Selected Stories (16 page)

The crowds were seething with energy. Everybody thought himself out in front. Men,
women floated by. All seemed to be making for the same goal. Where did they come from,
where were they going?

One of them was this, another that, a third nothing. Many were driven, lived without
purpose, let themselves be flung every which way. Any sense for the good was set aside,
not used; intelligence was groping in emptiness; fine faculties and plenty bore meager
fruit.

Evening had come; the street was like an apparition. Thousands walked here every day.
There was no room anywhere else. Early in the morning they were brisk; at night, tired.
Often they came to nothing. Actions rolled over one another; ability was often exasperated,
to no end.

As I was walking along thus, I met the gaze of a grandee’s coachman. Then I jumped
onto a bus, rode on for a stretch, went into a restaurant to eat something, and then
I went out again. Everywhere an even-measured going and flowing. Human understanding
was taken for granted. Everyone knew, in an instant, pretty well everything about
everyone else, but the interior life remained secret. Soul continuously renews itself.

Wheels were grinding, voices became loud; yet the whole scene was oddly still.

I wanted to speak with someone, but found no time; sought some fixed point, but found
none. In the midst of the unrelenting forward thrust I felt the wish to stand still.
The muchness and the motion were too much and too fast. Everyone withdrew from everyone.
There was a running, as of something liquefied, a constant going forth, as of evaporation.
Everything was schematic, ghostlike, even myself.

Suddenly I saw an unspeakable heaviness in all the haste and hurry, and I told myself:
“This hugger-mugger totality wants nothing and does nothing. They are entangled with
one another, do not move, prisoners; they abandon themselves to opaque pressures but
they themselves are the power that lies upon them and binds them, mind and limb.”

As I was passing by, a woman’s eyes spoke to me: “Come with me. Quit the whirlpool,
leave that farrago behind, join the only person who will make you strong. If you are
loyal to me, you’ll be rich. In the turmoil you are poor.”

I wanted to follow her call, but was swept away in the stream. The street was just
too irresistible.

Then I came into the open country, where everything was quiet. A train with red windows
hurtled past, close by. In the distance the traffic’s billowing ceaseless subtle thunder
was faintly to be heard.

I walked along the edge of the forest and murmured a poem by Brentano. The moon was
glancing through the branches.

Suddenly I noticed a man standing not far off, quite motionless, and apparently watching
for me.

I walked around him, keeping him constantly in sight, which annoyed him; for he called
out to me: “Why not come here and take a proper look at me? I am not what you think.”

I went over to him. He was like anyone else, except that he looked strange, nothing
more. Then I went back again to where the light was, and the street.

[1919]

Snowdrops

I’
VE
just been writing a letter in which I announced that I had finished a novel with
or without pain and distress, that the considerable manuscript was lying in my drawer
ready to go, with the title already in position and packing paper at hand, for the
work to be wrapped and sent in. Furthermore, I have purchased a new hat, which for
the present I shall wear only on Sundays, or when a visitor comes to me.

Recently a parson visited me. I found it nice and most proper that he did not look
at all like a professional one. The parson told me of a lyrically gifted teacher.
I intend to go before long on foot through the spring country to this person, who
instructs the village schoolchildren and writes verse as well. I find it beautiful
and natural that a teacher should concern himself with higher things and have experiences
of the more profound sort. Yet on account of his profession he has to deal with something
serious: with souls! Here I think of the wonderful
Life of the Merry Schoolmaster, Maria Wuz, of Auenthal, a Kind of Idyll,
by Jean Paul, a book, or booklet, that I have read with delight I know not how often
and will probably read again and again. The main point is that now the spring is just
beginning again. So here and there I’ll succeed in writing a pleasant-sounding line
of springtime verse. It is wonderful that now one need not think at all of heating.
Thick winter coats will soon have outplayed their role. Everybody will be glad if
he can stand around and go about coatless. Thank God there are still things about
which everyone is united and agrees nicely with one another.

