Paul Scheerbart
Page 18
with the horses at a walk, came forward across the huge pond — blue, red,
yel ow — the colors glowed in the afternoon sun. When the prince saw this,
tears fil ed his eyes.
In front, the cavaliers leapt from the sleighs and helped the blue, red,
and yel ow ladies down, fastened their ice skates, and arranged polonaises
and contres on the long pond.
Everything moved silently.
Prince Wolfgang pressed Kröcker’s hand.
“La main is growing stronger!” said the doctor.
Then it grew dark.
And the footmen lit lamps to the right and left of the pond.
Up above, over the artificial waterfal , blue, yel ow, and red fireworks
rose into the sky.
The courtly society floated across the ice in graceful arcs. And the
colors burned in Prince Wolfgang’s eyes. And he groaned loudly and sank
back into the pillows.
The footmen brought lanterns shaped like fish — the cavaliers took the
fish in their left hands — and a fish dance began.
Again, fireworks in Prince Wolfgang’s colors rose over the artificial
waterfal into the dark winter sky. The stars seemed very smal compared
to the huge fireworks.
His Highness fel asleep.
And the courtly society was silent.
Eight days later, Prince Wolfgang was completely wel . He said: “This
celebration was even more glorious than the experience of my youth. Now
the painters may go on painting without me!”
Prince Wolfgang grew very old, lived through the whole French Revo-
lution, and said: “If the Jacobins had seen the silent dance of courtly society
a few years ago, they would never have al owed the discord and the scaf-
folds to have happened.”
Translated by Anne Posten
195
The Safe:
A Marriage Novelet e
“You would never believe, Aunt Kit y,” said Frau Thekla Softstep, “How
often Gottfried reminds me to have patience. We’ve been married for three
months now. And now he’s gone to France for eight days again. I’m often
so impatient, he’s quite right about that. But now I want to show you my
reading gallery. You’l be amazed.”
The two women got up and crossed a smal lakeside terrace to the
reading gallery. Herr Softstep’s vil a was located at the edge of Lake
Schwielow, near Potsdam. The vil a of his father-in-law, Commerce
Councilor Scratch, lay two kilometers to the south; Aunt Kitty was the
councilor’s sister, recently arrived from Australia. She looked at the rather
extensive annex and shook her head.
Black velvet covered the floor of the rectangular reading gallery, to
which Frau Thekla said:
“As you can see, the two longer wal s are broken by strips of blue glass.
These strips are a mosaic of various blue tones, with many rosette win-
dows. Every possible type of glass has been used. Electric light, heating,
and cooling is used behind al of them. Awnings made of white canvas
can also be set up outside at the touch of a few buttons from inside. The
glass strips, which are double-paned, of course, are fifty centimeters wide
and continue into the ceiling. The two shorter sides are windowless, but
they have hidden air-vents at the top. Between each of the blue strips is a
seventy-five-centimeter-wide section of wal ; the wal is made of imitation
ivory — smooth as glass. There’s nothing for the vacuum cleaner to clean
off them. The books, as you can see, stand or are stacked on little ivory
étagères. So: blue — white — black! The woven blue silk on the divans and
armchairs, like the rosettes in the glass, is made according to special draw-
First published as “Der Geldschrank: Eine Ehenovelette” in 1911–12 in the satirical maga-
zine Simplicissimus (Munich). Named after the main character of a 1668 picaresque novel
by Grimmelshausen, Simplicissimus was renowned for its bold graphics and daring political
caricatures. Among its many important contributors were Peter Altenberg, Hermann Hesse,
Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Walser, and the artists
John Heartfield and George Grosz.
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SELECTED SHORT S T O R I E S
ings. Gottfried hasn’t seen to that short wal yet — a special surprise is
supposed to go there.”
Aunt Kitty said calmly:
“It’s an oasis of culture amid the Märkisch sands. Yes — we don’t have
anything like this in Australia yet. You must be very happy living here.”
“Let us smoke!” said Frau Thekla, and she pulled over a smoking table,
upon which everything was made of a fine, ivorylike material. The ashtrays
had a border of beads made of lapis lazuli. The cigar stands were adorned
with turquoise.
The ladies smoked, and Aunt Kitty was very happy to see her niece
Thekla was so tasteful y done up. The latter said:
“And just think, Aunt! Gottfried is always saying to me that he’s a crude
and tasteless man — and he asks me again and again to have patience with
him — he says that he can be inconsiderate sometimes.”
“That,” cried Aunt Kitty, “is simply impossible: anyone who could
build his wife such a reading gal ery as this — such a person has taste. I
find the whole vil a exceptional y tasteful.”
“I’m looking forward to Gottfried’s surprise,” said Frau Thekla. “It’s
supposed to come early tomorrow morning and is to decorate that wal over
there.”
