Again I’d like to apologise for leaving this blog for so long. It seems like I may not be able to continue with what I was doing, as my concentration with reading just has not improved.
That’s not to say I’ll never get back to it! I’m going to leave it open so the quotes in my previous entries can still be read and enjoyed.

I’m currently working on another blog that doesn’t take so much brain power but is equally as enjoyable.
My friend Ally and I are planning to see and review 1,001 films as part of our project 1001: A Screen Odyssey.
We’d both love it if you joined us over there!

http://1001films.wordpress.com

Rachel

Albert Camus – The Outsider
Cormac McCarthy – The Road
Franz Kafka – The Trial

Thank you for reading,

Rachel

Very sorry for the delay in posting this, here is the final selection of quotes from ‘The Torture Garden’.
Now this one does come with a bit of a warning.. I wanted to give an example of this section of the book, so some of these quotes aren’t for youngsters or for some readers. They aren’t the most macabre in the book, but they aren’t altogether pleasant!

“Listen! I’ve seen thieves hung in England. I’ve been to bullfights, and seen anarchists garrotted in Spain. In Russia I’ve seen beautiful young women whipped to death by soldiers. In Italy I’ve seen living phantoms – phantoms of famine – exhume cholera victims and avidly eat them.. On river banks in India I’ve seen thousands of completely naked beings writhing and dying in the throes of the plague. One evening in Berlin I saw a woman I had loved the previous evening, a splendid creature in pink tights devoured by a tiger in a cage.. I’ve seen every horror, all human tortures.. It was very beautiful! But I’ve seen nothing as beautiful – do you know what I mean? – as these Chinese convicts… it’s most beautiful of all! You can’t imagine, I tell you, you can’t imagine. “

“I thought my heart would fail me, due to the dreadful smell of carrion that exhaled from these stalls, from these shaken up basins and from the whole of the crowd as it hurled itself on the carcasses as though they were flowers.
‘Clara, dear Clara!’ I implored. ‘Lets go, please!’
‘Oh, how pale you are! Why? Isn’t this fun?’
‘Clara, dear Clara!’ I insisted. ‘Lets  go, I beg you! I can’t stand  the smell any more.’
‘But it’s not a bad smell, my love. It smells of death, that’s all!’
It didn’t seem to affect her. No grimace of disgust marked her white skin, as fresh as cherry tree blossom. To judge by the veiled ardour of her eyes and the pulsing of her nostrils, it seemed as through she was sensually aroused… She inhaled decay with delight, as though it was a perfume.
‘Oh what a beautiful, beautiful piece!’
With graceful gestures she filled the basket with vile fragments.”

“And the smells rising from the crowd – the smells of toilet and abattoir combined, the stench of carrion and the sweat of living flesh – sank my spirits and chilled me to the bone.  I often felt the same lethargic torpor at evening in the Annam forests while the miasmas rose up from the deep humus and death lay in wait behind each flower, each leaf and each blade of grass. My breath almost failed me and I felt as if I was about to faint.
‘Clara! Clara!’ I called.
She gave me smelling salts, whose cordial power revived me a little. She was unconstrained and joyful in the midst of this crowd whose odour she inhaled, submitting to the most repugnant embraces with a sort of sensual swooning. She presented her body – the whole of her lithe and vibrant body- to the harshness, the blows, and the mauling. Her skin, usually so white, was now an intense pink. Her eyes contained a hazy brilliance of sexual joy. Her lips had swelled up like firm buds ready to blossom. She told me, with mocking pity:
‘What a little old woman you are! You’ll never be anything but an insignificant little old lady!’”

“Emerging from that hell, still quite pallid with the terror of those faces of the damned, nostrils still completely filled with the smell of decay and death, ears still vibrating with the howls of torture, the spectacle of that garden brought me sudden relaxation after an unconscious exaltation like an unreal ascension of my whole being towards the dazzling land of dream. With delight I took in deep gulps of fresh air that was impregnated with find and gentle aromas. It was the inexpressible joy of waking after an oppressive nightmare.”

