Robert Walser

Frau Wilke

One day, when I was looking for a suitable room, I entered a curious
house just outside the city and close to the city tramway, an elegant,
oldish, and seemingly rather neglected house, whose exterior had a
singularity which at once captivated me.
On the staircase, which I slowly mounted, and which was wide and
bright, were smells and sounds as of bygone elegance.
What they call former beauty is extraordinarily attractive to some
people. Ruins are rather touching. Before the residues of noble things
our pensive, sensitive inward selves involuntarily bow. The remnants of
what was once distinguished, refned, and brilliant infuse us with
compassion, but simultaneously also with respect. Bygone days and old
decrepitude, how enchanting you are!
On the door I read the name Frau Wilke.
Here I gently and cautiously rang the bell. But when I realized that it
was no use ringing, since nobody answered, I knocked, and then
somebody approached.
Very guardedly and very slowly somebody opened the door. A gaunt,
thin, tall woman stood before me, and asked in a low voice: What is it
you want?
Her voice had a curiously dry and hoarse sound.
May I see the room?
Yes, of course. Please come in.
The woman led me down a strangely dark corridor to the room, whose
appearance immediately charmed and delighted me. Its shape was, as it
were, refned and noble, a little narrow perhaps, yet proportionately tall.
Not without a sort of irresolution, I asked the price, which was
extremely moderate, so I took the room without more ado.
It made me glad to have done this, for a strange state of mind had
much aficted me for some time past, so I was unusually tired and
longed to rest. Weary of all groping endeavor, depressed and out of sorts
as I was, any acceptable security would have satisfed me, and the
peace of a small resting place could not have been other than wholly
welcome.
What are you? the lady asked.
A poet! I replied.
She went away without a word.
An earl, I think, might live here, I said to myself as I carefully
examined my new home. This charming room, I said, proceeding with
my soliloquy, unquestionably possesses a great advantage: it is very
remote. Its quiet as a cavern here. Defnitely: here I really feel I am
concealed. My inmost want seems to have been gratifed. The room, as I
see it, or think I see it, is, so to speak, half dark. Dark brightness and
bright darkness are foating everywhere. That is most commendable.
Lets look around! Please dont put yourself out, sir! Theres no hurry at
all. Take just as much time as you like. The wallpaper seems, in parts,
to be hanging in sad, mournful shreds from the wall. So it is! But that
is precisely what pleases me, for I do like a certain degree of raggedness
and neglect. The shreds can go on hanging; Ill not let them be removed
at any price, for I am completely satisfed with them being there. I am
much inclined to believe that a baron once lived here. Ofcers perhaps
drank champagne here. The curtain by the window is tall and slender, it
looks old and dusty; but being so prettily draped, it betokens good taste
and reveals a delicate sensibility. Outside in the garden, close to the
window, stands a birch tree. Here in summer the green will come
laughing into the room, on the dear gentle branches all sorts of singing
birds will gather, for their delight as well as for mine. This distinguished
old writing table is wonderful, handed surely down from a past age of
subtle feeling. Probably I shall write essays at it, sketches, studies, little
stories, or even long stories, and send these, with urgent requests for
quick and friendly publication, to all sorts of stern and highly reputable
editors of papers and periodicals like, for example, The Peking Daily
News, or Mercure de France, whence, for sure, prosperity and success
must come.
The bed seems to be all right. In this case I will and must dispense with
painstaking scrutiny. Then I saw, and here remark, a truly strange and
ghostly hatstand, and the mirror there over the basin will tell me
faithfully every day how I look. I hope the image it will give me to see
will always be a fattering one. The couch is old, consequently pleasant
and appropriate. New furniture easily disturbs one, because novelty is
always importunate, always obstructs us. A Dutch and a Swiss
landscape hang, as I observe to my glad satisfaction, modestly on the
wall. Without a doubt, I shall look time and again at these two pictures
most attentively. Regarding the air in this chamber, I would nevertheless
deem it credible, or rather postulate at once with certitude almost, that
for some time here no thought has been given to regular and, it seems,
wholly requisite ventilation. I do declare that there is a smell of decay
about the place. To inhale stale air provides a certain peculiar pleasure.
In any case, I can leave the window open for days and weeks on end;
then the right and good will stream into the room.
You must get up earlier. I cannot allow you to stay in bed so long,
Frau Wilke said to me. Beyond this, she did not say much.
This was because I spent entire days lying in bed.
I was in a bad way. Decrepitude surrounded me. I lay there as if in
heaviness of heart; I neither knew nor could fnd myself anymore. All
my once lucid and gay thoughts foated in obscure confusion and
disarray. My mind lay as if broken in fragments before my grieving eyes.
The world of thought and of feeling was jumbled and chaotic.
Everything dead, empty, and hopeless to the heart. No soul, no joy
anymore, and only faintly could I remember that there were times when
I was happy and brave, kind and confdent, full of faith and joy. The pity
of it all! Before and behind me, and all around me, not the slightest
prospect anymore.
Yet I promised Frau Wilke to get up earlier, and in fact I did then also
begin to work hard.
Often I walked in the neighboring forest of fr and pine, whose
beauties, wonderful winter solitudes, seemed to protect me from the
onset of despair. Inefably kind voices spoke down to me from the trees:
You must not come to the dark conclusion that everything in the world
is hard, false, and wicked. But come often to us; the forest likes you. In
its company you will fnd health and good spirits again, and entertain
more lofty and beautiful thoughts.
Into society, that is, where the big world forgathers, I never went. I had
no business there, because I had no success. People who have no
success with people have no business with people.
Poor Frau Wilke, soon afterwards you died.
Whoever has been poor and lonely himself understands other poor and
lonely people all the better. At least we should learn to understand our
fellow beings, for we are powerless to stop their misery, their ignominy,
their sufering, their weakness, and their death.
One day Frau Wilke whispered, as she stretched out her hand and arm
to me: Hold my hand. Its like ice.
I took her poor, old, thin hand in mine. It was cold as ice.
Frau Wilke crept about her home now like a ghost. Nobody visited her.
For days she sat alone in her unheated room.
To be alone: icy, iron terror, foretaste of the grave, forerunner of
unpitying death. Oh, whoever has been himself alone can never fnd
anothers loneliness strange.
I began to realize that Frau Wilke had nothing to eat. The lady who
owned the house, and later took Frau Wilkes rooms, allowing me to stay
in mine, brought, of course in pity for her forsaken state, every midday
and evening a cup of broth, but not for long, and so Frau Wilke faded
away. She lay there, no longer moving: and soon she was taken to the
city hospital, where, after three days, she died.
One afternoon soon after her death, I entered her empty room, into
which the good evening sun was shining, gladdening it with rose-bright,
gay and soft colors. There I saw on the bed the things which the poor
lady had till recently worn, her dress, her hat, her sunshade, and her
umbrella, and, on the foor, her small delicate boots. The strange sight
of them made me unspeakably sad, and my peculiar state of mind made
it seem to me almost that I had died myself, and life in all its fullness,
which had often appeared
so huge and beautiful, was thin and poor to the point of breaking. All
things past, all things vanishing away, were more close to me than ever.
For a long time I looked at Frau Wilkes possessions, which now had lost
their mistress and lost all purpose, and at the golden room, glorifed by
the smile of the evening sun, while I stood there motionless, not
understanding anything anymore.
Yet, after standing there dumbly for a time, I was gratifed and grew
calm. Life took me by the shoulder and its wonderful gaze rested on
mine. The world was as living as ever and beautiful as at the most
beautiful times. I quietly left the room and went out into the street.
1915