Selected Stories (5 page)

everyone has these, and they are at root despicable ones, presumptuous ones if they
relate to humanity as a whole. But feelings for particular people? Of course, one
sometimes would like to ask oneself about this, one feels something like a slight
longing to become a good, compliant person, but when could one manage it? Perhaps
at seven in the morning, or some other time? Already on Friday, and right through
the Saturday following, I am wondering what to do on Sunday, since on Sunday something
always has to be done. I seldom go for a walk alone. Usually I join a group of young
people, the way one does; it is quite simple, one simply goes along with them, though
one knows that one is rather a boring companion. I take the steamer, for example,
across the lake, or go on foot, into the forest, or travel by train to more distant,
beautiful spots. Often I accompany girls to a dance, and I have found that the girls
like me. I have a white face, beautiful hands, an elegant, fluttering dinner jacket,
gloves, rings on my fingers, a cane with silver mountings, clean polished shoes, and
a tender Sunday sort of bearing, such a remarkable voice, and about my mouth a peevish
trait, which I myself have no words to describe, but which seems to endear me to the
girls. When I speak, it is as if a man of some gravity were speaking. Pomposity appeals,
there’s no doubt about that. As for my dancing, it is like that of a person who has
only just taken, and enjoyed, lessons: jaunty, delicate, punctual, precise, but too
fast and insipid. There is precision and buoyancy in my dancing, but unfortunately
no grace. How could I be capable of grace? But I love to dance, passionately. When
I dance I forget that I am Helbling, for I am nothing but a happy floating-in-the-air.
Thoughts of the office, with its manifold agonies, would not intrude on me at all.
Around me are flushed faces; perfume and brightness of girls’ clothes, girls’ eyes
gaze at me; I am flying: can one imagine oneself happier? Now I have got it: once
in the cycle of the week I can be happy. One of the girls whom I always accompany
is my fiancée, but she treats me badly, worse than the other ones do. She is not even—and
I do certainly notice it—faithful to me, hardly loves me, I suppose, and I, do I love
her? I have many faults, which I have candidly disclosed, but here all my faults and
inadequacies seem to be forgiven me: I love her. It is my joy, that I may love her
and often despair because of her. She gets me to carry her gloves and pink silk sunshade
when it is summer; and in winter I am allowed to trot after her in the deep snow,
carrying her skates. I do not understand love, but feel it. Good and evil are nothing
compared with love, which knows nothing other than or outside of love. How should
I express it: worthless and empty as I otherwise am, not everything is lost, for I
really am capable of faithful love, although I could have ample scope for infidelity.
I go with her in the sunshine, under the blue sky, in a boat, which I row forward,
and keep on smiling at her, while she seems to be bored. Yes, I am a very boring person.
Her mother has a small, seedy, rather ill-reputed workingman’s bar, where I can spend
whole Sundays on end, sitting, saying nothing, smiling at her. Sometimes, too, her
face comes down to mine so as to let me press a kiss on her mouth. She has a sweet,
sweet face. On her cheek there is the scar of an old scratch, which makes her mouth
twist a little, but sweetly. She has very small eyes, which twinkle at you craftily
as if to say: “I’ll show you a thing or two!” Often she sits beside me on the shabby,
hard sofa, and whispers in my ear that it really is lovely to be engaged. I seldom
know what to say to her, for I am always afraid that it would not be opportune; so
I am just silent and yet want badly to say something to her. Once she extended to
my lips her small, fragrant ear: Hadn’t I got anything to say, something that could
only be whispered? I said, trembling, that I did not think so, and then she boxed
my ears and laughed as well, but not in a friendly way, no, coldly. She does not get
on well with her mother and her little sister, and will not let me be kind to her
sister. Her mother has a nose that is red from drinking, and she is a lively little
woman, who likes to sit at the table with the men. But my fiancée sits with the men,
too. Once she said to me, in a quiet voice: “I’m not chaste any more”; her tone was
quite natural, and I had no objection to make. What could I possibly have had to say?
With other girls I am brisk, and am even witty in my speech; but with her I sit dumbly
and look at her and follow each of her movements with my eyes. Each time I sit there
until the bar has to close, or even longer, till she packs me off home. When the daughter
