Jakob von Gunten

by Robert Walser

  I am a Croesus. The money, well, as for that—quiet, not a word about money. I’m leading a strange double life, a life that is regular and irregular, controlled and uncontrolled, simple and highly complicated. What does Herr Benjamenta mean when he says that he has never loved anyone? What does it mean when he says this to me, his pupil and slave? Yes, of course, pupils are slaves, young leaves, torn from branches and trunks, given up to the merciless gale, and already a little yellow as well. Is Herr Benjamenta a gale? It’s quite conceivable, for I’ve often had occasion to feel the roarings and rages and dark explosions of this gale. And also he’s so omnipotent, and I, a pupil, how tiny I am. Quiet now, not a word about omnipotence. One is always wrong when one takes up with big words. Herr Benjamenta is so prone to excitement and frailty, so very prone, that it almost makes me laugh, perhaps even grin. I think that everything, everything is frail, everything must needs tremble like worms. Yes, of course, and this illumination, this certainty, makes me a Croesus, that’s to say, it makes me a Kraus. Kraus loves and hates nothing, therefore he is a Croesus, something in him verges on the inviolable. He’s like a rock, and life, the stormy wave, breaks against his virtues. His nature, his character, is positively festooned with virtues. One can hardly love him, to hate him is unthinkable. One likes anything that is pretty and attractive, and that’s why beauty and prettiness are so much exposed to being eaten up or abused. No consuming, guzzling fondnesses dare come anywhere near Kraus. How forsakenly he stands there, and yet how steadfastly, how unapproachably! Like a demigod. But nobody understands that, I don’t either—sometimes I say and think things that surpass my own understanding. Perhaps, therefore, I should have been a parson, the founder of a religious sect or movement. Well, that could still happen. I can make anything of myself. But Benjamenta?—I’m certain that he’ll soon tell me the story of his life. He’s going to feel the urge to reveal things, to tell stories. Very probably. And oddly enough: sometimes I feel that I should never leave this man, this giant, never, as if we were fused into one. But one is always mistaken. I want to keep my self-possession, to some extent. Not too much, no. To be too self-possessed makes one cheeky. Why reckon on anything important in life? Must it be so? I’m so small. That’s what I’ll loosely hang on to, my smallness, smallness and worthlessness. And Fräulein Benjamenta? Will she really die? I daren’t think of that, and I’m not allowed to, either. A higher sort of sentiment forbids me. No, I’m not a Croesus. And as for the double life, everybody lives one, actually. Why boast about it? Ah, all these thoughts, all this peculiar yearning, this seeking, this stretching out of hands toward a meaning. Let it all dream, let it all sleep. I’ll simply let it come. Let it come.

  I’m writing this in a hurry. I’m trembling all over. There are lights dancing and flickering before my eyes. Something terrible has happened, seems to have happened, I hardly know what it was. Herr Benjamenta has had a fit and tried to—strangle me. Is this true? I can’t think straight, I can’t say if what happened is true. But I’m so upset, it must be true. The Principal got so angry, it was indescribable. He was like a Samson, that man in the history of Palestine who shook the pillars of a tall house full of people till the festive, wanton palace, till the stone triumph, till naughtiness itself came tumbling down. Here, to be sure, that’s to say less than an hour ago, there was nothing naughty, nothing vile, to be cast down, and there were also no pillars and columns, but it looked exactly the same, exactly, and I was frightened as never before, like a rabbit, terribly frightened. Yes, I was a rabbit, and indeed I had reason to run like a rabbit, I really would have been in trouble otherwise. I escaped with—I must say—marvelous agility from his throttling fists, and I think that I even bit Herr Benjamenta’s, this Goliath’s, finger. Perhaps that quick, energetic bite saved my life, for quite possibly the pain which the wound caused reminded him suddenly of good manners, reason, and humanity, so that conceivably I owe my life to a blatant offense against the rules of conduct for pupils. Certainly there was a danger of my being choked, but how did it all come about, how was it possible? He attacked me like a madman. He threw himself at me, his powerful body, like a dark lump of mad anger; it was coming at me like a wave, to batter me against hard sea walls. I’m inventing the water. That’s nonsense, to be sure, but I’m still quite stunned, quite confused and shaken. “What are you doing, dear and honored Principal, hey?” I shrieked, and ran through the office door like a thing possessed. And there I listened again. As I stood, safe and sound, in the corridor, I put, trembling all over, of course, my ear to the keyhole, and listened. And I heard him quietly laughing in there. I ran all the way to the classroom table and here I am, and I don’t know if I dreamed it or if it really did happen to me. No, no, it’s real, it’s a fact. If only Kraus would come! I’m still a bit scared. How nice it would be if dear Kraus would come and give me a scolding, as he often does, out of his Book of Commandments. I’d like to be scolded a little, told off, condemned and sentenced, that would do me no end of good. Am I childish?

