Selected Stories (2 page)

[1907]

Flower Days

O
N
Cornflower Day, when everyone struts around in blue, it became evident how much the
writer of the present scientific treatise feels himself to be a good, innocent child
of his times. Indeed, I have participated in each and every nice and nasty cornflower
folly with joy, love, and delight, and I must have behaved, I believe, very funnily.
Several proud and earnest nonparticipants cast severe looks in my direction, but me,
happy me, I was as if intoxicated, and I made a pilgrimage, I must confess, while
blushing, from one distillery to the next, while buying, all along the way from Münzstrasse
to Motzstrasse, patriotic flowers. Clad in blue from head to foot, I seemed to myself
most graceful, but what is more, I felt myself most vividly to be a respectable member
of the upper classes. Oh, this sweet feeling, how it befogged me and how happy it
makes me, the beautiful, yes perhaps even, depending on circumstances, noble thought
that I might fling to left and right, with very graceful gestures, pennies, healthy,
true, honest, honorable, well-behaved, good pennies, thereby accomplishing a goodly
work. Now come what may, let it happen to me, poor devil that I am: I am pleased with
myself, thoroughly so, and a feeling of peace has overcome me, I cannot express it
in carefully chosen or unchosen words. In my hand, or fist, I held a thick, huge,
and evidently imposing bouquet of freshly picked paper flowers, the fragrance of which
captivated me. I discovered, by the way, that such flowers are sold at seven pennies
a dozen. A waiter, as honest as he is stupid, who always says “Very well” when he
takes an order, told me this in a series of mysterious whispers. I am always on an
intimate footing with waiters and suchlike people. That’s just by the way.

As for flower days in general, I would have to be a heartless rascal not to grasp
at once the noble purport on which they rest, and therefore I leap forward as rapidly
as possible and exclaim aloud: Yes, it is true, flower days are heavenly. They are
not comical in the least, but have, to my feeling, a thoroughly noble and earnest
character. Among us blokes or fellow beings, of course, there are still a few isolated
and, it would seem, obstinate people who would scorn to wear, on a flower day, a day
of peace and joy, a pleasure flower in their soul-buttonhole. We might hope that such
people may soon learn better and nobler ways. As for me, as I may fortunately declare,
I am radiant on flower days, with sheer flowery and flowerish satisfaction, and I
am one of the most flower-encrusted persons among all those who are beautified, adorned,
and beflowered. In a word, on such a Day of Plants I am like a swaying, tender plant,
and on the charming Violet Day that soon is coming I shall, this I know for certain,
appear in the world myself as a modest and secluded violet. For some magnanimous purpose
I might even be able to transform myself into a daisy. In future, let anyone, I would
here heartily plead, stick and wedge his buttercup between his lips, whether they
be opened or grimly tight shut. Ears, too, are excellent props for flowers. On Cornflower
Day I had stuck a cornflower behind each of my three ears, and it was most becoming.
Ravishing, too, are roses, and the Rose Days soon to come. Let them descend upon me,
those distinctive days, and I shall embellish my home with roses, and, sure as I’m
a modern man and understand my epoch, I shall stick a rose in my nose. I can warm
to daisy days most animatedly too, since any random fashion, absolutely any, makes
of me a servant, a slave, or subject. Yet I am happy so.

Well, even then, such odd people, who lack character, have also to exist. The main
thing is: I mean to enjoy my morsel of life as well and as long as I can, and if a
person finds it amusing he’ll heartily go along with any kind of nonsense; but now
I turn to the most beautiful subject of all—to women. For them, for them alone, the
gracious flower days were invented, composed, poeticized. If a man wallows in flowers,
it’s a bit unnatural; but in every way it befits a woman to put flowers in her hair
and bring flowers to a man. Such a lady or virgin flower has only to make a sign,
a gesture, and at once I hurl myself at her feet, ask her, my whole body trembling
with joy, how much the flower costs, and I buy it from her. Then all pale in the face
I breathe a glowing kiss upon her roguish little hand, and am prepared to surrender
my life for her. Yes, indeed, in this manner, and others to match, I do behave on
flower days. From time to time, to refresh myself, I plunge, it is true, into a snack
hall and gulp down, there and then, a potted meat sandwich. I adore potted meat, but
I adore flowers too. There are now many things that I adore. All the same, one has
to do one’s duty as a citizen, nobody should make a face, nobody think he has a right
to pass the flower days off with a quiet smile. They are a fact of life; but one should
respect facts. Should one really?

[1911]

Trousers

I
AM
thrilled to be writing a report on such a delicate subject as trousers, and thus
to be licensed to plunge into meditation upon them; even as I write, a desirous grin,
I can feel it, is spreading over my entire face. Women are, and always will be, so
delicious. Well then, as regards fashion in trousers, tending as it does to excite
all hearts and minds, and to quicken every pulse, that fashion must conduct the thought
of any earnestly thinking man above all toward that which it accentuates and importantly
clothes: the leg. The leg of the woman is thereby, to some extent, moved into a more
luminous foreground. Anyone who loves, esteems, and admires women’s legs, as I do,
can consequently, it would seem, only concur with such a fashion, and indeed I do
concur with it, although I am actually very much in favor of skirts also. A skirt
is noble, awe-inspiring, and has a mysterious character. Trousers are incomparably
more indelicate and they suffuse the masculine soul, to some extent, with a shudder.
Again, on the other hand, why should horror not grip us modern people, slightly? It
seems to me that we do very much need to be woken up, to be given a shake.

