Selected Stories (18 page)

When they got home, the Jewess sat down, having dismissed her aunt with a gesture,
upon an expensive golden-footed sofa, and asked the monkey, who was standing before
her in picturesque pose, to tell her who he was, to which this quintessence of monkeyhood
answered:

“I once wrote poems on the Zürichberg; these I now submit in print to the object of
my devotions. Though your eyes attempt to crush me to the floor, which is impossible,
for the sight of you raises me continually up again, formerly indeed I often went
into the forest to my lady friends, the pines, looked up at their crests, lay full
length on the moss, till I grew weary from my sprightliness, and melancholy from gladness—”

“You lazy thing!” interjected Preziosa.

The family friend, for as such he already ventured to consider himself, continued,
and said: “Once I left a dentist’s bill unpaid, believing I would nevertheless succeed
in life, and I sat at the feet of women of higher society, who accorded me a quantum
of benevolence. Then you might also be informed that in autumn I picked windfall apples,
gathered flowers in spring, and for a season lived where a poet named Keller grew
up, of whom you will probably not have heard, although you ought to have done—”

“Impudence!” the young lady cried. “It would give me the greatest of pleasure to dismiss
you, only to grieve you; still, I’ll be merciful. But if you are ever ungallant again,
you will have breathed in my presence for the last time, long for me as you may. Now,
proceed.”

He began again, and said: “I never gave much to women, and so they value me. Also
in you, miss, I detect an admiration for the simplest loon ever to utter indiscretions
to ladies merely to make them angry and afterwards content again. I arrived as ambassador
in Constantinople—”

“No lies, Mr. Braggart!”

“—and one day at the railway terminus caught sight of a lady-in-waiting, that is to
say, another person saw her, I was sitting next to him in the carriage, he reported
to me the observation which I now dish up to you, though only figuratively, for there’s
no dish, howbeit I long for a loaded one, because I have developed an appetite in
presenting to you a specimen of my powers of rhetoric.”

“Go into the kitchen and serve supper. Meanwhile, I shall read your verses.”

He did as he was told, went into the kitchen, but could not find it. Did he go into
it without even having set eyes on it? There must have been a slight slip of the pen.

He went back to Preziosa, who had fallen asleep over his poems, who lay there like
a picture in an Oriental fairy tale. One of her hands hung down like a cluster of
grapes. He wanted to tell her how he had gone into the kitchen without having found
where it was, how gradually, gradually he had grown silent, but an irrefragable impulse
had driven him back to the lady he had abandoned. He stood before the sleeper, knelt
at the shrine of loveliness, and touched the hand that seemed to him like a Jesukin,
too beautiful to hold, with his breath alone.

While he was making his reverences—which one would hardly have expected of him—her
eyes opened. She had a lot of questions to ask him, but she only said: “You do not
seem to me to be a proper monkey at all. Tell me, are you a royalist?”

“Why should I be that?”

“Because you are so patient, and you spoke of ladies-in-waiting.”

“I only want to be polite.”

“It appears that is just what you are.”

The next day she wanted him to tell her how to find happiness. He gave her the most
astonishing answer. “Come, I’ll dictate you a letter,” she said. While he was writing,
she glanced over his shoulder to see if he was taking it all faithfully down. Phew!
How nimbly he wrote, listening with the most pointed attention to every syllable she
spoke. We leave them to their correspondence.

In the birdcage pranced a cockatoo.

Preziosa was thinking of something.