  I was never really a child, and therefore something in the nature of childhood will cling to me always, I’m certain. I have simply grown, become older, but my nature never changed. I enjoy mischief just as I did years ago, but that’s just the point, actually I never played mischievous tricks. Once, very early on, I gave my brother a knock on the head. That just happened, it wasn’t mischief. Certainly there was plenty of mischief and boyishness, but the idea always interested me more than the thing itself. I began, early on, to look for deep things everywhere, even in mischief. I don’t develop. At least, that’s what I claim. Perhaps I shall never put out twigs and branches. One day some fragrance or other will issue from my nature and my originating, I shall flower, and the fragrance will shed itself around a little, then I shall bow my head, which Kraus calls my stupid arrogant pig-head. My arms and legs will strangely sag, my mind, pride, and character, everything will crack and fade, and I shall be dead, not really dead, only dead in a certain sort of way, and then I shall vegetate and die for perhaps another sixty years. I shall grow old. But I’m not afraid of myself. I couldn’t possibly inspire myself with dread. For I don’t respect my ego at all, I merely see it, and it leaves me cold. Oh, to come in from the cold! How glorious! I shall be able to come into the warmth, over and over again, for nothing personal or selfish will ever stop me from becoming warm and catching fire and taking part. How fortunate I am, not to be able to see in myself anything worth respecting and watching! To be small and to stay small. And if a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favored me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions.

  I quite agree with the rules which are—still—valid here, when they say that the eyes of the pupil and of the apprentice to life must shine with gaiety and good will. Yes, eyes must radiate steadfastness of soul. I despise tears, and yet I have been crying. More inwardly than outwardly, of course, but that is perhaps the most dreadful thing about it. Fräulein Benjamenta said to me: “Jakob, I am dying, because I have found no love. The heart which no deserving person deserved to possess and to wound, it is dying now. Adieu, Jakob, it’s already time to say adieu. You boys, Kraus, you, and the others, you will sing a song by the bed in which I shall lie. You will mourn for me, softly. And each of you will lay a flower, perhaps still moist with nature’s dew, upon my shroud. I want to take your young human heart into my sisterly and smiling confidence now. Yes, Jakob, to confide in you is so natural, for when you look as you are looking now, it’s as if you must have ears, a hearing heart, and eyes, a soul, a compassionate understanding and fellow-feeling for everything and for each particular thing, even for what cannot be said and cannot be heard. I am dying of the incomprehension of those who could have seen me and held me, dying of the emptiness of cautious and clever people, and of the lovelessness of hesitancy and not-much-liking.
Someone thought he would love me one day, thought he wanted to have me, but he hesitated, left me waiting, and I hesitated too, but then I’m a girl, I had to be hesitant, it was allowed and expected of me. Ah, how deceived I have been by disloyalty, tormented by the vacancy and unfeeling of a heart in which I believed, because I believed it was full of genuine and insistent feelings. If a thing can reflect and choose, it’s not a feeling. I’m speaking to you of a man in whom my sweet and graceful dreams made me believe, believe without any hesitation. I can’t tell you everything. I’d rather be silent. Oh, the annihilating thing that’s killing me, Jakob! All the desolations that are rushing me!—but that’s enough. Tell me, do you love me, as young brothers love their sisters? Good. Everything is good, just the way it is, don’t you think, Jakob? We shan’t grumble, shan’t despair, the two of us, shall we? And it is beautiful, isn’t it, not to want anything any more? Or isn’t it? Yes, it is beautiful. Come, let me kiss you, just once, a kiss in innocence. Be soft. I know that you don’t like to cry, but let’s have a little cry together. And quietly now, quietly.” She didn’t say any more. It was as if she wanted to say many other things, but could find no more words for what she was feeling. Outside in the courtyard big wet snowflakes were falling. The inner chambers! And I had always thought of Fräulein Benjamenta as the mistress of these inner chambers. I have always thought of her as a tender princess. And now? Fräulein Benjamenta is suffering, tender, feminine person. Not a princess. So one day she will lie in there on the bed. Her mouth will be rigid, and around her lifeless brow the curls will be deceptively playing. But why picture this? I’m going to see the Principal now. He has sent for me. On one side of me the lament and the corpse of a girl, on the other side her brother, who seems never to have lived. Yes, Benjamenta seems to me like a starved and imprisoned tiger. And now? Now I’m going into his gaping jaws? Onward! I hope his courage will cool down at the sight of a defenseless pupil. I am at his disposal. I am afraid of him, but at the same time something in me laughs him to scorn. Moreover, he still owes me his life-story. He gave me a firm promise of it and I shall be sure to remind him. Yes, that is how he seems: he has never yet lived. Does he want to live through me now? Does he think living is fuller if you commit crimes? That would be stupid, very stupid, and dangerous. But I must! I must go to this man. Some soul-force that I don’t understand is compelling me to go and listen to him, again and again, and to find out all about him. Let the Principal eat me if he want to, in other words, let him do me any harm he likes. In any case I shall have perished in a big way. Now to the office. Poor Fräulein Benjamenta!—

