Herr von Bergen used to be our gym teacher, now he is an insurance agent. I hope he does well! He could probably tell that he wasn’t cut out to be an educator. A highly elegant appearance. But what does a schoolboy care about well-tailored pants and flattering jackets? He wasn’t bad, incidentally; only he liked to give out “canes” a little too much. A butcher’s son always had to hold his poor little paw out to Herr von Bergen for a sharp, severe caning. I can still remember, and only too clearly, how that infuriated me. I could have chopped off that finely dressed, perfumed torturer’s head myself.
I would like to end my portrait gallery of notable teachers with Doctor Merz. Merz seems to be, out of all the teachers, the most cultured; he even writes books. But that does not stop his students from finding him ridiculous sometimes. He is our history teacher and also our German teacher; he has an exaggeratedly elevated idea of everything classical. Now and then his behavior is also classical. He wears boots as though about to ride off into battle, and in fact real battles often do take place in his German class. He is short and unassuming, physically; with the artillery boots on top of that, you have to laugh. “Sit down, Junge. F!” Junge sits down, and Herr Merz writes out a cruel, report-card-disfiguring F. One time he even gave the whole class a big universal F, and on top of that screamed: “So, you are insubordinate, you little scamps? You dare to refuse me? Moser, are you the ringleader here? Yes or no?” Moser — a brave boy, we practically worship him — stands up and says in an outraged, unspeakably funny tone of voice that, well, he wouldn’t call himself the ringleader. We die from laughter, then come back to life again and die a second time. Merz, though, seems to have lost his classical reason; he conducts himself like an insane person, dashes his erudite head against the wall in despair, waves his hands around, and screams: “You make my life hell, you ruin my lunch, you drive me crazy, you scoundrels! Admit it: You’re out for my blood!” And he throws himself down flat on the floor. It’s horrible! You wouldn’t have thought it was possible. And we, who ruin and oversalt his lunch, we also receive from him the noblest and most stimulating ideas. When he tells us about the ancient Greeks, his eyes shine behind his glasses. We are definitely very unjust to bring this man to such wild outbursts. The sublime and the ridiculous are united in him, the high and the stupid, the superb and the pitiful. What can we do about the fact that a grade of F has no special power to scare us? Are we obligated to die of sacred reverence whenever one of us has to recite “Das Glück von Edenhall” by Ludwig Uhland? “Sit down, that’s an F for you!” That’s how it goes in German class. How will it go in later life? I wonder.
December 1908; 1914
HANSWURST
THERE he is, they call him Hanswurst because he is such a stupid lump, no good for anything. I know him well, this dissolute and idiotic young man. I have never in my life run across anyone to whom I would more readily say, “You are a scoundrel,” and also none who has so compelled me to laugh at him. If stupid and unhealthy ideas earned interest he would be a rich man, but the truth is, he is poor as a country mouse. A sparrow has greater prospects of making something of itself in the world than he does, and yet he knows nothing but good cheer, and it has never once been granted me to discover a hint of displeasure in his rascally face. One time, someone wanted to help him advance, but Hanswurst took flight from advancement as though from a calamity — that’s how dumb he acted in the most important moment of his life. He is and always will be a child, a blockhead unable to tell the important from the unimportant, the valuable from the worthless. Or maybe, in the end, he is smarter than he himself realizes and has more wit than he himself is capable of acknowledging? Remain, dear question, nice and unanswered, I beg of you. In any case, Hanswurst is happy in his own skin. He has no future, but also doesn’t want any such thing. What will become of him? Say a little prayer for him! He’s too dumb to.
1914
SCHOOL VISIT
NOW DIDN’T the schoolchildren of a certain village get quite a surprise recently? Someone came walking down the street with bouncing steps; he came to a stop before the schoolhouse, knocked, and introduced himself to the surprised, questioning teacher. She led him inside and offered him a chair; down he sat. How? With great gravity and still at the same time very simply, as though he had the most extensive imaginable practice visiting schools. He was visibly pleased. Who doesn’t like to see a gaggle of schoolchildren sitting happily at their desks? And the little ones, for their part, enjoyed this uneveryday character too. How attentively he looked at them, like he was giving them a test! What was the purpose of his visit? Again and again he smiled. Apparently he did so out of a kind of sympathy for the instruction, and then again probably for no other reason than that the children were smiling at him too. How cozy the classroom and the lesson seemed to him! He liked all of it: the brownish clay, the coarsely rural old-fashioned hue, the snug little room, the large stove, the diagrams and the few pictures on the wall, the way the teacher taught, but especially the adorable, clever, thinking and listening little faces, the little hands, the jolly expressions, the naïve gestures and the eyes and the speaking voices. What was the subject? First, math. It went like clockwork. Only one disproportionately overgrown boy got stuck, but the kindly teacher helped him as affectionately as a mother would have. It was lovely to see how happy the children were when they realized that she had truly understood and fulfilled her duties. How free and easy, pure and open young souls are. The stranger was simply enchanted by the innocent, proper movements and gestures. Was it not possible that the children thought he was a school inspector? Presumably. Then it was time for singing, no first came reciting poems in the charming local dialect. That was great. Every last one of them could say it perfectly. The teacher called forth the childish eagerness, intelligence, and abilities of her charges almost like a sorceress. Her work seemed easy, but the observer remarked to himself that there must be a lot of effort, a lot of prior organizing and leading, great patience, and much self-sacrificing consideration and insight lying behind this smoothly functioning, well-rounded perfection. She took everything that happened with such beautiful relaxed calm; she was clearly a master, and the man who had come to pay this visit esteemed her highly. At a single word from her, the boys and girls put away their slates, books, and pencil cases. “You may go now.” As they filed out, they held out their hands to their teacher, one student after the other; some of them held out their hands to me too. So then was it I who had paid a visit to the school on this occasion? Can it really be true? Oh yes, it most certainly can.