Selected Stories (6 page)

No, I wouldn’t want to live permanently anywhere but in Berlin. Do the children in
small towns, towns that are old and decayed, live any better? Of course, there are
some things here that we don’t have. Romantic things? I believe I’m not mistaken when
I look upon something that is scarcely half alive as romantic. The defective, the
crumbled, the diseased; e.g., an ancient city wall. Whatever is useless yet mysteriously
beautiful—that is romantic. I love to dream about such things, and, as I see it, dreaming
about them is enough. Ultimately, the most romantic thing is the heart, and every
sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls. Our Berlin
will soon burst at the seams with newness. Father says that everything historically
notable here will vanish; no one knows the old Berlin any more. Father knows everything,
or at least, almost everything. And naturally his daughter profits in that respect.
Yes, little towns laid out in the middle of the countryside may well be nice. There
would be charming, secret hiding spots to play in, caves to crawl in, meadows, fields,
and, only a few steps away, the forest. Such villages seem to be wreathed in green;
but Berlin has an Ice Palace where people ice skate on the hottest summer day. Berlin
is simply one step ahead of all other German cities, in every respect. It is the cleanest,
most modern city in the world. Who says this? Well, Papa, of course. How good he is,
really! I have much to learn from him. Our Berlin streets have overcome all dirt and
all bumps. They are as smooth as ice and they glisten like scrupulously polished floors.
Nowadays one sees a few people roller skating. Who knows, perhaps I’ll be doing it
someday, too, if it hasn’t already gone out of fashion. There are fashions here that
scarcely have time to come in properly. Last year all the children, and also many
grownups, played Diabolo. Now this game is out of fashion, no one wants to play it.
That’s how everything changes. Berlin always sets the fashion. No one is obliged to
imitate, and yet Madam Imitation is the great and exalted ruler of this life. Everyone
imitates.

Papa can be charming; actually, he is always nice, but at times he becomes angry about
something—one never knows—and then he is ugly. I can see in him how secret anger,
just like discontent, makes people ugly. If Papa isn’t in a good mood, I feel as cowed
as a whipped dog, and therefore Papa should avoid displaying his indisposition and
his discontent to his associates, even if they should consist of only one daughter.
There, yes, precisely there, fathers commit sins. I sense it vividly. But who doesn’t
have weaknesses—not even one, not some tiny fault? Who is without sin? Parents who
don’t consider it necessary to withhold their personal storms from their children
degrade them to slaves in no time. A father should overcome his bad moods in private—but
how difficult that is!—or he should take them to strangers. A daughter is a young
lady, and in every cultivated sire should dwell a cavalier. I say explicitly: living
with Father is like Paradise, and if I discover a flaw in him, doubtless it is one
transferred from him to me; thus it is his, not my, discretion that observes him closely.
But Papa may, of course, conveniently take out his anger on people who are dependent
on him in certain respects. There are enough such people fluttering about him.

I have my own room, my furniture, my luxury, my books, etc. God, I’m actually very
well provided for. Am I thankful to Papa for all this? What a tasteless question!
I am obedient to him, and then I am also his possession, and, in the last analysis,
he can well be proud of me. I cause him worries, I am his financial concern, he may
snap at me, and I always find it a kind of delicate obligation to laugh at him when
he snaps at me. Papa likes to snap; he has a sense of humor and is, at the same time,
spirited. At Christmas he overwhelms me with presents. Incidentally, my furniture
was designed by an artist who is scarcely unknown. Father deals almost exclusively
with people who have some sort of name. He deals with names. If hidden in such a name
there is also a man, so much the better. How horrible it must be to know that one
is famous and to feel that one doesn’t deserve it at all. I can imagine many such
famous people. Isn’t such a fame like an incurable sickness? Goodness, the way I express
myself! My furniture is lacquered white and is painted with flowers and fruits by
the hands of a connoisseur. They are charming and the artist who painted them is a
remarkable person, highly esteemed by Father. And whomever Father esteems should indeed
be flattered. I mean, it is worth something if Papa is well-disposed toward someone,
and those who don’t find it so and act as if they didn’t give a hoot, they’re only
hurting themselves. They don’t see the world clearly enough. I consider my father
to be a thoroughly remarkable man; that he wields influence in the world is obvious.—Many
of my books bore me. But then they are simply not the right books, like, for example,
so-called children’s books. Such books are an affront. One dares give children books
to read that don’t go beyond their horizons? One should not speak in a childlike manner
to children; it is childish. I, who am still a child myself, hate childishness.