  A little scornfully, I must say, but otherwise very confidingly (yes, thus confidingly because scornfully), the Principal slapped me on the shoulder and laughed with his wide but well-shaped mouth. This made his teeth show. “Principal,” I said, “I must ask you to treat me with somewhat less offensive friendliness. I am still your pupil. Moreover, I decline, and the word is not strong enough, your favors. You should be condescending and generous to such a menial fellow. My name is Jakob von Gunten, and he is a young person, but still conscious of his dignity. I am unforgivable, that I see, but also I am not to be humiliated, that I forbid.” —And with these quite ridiculously arrogant words, with these words that were so little suited to the present age, I thrust away the Principal’s hand. Then Herr Benjamenta laughed again, even more merrily, and said: “I have to contain myself, I can’t help laughing at you, Jakob, and I shall kiss you if I’m not careful, you splendid boy.” I exclaimed: “Kiss me? Are you mad, Principal? I hope not.” I was myself amazed how easily I said that, and involuntarily I took a step backward, as if to avoid a blow. But Herr Benjamenta, all kindness and reticence, his lips trembling with strange gratification, said: “You, boy, are quite delectable. I would like to live with you in deserts or on icy mountains in the northern seas, it’s most enticing. Come here! Ah, now, don’t be afraid, please don’t be afraid of me. I won’t do anything to you. What could I do, whatever would I want to do to you? I can’t help finding you estimable and rare, I do that, but it needn’t frighten you. Besides, Jakob, and now in all seriousness, listen. Will you stay with me for keeps? You don’t understand what I mean, really, so let me make it all quite plain. This place is finished, do you understand that?” I suddenly burst out with: “Ah, Principal, it’s just as I suspected.” He laughed and said: “Well, then, you suspected that the Benjamenta Institute is here today but will be gone tomorrow. Yes, that’s for sure. You are the last pupil here. I’m not accepting any more. Look at me! I am so immensely pleased, you understand, that there was still time to get to know you, young Jakob, such a right sort of person, before I shut up shop forever. And now I’m asking you, you scamp, who have bound me with such peculiar and happy chains, will you go along with me, shall we stay together, start something together, do and dare and achieve something, shall we both, you the little one and I the big one, try to stand up to life together? Please answer me at once.” I replied: “In my view, my answer to this question needs time, Principal. But what you say interests me, and I shall think over the matter between now and tomorrow. But I think my answer will be yes.” Herr Benjamenta, it seemed, could hardly restrain himself, and he said: “You are enchanting.” After a pause, he began again: “For look, together with you one could survive something like danger, like a daring and adventurous voyage of discovery. But we could also easily do something refined and polite. You have both kinds of blood: gentle and fearless. Together with you, one can venture either something courageous or something very delicate.” “Principal,” I said, “don’t flatter me, that is horrid and suspicious. And stop! Where is the story of your life, which you promised to tell me, as you will surely remember?” At this moment somebody tore open the door. Kraus, it was he, rushed breathless and pale, and unable to deliver the message which he had, obviously, on his lips, into the room. He only made a rapid gesture, telling us to come. We all three went into the darkening classroom. What we saw here froze us in our tracks.

