Selected Stories (4 page)

Then they leave. The country girl who has kept house for Kleist says goodbye. It is
a bright autumn morning, the coach rolls over bridges, past people, through roughly
plastered lanes, people look out of windows, overhead is the sky, under trees lies
yellowish foliage, everything is clean, autumnal, what else? And the coachman has
his pipe in his mouth. All is as ever it was. Kleist sits dejected in a corner of
the coach. The towers of the castle of Thun vanish behind a hill. Later, far in the
distance, Kleist’s sister can see once more the beautiful lake. It is already quite
chilly. Country houses appear. Well, well, such grand estates in such mountainous
country? On and on. Everything flies past as you look to the side and drops behind,
everything dances, circles, vanishes. Much is already hidden under the autumn’s veil,
and everything is a little golden in the little sunlight which pierces the clouds.
Such gold, how it shimmers there, still to be found only in the dirt. Hills, scarps,
valleys, churches, villages, people staring, children, trees, wind, clouds, stuff
and nonsense—is all this anything special? Isn’t it all rubbish, quotidian stuff?
Kleist sees nothing. He is dreaming of clouds and of images and slightly of kind,
comforting, caressing human hands. How do you feel? asks his sister. Kleist’s mouth
puckers, and he would like to give her a little smile. He succeeds, but with an effort.
It is as if he has a block of stone to lift from his mouth before he can smile.

His sister cautiously plucks up the courage to speak of his taking on some practical
activity soon. He nods, he is himself of the same opinion. Music and radiant shafts
of light flicker about his senses. As a matter of fact, if he admits it quite frankly
to himself, he feels quite well now; in pain, but well at the same time. Something
hurts him, yes, really, quite correct, but not in the chest, not in the lungs either,
or in the head, what? Nowhere at all? Well, not quite, a little, somewhere so that
one cannot quite precisely tell where it is. Which means: it’s nothing to speak of.
He says something, and then come moments when he is outright happy as a child, and
then of course the girl makes a rather severe, punitive face, just to show him a little
how very strangely he does fool around with his life. The girl is a Kleist and has
enjoyed an education, exactly what her brother has wanted to throw overboard. At heart
she is naturally glad that he is feeling better. On and on, well well, what a journey
it is. But finally one has to let it go, this stagecoach, and last of all one can
permit oneself the observation that on the front of the villa where Kleist lived there
hangs a marble plaque which indicates who lived and worked there. Travelers who intend
to tour the Alps can read it, the children of Thun read it and spell it out, letter
by letter, and then look questioning into each other’s eyes. A Jew can read it, a
Christian too, if he has the time and if his train is not leaving that very instant,
a Turk, a swallow, insofar as she is interested, I also, I can read it again if I
like. Thun stands at the entrance to the Bernese Oberland and is visited every year
by thousands of foreigners. I know the region a little perhaps, because I worked as
a clerk in a brewery there. The region is considerably more beautiful than I have
been able to describe here, the lake is twice as blue, the sky three times as beautiful.
Thun had a trade fair, I cannot say exactly but I think four years ago.

[1913]