“Clara spoke to him in English.
‘It’s really unfortunate you didn’t arrive an hour earlier,’ the gallant chap told her. ‘ You would have seen something very fine.. Not an everyday occurrence but an ex extraordinary work, milady! I reconstituted a man from head to toe after removing his whole skin. He wasn’t very well constructed, ha ha! (….) when I had skinned him, leaving his hide attached  to his shoulders only by two small incisions, I made him walk, milady. Ha ha! Really a great idea! Enough to make you split  your sides! He seemed to be wearing  – what’s it called? .. Ah yes! – an Inverness cape.
The dog had never been so well dressed, nor by a finer tailor. But his bones were so hard I cracked my saw on them – my beautiful saw.’”

Taken from ‘ The Torture Garden’ by Octave Mirbeau, translated by Michael Richardson
Available to Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Garden-New-Travellers-Companion/dp/1596540672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251635725&sr=8-1

“’For anyone amazed by the anonymity I have jealously guarded during this judicial and painful tale, I’ll say: “My name is of no consequence!.. It is the name of someone who brought considerable suffering on both others and himself – more on himself than others- and who, after many shocks, having descended one day into the depths of human  desire, is trying to recover his soul in solitude and obscurity. Peace on the ashes of his sin.’”

“Twelve years ago, no longer knowing what to do and condemned by a series of misfortunes to the harsh necessity of either hanging myself or throwing myself into the Seine as a final resort, I put myself forward at the parliamentary elections in a department where I knew no-one and had never before set foot.”

“I faithfully followed the programme outlined by my powerful friend, and I was wrong..  I didn’t get elected. I attribute the crushing majority my opponent enjoyed, apart from some underhand manipulations, to the fact that the confounded fellow knew even less than I did and was an even more notorious blackguard.”

“They hurled themselves on me. They grabbed me by throat, lifted me up and tossed me from hand to hand like a parcel.. Fortunately this excess of eloquence left me with only a swollen cheek, three bruised ribs and six broken teeth..”

“’….The only thing is, I do want my share, understand? My share. And what do I ask? Something absurd.. Nothing.. Just crumbs.. Although I could demand everything, yes everything! So don’t annoy me anymore.. Don’t push me any further..  Don’t force me to enact ludicrous dramas.. Because the day I’ve had enough of living, enough of that shit, your shit.. The intolerable stick of which I continually smell around me. Well that day, his Excellency Eugene Mortain won’t be laughing, old chap.. That I swear!’
Eugene then gave an embarrassed smile and the fold of his drooping lips gave his countenance an expression that mingled a vile fear with an ineffectual criminality, as he spoke to me: ‘You’re crazy to say that.. And what for? Have I refused you anything, you crazy fool?’
And gaily, in a multiplicity of gestures and affectations which startled me, he added comically: ‘Do you want a medal, then?’
Yes, he really was quite a charmer!”

“’You haven’t been around to see me’  he reproached me in that tone of indifferent respect which was merely the politeness of enmity… ‘Have you been ill?’
‘No, not at all…. Just travelling towards oblivion..’”

“A residue of fury rumbled within me… But I could only cry out lamely: ‘Shit!’
Eugene smiled. He realised my resistance had ended with that yelp.”

“At the same time the Minister, that bandit Eugene, could also barely contain his emotion. There was genuine enthusiasm in his look, a sincere trembling to his voice. Two small tears ran from his eyes… He look my hand so strongly that he might have broken it.
For a few moments, we were both the unconscious and ludicrous playthings of our own deception… Ah, when I think about it!”

“’Yes! In Tonkin there’s game a plenty… but especially peacocks. What shooting, sir! Anyway, it’s a dangerous sport… You need to have the knack for it.’
‘They must be ferocious peacocks..’”

“While I was speaking and weeping, Miss Clara was looking fixedly at me. Oh, that look! Never, no, never should I forget the look that adorable woman fixed me with, an extraordinary look in which amazement was mingled with joy, pity and love – yes, love – as well as malice and irony.. And everything.. A look which pierced me through, penetrating into me and overwhelming me body and soul.”

“A gleam passed across the green in her pupils. She spoke in a low, almost hoarse, voice:
‘I’ll show you terrific things… divine things. You’ll finally find out what love is! I promise that you’ll descend with me into the depths of the mystery of love.. And death!’”