  On the floor lay the lifeless Fräulein. The Principal took her hand, but let it go again, as if a snake had bitten him, and moved back, shuddering with horror. Then he returned to the dead girl, looked at her, went away again, only to return once more. Kraus was kneeling at her feet. I was holding the instructress’s head in both hands, so that it would not need to touch the hard floor. Her eyes were still open, not very wide, but as if she were smiling. Herr Benjamenta closed them. He, too, was kneeling on the floor. None of us said anything, and we weren’t “plunged in thought.” I, at least, could think of nothing definite at all. But I was quite calm. I even felt, vain as it may sound, good and beautiful. From somewhere I heard a very thin trickling of melody. Lines and rays were moving and crisscrossing before my eyes. “Take hold of her,” said the Principal quietly, “come! Carry her into the livingroom. Take her gently, oh, gently. Careful, Kraus. For God’s sake, not so rough. Jakob, be careful now, will you? Don’t knock her against anything. I’ll help you. Forward now, very slowly. That’s right. And someone reach out and open the door. That’s it, that’s it. We can do it. Only careful now.” His words were unnecessary, in my opinion. We carried Fräulein Benjamenta to the bed, the Principal quickly pulling away the cover, and now she lay there, just as she had told me she would, in advance, as it were. And then the pupils came in and they all saw it, and then we all stood there, by the bed. The Principal gave us a sign, which we understood, and we pupils and boys began to sing softly in chorus. It was the lament which the girl had wanted to hear when she lay on the bed. And now, so I imagined, she heard the quiet song. I think we all felt as if it were a class and we were singing as the instructress told us to, whose commands we were always so quick to obey. When we had finished the song, Kraus stepped from the semicircle we had formed and spoke as follows, a little slowly, but giving all the more weight to his words: “Sleep, rest sweetly, dear and honored Fräulein. Thou art free from the difficulties, from the fears, from the troubles and events of li
fe. (He addressed her as “Thou.” I liked that.) We have sung at thy bedside, as thou hast commanded. Are we, thy pupils, now all forsaken? That is how it seems, and it is so. Yet thou who hast died before thy time, will never disappear, never, from our memories. Thou shalt remain alive in our hearts. We, thy boys, whom thou has commanded and ruled, we shall be scattered abroad into restless and wearisome life, seeking gain and seeking a home, and perhaps we shall never find and see one another again. But we shall all think of thee, our instructress, because the thoughts which thou has planted in our minds, the teachings and knowledge which thou hast secured in us, will always remind us of thee, creator of goodness. Quite of their own accord. When we eat, the fork will tell us how thou has desired us to handle and manage it, and we shall sit decently at table, and the knowledge that we are doing so will make us think of thee. In us, thy guidance, thy commands, thy life, thy teachings, thy questions, and thy voice’s sound shall continue. If one of us pupils gets further in life than the others, he will perhaps no longer wish to know those whom he has left behind, if ever they should meet again. Certainly. But then he will be sure to remember the Benjamenta Institute and its lady, and he will be ashamed to have so quickly and arrogantly denied and forgotten thy precepts. Then without hesitation he will stretch out his hand in greeting to his friend, his brother, this other person. What were thy teachings, O dear departed one? Thou hast always told us that we should be modest and willing. Ah, we shall never forget this, as little as we shall be able to surpass and forget the dear person who told us this. Sleep well! Dream! Lovely imaginings may be floating and whispering around thee. May Loyalty, who is near to thee, bow to thee its knee, and Graceful Devotion and Memory, wanton with unending tender remembrances, scatter blossoms, branches, flowers, and words of love around thy brow and hands. We, thy pupils, would like now to sing one more song, and then we shall be certain that we have prayed at thy deathbed, which will be for us a bed of joy, of happy and devoted memory. For thou hast taught us to pray. Thou hast said: Singing is praying. And thou shalt hear us, and we shall imagine that thou art smiling. It is such grief for our hearts to see thee lying here, for thy movements were to us as refreshing spring-water to a man who thirsts. Yes, it is a grievous sorrow. But we are masters of ourselves, and certainly thou wouldst have wished for that as well. Thus we are tranquil. Thus we obey thee and sing.” Kraus stepped back from the bed and we sang another song, with sounds coming and going as softly as those of the first. Then we walked, in turn, to the bed, and each of us pressed a kiss on the hand of the dead girl. And each of us pupils said something. Hans said: “I shall tell Schilinski. And Heinrich must be told, too.” Schacht said: “Good-bye, thou wast always so kind.” Peter said: “I shall do thy commands.” Then we went back to the classroom, leaving the brother alone with the sister, the Principal with the Principaless, the living man with the dead girl, the lonely man with the lonely girl, the man bowed by sorrows, Herr Benjamenta, alone with Fräulein Benjamenta, blessèd, dead and gone.