Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories Read online

  ROBERT WALSER (1878–1956) was born into a German-speaking family in Biel, Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering, precarious existence while writing his poems, novels, and vast numbers of the “prose pieces” that became his hallmark. In 1933 he abandoned writing and entered a sanatorium—where he remained for the rest of his life.

  TOM WHALEN is a novelist, short-story writer, poet, critic, and the co-editor of the Robert Walser issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction.

  NICOLE KÖNGETER is a freelance translator and teacher of English and German in southwest Germany.

  ANNETTE WIESNER’s translations of Robert Walser have appeared in Connecticut Review, Kestrel, and Witness.

  GIRLFRIENDS, GHOSTS, AND OTHER STORIES

  ROBERT WALSER

  Translated from the German by

  TOM WHALEN with

  NICOLE KÖNGETER and ANNETTE WIESNER

  Afterword by

  TOM WHALEN

  NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

  New York

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Selection copyright © 2016 by NYREV, Inc.

  Stories copyright © by the Robert Walser Center, Bern, and Suhrkamp Verlag, Zürich

  Translations copyright © 2016 by Tom Whalen and, where applicable, Nicole Köngeter and Annette Wiesner

  Afterword copyright © 2016 by Tom Whalen

  All rights reserved.

  The afterword by Tom Whalen is adapted from “Sovereign Insignificance: Review of Speaking to the Rose: Writings, 1912–1932 by Robert Walser,” first published in Marginalia (Fall 2006); a shorter version appeared as “Written on a Whim,” Bookforum (February– March 2006).

  This translation is published with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

  Cover image: Karl Walser, original illustration for Robert Walser’s Poems, 1909; NMB Neues Museum Biel, Switzerland

  Cover design: Katy Homans

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Walser, Robert, 1878–1956, author. | Whalen, Tom, translator. | Köngeter, Nicole, translator. | Wiesner, Annette, translator.

  Title: Girlfriends, ghosts, and other stories / Robert Walser ; translated by Tom Whalen, Nicole Köngeter and Annette Wiesner ; afterword by Tom Whalen.

  Description: New York City : NYRB Classics, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016011944 (print) | LCCN 2016014058 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681370163 (paperback) | ISBN 9781681370170 ()

  Subjects: LCSH: Walser, Robert, 1878–1956—Translations into English. | BISAC: FICTION / Short Stories (single author). | FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Humorous.

  Classification: LCC PT2647.A64 A2 2016 (print) | LCC PT2647.A64 (ebook) | DDC 833/.912—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016011944

  ISBN 978-1-68137-017-0

  v1.0

  For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com or write to: Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  CONTENTS

  Biographical Notes

  Title Page

  Copyright and More Information

  A Morning

  She Writes

  An ABC in Pictures by Max Liebermann

  Sketch (I)

  Poetry (I)

  The Forest

  Lunch Break

  The Kitten (I)

  A Little Ramble

  The Hand Harp

  The Goddess

  The Look

  The Morning

  Autumn Afternoon

  The Man

  The Grave of the Mother

  Remember This

  On the Terrace

  The Little Sheep

  Spring

  A Little Expedition

  Ash, Needle, Pencil, and Match

  The Young Traveling Salesman

  Toothache

  The Nimble and the Lazy

  No One

  The Murderess

  Lake Piece

  Schwendimann

  The Forsaken One

  Dear Little Swallow

  The Children’s Game

  The Philosopher

  Page from a Diary (I)

  Tram Ride

  The Kitten (II)

  Latest News

  News Number Two

  News Three

  Fourth News

  Congratulations on the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Journal Die Schweiz

  How Are You?

  Afternoon Tea

  The Girls

  Overcoats

  Shadow

  The Lover and the Unknown Girl

  The Tip

  The Keller Novella

  Walser on Walser

  Sacher-Masoch

  Shop Windows (I)

  Gretchen

  Porcelain

  Ludwig

  It’s All Right, Miss

  Essay on Bismarck

  Anecdote

  The Nobel Prize

  The Carousel

  “Underappreciated Poets Among Us?”—Answer to a Survey

  Discussion

  Girlfriends

  The Young Woman in the Country House

  The Bob

  The Red Leather Pouch

  Detective Novel

  Poet Story

  The Belletristic Book

  Garden Arbor Essay

  Ghosts

  Female Portrait

  A Man of the World

  Something About Writing

  Tolstoy and Hutten

  The Woman Novelist

  The Equestrienne

  She Bettered Herself

  A Woman’s Book

  The Coffeehouse

  Literary Switzerland

  Embonpoint

  The Bourgeois

  The Pipsqueak

  Portrait of a Lady

  The Precious One

  Something About Eating

  Mother Nature

  Afterword

  Robert Walser in English

  A MORNING

  THERE are mornings in cobbler’s workshops, mornings in streets, and mornings in the mountains, which may well be the most beautiful thing in the world, but a bank morning gives us far more to consider. Let’s assume it’s Monday morning, surely the most morningish morning of the week, when the scent of Monday mornings is excellently disseminated in the bookkeeping departments of large banks.