I have seen snowdrops; in gardens and on the cart of a peasant woman who was driving
to market. I wanted to buy a bouquet from her, but thought it not right for a robust
man like me to ask for so tender a thing. They are sweet, these first shy announcers
of something beloved by all the world. Everyone loves the thought that it will become
spring.

It is all a folk play, and the entry costs not a penny. Nature, the sky above us,
is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination,
and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty. Little snowdrops, of what
do you speak? They speak still of winter, but also already of spring; they speak of
the past, but also saucily and merrily of the new. They speak of the cold but also
of something warmer; they speak of snow and at the same time of green, of burgeoning
growth. They speak of this and that; they say: Still in the shadows and on the hills
lies a fair quantity of snow, but where the sun reaches, it has already melted away.
Yet all sorts of hoarfrost may still come this way. April is not to be trusted. But
what we wish will nevertheless win out. The warmth will assert itself everywhere.

Snowdrops whisper all kinds of things. They bring back to mind Snow White, who in
the mountains found a friendly welcome from the dwarfs. They remind one of roses because
they are different. Everything always reminds one of its opposite.

Just wait. The good will come. Goodness is always closer to us than we think. Patience
brings roses. This old, good saying occurred to me when recently I saw snowdrops.

[1919]

Translated by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg

Winter

I
N
winter the fog makes much of itself. Anyone walking in it cannot help but shiver.
Only seldom does the sun honor us with its presence. Then one feels somewhat reprieved,
as by the entrance of a beautiful woman who knows how to make herself delectable.

Winter excels with cold. It is to be hoped that all rooms are heated, all overcoats
worn. Furs and slippers increase in importance, fire in attraction, warmth in demand.
Winter has long nights, short days, and bare trees. Not one green leaf appears now.
But ice appears, on lakes and rivers, and in its wake something very pleasant; namely,
skating. If snow falls, snowball fights are likely. These are a children’s pastime;
an adult prefers to smoke cigars, sit at a table, and play cards, or else adults fancy
serious conversation. Sledding might also be mentioned, by the way, an activity pleasing
to many.

Glorious sunny winter days there are. Footsteps clink over frozen ground. If there
is snow, everything is soft, it’s as if you were walking on a carpet. Snowy landscapes
have a beauty all their own. Everything looks festive, as for a ceremony. Christmastime
is especially delightful for children. Then the Christmas tree shines brightly, or
rather, the candles, which fill the room with a radiance devout and beautiful. How
enchanting! The fir-tree branches are hung with delicacies. These are, in particular,
chocolate angels, candy cippolatas, biscuits from Basel, walnuts wrapped in silver
foil, red-cheeked apples. Around the tree the members of the family are gathered.
The children recite poems they have learned by heart. Afterwards their parents show
them their presents, and say to them something like: “Be as good a child as you have
been till now,” and they kiss the children, whereupon the children kiss the parents,
and perhaps all of them, amid such beautiful circumstances and deeply felt things,
weep for a while and say thank you to each other in trembling voices, and hardly know
why they are doing so, though they think it is right, and are happy. See how in the
middle of winter love is radiant, brightness smiles, warmth shines, tenderness twinkles,
and the glow of all that may be hoped for, all kindness, comes toward you.

Snow does not fall lickety-split, but slowly, that is, bit by bit, which means flake
by flake, down to the earth. Everything is flying around, as in Paris, where it does
not snow as it does, for instance, in Moscow, from where Napoleon once began his retreat,
because he thought it was advisable. It snows in London too, where Shakespeare once
lived, who wrote
The Winter’s Tale,
a play glittering with merriment and gravity, in equal measure, in which a reunion
occurs, attended by one of the characters, who stands by like a “conduit of many kings’
reigns,” as it says in the text.

Isn’t snowfall an enchanting spectacle? To be snowed in, once in a while, certainly
does no great harm. Years ago I experienced a snowstorm on the Friedrichstrasse in
Berlin, and it is still vivid in my memory.