The next morning, the aged valet Ibach came into the breakfast room with
a distraught look upon his face and said in a husky voice:
“The locksmiths crept into the reading gal ery in slippers and set up the
gracious lord’s surprise; I beg you please to come right away.”
“How does it look?” cried both of the ladies.
But Ibach just shrugged, and the ladies followed him in great haste.
A terrible cry was soon heard from the reading gal ery: Frau Thekla
fel into a faint upon her favorite divan.
A baroque safe made of iron and painted brown — decorated in several
places with bronze leaf — stood before the empty white ivory wal .
Aunt Kitty stood speechless before it. Ibach stood near the door and
wept. Frau Thekla lay wailing upon the divan.
“It’s completely tasteless!” she cried.
“Is there supposed to be a lot of money in it?” asked Ibach.
But Frau Thekla jumped up from the divan like an enraged cat and
cried:
“That would be a Chimborazo-sized act of tastelessness. My papa gave
me plenty of pocket money. I don’t need any money.”
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PAUL S C H E E R B A R T
Twenty-four hours later, during which time she had remained silent, Aunt
Kitty final y spoke:
“Your Gottfriend was trying to insult you — it’s not just an issue of
tactlessness or tastelessness. He intended specifical y to provoke and insult
you — to mock you — to torture you. As a young wife, you must by no
means tolerate such a thing.”
“Then what shal I do?” asked Frau Thekla.
“I,” Aunt Kitty opined after a while, “would pack up my most import-
ant
clothes and such and go to my father’s house immediately.”
“And so it shal be! Right away!” cried Frau Thekla.
And they packed until sunset. As the moon rose over Lake Schwielow,
the two ladies, along with old Ibach, who always had tears in his eyes, took
a slow motorboat to Commerce Councilor Scratch’s house.
When the colorful y lit motorboat (it too had double-paned wal s with
electric light between them) arrived at the Commerce Councilor’s vil a, al
was dark. Herr Scratch was in his study, the servants explained.
The ladies were led through a hal where three magnificent vase-shaped
central pil ars gave off violet and chrysolite-green light; the floor was cov-
ered with a brightly colored carpet.
A crimson glass wal with a pattern of yel ow lilies gleamed from the
end of the room. The study was behind this wal . There sat the Commerce
Councilor behind his great desk. Just behind the red wal , on which, on the
study side, black cuneiform text weaved among the lilies — the black look-
ing mysterious against the red background — stood a black velvet divan.
On the desk, a low green lamp was burning. The Commerce Councilor
turned around reluctantly and said softly:
“Why have you come here so late? What do you want from me?”
Weeping and sobbing came as the only answer.
Then out it came:
“Herr Gottfried Softstep,” Aunt Kitty said, “has put a safe in his wife’s
reading gal ery — obviously to remind her that the luxury of the reading
gal ery came at a high cost, and that she ought to be grateful.”
At this the old Commerce Councilor slammed his fist against the ebony
table and cried:
“The man has clearly gone crazy. I’l get in touch with my neurologist
immediately. It’s simply outrageous. A safe in a reading gal ery? Ha! I’ll
teach him some manners. Wait til he meets me!”
Just then the bel of the telephone sounded — and who should be cal ing
but Gottfried Softstep!
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SELECTED SHORT S T O R I E S
He said to his father-in-law hastily:
“I shal be back at Lake Schwielow tomorrow. I beg you to dine with us.
After dinner I’l show you a safe. You’l be astonished. I won’t say anymore.
Goodbye!”
The Commerce Councilor was stunned.
The packing of things recommenced, and the Councilor ordered Ibach
to take everything back — and to erase any trace of the nocturnal excursion.
The dinner was on the next day.
The mood was somewhat subdued.
Final y the father-in-law said:
“We’re so curious to see the safe.”
“Ah, yes!” cried Herr Gottfried with pleasure, thereby knocking over a
wineglass with his left hand. He excused himself for his eternal taste- and
tactlessness; Ibach smiled at these words.
And then the solution came in the reading gal ery.
Gottfried Softstep pressed a smal knob in the middle of the safe — and
the safe immediately split in two halves, each of which rol ed slowly aside
on four wheels. And with an audible jolt, a lovely ivory writing desk fel out
onto the black velvet carpet.
Herr Gottfried pulled out the drawers and the writing surface — and
look — the ivory was inlaid with the finest cloisonné enamel — translucent
melted glass in blue, red, and green.
A little blue, red, and green lamp illuminated the miniature work of art
from above. It was simply enchanting.
Aunt Kitty trembled.
The Commerce Councilor looked somewhat askance at his son-in-law.
Herr Gottfried once again begged forgiveness for the tasteless packaging.
But Frau Thekla sat down at the desk, shaking with emotion, and wrote:
Dear Gottfried, Thank you! You have taught me patience! I shal never
again be impatient. Your faithful Thekla.
