Selected Stories (17 page)

D
OESN’T
it sound like sheer swank to bring to these lips, Titus narrated, that my mother
was a princess, and that bandits kidnapped me in order to make me one of them? I say
that only for the sake of ornamentation, so that you won’t be bored with me from the
very beginning. If someone asked me about my birthplace, I would declare it was Goslar,
though with that I would be telling a juicy lie. Never was I spoiled by my mother,
for which I should be only too pleased. Goslar, so I read some time ago, is enchanting
in its spring raiment, and since I tend to be a trusting soul, I readily accepted
the assertion. While with the robbers, I learned to wash, sew, cook, and play Chopin,
but I would like to request that you not take this statement too strictly. It seems
to me like I am properly fantasizing here, for which I should be granted indulgence.
Should the poet not be allowed to play as freely upon the instrument of his imagination
as, for example, a musician on the piano? As a lieutenant I had a servant who spoiled
me. I came to a city, went through the streets, and searched and found an appropriate
job, obtained room and board with a family, whose head was as surly as his wife was
indulgent. I taught both their boys the art of cigarette rolling and learned English
in the company of a young woman. Tall and pale, like a breathed-upon rose from romanticism,
sat, kindheartedness in her eyes, a waitress in her room; she made me, with two words
which she did not begrudge me, happy, even though I did not yet rightly know the meaning
of bliss. A third tenant, a widow, got so familiar with me that the grumbly one announced
that he could not sanction such flirtations in his dwelling. Peace is a difficult
problem. I took to writing only to give it up little by little. To the east of an
enormous shopping district, I met in a bar a dark-eyed girl enveloped in yellow. Doesn’t
that, however, sound like rummaging up memories and couldn’t it easily have the effect
of sentimentality in print? For a mediocre type like me it was the same as for those
whose main experience is to pass many people by without making contact with them.
I am unusual perhaps only in that I lost terribly much time and perceived this fact
with pleasure. Instead of older, I grew younger. That I became a bit duller is something
I definitely take pride in. I am proud and narrow-minded and I tugged about on my
nose so persistently it obtained a charming form, prayed constantly to the dear Lord
for a childish appearance, which I also succeeded in getting. My heart is a snake’s
nest, it’s no wonder whenever I raise my eyes pleadingly to people who for that reason
think me docile, but what kind of sentence-disfiguring improprieties are these! He
who does not have the good intention to tell a lie is hopelessly lost. Honesty is
seldom respectable. I have a confession to make, I carry about a love that partly
troubles me, but that also gives me wings. Required by a cooperative for the promotion
of poetry to deliver a new manuscript, I hied, wagged, and ran my way into every coffeehouse
where a lady seemed condescending enough to allow me to look up to her. Since then
I am both the palest and most ruddy devotee. It’s just a pity that Solomonian songs
of love have already been written and exist in the books at hand; how gladly would
I steal through the servant’s entrance into the palaces of literature and serve with
rapture. Yesterday I went to the country, which was dressed in a kind of early-spring
gold, took off my hat to sweet Mama Nature, sat down on a small bench, and cried.
In the multiple branching network of the methods of rejuvenescence, tears are, to
my experience, a not unimportant point of intersection. People no longer let their
fingernails grow. The opposite kind thinks about marriage. Hair must be washed every
week. The waves amused themselves at my feet, and throughout the valley, which consisted
of gentle hills gently following one another, there was a serenity like that cast
in the face of a man who has remained good, who has lived for years without life turning
him to disfavor. The oldness and youthfulness of the earth are wonderful. With your
permission, I shall speak and sing about a small dancing brook falling down a wall
of rock, sparkling silver, laughing and divinely beautiful, solemn and merry as it
splashed on the rocks, broke away as a small contribution to the colossus ocean, where
in thousand-fathom depths innocent monsters swim eternally around wet and hidden trees,
luxury liners decorate the surface, and I shall talk about soft shadows on the meadow,
small houses on the incline, and a youth lying down. It would be dreadful if the reader
just yawned! With a languishing soul and with eyes opened wide like circles from yearning,
I went into a peaceful garden where the sun faintly shone through, listened to the
orchestra giving a sympathetic concert here, whereby I apparently behaved bizarrely
because out of pity a girl fell over in a death of daggerlike piercing regrets; whoever
thinks this possible will be happy for the rest of his life. I let people who take
to me build on the structure of their friendship as long as they wish; they never
become bothered by me because I notice them not at all. Many incautiously take me
to be uncivilized. My most exalted is so beautiful and I worship her with such a holy
respect that I attach myself to another and therewith must seize the opportunity to
recover from the strain of sleepless nights, to relate to the successor how dear the
past one was, to tell her, “I love you just as much.”

