Free The Walk by Robert Walser Page B

gentlemen, who seem to be bidding each other good morning by means of an elegant, courteous doffing and waving of hats. The hats at this occasion are evidently more important than their wearers and owners. Nevertheless, the writer is very humbly asked to be wary of such definitely superfluous mockery and fooling. He is called upon to behave with sobriety, and it is hoped that he understands this, once and for all.
    As now an extremely splendid, abundant book shop came pleasantly under my eye, and I felt the impulse and desire to bestow upon it a short and fleeting visit, I did not hesitate to step in, with an obvious good grace, while I permitted myself of course to consider that in me appeared far rather an inspector, or bookkeeper, a collector of information, and a sensitive connoisseur, than a favourite and welcome, wealthy book buyer and good client. In courteous, thoroughly circumspect tones, and choosing understandably only the finest turns of speech, I inquired after the latest and best in the field of belles-lettres. “May I,” I asked with diffidence, “take a moment to acquaint myself with, and taste the qualities of, the most sterling and serious, and at the same time of course also the most read and most quickly acknowledged and purchased, reading matter? You would pledge me in high degree to unusual gratitude were you to be so extremely kind as to lay generously before methat book which, as certainly nobody can know so precisely as only you yourself, has found the highest place in the estimation of the reading public, as well as that of the dreaded and thence doubtless flatteringly circumvented critics, and which furthermore has made them merry. You cannot conceive how keen I am to learn at once which of all these books or works of the pen piled high and put on show here is the favourite book in question, the sight of which in all probability, as I must most energetically suppose, will make me at once a joyous and enthusiastic purchaser. My longing to see the favourite author of the cultivated world and his admired, thunderously applauded masterpiece, and, as I said, probably also at once to buy the same, aches and ripples through my every limb. May I most politely ask you to show me this most successful book, so that this desire, which has seized my entire being, may acknowledge itself gratified, and cease to trouble me?” “Certainly,” said the bookseller. He vanished out of eyeshot like an arrow, to return the next instant to his anxious and interested client, bearing indeed the most bought and read book of real enduring value in his hand. This delicious fruit of the spirit he carried carefully and solemnly, as if carrying a relic charged with sanctifying magic. His face was enraptured; his manner radiated the deepest awe; and with that smile on his lips which only believers and those who are inspirited to the deepest core can smile, he laid before me in the most winning way that which he had brought.
    I considered the book, and asked: “Could you swear that this is the most widely distributed book of the year?”
    â€œWithout a doubt!”
    â€œCould you insist that this is the book which one has to have read?”
    â€œUnconditionally.”
    â€œIs this book also definitely good?”
    â€œWhat an utterly superfluous and inadmissible question.”
    â€œThank you very much,” said I cold-bloodedly, left the book, which had been most absolutely widely distributed because it had unconditionally to have been read, as I chose, where it was, and softly withdrew, without wasting another word. “Uncultivated and ignorant man!” shouted the bookseller after me, for he was most justifiably and deeply vexed. But I let him have his say, and walked at my ease on my way, which, to be accurate, as I shall at once discuss and expound more closely, led into the next stately banking establishment.
    The very place I wished to inquire at and receive reliable