When shall I cease to amuse myself with toys? No, toys are sweet, and I shall be playing
with my doll for a long time yet; but I play consciously. I know that it’s silly,
but how beautiful silly and useless things are. Artistic natures, I think, must feel
the same way. Different young artists often come to us, that is to say, to Papa, for
dinner. Well, they are invited and then they appear. Often I write the invitations,
often the governess, and a grand, entertaining liveliness reigns at our table, which,
without boasting or wilfully showing off, looks like the well-provided table of a
fine house. Papa apparently enjoys going around with young people, with people who
are younger than he, and yet he is always the gayest and the youngest. One hears him
talking most of the time, the others listen, or they allow themselves little remarks,
which is often quite droll. Father overtowers them all in learning and verve and understanding
of the world, and all these people learn from him—that I plainly see. Often I have
to laugh at the table; then I receive a gentle or not-so-gentle admonition. Yes, and
then after dinner we take it easy. Papa stretches out on the leather sofa and begins
to snore, which actually is in rather poor taste. But I’m in love with Papa’s behavior.
Even his candid snoring pleases me. Does one want to, could one ever, make conversation
all the time?

Father apparently spends a lot of money. He has receipts and expenses, he lives, he
strives after gains, he lets live. He even leans a bit toward extravagance and waste.
He’s constantly in motion. At our house there is much said about success and failure.
Whoever eats with us and associates with us has attained some form of smaller or greater
success in the world. What is the world? A rumor, a topic of conversation? In any
case, my father stands in the very middle of this topic of conversation. Perhaps he
even directs it, within certain bounds. Papa’s aim, at all events, is to wield power.
He attempts to develop, to assert both himself and those people in whom he has an
interest. His principle is: he in whom I have no interest damages himself. As a result
of this view, Father is always permeated with a healthy sense of his human worth and
can step forth, firm and certain, as is fitting. Whoever grants himself no importance
feels no qualms about perpetrating bad deeds. What am I talking about? Did I hear
Father say that?

Have I the benefit of a good upbringing? I refuse even to doubt it. I have been brought
up as a metropolitan lady should be brought up, with familiarity and, at the same
time, with a certain measured severity, which permits and, at the same time, commands
me to accustom myself to tact. The man who is to marry me must be rich, or he must
have substantial prospects of an assured prosperity. Poor? I couldn’t be poor. It
is impossible for me and for creatures like me to suffer pecuniary need. That would
be stupid. In other respects, I shall be certain to give simplicity preference in
my mode of living. I do not like outward display. Simplicity must be a luxury. It
must shimmer with propriety in every respect, and such refinements of life, brought
to perfection, cost money. The amenities are expensive. How energetically I’m talking
now! Isn’t it a bit imprudent? Shall I love? What is love? What sorts of strange and
wonderful things must yet await me if I find myself so unknowing about things that
I’m still too young to understand. What experiences shall I have?

[1914]

