Free The Walk by Robert Walser Page A

phantoms, and ran down the stairs to hurry out into the street. I might add that on the stairs I encountered a woman who looked like a Spaniard, a Peruvian, or a Creole. She presented to the eye a certain pallid, faded majesty. But I must strictly forbid myself a delay of even two seconds with this Brazilian lady, or whatever she might be; for I may waste neither space nor time. As far as I can remember as I write this down, I found myself, as I walked into the open, bright, and cheerful street, in a romantically adventurous state of mind, which pleased me profoundly. The morning world spread out before my eyes appeared as beautiful to me as if I saw it for the first time. Everything I saw made upon me a delightful impression of friendliness, of goodliness, and of youth. I quickly forgot that up in my room I had only just a moment before been brooding gloomily over a blank sheet of paper. All sorrow, all pain, and all grave thoughts were as vanished, although I vividly sensed a certain seriousness, a tone, still before me and behind me. I was tense with eager expectation of whatever might encounter me or cross my way on my walk. My steps were measured and calm, and, as far as I know, I presented, as I went on my way, a fairly dignified appearance. My feelings I like to conceal from the eyes of my fellow men,of course without any fearful strain to do so – such strain I would consider a great error, and a mighty stupidity. I had not yet gone twenty or thirty steps over a broad and crowded square, when Professor Meili, a foremost authority, brushed by me. Incontrovertible power in person, serious, ceremonial, and majestical, Professor Meili trod his way; in his hand he held an unbendable scientific walking stick, which infused me with dread, reverence, and esteem. Professor Meili’s nose was a stem, imperative, sharp eagle- or hawk-nose, and his mouth was juridically clamped tight and squeezed shut. The famous scholar’s gait was like an iron law; world history and the afterglow of long-gone heroic deeds flashed out of Professor Meili’s adamant eyes, secreted behind his bushy brows. His hat was like an irremovable ruler. Secret rulers are the most proud and most implacable. Yet, on the whole, Professor Meili carried himself with a tenderness, as if he needed in no way whatsoever to make apparent what quantities of power and gravity he personified, and his figure appeared to me, in spite of all its severity and adamance, sympathetic, because I permitted myself the thought that men who do not smile in a sweet and beautiful way are honourable and trustworthy. As is well known, there are rascals who play at being kind and good, but who have a terrible talent for smiling obligingly and politely, over the crimes which they commit.
    I catch a glimpse of a bookseller and of a book shop; likewise soon, as I guess and observe, a bakery with braggart gold lettering comes in for mention and regard. But first I have a priest, or parson, to record. A bicycling town chemist cycles with kind and weighty face close by the walker, namely, myself, similarly, a regimental or staff doctor. An unassuming pedestrian should not remain unconsidered, or unrecorded; for he asks me politely to mention him. This is a bric-à-brac vendor and rag collector who has become rich. Young boys and girls race around in the sunlight, free andunrestrained. “Let them be unrestrained as they are,” I mused. “Age one day will terrify and bridle them. Only too soon, alas!” A dog refreshes itself in the water of a fountain. Swallows, it seems to me, twitter in the blue air. One or two elegant ladies in astonishingly short skirts and astoundingly fine high-coloured bootees make themselves, I hope, certainly as conspicuous as anything else. Two summer or straw hats catch my eye. The thing about the straw hats is this: it is that I suddenly see two hats in the bright, gentle air, and under the hats stand two fairly prosperous-looking