THE ISLAND
TWO NEWLYWEDS from Berlin went on a trip. The journey was long. Finally, the young bride and groom arrived in a city built entirely from serious red stones, and a wide blue river flowed over them through it. A tall, majestic cathedral was reflected in the water’s surface. Still, to them the city did not seem made for longer stays, and they traveled onward, and since it was raining they opened a large umbrella and took shelter under it. They reached an old castle tucked away in a remote park and shyly went inside. A lovely stone spiral staircase, as if made for a ruling prince, led up to the second floor. Old, dark paintings hung on the high, snow-white walls. They knocked on a heavy old door. “Come in.” And there, sunk deep in mysterious, erudite work, sat an ancient little man at his desk. The couple from Berlin asked if they could stay in the castle, they liked it. But they couldn’t get anywhere with the old man, who only shook his head ponderously. So they went on. They ended up in a blizzard but worked their way out of it, and so their journey continued, through forests, villages, and cities. Nowhere could they discover any fitting place to spend a little time enjoying themselves, and on top of that the waiters in the hotels were fresh, the rascals. They spent one night in a hotel where there were admittedly the softest and most beautiful horsehair mattresses, and exquisite curtains over the windows, but the shamefully exorbitant prices practically gave them heart attacks. They went all the way to Venice, to the sneering Italians. The scoundrels, they sang serenades but pried loose the foreigners’ money with a crowbar for their trouble. Finally, fortune smiled upon them. They saw in the distance, in the middle of a charming lake, an adorable island shimmering light-green, and they steered toward it, and there they found it so beautiful that they couldn’t bear to leave. They stayed to live on the island. The beauty of its landscape was like a lovely sweet girl’s smile. They made their home there and were happy.
1914
[UNTITLED, CROSSED OUT]
IF I WERE to take a trip in Switzerland, I would very probably get off the train in Basel first, spend the night in a hotel, and set out on foot early the next morning for a hike over the Jura Mountains. I picture the time of year as fall and my mood as passable. To sit in country inns and wait for lunch to be served is a savory treat and I would have the best possible conversations with the lady innkeepers and, where present, their daughters until the food came. Afterwards I would take to my feet again. Evening valleys would be roamed through. During the nights, ideally nice and chilly, the stars would shimmer and I would think back to the big city while hiking through the darkness, and it would seem very large and beautiful to me, like everything you can’t see clearly and understand. In the bright, hot midday sun I would stop for a moment to rest under a fir, beech, or oak tree, stretching out on the moss or grass. It is so nice to relax, but that presupposes a preceding strain or effort, just as there is nothing truly good in this world of ours except where something bad has had to have been overcome. But where am I? Am I actually on a hike right now? How is that possible?
ca. 1910(?)
THE HEATHSTONE
IN THE forest, which draws me to it again and again because it is so beautiful, there stands, under the tall, slim, serious fir trees, a stone that people call the Heathstone, a dusky block of granite overgrown with moss that schoolboys like to clamber up, a wondrous testimony from ancient, wondrous times, and under its strange gaze you involuntarily come to a stop to reflect on life. Silent, hard, and tall it stands amid the lovely green homey forest, washed with countless rain showers, hidden in the realm of the silent faithful firs, an image of bygone days, expression of sheer eternal lastingness, and proof of the unthinkable age of the earth. I have often enough stood stock-still before the handsome stone, adorned with two marvelous old fir trees that have found room to grow majestically on the venerable rock. Today, too, I saw it again, and when I did, the following words, murmured quietly to myself, passed my lips: “Oh, how soft and weak and fragile human life is, after all, compared to your life, you old, indestructible stone. You have lived from the beginning of the world until today and you will live and stand there until the doubtful end of all life. Age seems to have solidified and strengthened you rather than damaging and weakening you. Everywhere around you, sensitive human beings die. Generations follow generations, which, like dreams, and similar to mere gentle breaths of wind, surface and vanish away again. You know no weakness. Impatience is foreign to you. Thoughts do not touch you and feelings do not approach you. And yet you live, you are living, you lead your stony existence. Tell me, are you alive?”—Full of strange questions, full of vague premonitions, I parted from my remarkable old stubborn stony hard companion, and I had the feeling that he was a magician, as though the woods were enchanted by him.
1914
TWO LITTLE THINGS
FIRST of all, everyone has to take care of himself, so that things can be easy and carefree everywhere. You have a tendency to always think about the other person and forget yourself. But does this other person thank you for that, and can he? No one likes to be thankful. Everyone wants whatever he is to be thanks to himself. “That’s entirely thanks to me” is something a person likes to say. Anyway, to the extent that you only just think about someone, you haven’t helped him do anything yet, even though you may well have already significantly neglected yourself. No one loves people who neglect themselves, you know.
I was walking just so and while making my way along just so I ran into a dog, and I paid careful attention to the good animal, by which I mean to say that I looked at it for rather a long time. What a fool I am, am I not? For is there not something foolish about stopping on the street due to a dog and losing valuable time? But in making my way along just so I absolutely did not have the sense that time was valuable, and so, after some time, I continued on my leisurely way. I thought, “How hot it is today!” and indeed it was really very warm.
1914
BY THE LAKE
ONE EVENING after dinner I hurried out to the lake, which was darkly shrouded in I no longer quite recall what type of rainy melancholy. I sat down on a bench under the loose branches of a willow tree and gave myself over to indefinite contemplation, wanting to convince myself that I was nowhere, a philosophy that put me into a curiously exciting state of contentment. How splendid it was, this picture of sadness on the rainy lake into whose warm gray water it was thoroughly and as it were carefully raining. I could see in my mind’s eye my old father with his white hair, which made me the insignificant, bashful schoolboy, and the picture of my mother mingled with the quiet, graceful rippling of the gentle waves. In the large lake, looking at me as much as I at it, I saw childhood also looking at me as though with clear, good, beautiful eyes. Soon I entirely forgot where I was; soon I remembered again. A few silent people walked warily back and forth on the promenade; two factory girls sat down on the bench next to mine and started chatting with each other; and out on the water, out there in the dear lake, where the lovely cheerful crying gently spread, nautical aficionados still sailed in sailboats and rowed in rowboats, umbrellas open over their heads, a view that let me imagine I was in China or Japan or some other equally dreamy, poetic country. It rained so sweetly, so softly on the water, and it was so dark. All my thoughts slumbered, then all my thoughts were wide awake again. A steamship pulled out onto the lake; its golden lights shimmered marvelously on the bare, silver-dark water bearing the beautiful ship as though happy about its own fairy-tale appearance. Night fell soon afterward, and with it came the friendly command to stand up from the bench under the trees, leave the promenade, and begin the walk home.