Jakob von Gunten (New York Review Books Classics) by Robert Walser

Author:Robert Walser [Walser, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781590178188
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2014-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Dear Kraus! My thoughts keep returning to him. In him one can see what the word “culture” really means. Later in life, wherever he goes, Kraus will be regarded as a useful but uncultivated person, but for me he is thoroughly cultivated, and mainly because he is the embodiment of good, steadfast wholeness. One can even call him a culture in human form. Around Kraus there are no flutterings of winged and whispered knowledge, but something in him is at rest, and he himself, he rests and reposes on something. One can safely entrust one’s very soul to his keeping. He will never deceive or slander anybody, and, well, this above all, this non-talkativeness, that’s what I call culture. Anyone who chatters is a deceiver, he may be a very nice person, but this talking about everything that enters his head makes him a common fellow and a bad one. Kraus is guarded, he always keeps something back, he thinks that it is unnecessary just to talk, and this has the same effect as goodness and a lively leniency. That’s what I call culture. Kraus is unkind and often fairly rough to people of his own age and sex, and precisely this is why I like him, for it proves to me that he would be incapable of brutal and thoughtless betrayal. He is loyal and decent to everybody. For that’s the trouble: out of common kindness one usually just goes along and desecrates in the most terrible way the reputations and lives of neighbors, friends, even brothers. Kraus doesn’t know much, but he is never, never thoughtless, he always subjects himself to certain commands of his own making, and that’s what I call culture. Whatever is kind and thoughtful about a person is culture. And there’s so much else besides. To be so far removed from any and every self-seeking, even in a small way, and to be so close to self-discipline as Kraus, that is what I think made Fräulein Benjamenta say: “Isn’t it so, Jakob, Kraus is good?” Yes, he’s good. When I lose this friend, I lose a kingdom of heaven, I know it. And I’m almost afraid to quarrel freely with Kraus. I only want to contemplate him, always to contemplate him, for later I shall have to content myself with his image, because rampageous life is certain to separate the two of us.

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