Selected Stories

  Herr Dünn said that he considered all my fears to be superfluous and that he guaranteed both the fit and the cut, and, as he was saying this, he accompanied me into an adjoining room, from which he himself at once withdrew. He guaranteed and protested repeatedly, and this did not really quite please me. The fitting, and the disappointment which was so intimately connected with it, was soon complete. I shouted, attempting meanwhile to fight back an overflowing chargin, loudly and energetically for Herr Dünn, at whom, with the greatest possible composure and genteel dissatisfaction, I flung the annihilating outburst: “It’s exactly as I thought!”

  “My dear and most esteemed sir, it is useless to excite yourself!”

  Laboriously enough I brought out: “Here’s cause enough and plenty to spare that I should get excited and be inconsolable. Keep your highly inept attempts at appeasement to yourself and be so kind as to upset me no longer; for what you have done in the way of making a faultless suit is in the highest degree upsetting. All the delicate or indelicate fears that arose in me have been justfied, and my worst expectations have been fulfilled. How can you dare to guarantee a faultless cut and fit, and how is it possible that you have the audacity to assure me that you are a master in your craft, when you must confess, even with only a very sparse measure of honesty and with only the smallest degree of honorable dealing and perceptiveness, that I am entirely displeased and that the faultless suit to be delivered to me by your esteemed and excellent firm is completely botched?”

  “I must courteously disallow the term ‘botched’.”

  “I will control my feelings, Herr Dünn.”

  “I thank you and am cordially delighted by this most pleasant resolve.”

  “You will allow me to expect of you that you make considerable alterations to this suit, which, as evidenced by the recent fitting, reveals multitudes of mistakes, defects, and blemishes.”

  “I might.”

  “The dissatisfaction, the displeasure, and the grief I feel, force me to inform you that you have vexed me.”

  “I swear to you that I am sorry.”

  “The assiduity with which you choose to swear that you are sorry to have vexed me and put me in the worst possible humor does not in the least modify the defectiveness of the suit, to which I refuse to accord even the smallest degree of recognition, and acceptance of which I vigorously reject, since there can be no question of any approbation and applause. As regards the jacket, I clearly feel that it makes me a hunchback, and therefore hideous, a deformation with which I can under no circumstances admit myself to concur. On the contrary, I do really feel obliged to protest against such a wicked extravagance and addition to my body. The sleeves suffer from an objectionable surfeit of length, and the waistcoat is eminently distinguished in that it creates the impression and evokes the unpleasant semblance of my being the bearer of a fat stomach. The trousers, or trouserings, are absolutely disgusting. The design and scheme of these trousers inspire me with a genuine feeling of horror. Where this miserable, idiotic, and ridiculous work of trouserly art should possess a certain width, it exhibits a very straitlaced narrowness, and where it should be narrow, it is more than wide. Your execution, Herr Dünn, is in sum unimaginative, and your work manifests an absence of intelligence. There adheres to this suit something despicable, something petty-minded, something inane, something homemade, something ridiculous, and something fearful. The man who made it can certainly not be counted among men of spirit. Regrettable indeed is such an absolute absence of talent.”

  Herr Dünn had the imperturbability to reply: “I do not understand your indignation, nor shall I ever be persuaded to understand you. The numerous violent reproofs which you feel obliged to heap upon me are incomprehensible to me, and will very probably remain incomprehensible. The suit fits you very well. Nobody can make me think otherwise. My conviction that you appear uncommonly to your advantage in it, I declare to be unshakable. To certain distinguishing features and peculiarities of it you will soon become accustomed. Very high-up state officials order their estimable requirements from me; graciously likewise do Justices of the Peace send me their commissions. This assuredly striking proof of my capability should satisfy you. For exaggerated expectations and imaginings I cannot cater, and master tailor Dünn does not admit any arrogant demands. Better situated persons and more eminent gentlemen than you have been in every respect satisfied with my proficiency and skill. The insinuation of my claim should disarm you.”

