Am I Demanding?
PEOPLE draw my attention to novels by important authors.
I receive letters from publishers.
Society women are mindful of me.
I have genteel manners; of course I suddenly discard them, and then later recover them.
Sometimes I do think I’m odd.
Doctors ask me, in all sympathy, if it’s really true that nobody cares for me, as if they thought it very incorrect.
Soon even I’ll be believing I’ve been neglected. Yet there’s no harm in that, none at all. On the contrary, because of it, I have “lived” that much more intensely.
Every noon, at lunch, I read “my” newspaper. This fact asks to be mentioned. Is there anything else out there asking for a friendly announcement from me?
Could I have “forgotten all sorts of things”?
Once more I’ve changed my domicile. When shall I get around to reading a French book again? I’m longing to do so.
What does “being cultivated” mean? What are all these questions I’m asking myself?
I like looking for a room and that sort of thing. You can look into houses which you would otherwise not look into.
Thus, for instance, while searching for a suitable working space and living room, I arrived inside a house from the baroque period. Old pictures were hanging in the corridors.
Needless to say, I remain interested primarily in attics. I’m interested in so many things.
Shall I soon apply politely for a job? This question, too, weighs enormously on my mind.
In the house of some quite poor people I found a very nice room, but it could not, unfortunately, be heated. At once I declared myself agreeable to the view across the countryside afforded by the tiny window. The room could only be regarded as a sort of cubbyhole.
While looking at this room I was also looking at the landlady. I wanted to find out if she might conceivably become more “intimately” interesting to me.
Moreover, in the little window, standing at some distance on a hill, you could see a People’s Nutrition Building, in which questions of economics and management could be studied. In this elegant house a professor of literature and art once used to live. Somebody had told me this, and now I thought of it. A woman of my acquaintance works there, as a janitress; I met her when she was the keeper of a boardinghouse.
“The table is a bit too small for me, you see I write rather a lot,” I said to the landlady, whose appearance I had scrutinized. I said goodbye to her and went away.
Later I looked at a dark but warm room on a courtyard. To the woman who showed it to me, I said: “Perhaps I’ll come back. At the moment I’m pierced through with arrows.”
“For heaven’s sake,” she asked, dismayed, “what kind of arrows?”
“Cupid’s arrows,” I replied calmly, and most casually, as if these arrows were really no business of mine.
“Yes, some women give no mercy,” she added. I answered: “It’s understandable, every woman’s first concern is herself.”
Whereupon I left, and now this very peculiar question, in my opinion an important one, occupies my thoughts: “Of what does being cultivated consist?” And then this second question, a most important one, it too gives me no peace, the question, I mean, as to what the People means. How on earth shall I cope with these problems?
And this doctor who, in an offhand sort of way, as it were, briefly “mothered” me. He gave me a book to read, which now graces my desk with its presence.
And then “this beautiful woman,” who gazes at me in a shop, so intently, as if she wanted to tell me: “I know you; watch out!”
She had such a beautiful, delicate face, also very delicate feet. The thing was this: I was just sitting there in the shop waiting for something. Of this woman I at once thought I had met her somewhere before, that she recognized me, and that she had a quite definite opinion of me. Of course, all this might have been a delusion of mine. One is so easily deluded about the objects of one’s interest.
Early in the morning, one sees in our nicest of towns numerous pretty girls who are on the way to some occupation or other.
It’s gradually becoming “serious,” my situation, I realize this.
I’ve decided to write a novel, which will have to be psychological, of course. It will be concerned with vital questions.
A schoolteacher, who is also an author, has written me two very attentive, intelligent letters.
Oh, this rapidity in all my prolonged slownesses, and, on the other hand, this sloth again, in all my extensive industriousness.
Is it really the case that I’m a kind of child of the people, who doesn’t yet understand even himself? That would be terrible.
But I always float, like the price of gold, that’s to say, modestly put, I have confidence in myself. Others, alas, do not, not always, as, for instance, a very nice woman, to whom I also spoke while looking for a room.
The room looked captivating, you know, so sunny, so bright. I told myself at once: “I’d like to live here.” The wash table was new and snow-white, and there was an inviting chaise longue, which I would have placed otherwise, probably.
“The room is a real poem, dear esteemed lady,” said I to the person who wanted to rent it. “In spirit I have settled down here already.”
She answered: “I must tell you, to my own regret and probably to yours as well, that I cannot make a decision at once. You are very demanding, aren’t you?”
I replied: “Yes, I am.”
“For that reason I must ask you to give me a little time for reflection. Telephone me, will you? Won’t you? Then I’ll tell you.”
I took leave of that marvel of a room. How I laugh, when I think about it now! And about the woman who sought salvation in delay.
As for me, I now live in a decent place, it’s almost refined. My surroundings satisfy me. One can live pretty well anywhere, I believe, and what’s more, somebody who knows and thinks well of me, a person of importance in the business line, has been asking after my modest self, and I believe, she will have obtained the information she wanted.
I think I still have it in me to make something of myself. And I’d like to add: an actress has written to me, saying how she arrived home in a troubled mood, thought of me, and the thought made her happy.
[1925]
The Little Tree
I SEE it, even when I walk past, hardly noticing. It does not run away, stands quite still, cannot think, cannot desire anything, no, it can only grow, be, in space, and have leaves, which nobody touches, which are only to be looked at. Busy people hurry on past the shadow offered by the leaves.
Have I never given anything to you? Yet it needs no happiness. Perhaps, if someone thinks it is beautiful, it is glad. Do you think so? What holy innocences speak from it. It knows of nothing; it is there for my pleasure, that only.
Why can it not be sensitive to my love, when I say something to it, the good thing? But it apprehends nothing. It never sees me when I smile at the greeting it ignorantly gives.
To die at this being’s feet, like that figure Courbet painted, who is taking leave forever.
Surely I shall go on living, but what will become of you?
[1925]
Stork and Hedgehog
HEDGEHOG: Aren’t I captivating? Tell me!
STORK: For a long time I have loved you.
HEDGEHOG: I’ll say nothing about that. I don’t talk to creatures that love me. Love is something so reckless, impudent! I’ll have no dealings with spendthrifts. Make a note of that. It’s my spines you’re in love with, isn’t it?
STORK: Your mantle of spines suits you charmingly. You look adorable in it. A pity you’re so prudish. A hedgehog should not be so buttoned up about decent behavior.