Peter Camenzind (5 page)

Of these days a small but significant event remains to be told. One evening, about a week before my departure, my father put on his cap.

“Where are you off to?” I asked.

“Is that any of your business?”

“Well, you could tell me, if it's not illegal.”

Whereupon he laughed and called out: “No reason why you shouldn't come along. You're no child any more.” So we both went off to the tavern. A few farmers were sitting in front of a jug of Hallauer, two wagoners whom I did not know were drinking absinthe, and a tableful of young fellows were conducting a noisy session of a card game called jass.

I was used to drinking an occasional glass of wine, but this was the first time I had entered a tavern without actually being thirsty. I knew from hearsay that my father was an accomplished drinker. He drank heavily, and only the best, and consequently his household, though he could not be said seriously to neglect it otherwise, had floundered in a perpetual state of misery. I was impressed by how respectfully the innkeeper and the other guests treated him. He ordered a liter of Vaud, bade me pour it, and demonstrated the correct manner of doing so. You have to begin pouring at a low angle, gradually lengthening the jet, and bringing the bottle down as low as possible at the end. Then he began telling me about the different wines he knew, wines he enjoyed on the rare occasions when he ventured to town or over the border to the Italian side. He spoke with deep respect of the dark-red Veltliner and then proceeded to discourse in low, urgent tones about certain bottled Vaud wines; finally, almost in a whisper and with the expression of someone recounting a fairy tale, he spoke to me of the Neuchâtels. The foam of certain vintages assumed the shape of a star on being poured, and he drew a star on the table with a wet finger. Then he entered into profound speculation as to the nature and flavor of champagne, which he had never tasted, and one bottle of which he believed could make two men stark raving drunk.

Falling silent and pensive, he lit his pipe. Noticing that I had nothing to smoke, he gave me ten centimes for cigars. Then we sat opposite each other, blowing smoke into each other's faces and slowly gulping down the first liter of wine. The golden, piquant Vaud was excellent. Gradually the farmers at the next table ventured to join in our conversation and eventually came over to join us—one by one, carefully and with much self-conscious throat-clearing. It was not long before I was the center of attention, and it became evident that I had a fantastic reputation as a mountain climber. All manner of foolhardy ascents and spectacular falls, enshrouded in myth, were recounted, disputed, and defended. Meanwhile, we had almost drained our second measure of wine. The blood was now rushing to my head and uncharacteristically I began to boast, telling of the hazardous climb along the upper wall of the Sennalpstock where I had fetched Rösi Girtanner's roses. They refused to believe me, I protested, they laughed, and I became furious. I challenged anyone who disbelieved me to a wrestling match and informed them that I could take care of the whole lot of them. Thereupon a bandy-legged old farmer walked over to one of the shelves and brought back a huge earthenware jug, placing it on its side on the table.

“I'll tell you something,” he said. “If you're all that strong, why don't you smash that jug with your fist? Then we'll pay for as much wine as it holds. And if you can't do it, you'll pay for the wine.”

My father agreed to it at once. I stood up, wrapped my handkerchief around my hand, and struck. The first two blows had no effect. With the third, the jug shattered. “Pay up,” crowed my father, beaming with delight, and the old farmer seemed to have no objections. “Fine,” he said. “I'll pay for as much wine as the jug takes. But that won't be much any more.” Naturally the shards would not hold even a measure, and so I had to accept their kidding as the only return for the pain in my arm. Even my father was laughing at me now.

“Well then, you've won,” I shouted and, filling the biggest of the shards with wine from our bottle, poured it over the old man's bald pate. Now
we
had won and the guests applauded.

Further horseplay of this sort followed. Then my father lugged me home and we stumbled excitedly and roughly through the room in which my mother's coffin had rested less than three weeks before. I slept as if dead and felt like a complete wreck the next morning. My father taunted me and carried on his activities, pleased by his obvious superiority as a drinker. I silently made a vow never to go drinking again and longed for the day of my departure.