Yet, if the world went all my way, as is fortunately not yet the case, to my great
gratification (for what then should I do, poor man that I am!), trousers would be
significantly tighter, so that against the soft, rounded flesh of the leg their material
would press very closely, or, to phrase it with more elegance, nestle. For me that
would be fashion’s triumph, and I would die of delight, or at least hit the floor
in a swoon, if ever such a transformation occurred in the domain where ladies’ clothing
is the question. All the same, it seems to me that this is the limit to which we have
come, and, as for us discarded and regrettable lords of creation, we are entitled
to anticipate excitedly what is still to come. I imagine that something is to come.
A change is now on the way, no question; we men have obviously lost the edge, so the
women are taking it over, and indeed, they have already begun, in trousers which still
provisionally, to be sure, resemble skirts, to trample around before our very eyes.
Knickerbockers! There’s something Asiatic about them, something Turkish, something,
I must confess, without charm. Turks’ trousers and Turks’ turbans possess little charm
for me. But still I think we may have in store for us a flowering and perfection of
trousers. Trousers are still not quite trousers enough. The way they now are, they
signify mere silliness. They are essentially too reticent, too embarrassed. O womenfolk,
listen, you must: If you really want to impress us men, be more saucy, brazen, and
complete in your trouserish, trouserly, and trouserful demands! Sweet ladies! Surely
on the streets and in the city squares they will trouser around one day quite differently.

To resume: it is a shame that skirts should now propose to disappear, and that our
cultural feelings should be outraged. What’s this? one asks. Has Paris run out of
midriff ideas? As regards ideas, Paris seems to have become poverty-stricken. It’s
a terrible shame, the demise of that wondrous Paris of the Senses and of the Dreams.
Paris is no more. For that is the whole point. The trouser fashion knows nothing of
the midriff. If ever there was something about a woman that was beautiful and captivating
to the senses, it was the midriff, uniquely; and precisely this most delicious feature
is now absent. To trousers, unconditionally, a midriff must appertain. Something must
go through me like a knife, and what’s more, it must expand upward and downward. There
must be tension in it. At present, women no longer have backs. The wonderful, tumescent,
as it were smoothed, back of woman has vanished. This is deplorable. Form! Women no
longer have a healthy will to form; they no longer desire to display anything, and
the desistence of this desire is the plainest proof that they are in rebellion, that
they despise us lords and masters. Anybody whom I try and strive to please is felt
by me to be my master. It is too obvious. Of such and similar matters consists the
secret of the trouser-skirt: rebellion, dissent, compromise, and insistence on a position
to be held. Oh, deplorable, a pitiful situation. Men, men, what a disgraceful defeat
you have suffered.

Yet—just a whisper in your ear: into that defeat the woman is also dragged, the trouseress,
and this great umbrageous defeat of both sexes means—a lessening of mutual attraction!
The women want to make themselves miserable by compelling men to see them as comrades,
as trouser-buddies. That’s how it is, and it is very sad, the heart informs us. What’s
more, trouser-dom impinges closely upon the problem of the political activation of
women. In trousers the poor dears can stride much more comfortably to the voting booth.
They are deceived, ah, the poor dears, if only they knew how heartrendingly boring
it is to have the vote. They want to assassinate themselves. So be it. For a chivalrous
man there’s nothing left to do but bury his head desperately in his hands and wish
that the blow might fall upon him. This is the quintessence and the consequence of
trousers. Frightful!

[1911]

Two Strange Stories

The Man with the Pumpkin Head

O
NCE
there was a man and on his shoulders he had, instead of a head, a hollow pumpkin.
This was no great help to him. Yet he still wanted to be Number One. That’s the sort
of person he was. For a tongue he had an oak leaf hanging from his mouth, and his
teeth were cut out with a knife. Instead of eyes, he had just two round holes. Back
of the holes, two candle stumps flickered. Those were his eyes. They didn’t help him
see far. And yet he said his eyes were better than anyone’s, the braggart. On his
pumpkin head he wore a tall hat; used to take it off when anyone spoke to him, he
was so polite. Once this man went for a walk. But the wind blew so hard that his eyes
went out. He wanted to light them up again, but he had no matches. He started to cry
with his candle ends, because he couldn’t find his way home. So now he sat there,
held his pumpkin head between his hands, and wanted to die. But dying didn’t come
to him so easily. First there had to come a June bug, which ate the oak leaf from
his mouth; there had to come a bird, which pecked a hole in his pumpkin skull; there
had to come a child, who took away the two candle stumps. Then he could die. The bug
is still eating the leaf, the bird is pecking still, and the child is playing with
the candle stumps.