She gave the letter to her husband.
And then two feminine and two masculine handkerchiefs were put to
use. Al were greatly moved.
Translated by Anne Posten
199
At the Glass Exhibition in Peking:
The Old Baron’s Diary Entries
The old Baron Münchhausen has just returned from China’s interior. He
writes the fol owing diary entries while in Peking:
10 September 1910
Those who are always sober cannot write amusing stories. But that is just by
the by. In the last fourteen days there have been colossal snowstorms and . . .
What I have seen here in Peking far overshadows, as they say, al my
other experiences. Actual y, “overshadow” is one of those wretched words
that always make me a bit nervous. Doesn’t come close to what I mean,
this business with the overshadowing. But — let us not digress! This sum-
mer, in barely three months, Peking has organized an international glass
exhibition . . . Merciful heavens! What the Chinese are capable of! As I’ve
always said: One day the Chinese wil rule the world.
11 September 1910
First, to describe the general impression!
Wel — but it’s hardly that easy.
Outside, far from Peking — easily a mile and a half outside the city — a
huge glass city springs abruptly from the earth.
Of course, it doesn’t actual y spring. My enthusiasm makes me write the
most blatant absurdities. But that goes to show how excited I real y am.
Al this in three months!
At first, al one sees are giant wal s made of mirrors al around. They
frame the whole thing. But it’s not just a simple square. No — the footprint
of this little city is actual y quite irregular.
Again, “lit le” is obviously quite wrong. The dimensions are actual y
sizeable. One mirror wal is fifty meters high and eight hundred meters
long. Iron rods support the whole thing. The rods are painted crimson or
First published as “Auf der Glasausstellung in Peking: Tagebuchnotizen des alten Barons”
in 1912 as part of the novel Das große Licht: Ein Münchhausen-Brevier (The great light: A
Münchhausen breviary), Sally Rabinowitz, Leipzig.
200
“enameled. And the mirror wal juts in and out: deep inwards toward the
city and then far out again. The perimeter includes three thousand right
angles. And the mirror wal s contain terraces and overhangs supported by
rectangular mirror columns. Hard to imagine. But such is the exterior.
I arrived this very morning. The sky was very blue. And the upper half
of the mirrors also seemed blue, so that at first one doesn’t even notice that
there is a glass city here. The glass was only visible on closer approach. A
multitude of mirrored surfaces shone dazzlingly. First, I rode three times
around the entire exhibition.
The sharp angles, where one glass surface joins another, had the greatest
effect here.
Everything at right angles. On this side the square reigns supreme.
Mainly terraces on the next side.
I don’t know the precise number of sides — certainly a very large number.
Everything always blue above. Yel ow fields of grain surround the exquisite
city, so that the lower half looks completely yel ow — as if the fields just
continue into this paradise.
When one is excited, one stil can’t break the habit of using the usual hack-
neyed words. No human could ever imagine a paradise like this, in any case.
I stayed in a restaurant outside, in the middle of a field of grain.
There, I marveled at the sunset — in the mirrors. It was splendid.
Immediately thereafter I went to my room, wrote this down, and now
I’m looking out again.
The moonlight in the mirrors!
Stars in the mirrors, too.
Everything a hundredfold, a thousandfold.
What human hands can create!
A hundred thousand people built this in three months. And I’ve only
seen the outside.
12 September 1910
Today I was inside.
Al I can give are notes.
First, a hal with kaleidoscopes on the wal s. Everything else black velvet.
But in the middle of the sixteen wal s is a huge kaleidoscopic orb. The
kaleidoscope revolves once a minute. Constantly changing images. This
magic lantern over a sea of black velvet.
This is just a little welcoming entertainment.
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PAUL S C H E E R B A R T
Lots of Chinese — al in silk garments, woven in bright colors. Myself
in Chinese garb as wel . I rented these clothes from the innkeeper outside.
They’re bright blue and bright green.
I’m bored by the very paper I’m writing on.
I write only for the benefit of Europeans, so that they realize how far behind
they are in terms of exhibitions. I am surprised that there are no Europeans
here besides myself, although many have exhibited here. Those who worked
here are al in the city, being entertained by the emperor in princely fashion.
The attendants in the hal are al dressed in silk — a blaze of color . . .
Next I saw the Tiffany glass hall.
I looked back out.
Moonlight again!
And the stars are mirrored in the mirrors.
One almost begins to understand infinity.
13 September 1910
Today I came inside only after sunset.
The emperor of China had been there with his retinue during the day.
Now he has left. I didn’t see him, because unfortunately I’m European.
I saw hanging lamps today — hanging glass lamps.
I saw at least a hundred thousand of them. With electrical light burning
in each one.
Al of the exhibition palaces adjoin the mirror wal that encloses the
whole thing.
In the center, terraces lead downward.