[1925]

Dostoevsky’s “Idiot”

T
HE
contents of Dostoevsky’s
Idiot
pursue me. Lapdogs interest me greatly. I’m not searching for someone as lively as
an Aglaya. Unfortunately, she would, of course, take someone else. Marie remains unforgettable
to me. One morning did I not stop and stand affectionately before a jackass? Who will
introduce me to a General Epanchin’s wife? Valets have wondered about me already,
too. It is still questionable whether or not I write as nicely as the offspring of
the house of Myshkin and whether or not I have inherited millions. It would be splendid
to be taken into the confidence of a beautiful woman. Why haven’t I yet seen a merchant’s
house like that of Rogozhin? Why don’t I suffer from convulsive seizures? The idiot
was thin, made only a poor impression. A good lad, at whose feet the demimondaine
knelt one evening. I definitely expect something similar. I know two or three Kolyas.
Wouldn’t an Ivolgin also have to be seen? I’d be capable of knocking down a vase:
to doubt this would be to underrate oneself. To make a speech is as difficult as it
is easy; it depends on inspiration. I’ve often encountered people who are never satisfied
with themselves. Often enough a person is not well because he tries too hard to be
pleased with himself. Thereafter I’d arrive in the Schneider Institute. For the time
being, Nastasia would have to be pacified. I’m by no means idiotic, but am receptive
to every reasonable thing; I’m sorry I’m not the hero of a novel. I’m not up to playing
such a part, I just read a lot sometimes.

[1925]

Translated by Tom Whelan and Carol Gehrig

Am I Demanding?

P
EOPLE
draw my attention to novels by important authors.

I receive letters from publishers.

Society women are mindful of me.

I have genteel manners; of course I suddenly discard them, and then later recover
them.

Sometimes I do think I’m odd.

Doctors ask me, in all sympathy, if it’s really true that nobody cares for me, as
if they thought it very incorrect.

Soon even I’ll be believing I’ve been neglected. Yet there’s no harm in that, none
at all. On the contrary, because of it, I have “lived” that much more intensely.

Every noon, at lunch, I read “my” newspaper. This fact asks to be mentioned. Is there
anything else out there asking for a friendly announcement from me?

Could I have “forgotten all sorts of things”?

Once more I’ve changed my domicile. When shall I get around to reading a French book
again? I’m longing to do so.

What does “being cultivated” mean? What are all these questions I’m asking myself?

I like looking for a room and that sort of thing. You can look into houses which you
would otherwise not look into.

Thus, for instance, while searching for a suitable working space and living room,
I arrived inside a house from the baroque period. Old pictures were hanging in the
corridors.

Needless to say, I remain interested primarily in attics. I’m interested in so many
things.

Shall I soon apply politely for a job? This question, too, weighs enormously on my
mind.

In the house of some quite poor people I found a very nice room, but it could not,
unfortunately, be heated. At once I declared myself agreeable to the view across the
countryside afforded by the tiny window. The room could only be regarded as a sort
of cubbyhole.

While looking at this room I was also looking at the landlady. I wanted to find out
if she might conceivably become more “intimately” interesting to me.

Moreover, in the little window, standing at some distance on a hill, you could see
a People’s Nutrition Building, in which questions of economics and management could
be studied. In this elegant house a professor of literature and art once used to live.
Somebody had told me this, and now I thought of it. A woman of my acquaintance works
there, as a janitress; I met her when she was the keeper of a boardinghouse.

“The table is a bit too small for me, you see I write rather a lot,” I said to the
landlady, whose appearance I had scrutinized. I said goodbye to her and went away.

Later I looked at a dark but warm room on a courtyard. To the woman who showed it
to me, I said: “Perhaps I’ll come back. At the moment I’m pierced through with arrows.”

“For heaven’s sake,” she asked, dismayed, “what kind of arrows?”

“Cupid’s arrows,” I replied calmly, and most casually, as if these arrows were really
no business of mine.

“Yes, some women give no mercy,” she added. I answered: “It’s understandable, every
woman’s first concern is herself.”

Whereupon I left, and now this very peculiar question, in my opinion an important
one, occupies my thoughts: “Of what does being cultivated consist?” And then this
second question, a most important one, it too gives me no peace, the question, I mean,
as to what the People means. How on earth shall I cope with these problems?

And this doctor who, in an offhand sort of way, as it were, briefly “mothered” me.
He gave me a book to read, which now graces my desk with its presence.

And then “this beautiful woman,” who gazes at me in a shop, so intently, as if she
wanted to tell me: “I know you; watch out!”