  In such a hall there are, down aisles, about ten to fifteen rows of desks to pass in review; at each twin desk works a pair of people. One is accustomed to speak of a pair of shoes, so why not now and then speak of a pair of people? At the far end of the room stands the director’s desk. The head of the department is a sack-fat man with a monstrous face on his trunk. The face presses itself directly onto the trunk without the help of a neck, is fiery red, and appears to be constantly afloat. It’s ten minutes past eight; Hasler, the boss, scans the room with a few pointed glances to check if everyone is present. Two missing, and once again these are Helbling and Senn.

  At this crucial moment, the bookkeeper Senn, a haggard, thin man, shoots in, coughing and puffing. Hasler knows this cough; it’s simply a request for forgiveness. When people are too proud and too stubborn to open their mouths and properly excuse themselves, they cough. Senn sticks his nose in his books with frantic agility and pretends he’s already been at his meager task for hours. Another ten minutes pass. It’s twenty past eight. “This is about to become outrageous,” thinks Hasler, when Helbling appears.

  Totally be-Mondayed, his face pale and bewildered, he sh
oots in a jiffy to his place and position. Really, he could have apologized. Up in Hasler’s pond, I mean head, the following thought pops up like a tree frog: “Now that’s just about enough.” Quietly he walks over to Helbling and, positioning himself behind him, asks why he, Helbling, can’t, like the others, show up on time. He, Hasler, is, after all, really starting to wonder. Helbling doesn’t utter a word in response, for some time now he’s made a habit of simply leaving the questions of his superior unanswered. Hasler returns to his, as it were, lookout tower, from which he conducts the bookkeeping department.

  Eight thirty. Helbling pulls out his pocket watch to compare its face with the face of the big office clock. He sighs; only ten little, tiny, thin, delicate, spiky minutes have trickled past, and before him loom fat, indifferent hours. He tries to see if it’s possible to grasp the idea that now he must work. The effort fails, but at least it’s shifted the face of the clock a little. Five more dear, dainty minutes have slipped away. Helbling loves the minutes that have passed, but hates the ones still to come and those that appear unwilling to move forward. He would like to clobber each and every one of these lazy minutes. In his mind he beats the minute hand to death. The hour hand he doesn’t dare look at, for he has good reason to fear that would make him faint.

  Yes, such a bank morning, such a life among desks. Outside shimmers the sun. Senn goes to the window, he’s had enough, as he says, and rudely, angrily, throws open both sides to let in some air. This is not yet weather for opening windows, Hasler comments to Senn. Senn turns around and says words to his boss only an employee or civil servant of long standing is allowed to utter. Soon, though, Hasler has had it and refuses to tolerate “that tone of voice.” With this the conversation is cut short, one side of the window is quietly closed, Senn mumbles a few words to himself, for a while peace reigns.

  Five minutes to nine. How horribly slowly time passes for Helbling. He wonders why it couldn’t as well be nine already, at least that would be a whole hour, afterwards there would still be more than enough left. He peels away at those five minutes until gradually they’re gone; now the clock strikes nine. A sigh from Helbling accompanies every stroke of the clock. He plucks out his pocket watch; it, too, shows nine; this double verification depresses him. “I shouldn’t be looking at my watch so often, that can’t be healthy,” he thinks and starts to play with his mustache. This is noticed by one of his colleagues, the country Meier, who turns to the city Meier and whispers, “Isn’t it a shame how Helbling is wasting time again?” At this whispered comment a rectangle of heads turns in the direction of the mustache being twirled. The movement is observed by Hasler who soon catches on and for a change once again quietly goes to Helbling and positions himself behind him.

  “What are you doing there, Helbling?”

