamelessly. The Principal got very embarrassed, he even began to rub behind his big ears. Of course he hasn’t got what people call big ears, his ears are relatively not big at all, it’s just that everything about the man is big, consequently his ears are big too. At length he came up to me, gave a very kind-hearted laugh, and said: “You want to go out to work, Jakob? But I tell you, you’ll do better to stay here. It’s very nice here for you and people like you. Or isn’t it? Stay on a little longer. I would even like to advise you to be a little torpid, forgetful, lazy-minded. For you see, what people call the vices play such a large role in human life, they’re important, I might even say they’re necessary. If there were no vices and failings, there’d be a shortage of warmth, charm, and richness in the world. Half of the world, and perhaps it is at root the better half, would perish along with the indolence and the weaknesses. No, be lazy. Well, well, now, don’t misunderstand me, be just as you are, just as you have come to be, but please play at being a little remiss. Will you do it? Yes? It would please me to see you given to dreaming a little. Hang your head, be pensive, look gloomy, won’t you? Because for my taste you’re a little bit too full of will power, too full of character. And you’re proud, Jakob! What’s your attitude, really? Do you think you’ll attain and achieve great things out there in the world? That you have to do so? Do you seriously intend to do something important? You almost give me this unfortunately somewhat vehement impression. Or do you perhaps, perhaps out of defiance, want to remain very small? I can believe that of you as well. You’re in rather a too festive, too violent, too triumphal state. But none of that matters, you’ll stay for a while, Jakob. I’m not going to find a job for you, I won’t do any such thing for you, not for a long time. Do you know, what I want is to keep you. I’ve hardly got you for myself and you want to run away? That can’t be done. Get bored here in the Institute as well as you can. Oh, you little world-conqueror, out in the world, out there, in a profession, endeavoring, achieving things, whole seas of boredom, emptiness, loneliness will yawn at you. Stay here. Go on yearning for a bit longer. You’ve no idea what bliss, what grandeur there is in yearning, in waiting. So wait. Let it press on you inside, all the same. But not too much. Listen, if you left it would hurt me, it would wound me, quite incurably, it would almost kill me. Kill me? Now you have a good laugh at me, go on. Laugh me utterly to scorn, Jakob. You have my permission. Yet, tell me, what is there that I can order or permit you to do in future? I, who have just convinced you that I’m almost, almost dependent on you? I’ve started something that makes me shudder, that outrages me and at the same time makes me happy, Jakob. But, for the first time, I love somebody. But you don’t understand that. Go away now! Be off with you. You insolent fellow, remember that I can still punish. Watch out!” Well, there it was, suddenly he had got furious again. I quickly disappeared from under his dark, penetrating gaze. What eyes he has! The Principal’s eyes. I must here observe that I have incredible skill in flitting out of places. I positively flew out of the office, no, I whistled out of it, as the wind whistles, when the gentleman said to me: “Watch out!” Oh, yes, one sometimes can’t help feeling frightened of him. I’d find it improper if I weren’t frightened, for then I’d have no courage, since courage is precisely the thing that comes of conquering fear. Once more, out in the corridor, I listened at the keyhole, and again it was all quiet in there. I even stuck out my tongue, in a quite childish and schoolboyish way, and then I couldn’t help laughing. I think I’ve never laughed so much in all my life. Very quietly, of course. It was the purest repressed laugh imaginable. When I laugh like that, well, then there’s nothing more that’s above me. Then I’m the unbeatable embracer and ruler of all things. At such moments I’m simply grand.