She had such a beautiful, delicate face, also very delicate feet. The thing was this:
I was just sitting there in the shop waiting for something. Of this woman I at once
thought I had met her somewhere before, that she recognized me, and that she had a
quite definite opinion of me. Of course, all this might have been a delusion of mine.
One is so easily deluded about the objects of one’s interest.

Early in the morning, one sees in our nicest of towns numerous pretty girls who are
on the way to some occupation or other.

It’s gradually becoming “serious,” my situation, I realize this.

I’ve decided to write a novel, which will have to be psychological, of course. It
will be concerned with vital questions.

A schoolteacher, who is also an author, has written me two very attentive, intelligent
letters.

Oh, this rapidity in all my prolonged slownesses, and, on the other hand, this sloth
again, in all my extensive industriousness.

Is it really the case that I’m a kind of child of the people, who doesn’t yet understand
even himself? That would be terrible.

But I always float, like the price of gold, that’s to say, modestly put, I have confidence
in myself. Others, alas, do not, not always, as, for instance, a very nice woman,
to whom I also spoke while looking for a room.

The room looked captivating, you know, so sunny, so bright. I told myself at once:
“I’d like to live here.” The wash table was new and snow-white, and there was an inviting
chaise longue, which I would have placed otherwise, probably.

“The room is a real poem, dear esteemed lady,” said I to the person who wanted to
rent it. “In spirit I have settled down here already.”

She answered: “I must tell you, to my own regret and probably to yours as well, that
I cannot make a decision at once. You are very demanding, aren’t you?”

I replied: “Yes, I am.”

“For that reason I must ask you to give me a little time for reflection. Telephone
me, will you? Won’t you? Then I’ll tell you.”

I took leave of that marvel of a room. How I laugh, when I think about it now! And
about the woman who sought salvation in delay.

As for me, I now live in a decent place, it’s almost refined. My surroundings satisfy
me. One can live pretty well anywhere, I believe, and what’s more, somebody who knows
and thinks well of me, a person of importance in the business line, has been asking
after my modest self, and I believe, she will have obtained the information she wanted.

I think I still have it in me to make something of myself. And I’d like to add: an
actress has written to me, saying how she arrived home in a troubled mood, thought
of me, and the thought made her happy.

[1925]

The Little Tree

I
SEE
it, even when I walk past, hardly noticing. It does not run away, stands quite still,
cannot think, cannot desire anything, no, it can only grow, be, in space, and have
leaves, which nobody touches, which are only to be looked at. Busy people hurry on
past the shadow offered by the leaves.

Have I never given anything to you? Yet it needs no happiness. Perhaps, if someone
thinks it is beautiful, it is glad. Do you think so? What holy innocences speak from
it. It knows of nothing; it is there for my pleasure, that only.

Why can it not be sensitive to my love, when I say something to it, the good thing?
But it apprehends nothing. It never sees me when I smile at the greeting it ignorantly
gives.

To die at this being’s feet, like that figure Courbet painted, who is taking leave
forever.

Surely I shall go on living, but what will become of you?

[1925]

Stork and Hedgehog

H
EDGEHOG
: Aren’t I captivating? Tell me!

S
TORK
: For a long time I have loved you.

H
EDGEHOG
: I’ll say nothing about that. I don’t talk to creatures that love me. Love is something
so reckless, impudent! I’ll have no dealings with spendthrifts. Make a note of that.
It’s my spines you’re in love with, isn’t it?

S
TORK
: Your mantle of spines suits you charmingly. You look adorable in it. A pity you’re
so prudish. A hedgehog should not be so buttoned up about decent behavior.

H
EDGEHOG
: You’re wrong, and I’ll tell you something. A stork can brag of many things, but
a hedgehog can’t. You are flattered, you are an educational and family ideal. Whole
communities look up to you with unfeigned respect. All the opinions that go with you
are good ones. With me, it’s different. What use to me is your affection? Have you
been smitten by my timorousness?

S
TORK
: Yes, I think so.