Taken from ‘ The Torture Garden’ by Octave Mirbeau, translated by Michael Richardson
Available to Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Garden-New-Travellers-Companion/dp/1596540672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251635725&sr=8-1

I came across this book on my usual literary hopscotch, leaping from one author to another. I had read that Kafka’s ‘In The Penal Colony’ was probably inspired by this book, ‘The Torture Garden’. After reading it I agree that it probably was. While Kafka compared part of the death of the condemned man to a religious epiphany, Mirbeau explores the comparisons and links between death and decay, and sex, love and life.
This book isn’t exactly as harsh as a modern book would be (this book was written in 1898), but nevertheless it’s not for everyone. Therefore I probably won’t quote the harsher passages of the book – or if I do, I will warn beforehand.
I really enjoyed this book though, it’s pure decadence!
The first portion I will quote is from the first section titled “Frontispiece” in which a group of men are debating the nature of murder. This leads onto a man telling his story of a torture garden.
I’ve had to cut a lot out of here, there are some fantastic passages but much to long to quote! So anything with (…) means I’ve cut something out! So.. I’ll start with the wonderful dedication..

“To the priests, the soldiers, the judges, to those people who educate, instruct and govern men, I dedicate these pages of Murder and Blood.”

“’This is not an aberration of my mind, but I cannot take a step without bumping into murder, without seeing it flaming beneath eyelids, without sensing it’s mysterious contact in hands extended to me… Last Sunday I went to a village that was celebrating it’s patron saint. In the public square decorated with leaves and floral arches and adorned with flags, every type of amusement familiar to popular celebrations had been assembled… And, under the paternal eyes of the authorities, a crowd of perfectly decent folk were having fun.
(……. )The festive crowd were drawn towards other pleasures. They used rifles and pistols, or simply the good ole crossbow, to shoot at targets representing human faces. (… )
Everywhere, under tents and in small illuminated booths, were simulacra of deaths, parodies of massacres, and portrayals of hecatombs, and how happy these perfectly decent folk were!
(…..)Then they make these figures gesticulate and move. An ingenious mechanism enables them to walk along happily or to flee in terror. (…. )
Some even assume a pathetic or pleading attitude. They seem to be saying, “Have mercy!… Don’t kill me!… “ It is exquisite to feel that you are about to kill things that move, advance, suffer and implore! Just to aim a rifle or pistol at them seems to bring the taste of warm blood to your mouth!”

“’You are talking openly about thugs and peasants who, I’ll concede, continually have murder on their minds..  But you can’t possibly apply the same observations to, for example, “Cultivated minds“, “refined natures” or worldly individuals whose existences are calculated in accordance with triumphs over primitive instinct and the strange persistence of atavism.’
Our philosopher replied vigorously:
‘Wait a minute!…What are the hobbies and favourite pleasures of those you call, my dear friend, “cultivated minds and refined natures“? Fencing, duelling, violent sports, abominable pigeon shooting, bullfights, varied manifestations of patriotism, hunting… In reality all such activity merely represents regressions towards a time of ancient barbarism when man’s moral culture – if one may say so – was similar to that of the wild beasts he pursued.’”

“’Can I believe that the ignominious ugliness of this man could have alone determined such a gesture and such an action? No, it had a more profound cause that I remain unaware of.. I rose softly and approached the sleeper, hands apart, but also clenched and intense, as though about to perform a strangling..’
With this word,  being a storyteller alert to dramatic effect, he paused. Then, with evident self-satisfaction, continued:
‘In spite of my rather feeble appearance, I am bestowed with uncommon strength, exceptional suppleness of muscle, and an extraordinary grip. And, at that moment, a strange warmth increased the dynamism of my bodily faculties tenfold.. My hands, all on their own, made for this man’s neck – all on their own I assure you – ardent and terrible. I felt a lightness within me, an elasticity, a rush of nervous energy, something like the powerful rapture of sexual pleasure.. Yes, there’s no better comparison to what I felt than that.. At the moment that my hands were about to tighten, in a rigid vice-like grip, upon this greasy neck, the man woke up…’”

Taken from ‘ The Torture Garden’ by Octave Mirbeau, translated by Michael Richardson
Available to Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Garden-New-Travellers-Companion/dp/1596540672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251635725&sr=8-1

Apologies for the gap in posting these final quotes – been a little busy!
Here’s the last selection from ‘The Apple Cart’. Again, it’s amazing that this play is over 80 years old,  when you compare quotes to modern politics.