The Job Application

E
STEEMED GENTLEMEN
,

I am a poor, young, unemployed person in the business field, my name is Wenzel, I
am seeking a suitable position, and I take the liberty of asking you, nicely and politely,
if perhaps in your airy, bright, amiable rooms such a position might be free. I know
that your good firm is large, proud, old, and rich, thus I may yield to the pleasing
supposition that a nice, easy, pretty little place would be available, into which,
as into a kind of warm cubbyhole, I can slip. I am excellently suited, you should
know, to occupy just such a modest haven, for my nature is altogether delicate, and
I am essentially a quiet, polite, and dreamy child, who is made to feel cheerful by
people thinking of him that he does not ask for much, and allowing him to take possession
of a very, very small patch of existence, where he can be useful in his own way and
thus feel at ease. A quiet, sweet, small place in the shade has always been the tender
substance of all my dreams, and if now the illusions I have about you grow so intense
as to make me hope that my dream, young and old, might be transformed into delicious,
vivid reality, then you have, in me, the most zealous and most loyal servitor, who
will take it as a matter of conscience to discharge precisely and punctually all his
duties. Large and difficult tasks I cannot perform, and obligations of a far-ranging
sort are too strenuous for my mind. I am not particularly clever, and first and foremost
I do not like to strain my intelligence overmuch. I am a dreamer rather than a thinker,
a zero rather than a force, dim rather than sharp. Assuredly there exists in your
extensive institution, which I imagine to be overflowing with main and subsidiary
functions and offices, work of the kind that one can do as in a dream? —I am, to put
it frankly, a Chinese; that is to say, a person who deems everything small and modest
to be beautiful and pleasing, and to whom all that is big and exacting is fearsome
and horrid. I know only the need to feel at my ease, so that each day I can thank
God for life’s boon, with all its blessings. The passion to go far in the world is
unknown to me. Africa with its deserts is to me not more foreign. Well, so now you
know what sort of a person I am. —I write, as you see, a graceful and fluent hand,
and you need not imagine me to be entirely without intelligence. My mind is clear,
but it refuses to grasp things that are many, or too many by far, shunning them. I
am sincere and honest, and I am aware that this signifies precious little in the world
in which we live, so I shall be waiting, esteemed gentlemen, to see what it will be
your pleasure to reply to your respectful servant, positively drowning in obedience,

Wenzel

[1914]

The Boat

I
THINK
I’ve written this scene before, but I’ll write it once again. In a boat, midway upon
the lake, sit a man and woman. High above in the dark sky stands the moon. The night
is still and warm, just right for this dreamy love adventure. Is the man in the boat
an abductor? Is the woman the happy, enchanted victim? This we don’t know; we see
only how they both kiss each other. The dark mountain lies like a giant on the glistening
water. On the shore lies a castle or country house with a lighted window. No noise,
no sound. Everything is wrapped in a black, sweet silence. The stars tremble high
above in the sky and also upward from far below out of the sky which lies on the surface
of the water. The water is the friend of the moon, it has pulled it down to itself,
and now they kiss, the water and the moon, like boyfriend and girlfriend. The beautiful
moon has sunk into the water like a daring young prince into a flood of peril. He
is reflected in the water like a beautiful affectionate soul reflected in another
love-thirsty soul. It’s marvelous how the moon resembles the lover drowned in pleasure,
and how the water resembles the happy mistress hugging and embracing her kingly love.
In the boat, the man and woman are completely still. A long kiss holds them captive.
The oars lie lazily on the water. Are they happy, will they be happy, the two here
in the boat, the two who kiss one another, the two upon whom the moon shines, the
two who are in love?

[1914]

Translated by Tom Whalen

A Little Ramble

I
WALKED
through the mountains today. The weather was damp, and the entire region was gray.
But the road was soft and in places very clean. At first I had my coat on; soon, however,
I pulled it off, folded it together, and laid it upon my arm. The walk on the wonderful
road gave me more and ever more pleasure; first it went up and then descended again.
The mountains were huge, they seemed to go around. The whole mountainous world appeared
to me like an enormous theater. The road snuggled up splendidly to the mountainsides.
Then I came down into a deep ravine, a river roared at my feet, a train rushed past
me with magnificent white smoke. The road went through the ravine like a smooth white
stream, and as I walked on, to me it was as if the narrow valley were bending and
winding around itself. Gray clouds lay on the mountains as though that were their
resting place. I met a young traveler with a rucksack on his back, who asked if I
had seen two other young fellows. No, I said. Had I come here from very far? Yes,
I said, and went farther on my way. Not a long time, and I saw and heard the two young
wanderers pass by with music. A village was especially beautiful with humble dwellings
set thickly under the white cliffs. I encountered a few carts, otherwise nothing,
and I had seen some children on the highway. We don’t need to see anything out of
the ordinary. We already see so much.