Recently I dreamed I flew over a round, fragile sheet of ice, as thin and transparent
as a windowpane, and curving up and down like glassy waves. Beneath the ice, spring
flowers were growing. As if raised up by a spirit, I floated back and forth and was
pleased by the effortless motion. In the middle of the lake was an island on which
stood a temple which turned out to be a tavern. I went in, ordered coffee and cakes,
and ate and drank and afterward smoked a cigarette. When I left and resumed my exercise,
the mirror broke and I sank into the depths, among the flowers, which admitted me
with a friendly welcome.

How nice it is that spring follows winter, every time.

[1919]

The She-Owl

A
SHE-OWL
in a ruined wall said to herself: What a horrifying existence. Anyone else would
be dismayed, but me, I am patient. I lower my eyes, huddle. Everything in me and on
me hangs down like gray veils, but above me, too, the stars glitter; this knowledge
fortifies me. Bushy plumage covers me: by day I sleep, at night I’m awake. I need
no mirror to discover how I look: feeling tells me. I can easily think of my peculiar
face.

People say I’m ugly. If they only knew what smiles I feel in my soul, they’d not run
from me in fright any more. Yet they don’t see into the interior, they stop at the
body, the clothes. Once I was young and pretty, I might say, but that makes it sound
as if I pine for the past, and that is not my way. The she-owl, who once practiced
growing big, endures the course and change of time tranquilly, she finds herself in
every present moment.

They say to me: “Philosophy.” Yet the death that comes be-foretimes cancels the later
one. Death is nothing new to the she-owl, she knows it already. It looks as if I’m
a lady of learning, wear glasses, and somebody is so interested in me that he pays
me a visit now and then. He finds me Harmonious. He tells me I’m somebody who doesn’t
disappoint him. Of course, I have never bewitched him either. He studies me profoundly,
strokes my wings, brings me candy sometimes, with which to delight, so he believes,
the most serious of females, and he’s making no mistake. I am reading a poet whose
finesse makes him fit to be digested by owls. There’s something sweet in his ways,
something veiled, undefinable, which is to say, he suits me well. Once I was charming,
I laughed and twittered jokes into the blue of day, I turned many young men’s heads.
Now things look different, the shoes I wear have holes in them, I’m old, I sit and
say nothing.

[1921]

Knocking

I
AM
completely beat, this head hurts me.

Yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before the day before yesterday, my landlady
knocked.

“May I know why you are knocking?” I asked her.

This timid question was turned down with the response: “You are pretentious.”

Subtle questions are perceived as impertinent.

One should always make a lot of noise.

Knocking is a true pleasure, listening to it less so. Knockers don’t hear their knocking;
i.e., they hear it, but it doesn’t disturb them. Each thump has something agreeable
for the originator. I know that from my own experience. One believes oneself brave
when making a racket.

There’s that knocking again.

Apparently it’s a rug being worked on. I envy all those who, thrashing, exercise harmlessly.

An instructor once took several students over his knee and spanked them thoroughly,
to impress upon them that bars exist only for adults. I also was among the group beneficially
beaten.

Anyone who wants to hang a picture on the wall must first pound in a nail. To this
end, one must knock.

“Your knocking disturbs me.”

“That doesn’t concern me.”

“Good, then I shall compliantly see to the removal of this irritation.”

“It won’t hurt you.”

A polite conversation, don’t you agree?

Knocking, knocking! I’d like to stop up my ears.

Also, I once dusted as a servant the Persian carpets for the household of a count.
The sound of it echoed through the magnificent landscape.

Clothes, mattresses, etc., are beaten.

So a modern city is full of knocking. Anyone who worries over something inevitable
seems a simpleton.

“Go ahead, knock as much as you like.”

“Is that meant ironically?”

“Yes, a little.”

[1923]

Translated by Tom Whalen and Carol Gehrig

Titus