The Maid

A
RICH
lady had a maid and this maid had to look after her child. The child was as delicate
as a moonbeam, pure as freshly fallen snow, and as lovable as the sun. The maid loved
the child as much as she loved the moon, the sun, almost as much as her own dear God
Himself. But one day the child got lost, nobody knew how, and so the maid went looking
for it, looked for it everywhere in the world, in all the cities and countries, even
Persia. Over there in Persia the maid came one night to a broad dark tower, it stood
by a broad dark river. But high up in the tower a red light was burning, and the faithful
maid asked this light: Can you tell me where my child is? It got lost and for ten
years I have been looking for it. Then go on looking for another ten years, said the
light, and it went out. So the maid looked for the child another ten years, in all
the parts and on all the bypaths of the earth, even in France. In France there is
a great and splendid city, called Paris, and to this city she came. One evening she
stood by the entrance to a beautiful garden, wept, because she could not find the
child, and took out her red handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then suddenly the garden
opened and her child came out. She saw it and died of joy. Why did she die? Did that
do her any good? Yet she was old now and could not endure so much any more. The child
is now a grand and beautiful lady. If you should ever meet her, give her my best regards.

[1913]

Balloon Journey

T
HE
three people, the captain, a gentleman, and a young girl, climb into the basket,
the anchoring cords are loosed, and the strange house flies, slowly, as if it had
first to ponder something, upward. “Bon voyage,” shout the people gathered below,
waving hats and handkerchiefs. It is ten o’clock in the evening. The captain pulls
a map from a case and asks the gentleman if he would like to do the map reading. The
map can be read, comparisons made, everything to be seen can be clearly seen. Everything
has an almost brownish clarity. The beautiful moonlit night seems to gather the splendid
balloon into invisible arms, gently and quietly the roundish flying body ascends,
and now, hardly so that one might notice, subtle winds propel it northward. The map-reading
gentleman tosses, from time to time, as directed by the captain, a handful of ballast
into the depth below. There are five sacks of sand on board, and they must be used
sparingly. How beautiful it is, the round, pale, dark depth below. The moonlight,
tender and evocative, picks the rivers out, silver. One can see houses down there,
so small, like innocuous toys. The forests seem to be chanting somber and ancient
songs, but this chanting strikes one as being more like a noble silent knowledge.
The earth’s image has the features of a huge sleeping man, at least that is what the
youthful girl dreams; she lets her bewitching hand hang indolently over the rim of
the basket. Obeying a whim, the cavalier is wearing a medieval plumed hat, but is
otherwise dressed in a modern way. How quiet the earth is! One can see everything
distinctly, the particular people in the village streets, the church spires; tired
after a long day’s work, the laborers trampling across the farmyard; the ghostly railroad
streaking by, the dazzling long, white turnpike. Human sorrow, familiar or unknown,
seems to send murmurs up from below. The loneliness of remote regions has a special
tone, such that one believes one ought to understand and even see this special thing
that slips away from thought. Wondrously now the three people are dazzled as they
see in the glory of its colors the luminous course of the Elbe. The nocturnal river
draws from the girl a low cry of longing. What might she be thinking of? From a posy
she has brought along with her she pulls a dark rose, in full bloom, and throws it
into the sparkling water. How sadly her eyes shine as she does so! It is as if the
young woman had just now forever shed a painful conflict. It is a very painful thing,
having to part company with what torments you. And how mute the world is! Far off,
the lights of a major town are glittering; the canny captain pronounces its name.
Beautiful, enticing depth! Countless areas of field and forest are now behind them,
it is midnight. Somewhere on the solid ground now a thief prowls, hunting for swag,
there is a burglary, and all these people down there, in their beds, this great sleep
slept by millions. An entire earth is dreaming now, and a people rests from its labors.
The girl smiles. And how warm it is, as if one were sitting in a room, just like home,
with mother, aunt, sister, brother, or with one’s lover, lamplit, and reading from
a beautiful but rather monotonous long story. The girl wants to sleep; looking at
things has made her quite tired now. The two men standing in the basket gaze silently
but resolutely into the night. Remarkably white, polished-looking, plateaus alternate
with gardens and small wildernesses of bush. One peers down into regions where one’s
feet would never, never have trod, because in certain regions, indeed in most, one
has no purpose whatever. How big and unknown to us the earth is, thinks the feather-hatted
gentleman. Yes, your own country does finally become intelligible from up here, looking
down. You feel how unexplored and powerful it is. Two provinces they have now crossed,
and the dawn is coming. Below in the villages human life wakens again. “What’s the
name of this place?” the leader shouts downward. A boy’s clear voice replies. And
still the two men are gazing; now, too, the girl is awake again. Colors appear and
things become more distinct. One sees lakes inside their drawn contours, wondrously
secluded among forests; one glimpses ruins of old bastions towering up through old
foliage; hills rise almost imperceptibly, one sees swans trembling and pale on waters,
and the human voices become pleasantly audible, and onward one flies, onward, and
finally the glorious sun appears, and, attracted by this proud star, the balloon soars
upward into a magical dizzy height. The girl shrieks with fear. The men laugh.