Yes, that is how it is: I’m still at the Benjamenta Institute, I must still go in fear of the existing statutes, lessons are still being given, questions are asked and answered, we still fly to commands, Kraus still knocks in the mornings on my door, with his peevish “Get up, Jakob” and his angrily raised forefinger, we pupils still say “Good day, Fräulein” when she appears and “Good night” when she retires in the evening. We’re still caught in the iron talons of the numerous rules and indulge in didactic, monotonous repetitions. Also I’ve been, at last, in the authentic inner chambers, and I must say, they don’t exist. There are two rooms, but these two rooms don’t look chamber-like at all. The furniture is frugal and ordinary in the extreme, and there’s nothing mysterious about them at all. Strange. How did I get the mad idea that the Benjamentas live in chambers? Or was I dreaming, and is the dream over now? As a matter of fact, there are goldfish there and Kraus and I regularly have to empty and clean the tank in which these animals swim and live, and then fill it with fresh water. But is there anything remotely magical about that? Goldfish can occur in any middling Prussian official’s family, and there’s nothing incomprehensible and unusual about the families of officials. Wonderful! And I believed in the inner chambers so steadfastly. I thought that beyond the door through which the Fräulein passes to and fro there would be hundreds of castle rooms and apartments. In my mind I saw delicately coiling spiral stairways and other broad stone staircases laid with carpets, behind that simple door. Also an ancient library was there, and corridors, long and serene corridors with floor mats, ran in my imagination from one end of the building to the other. With all my ideas and follies I could one day found a corporate company for the propagation of beautiful but unreliable imaginings. The capital’s there, it seems to me, there will be funds enough, and buyers of such shares are to be found wherever the idea of beauty and belief in it have not quite perished. What things I imagined! A park, of course. I can’t live without a park. Also a chapel, only, strangely enough, not a romantically ruined one, but a smartly restored one, a small Protestant house of God. The parson was having breakfast. And all that sort of thing. People dined, and arranged hunts. Evenings they danced in the baronial hall, on whose high walls of dark wood hung the portraits of family ancestors. What family? I stammer that word, for in fact I can’t say it. No, I deeply regret having dreamed up these fantasies. I saw snow flying too, into the castle courtyard. There were large wet snow-flakes, and it was early in the morning, the time was always early on a dark winter morning. Ah, and there was something else beautiful, a hall, yes, I saw a hall. Fascinating! Three noble old dames were sitting beside a tittering and crackling fire. They were doing crochet work. What kind of a fantasy is that, not to be able to see further than where people are knitting and crocheting! But it was just this that enraptured me. If I had enemies, they’d say that it was morbid, and they’d think they had reason to shun me along with the dear cozy crochet work as well. Then there was a wonderful nocturnal feast, with candles shining down from silver candelabra. The joyous table sparkled and dazzled and talked. I thought that was really beautiful. And women, what women. One looked like a veritable princess, and she was one, too. There was an Englishman there. How the feminine garments rustled, how the breasts, naked, rose and fell! The diningroom was crisscrossed with perfumes in snakelike lines. The splendor was allied with modesty, the tact with pleasure, the joy with refinement, and the elegance was festooned with nobility of birth. Then it all swam away, the other things came, new things. Yes, the inner chambers, they were alive, and now it’s as if they’ve been stolen away from me. Bare reality: what a cr
ook it sometimes is. It steals things, and afterwards it has no idea what to do with them. It just seems to spread sorrow for fun. Of course, I like sorrow very much as well, it’s very valuable, very. It shapes one.