  Since I had to agree that it was impossible to accomplish anything, and since I had to consider that my perhaps excessively fiery and impetuous onslaught had been transformed into a painful and ignominious defeat, I withdrew my troops from this unfortunate engagement, broke feebly off, and flew the field in shame. In such manner was concluded the audacious adventure with the tailor. Without another glance about me, I sped to the municipal treasury, or revenue office, to settle my taxes; but here I must correct a gross error.

  It was, that is to say, a question not of payment, as it now subsequently occurs to me, but merely, for the time being, of a personal discussion with the President of the laudable Commission for Revenues, and of the handing in, or handing over, of a solemn declaration. May my readers not hold this error against me, but listen generously to what I have to say in this connection. As adequately as the resolute and unshakable master tailor Dünn promised and guaranteed faultlessness, so do I promise and guarantee, with regard to the declaration to be rendered, exactitude and completeness, as well as concision and brevity.

  With a bound I enter the charming situation in question. “Permit me to inform you,” I said frankly and freely to the tax man—or high revenue official—who gave me his governmental ear in order to follow with appropriate attentiveness the report I was about to deliver, “that I enjoy, as a poor writer and pen-pusher or homme de lettres, a very dubious income. Naturally you will not see or find in my case the smallest trace of an amassed fortune. I affirm this with deep regret, without, however, despair or any tears over the lamentable fact. I get along as best I can, as they say. I dispense with all luxuries: this, a single glance at my person should tell you. The food I eat can be described as sufficient and frugal. It occurred to you to consider that I might be lord and master of many sources of income; but I am compelled to oppose, courteously but decisively, this belief and all such suppositions, and to tell the simple unadorned truth, and this truth is that I am extremely free from wealth, but, on the other hand, laden with every sort of poverty, as you might be so kind as to write in your notebook. On Sundays I may not allow myself to be seen on the streets, for I have no Sunday clothes. In my steady and thrifty way of life I am like a field mouse. A sparrow has better prospects of prosperity than this deliverer of a report and taxpayer you see before you. I have written books, which the public unfortunately does not like, and the consequences of this oppress my heart. I do not for a moment doubt that you understand this, and that you consequently realize my financial situation. Ordinary civil status and civil esteem I do not possess; that’s as clear as daylight. There seems to be no sense of obligation toward men such as myself. Exceedingly few persons profess a lively interest in literature, and the pitiless criticism of our work, which any manjack assumes he can practice and foster, constitutes yet another abundant source of hurt, and, like a drag chain, drags down the aspirant accomplisher of a state of modest well-being. Of course there exist amicable patrons and friendly patronesses, who subsidize me most nobly from time to time; but a gift is no income, and a subsidy is no fortune. For all these self-explanatory and I hope convincing reasons, most honoured sir, I would request you to overlook all the increases in taxation which you have communicated to me, and I must ask, if not implore you, in my case to set your rate of taxation at as low a level as possible.”

  The superintendent or inspector of taxes said: “But you’re always to be seen out for a walk!”