“VANHATTAN: [desisting] Her Majesty will excuse me when she learns the nature of my errand here. This, King Magnus, is a great historic scene: one of the greatest, perhaps, that history has ever recorded or will ever again record.
MAGNUS: Have you had tea?”

“MAGNUS: [Pulling himself together with a visible effort] May I ask, Mr Vanhattan, with whom did this – this – this masterstroke of American policy originate? Frankly, I have been accustomed to regard your President as a statesman whose mouth was the most efficient part of his head. He cannot have thought of this himself. Who suggested it to him?”

“MAGNUS: Are you inexorably determined to force this issue to its logical end? You know how un-English it is to do that?
PROTEUS: My people came from Scotland.
LYSISTRATA: I wish they had stayed there. I am English: every bone in my body.
BOANERGES [vociferously] Same here!
PROTEUS: God help England if she had no Scots to think for her!”

“BOANERGES: Is he any better? The way you fellows scuttle backward and forward from one mind to another whenever Joe holds up his finger is disgusting. This is a Cabinet of sheep.
PROTEUS: Well, give the flock a better lead if you can. Have you anything else to propose?
BOANERGES: I don’t know that I have on the spur of the moment. We should have had notice of this. But I suppose the King must do as he thinks right.
PROTEUS. Then the goat goes with the sheep; so that’s all right.
BOANERGES: Who are you calling a goat?
NICOBAR: If you come to that, who are you calling sheep?”

Taken from ‘The Apple Cart’ by George Bernard Shaw.
Available from Amazon UK : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plays-Political-Geneva-Bernard-Library/dp/0140450300/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250853022&sr=1-4

Here’s a little more from the “Political Extravaganza” that is ‘The Apple Cart’! If only we could sit in on current meetings such as this..
I wrote this post a few days ago, and apparently it just saved as a draft! Took me a long time to notice, I’m not very on the ball…

“BALBUS: Safe! Look at my constituency: Northeast-by-north Birmingham, with its four square miles of confectionary works! Do you know that in the Christmas cracker trade Birmingham is the workshop of the world?
CRASSUS: Take Gateshead and Middlesbrough alone! Do you know that there has not been a day’s unemployment there for five years past, and that their daily output of chocolate creams totals up to twenty thousand tons?
MAGNUS: It is certainly a consoling thought that if we were peacefully blockaded by the League of Nations we could live for at least three weeks on our chocolate creams.”

“MAGNUS: But what interest has a king in flattering a subject?
AMANDA: Suppose she’s a good looking woman, sir!
NICOBAR: Suppose he has a lot of money, and the king’s hard up!
PROTEUS: Suppose he is a Prime Minister and you can do nothing except by his advice.
MAGNUS: [Smiling with his utmost charm] Ah, there you have hit the nail on the head. Well, I suppose I must surrender. I am beaten. You are all too clever for me.
BOANERGES: Well, nothing can be fairer than that.
PLINY: [Rubbing his hands] You are a gentleman, sir. We shan’t rub it in, you know.
BALBUS: Ever the best of friends. I am the last to kick a man when he’s down.
CRASSUS: I may be a jobber; but nobody shall say that I am an ungenerous opponent.
BOANERGES: [Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, rises and begins singing in stentorian tones]
Should auld acquaintance by forgot,
And never brought to mind –
Amanda bursts into uncontrollable laughter. The King looks reproachfully at her, struggling hard to keep his countenance. The others are beginning to join in the chorus when Proteus rises in a fury.
PROTEUS: Are you all drunk?”

“PROTEUS: The working of the Press from the palace back stairs must cease.
MAGNUS: You know that I have no control of the Press. The Press is in the hands of men much richer than I, who would not insert a single paragraph against their own interests even if it were signed by my own hand and sent to them with a royal command.”

“ORINTHIA: Oh you are blind. You are worse than blind: you have low tastes. Heaven is offering you a rose; and you cling to a cabbage.”

“MAGNUS: But my wife? The Queen? What is to become of my poor dear Jemima?
ORINTHIA: Oh, drown her: shoot her: tell your chauffeur to driver her into the Serpentine and leave her there. The woman makes you ridiculous.
MAGNUS: I don’t think I should think like that. And the public would think it illnatured.”

