Lenz by Georg Buchner

Author:Georg Buchner [Buchner, Georg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780981955780
Google: REsLOXxshzoC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 16557618
Publisher: Archipelago
Published: 1839-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Mr. L. . .

by Johann Friedrich Oberlin

HE ARRIVED here January 20th 1778. I did not know him. At first glance, given his long curly hair, I took him to be some sort of traveling apprentice; his candid manner however soon revealed that his hair had misled me. — “Welcome, whoever you are.” “I am a friend of K . . .’s and bring you his compliments.” — “Your name, if you please?” — “Lenz.” — “Aha, it’s appeared in print, hasn’t it?” (I remembered having read a few plays that had been attributed to a gentleman by this name.) He answered: “Yes; but I beg you not to judge me by them.”

We took pleasure in his company; he made sketches of some of the local costumes of the Russians and Livonians for us; we discussed their customs, etc. We put him up in the guest room in the schoolhouse.

The very following night, I heard loud talking in my sleep, though I was unable to rouse myself from my slumbers. Finally I gathered myself together, listened hard, sprang out of bed, listened hard again. Then I heard the voice of the schoolmaster saying loudly: Allez donc au lit — qu’est-ce que c’est que ça — hé! — dans l’eau par un temps si froid! — Allez, allez au lit!

A number of thoughts rushed to my mind. Perhaps, I said to myself, he is a sleepwalker who was unlucky enough to fall into the basin of the fountain; we’ll have to make him a fire and some tea in order to warm him up and dry him out. I threw my clothes on and went down to the schoolhouse. The schoolmaster and his wife, still pale with fright, said to me: Herr Lenz had not slept the entire night, he had wandered around the field behind the house, then had gone in again, and finally down to the fountain, dipping his hands into the water, climbing up onto the rim, plunging into it and splashing around like a duck; they, the schoolmaster and his wife, fearing he was trying to drown himself, had called out to him — he got out of the water, told them it was his custom to bathe in cold water, and went back up to his room. — Praise the Lord, I said, that this is all there was to it; Mr. K. . . likes cold baths as well, and Mr. L. . . is a friend of Mr. K. . .’s.

This was the first fright we all experienced; I rushed back to reassure my wife as well.

Thereafter, at my request, he organized his bathing so as to make less noise.

The 21st he rode over to Belmont with me, where we buried an ancient grandmother who was survived by 176 descendents. During our return, he chatted in a candid gentlemanly fashion, communicating his various reservations, etc., about the speech I had made; we got along famously, I felt at ease with him; he showed himself in every respect to be a young man worthy of affection.

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