  “Walk,” was my answer, “I definitely must, to invigorate myself and to maintain contact with t
he living world, without perceiving which I could not write the half of one more single word, or produce the tiniest poem in verse or prose. Without walking, I would be dead, and my profession, which I love passionately, would be destroyed. Also, without walking and gathering reports, I would not be able to render one single further report, or the tiniest of essays, let alone a real, long story. Without walking, I would not be able to make any observations or any studies at all. Such a clever and enlightened man as you may and will understand this at once. On a lovely and far-wandering walk a thousand usable and useful thoughts occur to me. Shut in at home, I would miserably decay and dry up. Walking is for me not only healthy and lovely, it is also of service and useful. A walk advances me professionally and provides me at the same time also with amusement and joy; it refreshes and comforts and delights me, is a pleasure for me, and simultaneously, it has the peculiarity that it allures me and spurs me on to further creation, since it offers me as material numerous small and large objectivities upon which I later work at home, diligently and industriously. A walk is always filled with significant phenomena, which are valuable to see and to feel. A pleasant walk most often teems with imageries and living poems, with enchantments and natural beauties, be they ever so small. The lore of nature and the lore of the country are revealed, charming and graceful, to the sense and eyes of the observant walker, who must of course walk not with downcast but with open and unclouded eyes, if the lovely significance and the gay, noble idea of the walk are to dawn on him. Consider how the poet must grow impoverished and run sadly to ruin if that maternal and paternal and, in beauty childlike, beautiful nature does not ever and again refresh him from the source of the good and of the beautiful. Consider the great unabating importance for the poet of the instruction and golden holy teaching which he derives out there in the play of the open air. Without walking and the contemplation of nature which is connected with it, without this equally delicious and admonishing search, I deem myself lost, and I am lost. With the utmost love and attention the man who walks must study and observe every smallest living thing, be it a child, a dog, a fly, a butterfly, a sparrow, a worm, a flower, a man, a house, a tree, a hedge, a snail, a mouse, a cloud, a hill, a leaf, or no more than a poor discarded scrap of paper on which, perhaps, a dear good child at school has written his first clumsy letters. The highest and the lowest, the most serious and the most hilarious things are to him equally beloved, beautiful, and valuable. He must bring with him no sort of sentimentally sensitive self-love or quickness to take offense. Unselfish and unegoistic, he must let his careful eye wander and stroll where it will; only he must be continuously able in the contemplation and observation of things to efface himself, and to put behind him, little consider, and forget like a brave, zealous, and joyfully self-immolating front-line soldier, himself, his private complaints, needs, wants, and sacrifices. If he does not, then he walks only half attentive, with only half his spirit, and that is worth nothing. He must at all times be capable of compassion, of sympathy, and of enthusiasm, and it is hoped that he is. He must be able to bow down and sink into the deepest and smallest everyday thing, and it is probable that he can. Faithful, devoted self-effacement and self-surrender among objects, and zealous love for all phenomena and things, make him happy in this, however, just as every performance of duty make that man happy and rich in his inmost being who is aware of his duty. Spirit, devotion, and faithfulness bless him and raise him high up above his own inconspicuous walking self, which has only too often a name and evil reputation for vagabondage and vagrancy. His manifold studies enrich and hearten, appease and ennoble him, and moreover, however improbable it may sound, they touch the fringes of exact science, a thing of which nobody would think the apparently frivolous wanderer capable. Do you realize that I am working obstinately and tenaciously with my brain, and am often in the best sense active when I present the appearance of a heedless and out-of-work, negligent, dreamy, and idle pickpocket, lost out in the blue, or in the green, making the worst impression, seeming a frivolous man devoid of any sense of responsibility? Mysterious and secretly there prowl at the walker’s heels all kinds of beautiful subtle walker’s thoughts, such as make him stand in his ardent and regardless tracks and listen, so that he will again and again be confused and startled by curious impressions and bewitchings of spirit power, and he has the feeling that he must sink all of a sudden into the earth, or that before his dazzled, bewildered thinker’s and poet’s eyes an abyss has opened. His head wants to fall off, and his otherwise so lively arms and legs are as benumbed. Countryside and people, sounds and colors, faces and farms, clouds and sunlight swirl all around him like diagrams, and he must ask himself: “Where am I?” Earth and heaven suddenly stream together and collide, rocking interlocked one upon the other into a flashing, shimmering, obscure nebular imagery; chaos begins, and the orders vanish. Convulsed, he laboriously tries to retain his normal state of mind; he succeeds, and he walks on, full of confidence. Do you think it quite impossible that on a gentle and patient walk I should meet giants, have the privilege of seeing professors, do business in passing with booksellers and bank officials, converse with budding, youthful songstresses and former actresses, dine at noon with intelligent ladies, stroll through woods, dispatch dangerous letters, and come to wild blows with spiteful, ironic master tailors? All this can happen, and I believe it actually did happen. There accompanies the walker always something remarkable, some food for thought, something fantastic, and he would be foolish if he did not notice this spiritual side, or even thrust it away; rather, he welcomes all curious and peculiar phenomena, becomes their friend and brother, because they delight him; he makes them into formed and substantial bodies, gives them structure and soul just as they for their part instruct and inspire him. In a word, by thinking, pondering, drilling, digging, speculating, writing, investigating, researching, and walking, I earn my daily bread with as much sweat on my brow as anybody. Although I may cut a most carefree figure, I am highly serious and conscientious, and though I seem to be no more than delicate and dreamy, I am a solid technician! I hope that all these meticulous explanations convince you that my endeavors are honorable, and satisfy you completely.”