“MAGNUS: Yes;  but this king business, as the Americans call it, has got itself so mixed up with democracy that half of the country expects me to wipe my perfectly polished boots on the Cabinet, and the other half expects me to let the Cabinet wipe its muddy boots on me. The Crisis at five o’clock is to decide which of us is to be the doormat. “

Taken from ‘The Apple Cart’ by George Bernard Shaw.
Available from Amazon UK : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plays-Political-Geneva-Bernard-Library/dp/0140450300/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250853022&sr=1-4

Despite being written nearly 80 years ago, I was amazed at how apt this play was for the current political climate!
Not so much in the main plot, but in the many political opinions and matters discussed.
As usual, Shaw was a joy to read. I’m slowly going through his plays and they never disappoint.
So here is the first batch of quotes that I  found interesting…

Synopsis – The Prime Minister and the cabinet seek to take away the Kings remaining political powers.
Characters – (to save energy I’ve taken this from www.wikipedia.org)

• Sempronius The King’s Private Secretary
• Pamphilius The King’s Private Secretary
• Boanerges President of the Board of Trade
• King Magnus
• Orinthia King’s Mistress
• Alice Princess Royal
• Proteus Prime Minister
• Pliny Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Nicobar Foreign Secretary
• Crassus Colonial Secretary
• Balbus Home Secretary
• Amanda Postmistress General
• Lysistrata Powermistress General
• Vanhattan American Ambassador
• Queen Jemima

  
  “PAMPHILIUS:  …. I was going to say that I suppose you know that that bull-roarer Boanerges has just been taken into the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, and that he is coming here today to give the King a piece of his mind, or what he calls his mind, about the crisis. “

  “BOANERGES [Shortly, but a little taken aback] Oh, good morning to you. They say that politeness is the punctuality of kings–
  SEMPRONIUS: The other way about, Mr Boanerges. Punctuality is the politeness of kings; and King Marcus is a model in that respect. … “

  “PAMPHILIUS: You seem to have heard of all of us. You w ill be quite at home in the palace now that you are a Cabinet Minister. May I congratulate you on your appointment – or rather congratulate the Cabinet on your accession?”

  “MAGNUS: They bring us papers. We sign. You have no time to read them, luckily for you. But I am expected to read everything. I do not always agree; but I must sign: there is nothing else to be done. For instance, death warrants. Not only have I have to sign the death warrants of persons in my opinion ought not to be killed; but I may not even issue death warrants for a great many people who in my opinion ought to be killed.
  BOANERGES: [Sarcastic] You’d like to be able to say ‘Off with his head!’ wouldn’t you?
  MAGNUS: Many men would hardly miss their heads, there is so little in them.  …”

  “BOANERGES: No king on earth is as safe in  his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down. I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them ‘You are supreme: exercise your power.’ They say  ‘That’s right: tell us what to do.’; and I tell them. I say ‘Exercise your vote intelligently by voting for me.’ And they do. That’s democracy;  and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place.”

  “PROTEUS: ….. If you all start quarrelling and scolding and bawling, which is just what he wants you to do, it will end in his having his own way as usual, because one man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t.”

  “MAGNUS: Apart from Amanda’s family relations,  am I face to face with a united cabinet?
  PLINY: No sir. You are face to face with a squabbling cabinet; but, on the constitutional question, united we stand: divided we fall. “

  “PROTEUS: [Emphatically] And we have abolished poverty and hardship. That is why the people trust us. [To the King] And that is why you will have to give way to us. We have the people of England in comfort – solid middle class comfort – at our backs.
  MAGNUS: No: we have not abolished poverty and hardship. Our big business men have abolished them. But how? But sending our capital abroad to places where poverty and hardship still exist: in other words, where labor is cheap. We live in comfort on the imported profits of that capital. We are all ladies and gentlemen now.”

  Taken from ‘The Apple Cart’ by George Bernard Shaw.
  Available from Amazon UK : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plays-Political-Geneva-Bernard-Library/dp/0140450300/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250853022&sr=1-4

I can safely say that after reading this book, I am going to explore more Robert Walser! What an underrated writer. Well, I hope these and the other quotes go a tiny way into being examples of why he should be better known!
Enjoy!

“Worry matched in lock-step with disappointment, advancing like two exhausted but disciplined soldiers, not permitting themselves the slightest deviation.”

“At home, meanwhile, concern over the necessities of everyday life had begun to rap lightly at the windowpanes, to pluck at a curtain so as to gaze cosily into the Tobler family’s interior, and stand in the doorway to evoke for anyone who happened past a sense of uncertainty.”

