“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”
The 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?
People 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 boarding house.
“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, I 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
HEDGEHOG: Aren’t I captivating? Tell me!
STORK: For a long time I have loved you.
HEDGEHOG: 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?
STORK: 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 behaviour.
HEDGEHOG: 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?
STORK: Yes, I think so.
HEDGEHOG: It suits me fine, don’t you think? I’m so nice and round in it, so appetizing. I have spines because I’m afraid. I am all flight and fear. Look at my little head, my little eyes, my little nose. I don’t fly, with majesty, like you. There’s not a tittle of elevation about me. My feet are incomprehensibility itself, but I am dainty, I look like some poor silly thing. I don’t strut about with wings, not likely. I don’t build, on church steeples, comfortable nests with the bright air wafting around them. I live in forests, only venture forth, softly, in the dark.
STORK: You dear shy thing!
HEDGEHOG: You take pity on me. But I have no pity. Pity is something grand. It doesn’t suit me. I am puny. My spines, what’s more, are mockery itself; they mock me.
STORK: So you’re mocked by what seems called upon to shield you. I love you all the more for your forsakenness.
HEDGEHOG: But I’m in enormously good spirits. You have no idea how splendidly one can live inside a covering that’s laughable. My well-being is unspeakably original. The assurance that I look pretty streams through me, it fairly does. You’re rather a comical one yourself.
STORK: My dignity, you mean. But I can’t do anything about it. I appear somewhat stiff, solemn, but it’s precisely in this gravity of my manner that I myself vanish, do you understand?
HEDGEHOG: I don’t allow myself to understand anything. Understanding would annoy me. Do you think I’d take the trouble to start looking into you? Deep thinking I leave to you and your kind. I’m sorry for you because you can’t put me out of your mind, but I find it funny that you make me feel sorry for you. So then I’m not really sorry for you at all. Look, I’m shaped like a hill and give an impression of lifelessness.
STORK: That’s a huge advantage. I admire you, are you giggling at something?
HEDGEHOG: Oh, only at the anxieties of such an intelligence as yours. To be cultivated and want to extract a smile from a hedgehog! Inner glee is all I feel. On the outside I would never laugh. I mind my good manners too much for that. Besides, I’ve been talking with you for too long. You love me. But me, feathered friend, me you fill with horror. Yet I only shrink from you because that happens to suit me. Shrinking, I find, is my pleasure.
STORK: Do you despise me?
HEDGEHOG: My spines tell me I should. Otherwise, you’d impress me. But you’re also much too long-leggity, big-beaked, too proud, too beautiful for me.
STORK: Would that your inconspicuousness could be the death of me.
The hedgehog tucks himself entirely into his mantle, still peering out a little. Sees the good stork trembling with his inclination, swathed in his slendernesses. But he speaks no more. Finds speech from now on pointless; simply crouches there still, unspeakably odd and incomprehensible. The stork stands transfixed. Hedge-hoggish helplessness invades him. Deep down, the hedgehog is a complete child, and, loving what is solitary, the kindly stork is now himself strange and solitary. He thinks that he too is tricked out with spines. Night has fallen in the forest; the enchanted stork stands on one leg, plunged in a lofty sorrow of love.
The hedgehog ignores him.
Apparently the hedgehog is asleep.
But that is not so. The hedgehog is waiting to see if the stork will sob. This is giving the stork some trouble, it seems, but there’s a fair outlook that he will manage it.
What a nocturnal comedy.
I could recount much else about the relationship of the stork to the hedgehog, but I mean to be moderate. The stork’s situation visà-vis this scrap of deplorability seems deplorable. Why, too, does he allow himself to be moved so foolishly? Now tears are running down his ordinar
ily so judicious beak. Didn’t I tell him it would be like this?
Is the hedgehog pleased about it?
That remains a secret. The nature of secrets is to be not explainable. The unexplainable is interesting. What is interesting is pleasing.
Stork! How art thou fallen!
Yet, on the other hand, you did fall for the dear and actually not insignificant hedgehog. What a privilege!
Have you ever seen a stork weep? You haven’t? Well, that makes it so much the more curious.
In the stillness of night he weeps, not just buckets, but Niagaras. Grief for his adored hedgehog becomes for him a lasting need.
What’s more, there’s heroism in his yielding like this. A stork sometimes gets bored. Then off he goes and makes a hero of himself.
Dawn comes and still he stands there, in his never sufficiently commended agony. What patience.
To think that he has neglected, all this time, to bring children. Lord, the loss!
How the stork would have loved to kiss, with his beak, the spines of the hedgehog. What a kissing that would have been! We shudder at the thought of it.
1925
A Contribution
to the Celebration of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Flying along streets that were swept almost to a shine, a journalist jotted into his unremittingly active global brain: Fliers are flying in the blue above my head, which has no hat on it, something I find beautiful and, at the same time, healthy. I see a raw-materials truck and am astonished at my talent to perceive the way a cavalier handles his umbrella, which once belonged to the Duchess of Capulia. An official I identify by the fact that, in the sunshine, he conceals his hands in his trousers pockets. Some people do not dare to greet you, because they think it possible you might not return their courtesy. An acquaintance of mine had expected me to display the weakness of greeting him first. I refrained from doing so, however, with an almost magnificent alacrity. He thereby sacrificed the assurance of his conduct toward me, which conveyed to me that he held me in esteem but did not want to advertise it. As for me, it is this way: when I meet a person whom I respect, I remove from my mouth, four meters before the encounter, the Stumpen, which is what we call a cigar hereabouts, I doff my cap and bow so subtly and inconspicuously that there can be no possible doubt as to my showing esteem, interpolation, every bit of it, and now I suddenly hear a gentleman say to his neighbour: “There goes one of those people who are inclined to be not normal.” A lady cyclist was carrying a string bag full of vegetables and fruits. A girl was wearing red high shoes, in impressive contrast to her white-stockinged leg. In front of a hotel restaurant, where a governess is sitting whom I am interested in, not that I have no interests in other quarters, stands a wagon loaded with a big barrel, which might contain nectar. A soft autumnal shimmer lies upon every street and house-front. Hills on which vineyards are planted and evenings by lake shores arise before my lively mind’s eye, together with little dance halls in oak forests on islands. Perhaps I shall lodge for three or four days in a country room with furniture of the rococo period. Yet I doubt if I shall go there before completing, as I must, the present assignment. “Quatre-vingt-quatre” now rings in my ears. A lot of French is spoken in our city. In front of the municipal theatre, a singer is arguing with an actor. A little child smiles at me, but, with children, one need not emphasize their smallness, because all children are small, although, here and there, big ones exist, perhaps more big ones than one is inclined to suppose.