[1914]

Translated by Tom Whalen

Helbling’s Story

M
Y
name is Helbling and I am telling my own story because it would probably not be written
down by anybody else. With mankind become sophisticated, there can be nothing curious
nowadays about a person, like me, sitting down and starting to write his own story.
It is short, my story, for I am still young, and it will not be completed, for I shall
probably go on living for a very long time. The striking thing about me is that I
am a very ordinary person, almost exaggeratedly so. I am one of the multitude, and
that is what I find so strange. I find the multitude strange and always wonder: “What
on earth are they all doing, what are they up to?” I disappear, yes, disappear in
the mass. When I hurry home at midday, as twelve o’clock strikes, from the bank where
I am employed, they are all hurrying with me: this one is trying to overtake another,
that one is taking longer strides than another; yet, still one thinks, “They will
all reach home,” and they do reach home, for among them there is not a single extraordinary
person who could happen not to find his way home. I am of medium build and therefore
have occasion to be glad that I am neither remarkably short nor irrepressibly tall.
I am—if I may use the proper word—moderate. When I eat my lunch, I always think I
could eat just as well, or even better, at another place, where it might be jollier,
and then I wonder where this might be, some place where livelier conversation goes
with better food. I review in my mind all the parts of the town and all the places
that I know, until I have located something which might perhaps be for me. In general,
I have a high opinion of myself; in fact, I think only of myself, and my one concern
is to do myself as proud as can be imagined. Because I come from a good family—my
father is a respected businessman in a provincial town—I am quick to find all sorts
of faults in things which seem to be coming my way and which I have to take upon myself:
I mean, nothing is refined enough for me. I constantly feel that there is about me
something delectable, sensitive, fragile, which must be spared, and I consider the
others as being not nearly so delectable and refined. How can that be so? It is just
as if one were not of coarse enough cut for this life. It is in any case an obstacle
which hinders me from distinguishing myself, for, when I have a task to perform, let’s
say, I always take thought for half an hour, sometimes for a whole one. I reflect
and dream: “Should I tackle it, or should I still put off tackling it?” and in the
meantime—I feel this—some of my colleagues will have been remarking that I am slothful,
whereas in fact I am just too sensitive. Ah, how wrongly one is judged! A task always
frightens me, causes me to brush my desk lid over with the flat of my hand, until
I notice that I am being scornfully observed, or I twiddle at my cheeks, finger my
throat, pass a hand over my eyes, rub my nose, and push the hair back from my forehead,
as if my task lay in that, and not in the sheet of paper which lies before me, outspread,
on the desk. Perhaps I have taken the wrong profession, and yet I confidently believe
that in any profession I would be the same, do the same, and fail in the same way.
I enjoy, as a result of my supposed slothfulness, little respect. People call me a
dreamer and a lazybones. Oh, what a talent people have for giving the wrong labels!
Of course, it is true: I do not particularly like work, because I always fancy that
it occupies and attracts my intellect too little. And that is another thing. I do
not know if I have intellect, and I can hardly claim to believe that I have, for often
I have been convinced that I behave stupidly whenever I am given a task which requires
understanding and acumen. This, in fact, flummoxes me and makes me wonder if I belong
among the curious people who are clever only when they fancy themselves to be so,
and cease to be clever as soon as they have to show that they really are. I have a
quantity of clever, beautiful, and subtle thoughts; but as soon as I have to apply
them, they fail me and desert me, and I am left standing there like an ignorant apprentice.
Therefore, I do not like my work, because on the one hand it is not intellectual enough
for me, and on the other it is all over my head the moment it gets the least bit intellectual.
I am always thinking when I should not be, and I cannot do so when I am obliged to.
For this double reason I also leave the office a few minutes before twelve and come
back always a few minutes later than the others—which has given me rather a bad name.
But it’s all the same to me, what they say about me, all unspeakably the same. For
instance, I know quite well that they consider me a fool, but I feel that if they
have a right to suppose this then I cannot prevent them from doing so. Also I do actually
look foolish, my face, conduct, walk, voice, and bearing. There is no doubt about
it—to take one example—that my eyes have a rather silly expression, which easily misleads