“Tobler would have liked best to respond to this individual by inviting him to apply his lips to his posterior, preferably in the environs of Genoa, the fool; but reason dictated that he acknowledge this new demand for payment, unpleasant as it was, and he wrote to the man: ‘I am unable to pay you!’”

“How true it is that each of the four seasons has its own particular scent and sound. When you see spring, you always think you’ve never seen it like this before, never looking so special. In summer, the summery profusion strikes you as new and magical year after year. You never really looked at fall properly before, not until this year, and when winter arrives, the winter too is utterly new, quite quite different from a year or three ago. Indeed, even the years have their own individual personalities and aromas.”

“Your healthy mind should be and remain your ruler, do not antagonise it until it becomes a scoundrel and a fool.”

“Where will a summer like this ever again press me with its voluptuous green arms to its blossoming, fragrant bosom like the summer I had the privilege to experience and savour up here?”

“I’m sure you must be surprised to hear me speaking in such a way, but believe me, we women, who are constantly chained to the narrow confines and limitations of our households, do quite a lot of thinking about things, and we also see things and feel things. It is given to us to guess at things a little, since the correct sciences are our sworn enemies. We have a knack for reading glances and behaviour.”

Taken from ‘The Assistant’ by Robert Walser, Translated by Susan Bernofsky.
Available from Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Assistant-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141189282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250249824&sr=1-1

Here’s the second part of quotes and passages from this wonderful book. I’m thoroughly enjoying it!

“And now, Mr. Clerk, or however you prefer to be addressed, you are back in the Villa Tobler, make no mistake, and, in the guise of a bird beating its wings about your apparently rather poetically-minded head, the Advertising Clock is hurtling back and forth. Sunday, that softest of days, is over now, and the hard, rugged workday has just grabbed hold of you; you’ll have to puff yourself up to full height to have any chance to withstand its powerful waves.”

“This morning, Joseph’s hair appeared extraordinarily difficult to brush and comb. His toothbrush recalled bygone days. The soap with which he wanted to wash his hands slipped from his grasp and shot beneath the bed, and he had to bend down and retrieve it from the farthest corner. His collar was too high and too tight, although it had fit perfectly the day before. What marvels. And how tedious this all was.”

“Half a year before, he had experienced just such a hat scenario. It had been a quite good normal hat of moderate height, the sort that “better” gentlemen are in the habit of wearing. Joseph, however, felt nothing but distrust for this hat. A thousand times he placed it upon his head, standing before the mirror, only to set it back on the table. Then he moved three steps away from this charming eyesore and observed it in the way an outpost observes the enemy. Nothing about it was in any way objectionable. Hereupon he hung the hat up on its nail, and there it too appeared quite innocuous. He tried putting it on his head again – oh horror! It seemed bent on trying to split him in two from top to bottom. He felt as if his very personality had become a bleary, caustic, bisected version of itself. He went out onto the street, and found himself reeling like a despicable drunkard – he felt lost. Stepping into a place of refreshment, he took of his hat: saved! Yes, that had been the hat scenario. He had also experienced collar scenarios in his lifetime, as well as coat and shoe scenarios.”

“Herr Tobler always waited at the Sailing Ship for trains that were arriving and departing. Today, too, he was ‘just waiting for  his train.’ The restaurant was right next to the train station. But Tobler missed his trains rather often nonetheless; one might, if one were an innkeeper, almost suspect him of missing them on purpose. Whenever this happened, he was in the habit of grumbling: ‘Now that idiotic train has left without me again.’”

“Approximately one hour later, he watered the garden. He found it so agreeable to watch the thin, silvery stream of water slice through the air and to hear the water strike the leaves of the trees.”

“They laugh using their back teeth where other people and nations laugh only with their lips, they make conversation more with their pricked-up ears than with their  unabashed mouths, they are lovers of silence, but sometimes they will set about boasting like proper sailors, as if all of them had been born with mouths destined for public houses.”

“Autumn was arriving, everything appeared to be sitting down, somewhere something was coming to a standstill, nature seemed at times to be rubbing its eyes.”

Taken from ‘The Assistant’ by Robert Walser, Translated by Susan Bernofsky.
Available from Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Assistant-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141189282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250249824&sr=1-1