Translated by Harriett Watts

Nervous

I
AM
a little worn out, raddled, squashed, downtrodden, shot full of holes. Mortars have
mortared me to bits. I am a little crumbly, decaying, yes, yes. I am sinking and drying
up a little. I am a bit scalded and scorched, yes, yes. That’s what it does to you.
That’s life. I am not old, not in the least, certainly I am not eighty, by no means,
but I am not sixteen any more either. Quite definitely I am a bit old and used up.
That’s what it does to you. I am decaying a little, and I am crumbling, peeling a
little. That’s life. Am I a little bit over the hill? Hmm! Maybe. But that doesn’t
make me eighty, not by a long way. I am very tough, I can vouch for that. I am no
longer young, but I am not old yet, definitely not. I am aging, fading a little, but
that doesn’t matter; I am not yet altogether old, though I am probably a little nervous
and over the hill. It’s natural that one should crumble a bit with the passage of
time, but that doesn’t matter. I am not very nervous, to be sure, I just have a few
grouches. Sometimes I am a bit weird and grouchy, but that doesn’t mean I am altogether
lost, I hope. I don’t propose to hope that I am lost, for I repeat, I am uncommonly
hard and tough. I am holding out and holding on. I am fairly fearless. But nervous
I am, a little, undoubtedly I am, very probably I am, possibly I am a little nervous.
I hope that I am a little nervous. No, I don’t hope so, one doesn’t hope for such
things, but I am afraid so, yes, afraid so. Fear is more appropriate here than hope,
no doubt about it. But I certainly am not fear-stricken, that I might be nervous,
quite definitely not. I have grouches, but I am not afraid of the grouches. They inspire
me with no fear at all. “You are nervous,” someone might tell me, and I would reply
cold-bloodedly, “My dear sir, I know that quite well, I know that I am a little worn
out and nervous.” And I would smile, very nobly and coolly, while saying this, which
would perhaps annoy the other person a little. A person who refrains from getting
annoyed is not yet lost. If I do not get annoyed about my nerves, then undoubtedly
I still have good nerves, it’s clear as daylight, and illuminating. It dawns on me
that I have grouches, that I am a little nervous, but it dawns on me in equal measure
that I am cold-blooded, which makes me uncommonly glad, and that I am blithe in spirit,
although I am aging a little, crumbling and fading, which is quite natural and something
I therefore understand very well. “You are nervous,” someone might come up to me and
say. “Yes, I am uncommonly nervous,” would be my reply, and secretly I would laugh
at the big lie. “We are all a little nervous,” I would perhaps say, and laugh at the
big truth. If a person can still laugh, he is not yet entirely nervous; if a person
can accept a truth, he is not yet entirely nervous; anyone who can keep calm when
he hears of some distress is not yet entirely nervous. Or if someone came up to me
and said: “Oh, you are totally nervous,” then quite simply I would reply in nice polite
terms: “Oh, I am totally nervous, I know I am.” And the matter would be closed. Grouches,
grouches, one must have them, and one must have the courage to live with them. That’s
the nicest way to live. Nobody should be afraid of his little bit of weirdness. Fear
is altogether foolish. “You are very nervous!”

“Yes, come by all means and calmly tell me so! Thank you!”

That, or something like it, is what I’d say, having my gentle and courteous bit of
fun. Let man be courteous, warm, and kind, and if someone tells him he’s totally nervous,
still there’s no need at all for him to believe it.

[1916]

The Walk

I
HAVE
to report that one fine morning, I do not know any more for sure what time it was,
as the desire to take a walk came over me, I put my hat on my head, left my writing
room, or room of phantoms, and ran down the stairs to hurry out into the street. I
might add that on the stairs I encountered a woman who looked like a Spaniard, a Peruvian,
or a Creole. She presented to the eye a certain pallid, faded majesty. But I must
strictly forbid myself a delay of even two seconds with this Brazilian lady, or whatever
she might be; for I may waste neither space nor time. As far as I can remember as
I write this down, I found myself, as I walked into the open, bright, and cheerful
street, in a romantically adventurous state of mind, which pleased me profoundly.
The morning world spread out before my eyes appeared as beautiful to me as if I saw
it for the first time. Everything I saw made upon me a delightful impression of friendliness,
of goodliness, and of youth. I quickly forgot that up in my room I had only just a
moment before been brooding gloomily over a blank sheet of paper. All sorrow, all
pain, and all grave thoughts were as vanished, although I vividly sensed a certain
seriousness, a tone, still before me and behind me. I was tense with eager expectation
of whatever might encounter me or cross my way on my walk. My steps were measured
and calm, and, as far as I know, I presented, as I went on my way, a fairly dignified
appearance. My feelings I like to conceal from the eyes of my fellow men, of course
without any fearful strain to do so—such strain I would consider a great error, and
a mighty stupidity. I had not yet gone twenty or thirty steps over a broad and crowded
square, when Professor Meili, a foremost authority, brushed by me. Incontrovertible
power in person, serious, ceremonial, and majestical, Professor Meili trod his way;
in his hand he held an unbendable scientific walking stick, which infused me with
dread, reverence, and esteem. Professor Meili’s nose was a stern, imperative, sharp
eagle- or hawk-nose, and his mouth was juridically clamped tight and squeezed shut.
The famous scholar’s gait was like an iron law; world history and the afterglow of
long-gone heroic deeds flashed out of Professor Meili’s adamant eyes, secreted behind
his bushy brows. His hat was like an irremovable ruler. Secret rulers are the most
proud and most implacable. Yet, on the whole, Professor Meili carried himself with
a tenderness, as if he needed in no way whatsoever to make apparent what quantities
of power and gravity he personified, and his figure appeared to me, in spite of all
its severity and adamance, sympathetic, because I permitted myself the thought that
men who do not smile in a sweet and beautiful way are honorable and trustworthy. As
is well known, there are rascals who play at being kind and good, but who have a terrible
talent for smiling, obligingly and politely, over the crimes which they commit.