  The official said: “Good!” and he added: “Your application concerning approval of an exceptionally low rate of taxation we shall examine later and inform you shortly of the reduction or approval thereof as may be. For the kind declaration delivered and the industriously assembled honest statements we thank you. For the present you may withdraw and proceed with your walk.”

  As I was mercifully released, I hurried happily away, and was soon in the open air again. Raptures of freedom seized me and carried me away. I come now at last, after many a bravely endured adventure, and after more or less victoriously overwhelming many an arduous obstacle, to the long-since announced and forecast railway crossing, where I had to stop a while to wait pleasantly until gradually the train kindly had the high grace to pass gently by. All sorts of male and female folk of every age and character were standing and waiting at the barrier, as did I. The kindly, corpulent signalman’s wife stood there still as a statue and examined us loiterers and waiters thoroughly. Hurtling past, the railway train was full of soldiery, and all the soldiers, sworn and dedicated to serve their dearly beloved fatherland, looking out at the windows, this entire traveling military college on the one hand and the useless civilian population on the other greeted each other and waved their hands amicably and patriotically, an action which spread pleasant feelings far and wide. As the crossing was now open, I and all the others went peacefully on our ways, and now all the world around seemed to me suddenly to have become a thousand times more beautiful. The walk seemed to be becoming more beautiful, rich, and long. Here at the railway crossing seemed to be the peak, or something like the center, from which again the gentle declivity would begin. Something akin to sorrow’s golden bliss and melancholy’s magic breathed around me like a quiet, lofty god. “It is divinely beautiful here,” I said to myself. Like
a song at departure that brings tears to our eyes, the gentle countryside lay there with its dear humble fields, gardens, and houses. Soft, very ancient folk lamentations and the sorrows of the good, poor folk thronged and sounded everywhere. Spirits with enchanting shapes and garments emerged vast and soft, and the dear good country road shone sky-blue, and white, and precious gold. Compassion and enchantment flew like carven angels falling from heaven over the gold-colored, rosey-aureoled little houses of the poor, which the sunlight delicately embraced and framed about. Love and poverty and silvery-golden breath walked and floated hand in hand. I felt as if someone I loved were calling me by name, or as if someone were kissing and comforting me. God the Almighty, our merciful Lord, walked down the road, to glorify it and make it divinely beautiful. Imaginings of all sorts, and illusions, made me believe that Jesus Christ was risen again and wandering now in the midst of the people and in the midst of this friendly place. Houses, gardens, and people were transfigured into musical sounds, all that was solid seemed to be transfigured into soul and into gentleness. Sweet veils of silver and soul-haze swam through all things and lay over all things. The soul of the world had opened, and all grief, all human disappointment, all evil, all pain seemed to vanish, from now on never to appear again. Earlier walks came before my eyes; but the wonderful image of the humble present became a feeling which overpowered all others. The future paled, and the past dissolved. I glowed and flowered myself in the glowing, flowering present. From near and far, great things and small things emerged bright silver with marvelous gestures, joys, and enrichments, and in the midst of this beautiful place I dreamed of nothing but this place itself. All other fantasies sank and vanished in meaninglessness. I had the whole rich earth immediately before me, and I still looked only at what was most small and most humble. With gestures of love the heavens rose and fell. I had become an inward being, and I walked as in an inward world; everything outside me became a dream; what I had understood till now became unintelligible. I fell away from the surface, down into the fabulous depths, which I recognized then to be all that was good. What we understand and love understands and loves us also. I was no longer myself, was another, and yet it was on this account that I became properly myself. In the sweet light of love I realized, or believed I realized, that perhaps the inward self is the only self which really exists. The thought seized me: “Where would we poor people be, if there was no earth faithful to us? What would we have, if we did not have this beauty and this good? Where would I be, if I was not here? Here I have everything, and elsewhere I would have nothing.”