is not there, the mother comes to sit at my table and tries to make me think of her.
I fend it off with a hand and I smile. The mother hates her daughter, and it is obvious
that they hate each other, for each obstructs the other’s intentions. Each wants a
husband and each grudges the husband to the other. When I am sitting, evenings, on
the sofa, all the people who come to the bar notice that I am the bridegroom-to-be,
and everyone has a friendly word for me, but I really could not care. Beside me, the
little sister, who is still at school, reads in her books, or she does big tall letters
in her writing book, and always she passes it across to me, so that I can look at
what she has done. I have never taken any notice, normally, of such little creatures,
and now all at once I understand how interesting every little growing creature is.
It is because of my love for the other one. An honest love makes one better and more
alert. In winter she tells me: “It will be lovely in spring when we can walk together
along the garden paths”; and in spring she tells me: “It is boring with you.” She
wants to live in a big town when she is married, because she wants to get something
out of life. The theaters and fancy-dress balls, beautiful costumes, wine, laughing
conversation, gay exciting people, that is what she loves, that is what she longs
for. I long for it too, as a matter of fact, but how it can all be done, I do not
know. I told her: “Perhaps by next winter I shall have lost my job.” She looked at
me them, open-eyed, and asked: “Why?” What sort of answer should I have given her?
I certainly cannot with a single stroke show her what sort of person I am. She would
despise me. Till now, she has always thought of me as a man of some ability, a man,
of course a rather odd and boring one, but still a man with a position in the world.
If I now tell her: “You are wrong, my position is very shaky indeed,” she would have
no reason to want my company any more, seeing all her hopes of me destroyed. I let
it go, I am a master in letting things slide, as they say. Perhaps, if I were a dancing
instructor, owner of a restaurant, or a theater director, or had some other profession
connected with the entertainment of people, then I might have some luck, for I am
that sort of person, jaunty, afloat, leg-flinging, light, buoyant, quiet, always making
a bow and having a tender emotion, who would do well as a landlord, stage manager,
or tailor, or something. Whenever I have a chance to make a bow, I am happy. That
helps one, does it not, to give a deep look? I even bow where it is not usual to do
so, or when only toadies and imbeciles do, so much in love am I with the procedure.
For serious man’s work I have not the intellect or the sense, neither ear nor eye
nor mind. Nothing in the world could be further from me. I want to make a profit,
but it has got to cost me no more than the twinkling of an eye, at most the lazy extending
of a hand. Normally, unwillingness to work is not quite natural in men, but it fits
me, it suits me, even if this is a sorry garb which suits me so perfectly, and even
if the garb’s cut is pitiable: why shouldn’t I say, “It suits me,” when anyone can
see for himself that it does, to a T. Unwillingness to work! But I don’t want to say
any more about it. I am always thinking, too, that it is the fault of the climate,
the damp lake air, which prevents me from getting to work, and now, with this knowledge
pressing upon me, I am looking for a job in the south, or in the mountains. I could
direct a hotel, or manage a factory, or run the counter at a smallish bank. A sunny,
open landscape should be able to develop talents in me which till now have been dormant.
A greengrocery would not be bad. In any case, I am a person who always believes that
great inward gains come through external change. Another climate would produce, also,
a different menu for lunch, and perhaps this is what the matter is. Could it really
be that I am ill? So much is wrong; I am deficient, actually, in everything. Could
it be that I am an unlucky person? Could it be a sort of sickness to concern oneself
always, as I do, with such questions? Anyway, it is not quite normal. Today I was
ten minutes late again at the bank. I cannot get there on time any more as the others
do. I ought really to be quite alone in the world, me, Helbling, and not a single
living being besides me. No sun, no culture, me, naked on a high rock, no storms,
not even a wave, no water, no wind, no streets, no benches, no money, no time, and
no breath. Then, at least, I should not be afraid any more. No more fear and no more
questions, and I should not be late any more, either. I could imagine that I was lying
in bed, everlastingly in bed! Perhaps that would be the best thing.

[1914]

The Little Berliner

P
APA
boxed my ears today, in a most fond and fatherly manner, of course. I had used the
expression: “Father, you must be nuts.” It was indeed a bit careless of me. “Ladies
should employ exquisite language,” our German teacher says. She’s horrible. But Papa
won’t allow me to ridicule her, and perhaps he’s right. After all, one does go to
school to exhibit a certain zeal for learning and a certain respect. Besides, it is
cheap and vulgar to discover funny things in a fellow human being and then to laugh
at them. Young ladies should accustom themselves to the fine and the noble—I quite
see that. No one desires any work from me, no one will ever demand it of me; but everyone
will expect to find that I am refined in my ways. Shall I enter some profession in
later life? Of course not! I’ll be an elegant young wife; I shall get married. It
is possible that I’ll torment my husband. But that would be terrible. One always despises
oneself whenever one feels the need to despise someone else. I am twelve years old.
I must be very precocious—otherwise, I would never think of such things. Shall I have
children? And how will that come about? If my future husband isn’t a despicable human
being, then, yes, then I’m sure of it, I shall have a child. Then I shall bring up
this child. But I still have to be brought up myself. What silly thoughts one can
have!

Berlin is the most beautiful, the most cultivated city in the world. I would be detestable
if I weren’t unshakably convinced of this. Doesn’t the Kaiser live here? Would he
need to live here if he didn’t like it here best of all? The other day I saw the royal
children in an open car. They are enchanting. The crown prince looks like a high-spirited
young god, and how beautiful seemed the noble lady at his side. She was completely
hidden in fragrant furs. It seemed that blossoms rained down upon the pair out of
the blue sky. The Tiergarten is marvelous. I go walking there almost every day with
our young lady, the governess. One can go for hours under the green trees, on straight
or winding paths. Even Father, who doesn’t really need to be enthusiastic about anything,
is enthusiastic about the Tiergarten. Father is a cultivated man. I’m convinced he
loves me madly. It would be horrible if he read this, but I shall tear up what I have
written. Actually, it is not at all fitting to be still so silly and immature and,
at the same time, already want to keep a diary. But, from time to time, one becomes
somewhat bored, and then one easily gives way to what is not quite right. The governess
is very nice. Well, I mean, in general. She is devoted and she loves me. In addition,
she has real respect for Papa—that is the most important thing. She is slender of
figure. Our previous governess was fat as a frog. She always seemed to be about to
burst. She was English. She’s still English today, of course, but from the moment
she allowed herself liberties, she was no longer our concern. Father kicked her out.

The two of us, Papa and I, are soon to take a trip. It is that time of the year now
when respectable people simply have to take a trip. Isn’t it a suspicious sort of
person who doesn’t take a trip at such a time of blossoming and blooming? Papa goes
to the seashore and apparently lies there day after day and lets himself be baked
dark brown by the summer sun. He always looks healthiest in September. The paleness
of exhaustion is not becoming to his face. Incidentally, I myself love the suntanned
look in a man’s face. It is as if he had just come home from war. Isn’t that just
like a child’s nonsense? Well, I’m still a child, of course. As far as I’m concerned,
I’m taking a trip to the south. First of all, a little while to Munich and then to
Venice, where a person who is unspeakably close to me lives—Mama. For reasons whose
depths I cannot understand and consequently cannot evaluate, my parents live apart.
Most of the time I live with Father. But naturally Mother also has the right to possess
me at least for a while. I can scarcely wait for the approaching trip. I like to travel,
and I think that almost all people must like to travel. One boards the train, it departs,
and off it goes into the distance. One sits and is carried into the remote unknown.
How well-off I am, really! What do I know of need, of poverty? Nothing at all. I also
don’t find it the least bit necessary that I should experience anything so base. But
I do feel sorry for the poor children. I would jump out the window under such conditions.

Papa and I reside in the most elegant quarter of the city. Quarters which are quiet,
scrupulously clean, and fairly old, are elegant. The brand-new? I wouldn’t like to
live in a brand-new house. In new things there is always something which isn’t quite
in order. One sees hardly any poor people—for example, workers—in our neighborhood,
where the houses have their own gardens. The people who live in our vicinity are factory
owners, bankers, and wealthy people whose profession is wealth. So Papa must be, at
the very least, quite well-to-do. The poor and the poorish people simply can’t live
around here because the apartments are much too expensive. Papa says that the class
ruled by misery lives in the north of the city. What a city! What is it—the north?
I know Moscow better than I know the north of our city. I have been sent numerous
postcards from Moscow, Petersburg, and Holland; I know the Engadine with its sky-high
mountains and its green meadows, but my own city? Perhaps to many, many people who
inhabit it, Berlin remains a mystery. Papa supports art and the artists. What he engages
in is business. Well, lords often engage in business, too, and then Papa’s dealings
are of absolute refinement. He buys and sells paintings. We have very beautiful paintings
in our house. The point of Father’s business, I think, is this: the artists, as a
rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they aren’t
allowed to understand anything about it. Or it is this: the world is big and coldhearted.
The world never thinks about the existence of artists. That’s where my father comes
in, worldly-wise, with all sorts of important connections, and in suitable and clever
fashion, he draws the attention of this world, which has perhaps no need at all for
art, to art and to artists who are starving. Father often looks down upon his buyers.
But he often looks down upon the artists, too. It all depends.