It was also around that time that I began to cover thin strips of paper with little poems. I did so with a calm, craftsmanly intent, and yet there was still something mysterious about it. Maybe I started writing poetry because I was poor and needed a hobby to feel richer.
Restlessness, uncertainty, and a premonition of a singular fate may have been what led me, in my sequestered isolation, to pick up my quill and attempt to create a reflection of myself.
I would add that back then I was always full of the most bright and lively gladness. Yes, I had great joys, however quiet and dejected I may have seemed. I say it straight out.
September 1919
ALL RIGHT THEN
A CHARMING, distinguished bourgeois family, who one morning, around 4 a.m., in the enchanting moonlight, while outside the window the bright sunshine was smiling, where unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs, sat contentedly at their tea, at their what? Their tea! and drinking what on this happy occasion? Gadzooks, tea! If the countless dainty little families while sitting at tea like that were drinking anything other than drinking tea then may the devil come and whisk me away, and if those selfsame thoroughly delightful families while slurping their tea were sitting at anything other than sitting at tea then let me no longer be counted among the sensible and intelligent members of the human race, among whom, thank God, I have to this day always continued to be counted.
Hey, writer! Jesus! What’s wrong with you? Are you insane?
What’s wrong with me? Nothing at all, nothing at all. Please! And I am not in the least insane. I beg a thousand pardons but may I dare maintain that I am completely fine. I am totally normal and reliable in every respect, only just today, as a rare exception, I may perhaps not be in the most writerish mood, the mood I otherwise always make an effort to be in and in tune with. Today I most atypically may be a little hmm hmm and la-di-da. Otherwise I am in perfect health, I can assure you of that. One crucial component of writerliness is humor, and today precisely that, whatever it is that people call humor, seems to be regrettably so to speak somewhat lacking in me.
Odol mouthwash belongs on every modern washstand. Anyone who does not treasure Odol mouthwash does not treasure himself. Without Odol, civilization itself is unthinkable. If you see yourself as, and wish to be taken for, not a barbarian but a cultivated person, you must arrange to get a hold of some Odol as promptly as can be. Odol is the most priceless compound there is and the result of combining the most delicate imaginable substances. Authorities, on the basis of their strictly scientific investigations, hesitate not one moment before ranking Odol as an accomplishment of the very first order and a good deed for humanity. Individual persons or entire tribes or other peoples who refuse Odol must and shall be driven at once to rouse themselves up to the recognition and frequent use of Odol. Odol takes the place of every good human quality in every respect. Ladies of the uppermost middle class and the aristocracy use massive quantities of Odol, because they seem to feel how deeply they need it. High dignitaries have for years or decades doused their highly honored pharynxes with Odol regularly. Odol fills every human gullet or mouth with a long-lasting pleasant fragrance for hours, and the fact cannot be gainsaid that pleasant fragrances are without a doubt, whenever and wherever they may be, preferable to nasty odors and smells. Grocery speculators, elite spies, railroad and oil barons, reigning kings and queens, admirals and commanders, elected representatives of every party, and many additional highly esteemed persons and personages hurl as much Odol as is in any way possible down their honorable and without question highly respectable throats to their great personal advantage. The nation that has accustomed itself to Odol marches in the vanguard of all nations, with respect to spirit, progress, and nobility of mind and heart, and such a nation, we can surely say with certainty, will fulfill the historically inevitable law of dictating laws to all the other peoples of the globe and ruling with absolute might over the entire world sphere.
Hell’s bells, you say, are you completely wee-oo wee-oo?
Ladies and Gentlemen, Darling Children, for God’s sake, kindly calm down and don’t get worked up, since we know that whoever gets worked up wastes valuable energy since he has to get worked back down again, and that is a shame, since energy is valuable and valuables are expensive and what’s expensive must always be scrupulously protected against squandering and misuse. Now does this sentence, clearly perfectly sensible and reasonable in and of itself, sound anything like hoo-hoo? I’ve already told you, have I not, that today as a rare exception however I do seem to be a little hmm hmm and la-di-da and perhaps a little hoo-hoo and wee-oo wee-oo as well. That surely is completely enough for now, and at the moment I hardly believe it necessary to add anything further.