Heinrich and Schilinski have left. Shaken hands and said adieu. And gone. Probably forever. How short these leave-takings are! One means to say something, but has forgotten precisely the right thing to say, and so one says nothing, or something silly. To say goodbye, and to have it said to me, is terrible. At such moments something gives human life a shake, and one feels vividly how nothing one is. Quick goodbyes are loveless, and long ones are unbearable. What can one do? Well, one just says something goofish.—Fräulein Benjamenta said something very peculiar to me. “Jakob,” she said, “I am dying. Don’t be afraid. Let me talk to you quite calmly. Tell me, why have you become my confidant like this? From the start, when you arrived here, I thought you were nice, and sensitive. Please don’t make any falsely honest objections. You’re vain. Are you vain? Listen, soon it will be over with me. Can you keep a secret? You must say nothing about what I’m going to tell you. Above all, your Principal, my brother, mustn’t know anything, make a point of remembering that. But I’m quite calm, and so are you, and you’ll keep your word and keep your mouth shut, I know. Something is gnawing at me, and I’m sinking down into something, and I know what that means. It’s so sad, my dear young friend, so sad. I think you’re strong, don’t I, Jakob? But I know it, I know you’re strong. You have a heart. Kraus wouldn’t listen to everything I had to say. I find it so nice that you aren’t crying. Oh, I’d find it repulsive if just now your eyes were to moisten over. That can wait. And you listen so nicely. You listen to my miserable tale as if it were something small, fine, and ordinary, something that attracts attention only, but no more, that’s how you’re listening. You can behave immensely well, if you take the trouble. Of course, you’re arrogant, we know that, don’t we? Quiet, now, not a murmur. Yes, Jakob, death (oh, what a word) is standing behind me. Look, like this, the way I breathe on you, that’s how he’s breathing his cold, horrible breath at me from behind, and I’m sinking, sinking because of this breath. My breast is pressing it out of me. Have I made you feel sad? Tell me. Is this sad for you? A little, isn’t it? But now you must forget it all, do you hear? Forget it! I’ll come to you again, like today, and then I’ll tell you how I am. You’ll try to forget it, won’t you? But come here. Let me touch your forehead. You’re a good boy.’’—She drew me gently toward her and pressed something like a breath on my forehead. It was nothing like the touch that she spoke of. Then she quietly went away and I surrendered to my thoughts. Thoughts? Not really. I thought once more of my not having any money. That was my thought. That’s how I am, so crude, and so thoughtless. And it’s like this: heartfelt emotions put something like an icy coldness into my soul. If there’s immediate cause for sadness, the feeling of sadness entirely escapes me. I don’t like to tell lies. And to tell them to myself: what point would that have? I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself. No, it beats me, but here I am, alive, and Fräulein Benjamenta says such a terrifying thing, and I, who worship her, I can’t shed a single tear? I’m mean, that’s what it is. But stop. I don’t intend to disparage myself too much. I’m puzzled, and therefore—. It’s lies, all lies. Actually I knew it all along. Knew it? That’s another lie. It’s not possible for me to tell myself the truth. Anyway, I shall obey the Fräulein and say nothing about this. To be allowed to obey her! As long as I obey her, she will live.
Assuming I were a soldier (and by nature I’m an excellent soldier), an ordinary infantryman, and serving under the banners of Napoleon, then one day I would march off to Russia. I would get on well with my comrades, because the misery, the deprivations, and our many rough deeds would forge us into something like a mass of iron. Grimly we would stare ahead. Yes, grimness, dull, unconscious anger, would unite us. And we would march, always with our rifles slung on our shoulders. In the cities through which we passed, an idle, drooping crowd of people would gape at us, demoralized by the tramp of our feet. And then there would be no more cities, or just very seldom, only unending stretches of country would crawl away to the horizon before our eyes and legs. The country would positively crawl and creep. And now the snow would come and snow us in, but we would always go on marching. Legs, that would be everything now. For hours on end my gaze would be fixed on the wet earth. I would have time for remorse, for endless self-accusations. But I would always keep in step, swing my legs back and forth, and go on marching. Also, our marching would by now be more like a trot. Now and again, very far off, a mocking ridge of hills would appear, thin as the blade of a pocket knife, a sort of forest. And then we’d know that beyond this forest, whose edge we would reach after many hours, other endless plains extended. From time to time there would be shots. These scattered shots would remind us of what was coming, the battle which would one day have to be fought. And we would march. The officers would ride around with mournful expressions on their faces, adjutants would whip their horses past the column, as if they were being harried by fearful forebodings. One would think of the Emperor, the Commander-in-Chief, quite remotely, but, all the same, one would imagine him, and that would be consoling. And we would keep on marching. Countless small but terrible interruptions would hinder the march for short periods. Yet we would hardly notice them, but would go on marching. Then memories would come to me, not clear ones, and yet excessively clear ones. They would gobble at my heart like buzzards at a welcome prey, they would transport me to a cozy and homely place, to the golden, roundish vineyard hills wreathed with delicate mists. I would hear cowbells ringing and clamoring against my heart. A caressing sky would be curving with watery colors and full of sounds over my head. The ache would nearly madden me, but I would go on marching. My comrades to left and right, before and behind, that would be all that mattered. The legs would work like an old but still willing machine. Burning villages would be a daily sight for the eyes, no longer even interesting, and one would not be surprised by cruelties of an inhuman sort. Then one evening, in the ever-increasing bitter cold, my comrade, his name could be Tscharner, would drop to the ground. I would try to help him up, but the officer would give the command: “Let him lie there!” And we would go on marching. Then, one noon, we would see our Emperor, his face. But he would smile, he would enchant us. Yes, it wouldn’t occur to this man to unnerve and discourage his soldiers by having a gloomy look on his face. Sure of victory, future battles won in advance, we would go on marching through the snow. And then, after endless marches, it would at last come to blows, and it is possible that I would remain alive and have gone on marching again. “Now we’re off to Moscow, pal!” someone in our rank would say. I would decline to answer him, though I would not know why. I would be only a little cog in the machine of a great design, not a person any more. I would know nothing of parents any more, of relatives, songs, personal troubles or hopes, nothing of the meaning and magic of home any more. Soldierly discipline and patience would have made me into a firm and impenetrable, almost empty lump of body. And so the march would go on, toward Moscow. I wouldn’t curse life, it would have long since become too abominable for cursing. I would feel no more pain, I would have finished with feeling pain and all its sudden tremors. That is roughly what it would be like, I think, as a soldier under Napoleon.
“You’re a fine one,” Kraus said to me, actually quite without reason, “you’re one of those worthless fellows who think they’re above the rules. I know. You needn’t say anything. You think I’m a grumpy pedagogue and dogmatist. Well, I’m not. And what do you and your sort, big mouths, what do you suppose it really means to be serious and attentive? You imagine you’re king, just because you can leap and dance around, definitely and quite rightfully, without a doubt, don’t you? Oh, I can see through you, you dancer. Always laughing at what’s right and proper, you can do that well enough, yes, yes, you’re quite the master in that, you and your lot. But watch out, w
atch out. The storms and lightning and thunder and blows of fate certainly haven’t yet been done away with, so as to save you the trouble. Just because of your gracefulness, you artists, for that’s what you are, there certainly hasn’t been any dropping-off in the difficulties facing anyone who really does something, who’s really alive. Learn by heart the lesson in front of you, instead of trying to prove that you can look down on me and laugh. What a little gentleman! He wants to show me that he can act big if it happens to suit him. Let me tell you, Kraus simply despises such pitiful play-acting! Do something! That’s the message for you, my lad, and telling you a dozen times over wouldn’t stop you from turning up your noble nose. Do you know something, Jakob, lord of life: let me be. Go and make your conquests! I’m certain a few will fall at your feet, and they’ll be there for the picking. Everything’s soft on you, everything comes your way, you mop-maker. What? Still got your hands in your pockets? I see the point, yes. If the roast pigeons come flitting into a fellow’s mouth, why ever should he take the trouble to look like someone who’s ready for doing something, for work, for using his hands? Yawn a little, won’t you? That makes it easier. As things are, you’re looking too self-possessed, controlled, and modest. Or do you want to read me a few rules? Go ahead. It would be very exciting. Oh, go away. Your silly presence confuses me, you old—I nearly said something there. Makes me say sinful things, gets my dander up, that’s what he does. Make yourself invisible, or get busy with something. And you lose all your manners, yes, you do, when you’re up before the Principal and the Fräulein. I’ve seen it. But what’s the use of talking to a goof like you? Admit it, you’d be very nice if you weren’t a fool. If you admit that, I’ll hug you.” “O Kraus, dearest friend,” I said, “are you, of all people, scoffing and jeering at me? Can Kraus do that? Is it possible?” I laughed aloud and sauntered to my room. Soon there’ll be nothing here in the Benjamenta Institute but sauntering. It looks as if the “days are numbered” here. But people are wrong. Perhaps Fräulein Benjamenta is also wrong. Perhaps the Principal, too. Perhaps all of us are wrong.
Jakob von Gunten Page 12