[1925]

Translated by Tom Whalen and Carol Gehrig

Vladimir

W
E
shall call him Vladimir, since it is a rare name and in point of fact he was unique.
Those to whom he appeared foolish tried to win a glance, a word from him, which he
rarely gave. In inferior clothes he behaved more sanguinely than in elegant ones,
and was basically a good person who merely made the mistake of falsely attributing
and affixing to himself faults which he did not have. He was hard primarily on himself.
Isn’t that inexcusable?

Once he lived with a married couple and was impossible to drive away. “It is time
that you left us alone,” was intimated to him; he seemed hardly able to imagine it,
saw the woman smiling and the man turn pale. He was chivalry itself. Serving always
gave him a lofty notion of the bliss of existence. He could not see pretty women burdened
with small boxes, packages, and so on, without springing forth and expressing the
wish to be helpful, at which he first always fought back the slightest fear of intruding.

From whence did Vladimir descend? Well, certainly from none other than his parents.
It seems peculiar that he admits when down on his luck to having often been happy,
when successful to having been morose, and that he says the driving force of his existence
is his industriousness. No one ever saw such a satisfied and at the same time dissatisfied
man. No one was quicker and in the very next instant more irresolute.

Once a girl promised to meet him at such and such a time and then kept him waiting.
This came as a surprise to him. Another asserted, “It befits you to be swindled. Do
you not have a peculiar predilection for jokes which border on disregard?”

“You are mistaken,” is all he answered.

He never bore a person a grudge, because “I, too, have often played unfairly with
people.”

At the ladies’ café he was amused by the mimicry and expressions of the customers.
By the way, he was no friend of too many diversions, as much as he valued them by
way of exception. He thought about everything only to forget it in an instant, was
a good reckoner because he did not permit his feelings to have power over his mind.

The women thought little of him, but not without always becoming interested in him
again. They called him timid, but he likewise them. They played with and feared him.

To one lady, who flaunted her wealth before him in perhaps too clever a manner, he
was most courteous, as one is when one feels for that person nothing. He found uncultured
girls inspired by their need for instruction and on the other hand also such who have
read everything and now wished to be almost ignorant. For injustices suffered he never
avenged himself and perhaps avenged himself sufficiently in just this way. Those who
did not treat him as he had wished, he let go, dropped; that is to say, he accustomed
himself to not thinking about many unpleasant things. That’s how he protected his
soul from confusion, his thoughts from unhealthy hardness.

Music put him in a tender mood, as it does most people. If he saw himself favored
by a girl, it seemed as if she wished to hold him down, and he kept clear of her.
He was as suspicious as a southerner, of himself as well as others; frequently jealous
but never for long, because his self-respect quickly freed him from the persecution
of envy, envy which to him seemed hardly awakened, unfounded, and of no substance.

Once he lost a friend, and said to himself, “He’s losing as much as I.” He worshipped
a woman until she made one error, and it was no longer possible for him to pine for
her. A rash remark from her had the result that he laughed at her, and he was happy
about it. Feeling sorry for her, he no longer needed to be sorry for himself.

