Read Online The Other Side by Alfred Kubin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alfred Kubin
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five in the afternoon I met with friends in the coffee house. From the window we could see everything that was going on outside. Not that there was very much, in Pearl people preferred to stay at home, it was striking how deserted the centre was. But despite the sparseness of the street life, what there was to see took on the aura, through its very familiarity, of a well-loved routine. Gradually I became more and more a part of it. I found things I could hold on to, things that gave me a firm foothold in all the confusion.
The buildings played an important role in this. I often felt as if the people were there for them, and not the other way round. It was the buildings that were the strong, the real individuals. There they stood, mute and yet eloquent. Each one had its own story to tell, you just had to be patient and wring it out of the old edifices bit by bit. These houses all had different moods. Some hated each other and spent their days in mutual vilification. There were crabby crosspatches among them, like the dairy next door, while others seemed saucy and had a loose tongue. My café was a good example of that. The house where we lived was a bitter old aunt: the windows squinted with malice, ready to pick up any scrap of gossip. Max Blumenstich’s store was bad, very bad, the smithy next to the dairy rough and jovial, the river warden’s shack built onto it carefree and easygoing. My particular favourite, however, was the corner house on the river, the mill. It had a jolly face, whitewashed with a mossy slate roof as its cap. High up on the street side it had a massive beam sticking out of the wall, like a good cigar. I have to say, though, that it did have a sly, crafty twinkle round its skylights. It belonged to two brothers. Or did they belong to it, like a mother with her two sons?
There is much that I could tell, if only I could feel sure my readers would see these complex conditions in the way I would like. After a while I came to feel that the houses in a street had something of a family about them. They would quarrel among themselves but close ranks against the outside world. In the deserted streets of Pearl ideas blossomed in my mind in a way they never would have done in the noisy cities of the world outside. My integration into the local culture became much more intimate with the miraculous sharpening of my sense of smell. It happened after a mere six months. From then on it was my nose that determined sympathy and aversion. For hours on end I would prowl round all the old corners, sniffing and smelling at everything and anything. A new, unlimited field of study opened up. Every one of these used objects revealed a tiny secret to me. My wife would often smile. She found it funny to see me giving a knowing sniff at something, a book or a musical box, for example. I was almost like a dog. I couldn’t really explain it very precisely; it was a matter of sensations so subtle words were inadequate to express them.
In the first place there was a quite particular, though indefinable odour running through the whole of the Dream Realm, clinging to everything. Sometimes it was quite strong, sometimes you scarcely noticed it. In high concentration this bizarre smell could be described as something like a mixture of flour and dried cod. I never found out where it came from. Much more specific, however, were the smells of individual things. I subjected them to close analysis, often being seized, as I did so, with a strong revulsion. I was quick to take offence at people who, to my mind, smelt wrong. Yet despite their heterogeneity, having been brought together at the behest of an eccentric whim, all these living beings and apparently inanimate objects still managed to exude an indefinable aura of belonging together.
VI
Everything you came across in the Dream Realm was drab and dull. How far this went I noticed one day whilst being shaved. Giovanni was performing the task with his usual elegance, the only
The buildings played an important role in this. I often felt as if the people were there for them, and not the other way round. It was the buildings that were the strong, the real individuals. There they stood, mute and yet eloquent. Each one had its own story to tell, you just had to be patient and wring it out of the old edifices bit by bit. These houses all had different moods. Some hated each other and spent their days in mutual vilification. There were crabby crosspatches among them, like the dairy next door, while others seemed saucy and had a loose tongue. My café was a good example of that. The house where we lived was a bitter old aunt: the windows squinted with malice, ready to pick up any scrap of gossip. Max Blumenstich’s store was bad, very bad, the smithy next to the dairy rough and jovial, the river warden’s shack built onto it carefree and easygoing. My particular favourite, however, was the corner house on the river, the mill. It had a jolly face, whitewashed with a mossy slate roof as its cap. High up on the street side it had a massive beam sticking out of the wall, like a good cigar. I have to say, though, that it did have a sly, crafty twinkle round its skylights. It belonged to two brothers. Or did they belong to it, like a mother with her two sons?
There is much that I could tell, if only I could feel sure my readers would see these complex conditions in the way I would like. After a while I came to feel that the houses in a street had something of a family about them. They would quarrel among themselves but close ranks against the outside world. In the deserted streets of Pearl ideas blossomed in my mind in a way they never would have done in the noisy cities of the world outside. My integration into the local culture became much more intimate with the miraculous sharpening of my sense of smell. It happened after a mere six months. From then on it was my nose that determined sympathy and aversion. For hours on end I would prowl round all the old corners, sniffing and smelling at everything and anything. A new, unlimited field of study opened up. Every one of these used objects revealed a tiny secret to me. My wife would often smile. She found it funny to see me giving a knowing sniff at something, a book or a musical box, for example. I was almost like a dog. I couldn’t really explain it very precisely; it was a matter of sensations so subtle words were inadequate to express them.
In the first place there was a quite particular, though indefinable odour running through the whole of the Dream Realm, clinging to everything. Sometimes it was quite strong, sometimes you scarcely noticed it. In high concentration this bizarre smell could be described as something like a mixture of flour and dried cod. I never found out where it came from. Much more specific, however, were the smells of individual things. I subjected them to close analysis, often being seized, as I did so, with a strong revulsion. I was quick to take offence at people who, to my mind, smelt wrong. Yet despite their heterogeneity, having been brought together at the behest of an eccentric whim, all these living beings and apparently inanimate objects still managed to exude an indefinable aura of belonging together.
VI
Everything you came across in the Dream Realm was drab and dull. How far this went I noticed one day whilst being shaved. Giovanni was performing the task with his usual elegance, the only
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