people and gives them a low opinion of my mind. My bearing is rather idiotic, rather
vain, too; my voice sounds odd, as if I myself, the speaker, did not know that I was
speaking, when I am speaking. There is something sleepy about me, something not-quite-woken-up,
and I have already said that people notice this. I always smooth my hair down flat
on my head, which heightens perhaps my effect of defiant and helpless stupidity. Then
I just stand there, at the desk, and can goggle into the room or out of the window
for half an hour. The pen with which I write, I hold in my inactive hand. I stand
and shift my weight from one foot to the other, since no greater freedom of movement
is permitted me, look at my colleagues, and do not understand at all why, in their
eyes, which squint at me askance, I am a pitiful, irresponsible slacker, smile if
someone gives me a look, and dream without a thought in my head. If only I could do
that, dream! No, I have no idea what that is. I am always thinking that if I had a
lot of money I would not work any more, and am as pleased as a child that I could
think this, once the thought has come to an end. The salary which I earn seems to
me too small, and I do not consider telling myself that I do not even earn that much
by what I do, though I know that I do practically nothing. Curious, I have not the
talent to be somewhat ashamed of myself. If someone, a superior for instance, rebukes
me, I am intensely outraged, for it wounds me to be rebuked. I cannot bear it, though
I tell myself that I have deserved reproof. I believe that I oppose the superior’s
reprimand in order to prolong conversation with him a little, perhaps half an hour,
for then another half hour will have passed, during which at least I shall not have
been bored. If my colleagues believe that I am bored, they are right, of course, for
I am, terribly. Nothing exciting happens! To be bored and to ponder how I can possibly
break the boredom—that is what my real occupation is. I achieve so little that I think,
concerning myself: “You achieve actually nothing!” Sometimes I have to yawn, quite
unintentionally, opening my mouth, right up at the ceiling, and putting my hand up,
slowly to cover the aperture. At once I find it opportune to twirl my mustache with
my fingertips, and to drum on the desk, say, with the underside of one of my fingers,
just as in a dream. Sometimes all this seems to me like an incomprehensible dream.
Then I pity myself and could weep for myself. But, when the dreaminess passes, I should
like to throw myself flat on the floor, collapse, hurt myself on the edge of the desk,
so as to feel the time-killing pleasure of the pain. My soul is not entirely unpained
at my situation, for sometimes I perceive, if I listen closely, a gentle plaintive
note of accusation in it, like the voice of my still-living mother, who always thought
well of me, the reverse of my father, who has stronger principles than she. But to
me my soul is too dark and valueless a thing that I should treasure what it lets me
perceive. I think nothing of its note. I think that one listens to the murmur of the
soul only because of boredom. When I stand in the office, my limbs slowly turn to
wood, which one longs to set fire to, so that it might burn: desk and man, one with
time! Time, that always makes me think. It passes quickly, yet in all its quickness
it seems suddenly to curl up, seems to break, and then it’s as if there were no time
at all. Sometimes one hears it rustling, like a flock of startled birds, or, for instance,
in a forest: there I am always hearing time rustle, and that does one good, for then
one no longer needs to think. But mostly it is otherwise: so deathly still! Can that
be a human life, not to feel that one is moving on, toward the end? My life till now
seems to have been fairly empty, and the certainty that it will remain empty gives
a feeling of endlessness, a feeling which tells one to go to sleep, and to do only
the most unavoidable things. So that is just what I do: I only pretend to work industriously
when I detect behind me the smelly breath of my boss, creeping up to surprise me in
my slothfulness. The breath which streams from him is his betrayer. The good man always
provides me with a little distraction, so I really like him quite a lot. But what
causes me to respect my duty and instructions so little? I am a small, pale, timid,
weak, elegant, silly little fellow, full of unworldly feelings, and would not be able
to endure the rigor of life if things ever went against me. Can the thought of losing
my job, if I go on like this, inspire no fear in me? As it seems, it cannot; yet again,
as it seems, it can. I am a bit afraid and a bit not afraid, too. Perhaps I am too
unintelligent to be afraid; yes, it almost seems that the childish defiance with which
I justify myself before my fellow men is a sign of weak-mindedness. But, but: it suits
marvelously my character, which always instructs me to act a little out of the ordinary,