Finally it came and I left, but I did not keep my vow. The golden Vaud, the dark-red Veltliner, the Neuchâtel, and many other wines and I began a long acquaintance and have become the best of friends since.

Chapter Three

D
RESSED IN A NEW BUCKSKIN SUIT
and carrying a small chest filled with books and other possessions, I arrived in Zurich, ready to conquer a piece of the world and to prove as quickly as possible to the roughnecks back home that I was made of different stuff from the other Camenzinds. For three wonderful years I lived in the same drafty attic with its commanding view, studied, wrote poems, longed for and sensed myself imbued with everything that is beautiful on earth. Although I did not have a hot meal every day of the week, every day and every night my heart sang and laughed and wept with joy and cleaved fervently, longingly to life.

This was my first real city. Greenhorn that I was, I walked about wide-eyed and bewildered for several weeks. It never occurred to me to admire genuinely or be envious of city life—I was too much of a farm boy for that—but the multitude of streets, houses, and people delighted me. I observed how alive with carriages the streets were; I inspected the moorings on the lake, the plazas, the gardens, the ostentatious civic buildings and churches; I saw crowds hurry off to work, students dawdling, the well-to-do on outings, dandies preening themselves, foreigners ambling aimlessly about. The fashionably elegant and haughty wives of the rich seemed to me like peacocks in a chicken yard, pretty, proud, and a little foolish. No, I was not really shy—only awkward and stubborn—and I had no doubts that I was man enough to become thoroughly acquainted with this lively city and to make my way in it.

Making the acquaintance of a handsome young fellow who lived in two rooms on the second floor of my house, and who was also a student in Zurich, was the first move I made in this direction. Actually I did not take this step myself, for he came up to me. I heard him practicing the piano every day, and listening to him, I felt for the first time something of the magic of music, the most feminine, the sweetest of the arts. I would watch him leave the house, with a book or a score in his left hand, in his right a cigarette whose smoke trailed behind him as he walked off with easy and graceful steps. I was fascinated but I kept my distance. I was afraid of making the acquaintance of someone so easygoing, free, and well-to-do, fearing it would only humiliate me and underscore my poverty and rough manners. Then he came up to see me: one evening there was a knock on my door. I was startled, for no one had called on me before. He entered, shook my hand, introduced himself, and his behavior was as easy and natural as though we had known each other for years.

“I wanted to ask whether you would like to play some music with me,” he said. I had never touched an instrument, much less played one. I told him this, adding that except for yodeling I was without art but that his piano playing had often drifted pleasurably and temptingly up to my room.

“How wrong can you be!” he exclaimed. “Judging from your looks, I could have sworn that you were a musician. Very strange. But you can yodel. Then you must yodel for me. Please, just once. I love the sound of it.”

I was dismayed at the thought and explained that it was impossible for me to yodel to order. It was only possible on a mountain top, at least out in the open air, and it would have to come spontaneously.

“Well then, yodel on a mountain. Is tomorrow all right with you? We could go for a walk somewhere, toward evening. Just walk about, talk a little, climb some mountain, and then you can yodel to your heart's delight. Afterwards we can go eat at some village inn. You have the time, don't you?”

Oh, yes, I had all the time in the world and I quickly consented. Then I asked him to play something for me and we went downstairs into his large, well-furnished apartment. A few paintings in modern frames, a piano, a certain decorative disorder, and the smell of expensive cigarettes produced an atmosphere of comfortable and relaxing elegance that was quite new to me. Richard sat down at the piano and played a few bars.

“You know what that is, don't you?” he said, nodding in my direction. He looked quite extraordinary, turning his head away from the keyboard, his eyes glowing.

“No,” I said, “I don't know anything about music.”

