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Authors: Robert Walser
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harsh lighting, upon the stage a table and beside it a chairâthis is to represent the office of a management director. The manager herself, a slender, youthful female, announces that she now has everything she needs to launch a cycle of performances, the only thing still lacking is an usher, this is a problem, but she has already had advertisements placed in the newspapers and is eager to see who will respond.
And who should enter now like a wraith from the underworld? Meier! Why of course, devil take it, what else was to be expected, but look, the wonderful part is that you nonetheless find yourself utterly astounded by the novelty with which this Meier spelled with an âeiâ is capable of trouser-legging his way up the stairs, in a manner that leaves you no choice but to think he must have done something it would be improper to say aloud in good company.
He reports to the horrified lady, who surely has read Oscar Wilde, with a circumlocutoriness that would be unsuitable on any other lips, he asks and does the most foolish things, then asks yet other things, is about to take his leave, then enters once more, leaves again, but only in order to appear all over again, always with greater impudence, always more indecorous in his demeanor, speech, manner, gestures, tone, and bearing. And all the while he displays the most astonishing talent for uttering some well-timed bit of filth, and uttering it how? How is something you have to have heard with your own ears. Evening after evening, a good twenty or thirty patrons, on Saturdays and Sundays eighty, one hundred, or one hundred and fifteen, or even one more than that come to hear him.
Iâve already pointed out that Meier can also make a tragic impression. In order to achieve this, he quite simply changes his voice and throws his hands in the air, a strategy that until now has always worked. Then he becomes a madman, a King Leerânot Lear but Leer, because during this production he looks at the audience in such a way that all present do exactly what is described in the line: And in haste betook them home. I alone am in the habit of remaining. And then I experience what it means to feel terror when suddenly the voice of a human being becomes a towering edifice, as is the case with Meierâs, an edifice at whose open windows and doors some unknown monstrosity is bellowing. How I shake with fear on each and every occasion, and how glad I am when this Meier with all his terrifying âohoâs and âhaâs and âheyâs once more becomes simply a Meier with an âei.â
1907
Four Amusements
1.
On the top floor at Wertheimâs, where people have coffee, something delectable is currently on view: the dramatic poet Seltmann. Perched atop a small cane stool upon an elevated pedestal, an easy target for passing glances, he ceaselessly hammers, nails, pounds, and cobbles togetherâas it appears to all observing himâlines of blank verse. The small, rectangular pedestal is tastefully wreathed with dark-green fir twigs. The poet is clad respectably: tailcoat, patent-leather shoes, and white cravat are all represented, and no one need feel embarrassed to give this man his full attention. Whatâs marvelous, though, is the splendid shock of russet hair arching from Seltmannâs head past his shoulders and plummeting to the floor. It resembles the mane of a lion. Who is this Seltmann? Will he liberate us from the ignominy of seeing our theater in the hands of so many saltpeter factories? Will he write our national drama? Will he someday appear to be the one weâve been pining for so black-puddingishly? In any case we must be grateful to the directors of the Wertheim department store for putting Seltmann on display.
2.
That the theater is gradually losing its best and most sterling capacities can, to our great chagrin, be gathered from a letter that celebrated actress Gertrud Eysoldt has addressed to us. She informs us
And who should enter now like a wraith from the underworld? Meier! Why of course, devil take it, what else was to be expected, but look, the wonderful part is that you nonetheless find yourself utterly astounded by the novelty with which this Meier spelled with an âeiâ is capable of trouser-legging his way up the stairs, in a manner that leaves you no choice but to think he must have done something it would be improper to say aloud in good company.
He reports to the horrified lady, who surely has read Oscar Wilde, with a circumlocutoriness that would be unsuitable on any other lips, he asks and does the most foolish things, then asks yet other things, is about to take his leave, then enters once more, leaves again, but only in order to appear all over again, always with greater impudence, always more indecorous in his demeanor, speech, manner, gestures, tone, and bearing. And all the while he displays the most astonishing talent for uttering some well-timed bit of filth, and uttering it how? How is something you have to have heard with your own ears. Evening after evening, a good twenty or thirty patrons, on Saturdays and Sundays eighty, one hundred, or one hundred and fifteen, or even one more than that come to hear him.
Iâve already pointed out that Meier can also make a tragic impression. In order to achieve this, he quite simply changes his voice and throws his hands in the air, a strategy that until now has always worked. Then he becomes a madman, a King Leerânot Lear but Leer, because during this production he looks at the audience in such a way that all present do exactly what is described in the line: And in haste betook them home. I alone am in the habit of remaining. And then I experience what it means to feel terror when suddenly the voice of a human being becomes a towering edifice, as is the case with Meierâs, an edifice at whose open windows and doors some unknown monstrosity is bellowing. How I shake with fear on each and every occasion, and how glad I am when this Meier with all his terrifying âohoâs and âhaâs and âheyâs once more becomes simply a Meier with an âei.â
1907
Four Amusements
1.
On the top floor at Wertheimâs, where people have coffee, something delectable is currently on view: the dramatic poet Seltmann. Perched atop a small cane stool upon an elevated pedestal, an easy target for passing glances, he ceaselessly hammers, nails, pounds, and cobbles togetherâas it appears to all observing himâlines of blank verse. The small, rectangular pedestal is tastefully wreathed with dark-green fir twigs. The poet is clad respectably: tailcoat, patent-leather shoes, and white cravat are all represented, and no one need feel embarrassed to give this man his full attention. Whatâs marvelous, though, is the splendid shock of russet hair arching from Seltmannâs head past his shoulders and plummeting to the floor. It resembles the mane of a lion. Who is this Seltmann? Will he liberate us from the ignominy of seeing our theater in the hands of so many saltpeter factories? Will he write our national drama? Will he someday appear to be the one weâve been pining for so black-puddingishly? In any case we must be grateful to the directors of the Wertheim department store for putting Seltmann on display.
2.
That the theater is gradually losing its best and most sterling capacities can, to our great chagrin, be gathered from a letter that celebrated actress Gertrud Eysoldt has addressed to us. She informs us
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