even if it is to my disadvantage. Thus, for instance, I bring, though it is not allowed,
small books into the office, where I slit open the pages and read, without really
enjoying the reading. But it makes it look like the elegant obstinacy of a man who
is cultivated and wants to be more than the others. I do indeed always want to be
more, and I have the zeal of a hunting dog when it comes to seeking distinction. If
I read the book and a colleague comes up and asks the question, which is perhaps quite
in order, “What are you reading, Helbling?”—that annoys me, because in this case it
is proper to show an annoyance which drives the importunate questioner away. I act
uncommonly important when I read, look all around to see if people are noticing how
cleverly someone there is improving his mind and wits; I slit open page after page
at splendid leisure, do not even read any more but satisfy myself with having assumed
the posture of a person immersed in a book. That is how I am: harebrained, and all
for effect. I am vain, but my satisfaction with my vanity costs remarkably little.
My clothes are of coarse appearance, but I vary them zealously, for it pleases me
to show my colleagues that I own several suits and have some taste in my choice of
colors. I like to wear green, because it reminds me of the forests, and I wear yellow
on windy, airy days because yellow is right for wind and dancing. I could be in error
here, perhaps, for people point out how often every day I am in error. One ends up
believing that one is a simpleton. But what difference does it make whether one is
a ninny or a person worthy of esteem, since the rain falls equally on donkeys and
respectable men. And then the sun! I am happy in the sun, when twelve has struck,
to be walking home, and when it rains I spread the luxuriant bellying umbrella over
myself, so that my hat, which I greatly treasure, shall not get wet. I treat my hat
very carefully, and it always seems to me that if I can still touch my hat in my usual
gentle manner, then I am still an altogether lucky person. It gives me particular
pleasure to put it, when a working day is over, cautiously on my head. That is, for
me, always, my favorite end to every day. My life does indeed consist of mere trivialities.
I am always telling myself that, and that seems so strange to me. I have never found
it right to get enthusiastic about big ideals concerning humanity, for my disposition
is more critical than enthusiastic, on which I congratulate myself. I am a person
who feels degraded when he meets an ideal man, with long hair, sandals on his naked
legs, apron of skin around his loins, and flowers in his hair. I smile, with embarrassment,
in such cases. To laugh aloud, the thing one would certainly most like to do, is impossible,
also it is in fact more a cause for annoyance than for laughter, living among people
who regard a smooth head of hair like mine with distaste. I like to be annoyed, so
I always get annoyed at the least provocation. I often make sarcastic remarks and
yet certainly have little need to be malicious toward others, since I know quite well
what it means to be grieved by the scorn of others. But that is just it: I observe
nothing, learn nothing, and behave just as on the day I left school. There’s a good
deal of the schoolboy in me, and it will probably remain my constant companion through
life. There are said to be people who have no capacity for betterment and no talent
for learning from the behavior of others. No, I do not learn, for I find it beneath
my dignity to surrender to the urge for education. Besides, I am already educated
enough to carry a walking stick in my hand with some grace, and to knot a necktie,
and to grasp a spoon with my right hand, and to say, when asked, “Thank you, it was
very nice yesterday evening.” What more can education make of me? Honestly: I think
education would be coming to quite the wrong person. I go for money and comfortable
status, that’s my urge for education. I seem to be terribly superior to a miner, even
if he, if he so wished, could whisk me, with the forefinger of his left hand, into
a hole in the earth, where I would get dirty. Strength and beauty among poor people
and in modest dress make no impression on me. I always think, when I see a person
like that, how well-off people like us are, with our superior position in the world,
compared with such a work-raddled fool, and no compassion steals into my heart. Where
should I keep a heart? I have forgotten that I have one. Certainly it is sad, but
how should I find it proper to feel sorrow? One feels sorrow only when one has lost
money, or when one’s new hat does not fit well, or when one’s holdings on the stock
exchange drop, and even then one has to ask if that is sorrow or not, and on closer
inspection it is not, it is only a fleeting regret, which vanishes like the wind.
It is, no, how can I put it now—it is marvelously strange to have no feelings in this
way, not to know at all what an emotion is. Feelings which concern one’s own person,