“It's Wagner,” he called back. “It's from
Die Meistersinger.
” And he continued playing. The music sounded light and vigorous, longing and exuberant, and I felt as though immersed in a warm, effervescent bath. Looking with secret joy at his neck, at the backs of his pale musician's hands, I was overcome by the same feeling of tenderness and respect with which I had once looked at the dark-haired student from my schooldays, as well as by the shy premonition that this handsome, distinguished person might really become my friend and make my old but unforgotten wish for such a friendship come true.

Next day I went to get him. Slowly, and talking all the way, we climbed to the top of a medium-sized hill and gained a view of the city, the lake, and the gardens and savored the rich beauty of early evening.

“And now you can yodel,” said Richard. “If you're still embarrassed, turn your back to me. But loud, if you please.”

He should have been well satisfied. I yodeled madly, exultantly, with every possible break and variation, into the shimmering evening. When I stopped, he started to say something, then just cocked his ear in the direction of the mountains. From a distant peak there came a reply, soft and long-drawn-out and swelling gradually, a herdsman's or a hiker's answer, and we listened quietly and happily to it. As we stood there listening, I became aware for the first time in my life of the delight of standing alongside a friend, gazing together into the remote and hazy vistas of life. In the evening light, the lake came alive with a soft play of colors. Shortly before sunset I noticed a few stubborn, impudently jagged peaks jutting through the dissolving mist.

“That's where my home is,” I said. “The peak in the middle is the Rote Fluh; on its right is the Geisshorn; and farther off to the left is the Sennalpstock, which is rounded on top. I was ten years and three weeks old the first time I stood on its top.”

I strained my eyes to make out one of the peaks farther south. After a while Richard said something that I did not hear clearly.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said I now know your gift.”

“What's that?”

“You're a poet.”

At this point I blushed and became angry. I was amazed that he had guessed.

“No,” I exclaimed. “I'm not a poet. I did in fact write a few verses when I was in school, but I haven't written anything for a long time.”

“Would you show them to me?”

“I've burned them. But even if I hadn't, I wouldn't show them to you.”

“They must have been very modern, with a lot of Nietzsche in them, I imagine.”

“Who's he?”

“Nietzsche? My God, here's a fellow who doesn't know Nietzsche!”

“No. How could I?”

He was delighted that I did not know Nietzsche, and I became furious and asked him how many glaciers he had scaled. When he said he hadn't scaled any, I teased him as much as he had teased me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said in a very serious tone of voice: “You are touchy. But you've no idea how enviably unspoiled you are, and how few people like you there are on this earth. Look, in a year or so you'll know all about Nietzsche and more and you'll know it much better than I ever will, because you're more thorough and brighter than I. But I like you the way you are now. You don't know Nietzsche and Wagner but you've climbed mountains and you have such a sturdy mountain face. And there's absolutely no doubt that you're a poet. I can see it from your glance and your forehead.”

I was amazed that he should look at me so directly and express his views with such frankness and lack of embarrassment. It struck me as most unusual. I was even more astonished and delighted when a week later, in a very crowded beer-garden, he swore eternal friendship, jumped up and embraced me and kissed me in front of all the customers, and then danced me around the table as though he were mad.

“What will people think?” I tried to admonish him.

“They'll think: those two are extraordinarily happy or more than extraordinarily drunk. But most of them won't give it any thought at all.”

Though he was older, cleverer, better brought up, and better versed in everything than I, he seemed often a mere child in comparison. On the street, for instance, he would suddenly flirt half-mockingly with teenage girls or he would interrupt the most serious piece of music with a childish joke. On one occasion when we had gone to church he suddenly whispered to me in the middle of the sermon: “Don't you find that the priest looks like a wizened rabbit?” The comparison was perfect but I felt he could just as well have pointed it out after church and I later told him so.

“But it was true, wasn't it?” he grumbled. “I probably would not have remembered it afterward.”

It did not bother me or others when his jokes fell flat or were little more than quotes from a book. What we liked about him was not his wit and intelligence, but his free and lighthearted air and the irrepressible gaiety of his transparently childish nature, which could break forth at any moment.