  And again the impertinent man doesn’t answer. “You might be so good as to answer me when I ask you something. Now this is really going too far, this attitude of yours. First you are half an hour late” (Helbling says, “That’s not true,” and wants to go on “I was only twenty minutes late”), “then you think about whether you should work or not, and finally you have the audacity to smart off. This can’t go on! Now show me what you’ve done.” And Hasler examines, more with his chin than with his eyes, what Helbling has done so far. He notices three figures and the rudiments of a fourth. Was that all? Helbling says he had intended to work, but as there were no proper nibs left it was difficult to make any headway. Then he should kindly, as soon as he sees fit, go and buy new nibs. Rotten excuse. And Hasler swims back to his fortress. Upon arriving, he pulls an apple out of his desk and arranges a second breakfast. Helbling takes the opportunity to quickly “go somewhere.” Country Meier draws his colleagues’ attention to Helbling’s “having gone somewhere.”

  For all of thirteen minutes—they’ve been precisely counted—Helbling has been outside. During this time about ten younger and older colleagues have approached the desk and gazed upon the three figures, the accomplishments of the one outside. A moment later all of bookkeeping knows that Helbling manages three figures an hour; country Meier has gone from desk to desk and seen to the topic’s general circulation. One of them goes “out” to see what “he” is doing. Later this “he” steps back in.

  Meanwhile it’s nine thirty. A bright, lovely female voice from outside resounds into the hall, apparently a vocalist exercising. Yes, somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe two houses toward the train station, that could be right. Some of the office workers hold their pens aloft and give themselves up to the pleasure of listening. Helbling, too, once more appears fond of music. He also yawns now several times. A second later, to make time pass, he pats his cheek with the palm of his hand. The patting takes about five full minutes. “Now he’s patting himself,” country Meier whispers in the ear of city Meier. “Nice voice out there,” remarks Glauser, one of those working. The womanly voice singing brings a certain tone to the room. Steiner, the chief of correspondence, is also listening, and indeed that’s rare. On the terraces of Hasler’s lips apple juice glistens like yellow wax on real steps, which he now wipes off with his red-checked handkerchief. “A beautiful voice out there! Out there is air and nature!” This is what little Glauser thinks, he’s poetically gifted. Helbling goes over to Glauser, intending to kill some time with a little stroll. After all, Glauser also likes to chat a bit, even if he is the ambitious sort who’s always trying to please Hasler. With looks Hasler drives Helbling back to his place of business, but nonetheless twelve more minutes have been killed. The singing, too, is done for.

  All these people in the hall don’t know what’s happening down there on the street. And the waves out on the nearby lake, what are they doing, and the sky, how does it look? Only Senn, the one always ready to protest, the bristly, over-the-top revolutionary, allows himself to direct his head for a brief moment out into the fresh air. But for that he’s reprimanded from the captain’s cabin with a hissing, elongated, “This is unbelievable!” Hasler shakes his public park or head disapprovingly from side to side, whereupon Senn, once again only to spite Hasler, pointlessly begins to erase in his books with the erasing knife, which his boss hates more than anything.

  Ten o’clock! “Only halfway,” Helbling thinks with the sense of having to keep down an immense sum of melancholy. Right now, this instant, he’d like to bawl. Would it be smart to “step out” again for a bit? He doesn’t quite dare. Instead he bends down to the floor as if he’s dropped something, which he hasn’t. In this bent-over position he stays for four whole minutes, as if the time had been just enough to tie his shoes or pick up a pencil. Helbling feels awful. He begins to imagine it’s twelve o’clock. At twelve on the dot he would instantly drop his pen like an excavation worker his shovel and rush off—ah, how heavenly. While he indulges in his daydreaming, Hasler, for a change and to keep an eye on him, has crept up behind him.

  “What’s that you’re doing?”

  “I’m on the foreign accounts now.”

  “I think you’ll soon be in a foreign country rather than doing the foreign accounts. If you don’t start working right away, I’m going to get tough. Shame on you. Get a grip on yourself. If my warnings have no effect, I’ll have a word with the director, just you wait and see. Now you’ve been told.”

  And the walrus throws himself back onto his sandbank. The whole hall is agreeably excited, a Helbling–Hasler conflict always brings a welcome change. Helbling sidles over to country Meier and asks him to help him read off numbers. After reading them off (oh, if only the world would all at once burst its blood vessels!), it’s ten thirty. Solemn brass music passes along the street below, everyone runs to the windows, it’s the procession that’s accompanying the corpse of a former minister of state to the cemetery. Even the head of correspondence, indifferent to most events, has leapt up to take a look. This incident is charged with fifteen minutes. Now it’s a quarter to eleven. Helbling has become half bonkers, he’s constantly dabbing his forehead at the edge of his desk
and moistening his nose with ink so that he can take up time wiping it off again. Ten minutes more rubbed away, only four delightful little minutes left till eleven. These four minutes, one by one, are simply waited out. At eleven Helbling “again” goes somewhere. “He’s off somewhere again, the scoundrel,” comes from the middle of the hall. Quarter after eleven, twenty past eleven, eleven thirty.