He stayed young and used his strength for the acquiring and exercise of attention
to people who most needed not to be glanced over insensitively, the feeble and the
aged. Do we speak too highly of him?

Sometimes he carries on like a gad-about-town, visits so-called vulgar dives. There
are people around who rebuke him for it, but who would themselves gladly be mirthful,
which their spheres so seldom allow. He has had imitators, but the original remains
himself. Imitation, by the way, is quite natural.

Copies can also be appealing, but only from the original can great value come.

[1925]

Translated by Tom Whalen and Carol Gehrig

Parisian Newspapers

S
INCE
I have been reading the Parisian papers, from which the scent of power emanates,
I have become so refined that I do not return greetings and, what’s more, this amazes
me not at all. With
Le Temps
in my hand, I appear very elegant to myself. Furthermore, I will no longer even glance
at righteous people. To me the Parisian papers are a substitute for the theater. Also,
not even the finest restaurant will I honor with my feet, so subtle have I become.
Gulps of beer no longer pass my lips. My ear approves only of the melodiousness of
the French language. Once I adored a lady, a true lady; today I find her most clumsy,
since
Le Figaro
has spoiled me. Did
Le Matin
not drive me half mad? While my colleagues write themselves sick in this modern time
of crisis, I grow exuberant through my papers. A trip which I intended to take to
Paris I consider completed, I become acquainted with France’s capital by way of reading.
It is pleasing to be in good company. The papers of conquerors make the best society.
German language products get no more blessings from me. I have forgotten how to speak
German; I wonder if there is any harm in that?

[1925]

Translated by Tom Whalen and Carol Gehrig

The Monkey

T
ENDERLY
yet in some degree hardheartedly should this tale be tackled, which declares that
it occurred to a monkey one afternoon to drop into a coffeehouse and idle away the
time of day there. Upon his decidedly not unintelligent head he was wearing a hard
hat, or it may even have been a slouch hat, and on his hands the most elegant gloves
that were ever displayed in a fashion shop for gentlemen. His suit was superb. With
one or two curiously executed, featherweight, really remarkable, though slightly revealing
leaps he arrived in the tearoom, through which rustled, like whisperings of foliage,
an enticing music. The monkey was at a loss regarding where he should sit, in a modest
corner, or slap in the middle. He chose the latter since it dawned on him that monkeys,
if they behave with decorum, may after all appear in public. Melancholically but also
glad, unperturbed and at the same time bashfully, he looked about him, discovering
many a pretty maid’s little face, with lips as of cherry juice and with cheeks as
of pure whipped or clotted cream. Beautiful eyes and mellifluous melodies were striving
for mastery, and I faint with narrative pride and wonder to report that the monkey,
speaking the vernacular, asked the waitress who served him whether he might be permitted
to scratch? “Of course, if you want to,” she kindly replied, and our cavalier, if
he merits the title, made such extensive use of her permission that ladies present
partly laughed, partly looked aside so as not to have to join the others in looking
at what he made so bold as to do. When an evidently charming woman sat down at his
table, he began immediately to entertain her with great wit; he spoke about the weather,
and then about books. “What an extraordinary person!” she mused, as he tossed his
gloves into the air and deftly caught them again. He curled his lips into an enchanting
grimace when he smoked. His cigarette provided a most lively contrast with his austere
complexion.

Preziosa was the name of the young lady who now entered the room, like a romance,
or a ballade, accompanied by a pomelo of an aunt, and from this moment there was no
more peace for the monkey, who had never known before what it is to love. He knew
it now. Suddenly all the nonsense was swept out of his head. With resolute step he
approached his heart’s elect and desired her to become his wife; he knew a trick or
two to show her what sort of a person he was! The young lady said: “You shall come
home with us. I must say you are hardly suitable for a husband. If you behave well,
you will receive every day a tap on the nose. You are radiant! I’ll allow you that.
You will see to it that I do not get bored.” So saying, she rose up so proudly that
a roar of laughter came over the monkey, whereupon she boxed his ears.