Robert Walser: Meta

I only dimly remember the short but moving scene: one night as I wandered home in a wild drunken tumble I came across a woman in one of the monotonous streets of the great city who invited me back to her place with her. She was not beautiful, though she was beautiful in a way. Being in the state I was in, I tried out on the midnightly being all kinds of ridiculous and drole figures of speech, highly amusing above all to myself, and as I did so, true to the gifts of drunken inspiration, I noticed that I appeared to be having quite a comic effect on her. In fact it was more than that: I was actually attractive to her and, as we walked a little further, I formed the impression that, gentle-hearted as she was, she was abandoning herself to a certain weakness vis-à-vis her new companion. I wanted to go my own way, but she wouldn’t let me be. “Please don’t leave me," said she. "Come with me, dear friend. Are you going to be cold-blooded about this? Do you feel nothing for me at all? Don’t be this way! You’ve had a lot to drink, young man. Still, anyone could see that you’re sweet. Are you going to be horrid and turn me away and humiliate me now that I’ve grown fond of you? Please don't! If only you knew . . . But women like us aren’t meant to come at men with feelings like this, are we – otherwise all you do is sneer at us. If only you knew how I suffer from all this coldness, from the emptiness of all these pleasures that are my fear-inspiring, tragic trade. Till today I thought of myself as a monster, worth nothing but a good kick. Now I feel something mild, something sweet, something godly – you have awakened this in me, dear young man, and now you – you want to throw me back into the monstrous abyss? Please don't! Stay with me, stay, come with me. Let’s laugh away the whole night together. I know I’ll be able to show you some fun, you’ll see. If you’re kind-hearted, then weren’t you created to have some fun? After a long time – the longest time – I – I’m happy again too. Do you know what that means for one like me, who's been so degraded? Do you? Are you smiling? You have a lovely smile – I love that little smile of yours. And now you want to behave like a loveless lump, turn your back on our noble friendship, tread underfoot the happiness I feel looking at you? Are you going to destroy what makes me happy, what makes me happy again after a long – the longest – time? Dear, dear friend! After all the creepy nonsense I had to go through – the leaden horrors – aren't I allowed to give myself up to something that's a true pleasure for once? Please, please, don’t be cruel. I’m telling you – you won’t regret it. You'll bless the hours you spend with the vilified one, the dishonoured one – you’ll give thanks for them in your innermost being. Be kind and come with me. Don’t be kind on my behalf ever again, but be kind now, now only, join with the abused one and trust her. Look how the tears well up into my eyes! Can't you hear how I’m pleading! If you go off into the night without a friendly word, all around me will be darkness. But if you’re kind to me, the sun will shine brightly into the depths of night. Be the friendly star in my heaven tonight, be as auspicious as you seem to be. You’re a little touched? You’re giving me your hand? You’ll come with me? You love me?” – –

Post-script: Could this not be Circe – she who beseeched the knightly sea-faring Odysseus to stay with her? He wants to get home – she pleads with him not to leave her. She is an evil sorceress – one who turns all men who look at her into grunting swine. To be sure, she disputes that; according to her, she’s not a sorceress, but has herself come under an evil spell. Nor would that be impossible. Into the bargain, she is beautiful in the most moving way. She has a soft voice and a lisp – her eyes are indeterminately sea-green or sea-blue, as the eyes of cats from faraway places sometimes are, and from those eyes a wonderful, dear, proud radiance breaks forth. She isn't unhappy and yet she isn't happy either. In Odysseus she seeks and finds her happiness – and then he wants to leave her and return to his ever-patient Penelope. Tragedy of tender hearts!

Among other things she says to him that his companions have turned into swine all by themselves. The blame and shame of the whole episode is on their heads, not hers. Because they behaved like swine, they’ve become swine. She smiles and a tear insinuates itself into that smile. She has her ironic ways and is at the same time quite in earnest, she’s risqué and melancholy all at once. “Don’t you see,” she says, taking his hand in hers, “that I’m not the sorceress anymore, but that you are the sorcerer? Be my friend, my protector, my dear magnificent sorcerer! Protect me from Circe. I’m not Circe, if you’re here with me. She keeps her distance when you stay near.” That’s what she says, heaping affection on him. And yet he – he in the end – – sets sails. He leaves her to Circe, he leaves her to herself, he leaves her to that indwelling cruelty of hers, he leaves her to the shame whose slave she is. Can he set sail? Is he so hard-hearted?