All European governments evince at all times the absolutely requisite quantity of trust for their corn-pad-using citizens, because whoever uses a pad on his corns thereby makes himself quite rightly beloved everywhere as a harmless subject.
Right! Now once and for all it is really over between us and you. Get out of my house. Understand? Be so kind as to pack up your authorial materials and hand tools at once and leave this instant this room that is intended solely for respectable people.
What room? And why work yourself up and lose valuable energy, when I have after all given you my calm assurance that I am completely fine, that I today as a rare exception however do seem to be a little hmm hmm and la-di-da and perhaps a little hoo-hoo and wee-oo wee-oo as well. Calm down, calm down. Time heals all wounds, you have to hope for the best, and we know that whoever gets worked up only has to get worked back down. So please you’re welcome and most humble servant!
I went to the Herrenfeld Brothers theater, where, I must admit, I had a great time. Afterwards I sat, if I am not mistaken, in the Kaffeehaus des Westens café, on the corner of the Ku’damm, and who should I see come in after a while? None other than Wulff, 100 % German, recalling the aurochs, the primeval forests, the clang of swords, the pelt of bears. His full beard reached down to the tips of his toes. On his arm was a full-bosomed, voluptuous, firm, and juicy capitalist lady. Don’t get worked up! I already said loud and clear that today I’m apparently a little hmm hmm and la-di-da and okay a bit hoo-hoo and maybe also a little wee-oo wee-oo. Is that so terrible? All right then! And with that I wish you good day or good night and my best and dearest regards, for I have done my duty and am finished for now and can once again go for a walk.
1917
READING
READING is as productive as it is enjoyable. When I read, I am a harmless, nice and quiet person and I don’t do anything stupid. Ardent readers are a breed of people with great inner peace as it were. The reader has his noble, deep, and long-lasting pleasure without being in anyone else’s way or bothering anyone. Is that not glorious? I should think so! Anyone who reads is far from hatching evil schemes. An appealing and entertaining thing to read has the good quality of making us forget for a time that we are nasty, quarrelsome people who cannot leave each other in peace. Who could deny this clearly rather sad and melancholy-inducing sentence? No doubt books often also sidetrack us from useful and productive actions; still, all things considered, reading has to be commended as beneficial, since it seems to be utterly necessary to apply a restraint to our violent craving for belongings and a gentle anesthetic to our often ruthless thirst for action. To a certain extent, a book is a fetter: It is not for nothing that one speaks of a captivating or gripping read. A book bewitches and dominates us, it holds us spellbound, in other words it exerts a power over us, and we are happy to let such tyranny occur, for it is a blessing. Anyone captivated and gripped by a book for a given time does not use that time to initiate gossip about his dear fellow man, which is always a great and crude mistake. To talk pointlessly is always a mistake. Anyone who holds a newspaper in his hand and assiduously reads around in it qualifies, practically automatically from that very fact alone, as a good citizen. A newspaper reader is not cursing, swearing, and blustering, and for that reason alone reading newspapers is a true benediction, that should be obvious. A reader always looks proper, decent, decorous, and consummately respectable. I have sometimes heard people talk about so-called harmful reading, e.g., infamous Gothic novels. That’s another story we shall avoid getting into, but we can say this much: The worst book in the world is not as bad as the complete indifference of never picking up a book at all. A trashy book is not nearly as dangerous as people sometimes think, and the so-called really good books are under certain conditions by no means as free of danger as people generally like to believe. Intellectual things are never as harmless as eating chocolate or enjoying an apple tart or the like. In principle, the reader just has to know how to cleanly separate reading from life. I remember that as a schoolboy I used to carefully creep under or behind a pear tree every once in a while with an absolutely phenomenally great and fat trashy Gothic novel that took place in Hungary, needless to say, so that my father wouldn’t catch me at my eager reading and greedy enjoyment, which would have resulted in a humiliating tribunal of justice. The book had the mysterious title: Sandor. To follow up on what I have just said about reading and life, perhaps I may be permitted to tell a short story as well, namely: