confound it, where is all this good, wholesome, veritable life supposed to come from? From life, no? But then is life really so inexhaustible? In my view it is inexhaustible only insofar as we let it keep on following its natural courseâtranquil, fluid, and broadâlike an untamed, beautiful river. But it may soon appear incontrovertible that we erudite numskulls are merely exploiting and pummeling life, no longer its natural children. Itâs as if life were a large, dusty carpet that now, in this age of ours, is to be hung out and given a good whacking. Even dentists whoâve gone to see Lulu have begun to study the features and muscles of life as though it were necessary to cut open an old cadaver and hurl pieces of it onto the stage.
Hereâs the thing: the more vivid and natural things look at the theater, the more anxious, guarded, vexed, and upholstered things will appear in everyday life. When the stage bangs out its truths, it exerts an intimidating influence; when, however, it spins out golden, idealized falsehoods in an oversize, unnaturally beautiful formâas it used to do at least a little in former erasâthe effect of this is provocative and heartening, it fosters the beautiful, crass vulgarities of life. Then we can say weâve been to the theater and luxuriated in a foreign, noble, beautiful, gentle world. Watch out with those unbridled nature plays of yours, lest life trickle away unawares. Iâm all for a theater of lies, Lord help me.
1907
Do You Know Meier?
Meier spelled with an âeiâ? No? Well, in that case I should like to permit myself to humbly draw your attention to this man. He is currently appearing at Café Bümplitz, which is situated on some street I can no longer recall. There, amid bad and unseemly tobacco fumes, rude remarks, and the clatter of tankard lids, he performs night after night and will go on doing so until one day perhaps some clever theater management will scoop him up, which I donât doubt for a moment will shortly occur. This man, this Meier, this fellow is a genius. Itâs not just that he can make you laugh harder than twenty men can laugh in all their added-together lives, make you laugh till you split your sides or, what am I saying, till you roll in the aisles, or wait a bit, till you die laughing, oh what a simpleton I am if I cannot pound a better comparison from the quarry of my authorial cranium, itâs not just that but also that, how confusing this is, yes, quite right, but also that even the quite natural inducement of a tragic frisson is by no means beyond his reach, in fact he finds it all too easy. So have I actually finished my sentence now or not? If not, what a lovely pretext for going on.
Meier also performs music-hall ditties with a fabulous donât-mind-if-I-do-ishness, speaking a language that is surely the most unimpeachable there is, for he lets it drop, nugget by nugget as it were, such that a person listening to him might take a notion to kneel at the manâs feet to gather up the morsels. The tone of this voiceâIâve studied it in considerable depthâreproduces in sound the approximate impression made on the eye by the progress of a snail, so resplendently languorous, so lazy, so brown, so very reptant, so slimy, so gluey, and so terribly if-not-today-why-not-tomorrow. A pleasure pure and simple. I can recommend it in good conscience.
This Meier, one should know if one does not know it already, plays a theater usher, the role he most shines in, a figure with horrifying trousers, a tall hat, a stuck-on nose, a box beneath his arm, holes at his elbows, cigar in mouth, and not just a lip on him but a proper maw, and a bundle of bad jokes on his dunderhead tongue. This figure is beyond delightful. I for my part have seen him, just a sec, I think a good fifty times now and still have not tired of the act. Of course not! One never tires of gazing upon excellence.
A small stage,
Hereâs the thing: the more vivid and natural things look at the theater, the more anxious, guarded, vexed, and upholstered things will appear in everyday life. When the stage bangs out its truths, it exerts an intimidating influence; when, however, it spins out golden, idealized falsehoods in an oversize, unnaturally beautiful formâas it used to do at least a little in former erasâthe effect of this is provocative and heartening, it fosters the beautiful, crass vulgarities of life. Then we can say weâve been to the theater and luxuriated in a foreign, noble, beautiful, gentle world. Watch out with those unbridled nature plays of yours, lest life trickle away unawares. Iâm all for a theater of lies, Lord help me.
1907
Do You Know Meier?
Meier spelled with an âeiâ? No? Well, in that case I should like to permit myself to humbly draw your attention to this man. He is currently appearing at Café Bümplitz, which is situated on some street I can no longer recall. There, amid bad and unseemly tobacco fumes, rude remarks, and the clatter of tankard lids, he performs night after night and will go on doing so until one day perhaps some clever theater management will scoop him up, which I donât doubt for a moment will shortly occur. This man, this Meier, this fellow is a genius. Itâs not just that he can make you laugh harder than twenty men can laugh in all their added-together lives, make you laugh till you split your sides or, what am I saying, till you roll in the aisles, or wait a bit, till you die laughing, oh what a simpleton I am if I cannot pound a better comparison from the quarry of my authorial cranium, itâs not just that but also that, how confusing this is, yes, quite right, but also that even the quite natural inducement of a tragic frisson is by no means beyond his reach, in fact he finds it all too easy. So have I actually finished my sentence now or not? If not, what a lovely pretext for going on.
Meier also performs music-hall ditties with a fabulous donât-mind-if-I-do-ishness, speaking a language that is surely the most unimpeachable there is, for he lets it drop, nugget by nugget as it were, such that a person listening to him might take a notion to kneel at the manâs feet to gather up the morsels. The tone of this voiceâIâve studied it in considerable depthâreproduces in sound the approximate impression made on the eye by the progress of a snail, so resplendently languorous, so lazy, so brown, so very reptant, so slimy, so gluey, and so terribly if-not-today-why-not-tomorrow. A pleasure pure and simple. I can recommend it in good conscience.
This Meier, one should know if one does not know it already, plays a theater usher, the role he most shines in, a figure with horrifying trousers, a tall hat, a stuck-on nose, a box beneath his arm, holes at his elbows, cigar in mouth, and not just a lip on him but a proper maw, and a bundle of bad jokes on his dunderhead tongue. This figure is beyond delightful. I for my part have seen him, just a sec, I think a good fifty times now and still have not tired of the act. Of course not! One never tires of gazing upon excellence.
A small stage,
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