  Little Glauser says to Senn that it’s half past eleven and he’s just noticed that Helbling hasn’t done a single stroke. Country Meier goes to Hasler to tell him that he will have to leave half an hour early today because he has a very important errand to run. Helbling turns around to listen to the conversation. He’s incredibly jealous of country Meier. From the street comes the sound made by the wheels of rushing vehicles; facing the hall the figure of a carpet sweeper appears in the window, Helbling passes a good fifteen minutes staring over there. To begin working now, in his opinion, already seems too late. Senn prepares to cast off, Helbling observes Senn about to depart. At two minutes to twelve various people don their hats and put on their coats; Helbling’s already on the street, Hasler left five minutes ago. The morning has been forborne.

  (1907)

  Translated with Annette Wiesner

  SHE WRITES

  HEY, OLD monster. Tell me, where the hell are you? One never finds you at home anymore. I’ve been at your house three times now without finding you there. You seem to be hiding, pretending not to be at home. You sneak away from me. I must speak frankly, I think you’re swindling me. I need money, about a hundred marks; can you give it to me or not? I hope you’ll dare to refuse my request, if it doesn’t please you to fulfill it. On the other hand, I expect very little from the likes of you, I don’t trust you, I think you’re a coward. By the way, I saw your painting at the exhibition; it disgusted me. You must be surprised to hear me speak so freely, but in the first place, vis-à-vis you, I don’t need to tiptoe around, and second, it’s always been my practice to try to see how far cheekiness can take one in this world. You pretend it’s me you painted in this picture? No, swine, that’s neither I nor any girl who exists; rather it merely bears a few rough similarities to womanhood. Now I want to have a few serious words with you; my mood alone, if you will, brings this on. I’m in good spirits, I want to make you angry because, frankly, you’re too arrogant. You lied to me to no end that you weren’t married, and now I hear from those who know your situation that you have a wife and child. A fib, well, so what? But why did you have to lie? Do you despise me? Yes, I suspect you think you can have me on because I’m your model. Tell me, don’t you find that rather unseemly? You’re an artist and fancy yourself completely impartial, or do you act imperious only because you’re afraid of me? Perhaps I’m smarter than you think, honey, and it’s quite likely that a sense of decency is alive in me of whose existence you haven’t the faintest. You’re interesting, my dear, but you’re also coarse, and that spoils the interest one is inclined to have in you. You artists should be the most unprejudiced people in the world, and sometimes you’re the most unfree and dithering. And then you’re always pretending you’re geniuses. I’ve devoted myself to you for the sake of my entertainment. However, that’s no reason to think I lack the courage to tell you of your nastiness. Perhaps you can learn a few things from me, I’m smart enough to tell you why you should. I am a poor girl. If you were a real genius, you would love me and regard me with a tenderness suitable to the happiness you inspired, then you would have been able to paint me better. But you’re no great artist, you’re not sincere or courageous or considerate enough for that. Why do you want to paint a girl whom you choose to treat as a pushy beggar? That I’m not some filthy urchin is evident from my language, and that you’re nothing great is evident from your ignoble heartlessness. You wanted entirely to portray something naked; maybe I was only an object of study to you; yes, that’s what I think, you just wanted to learn something. Of course that’s laudable, but it’s juvenile. Good exquisite little laddie, you shouldn’t want to study us so objectively. You can produce a hundred, yes, a thousand nudes of me, but they’ll only be feeble studies, never, understand, a creation, an engendering of something delectable. You can put in light and shadows and flesh tones (or whatever you artists call all that), and ten, twenty subtleties. Oh, I see right through you. In a word, as long as you can’t find something to paint before which you tremble, you’ll remain a dabbler. Allow me to assume that I understand at least a little bit about the craft. When you saw me lying before you so naked, didn’t you suffer at all, not even the slightest? Look, I myself shuddered before my own magnificence. No, you’re nothing, because if one lies, one is nothing. How could you have deceived me and at the same time looked upon me naked? You have no gentleness. You’re a profiteer, a manufacturer of a whole load of pictures, but you’re no painter. O you artists! We step into your houses, eagerly undress, and then you still want to study us like students. You boys should have learned that part earlier, during your innumerable leisure hours. You’ve been lazy, and then if any of us approach you, you become crude. Send me the money; I expect you to do this. Your good, dear wife certainly imagines you’re a great artist. Let her keep her illusions, that suits you. I have little respect for you, instead find you a whimsical, cute little monkey. Adieu. Do as you’re told and send at once what I’ve requested.