The Tanners

“The youth’s parents were naturally filled with great consternation and even greater worry by his expulsion; for where might one find parents so indifferent that they might behave in their usual way under such distressing circumstances. At first they were of the opinion that it would be best to remove the rogue entirely from his scholarly course of study and have him apprenticed to learn a solid profession like machinist or metalworker. Even the word and land America entered their thoughts; given their son’s predicament, it must have occurred to them of its own accord. But things came to pass quite differently. Once more the mother’s tender heart prevailed as it had so often before when the father was determined to take drastic steps; she had her way. The young man was sent to study at a far-off, isolated institute where he was to prepare for the profession of schoolmaster. This was a French institute where the boy would have no choice but to behave in a fitting manner. At any rate by the time he’d served his sentence and left the place behind, he’d become a practical-minded, youthful teacher. He found a temporary post near his native town. He taught the children as best he could, and at home, when time allowed, read the French and English classics in their original tongues; for he had a truly wonderful talent for languages, and, secretly thinking of another career, he wrote letters to America seeking a post as a private tutor, an endeavor that bore no fruit, and lived a life divided between duty and a reserved unrestrainedness. Since it was summer, he often went with his pupils to bathe in the deep, swift-running canal. He’d join his pupils in the water to show them how to go about learning to swim. But one day the current caught hold of him and whisked him away so fast it looked as if he would surely drown. The pupils were already running back to town, shouting: ‘Our teacher has drowned!’ But the strong young man was able to fight his way free of the treacherous whirlpools and came home again. Some time later, though, he found himself in a different place: surrounded by mountains in a small but affluent village filled with companionable people who respected him less as teacher than as a human being. He was an accomplished pianist in addition to being a generally quite likeable fellow who, when in company with several others, was expert at twining the magical thread of conversation entirely about himself. A perfectly dear but no longer very young maiden fell so terribly in love with the teacher that she arranged for him to enjoy all manner of comforts and conveniences and introduced him to all the most influential people in the village. She came from an old family of officers whose ancestors had once performed military service in foreign lands. One day, as a memento, she gave him a charming little ornamental dagger that was surely by no means innocuous as a weapon and in its day may well have dripped blood occasionally. It was a splendid piece, and the good, dear woman presented this trinket with downcast eyes, perhaps suppressing a deep sigh. When with a romantically noble bearing he sat at the piano and played, she would listen, unable to take her eyes off him. Often she went ice-skating with him, since it was winter, upon the high-up small mountain lake, and both of them delighted in this pleasurable activity. Soon the young man wished to depart again, however, and all the more so as he felt all too vividly the warm, tempting bond that would so dearly have liked to fetter him to this village forever, but from which he must escape if he was still to possess the wish to aspire to some form of greatness in the world. So he went traveling, using the money of this woman, who was rich and found it gave her a melancholy and lugubrious joy to give him money without any restrictions on its use. And he traveled to Munich, where he lived the high life in the manner of the students there, then came home again, started looking for a post, and found one at a private institute that lay at the foot of a mountain range embellished with fir forests. There he was required to instruct young boys from all over the globe, the offspring of the wealthy, which he did for a time with great love and much interest, but then he got into trouble with his superior — the proprietor of the institute — and left. Then it was the turn of Italy, to which he journeyed as a private tutor, followed by England, where he was given two half-grown girls to instruct but only got up to mischief with them. He returned home again, his head haunted by wild notions and his heart, now empty, burning with helpless fantasies that had no claim on reality. His mother, into whose lap he longed to throw himself, died around this time. He was empty and inconsolable. He imagined immersing himself in politics, but for this he possessed neither sufficient general knowledge and cool-headedness nor the necessary polish and tact. He also wrote stock market reports, but senseless ones; for they were written poetically, products of an already destroyed mind. He authored poems, plays and musical compositions, painted and drew, but childishly, like a dilettante. Meanwhile he’d taken up a post again, though admittedly only for a brief time, and then a new post, and then a new one! He drifted around between a dozen different places, believing and finding himself betrayed and hurt everywhere he went, he lost his sense of propriety vis-à-vis his pupils and borrowed money from them, for he was always out of cash. He was still a slender, handsome man, gentle and elegant in appearance and still noble in his bearing as long as he had his wits about him. But this was now rarely the case. Nowhere on earth could he hold a job for long — he’d be sent away as soon as people got wind of his true nature, or else leave of his own accord, giving the most peculiar, cobbled-together explanations. This, of course, led to utter fatigue and enervation. From Italy he’d still been writing his brother enthused, idealistic letters. In London, where he suffered deprivations, he once walked into the business office of a prosperous silk merchant, an uncle of his, petitioning for support in his miserable circumstances; he was asking for money, perhaps not explicitly, but it was clear what he meant, and they sent him away, shrugging their shoulders, without giving him anything. How his beautiful, gentle human pride must have suffered when he found the courage to go beg alms from ignoble people. But what was he not forced to do, seeing the deprivations he suffered! One may speak of pride, but one must also remember all of life’s happenstance, all the circumstances that can make it inhuman to keep demanding pride from a human being. And the one asking for help was soft. He’d always possessed a childishly soft heart, and it was a simple matter for the pain and regret over his lost chances to destroy this heart. One day, after all his wanderings, he turned up at home again: pale, fatigued and exhausted, with his clothes in tatters. His father no doubt received him heartlessly, and his sister as kindly as she dared before the eyes of their incensed father. It was his idea to find a little editorial job somewhere, and he meanwhile loitered about the city, where he gave all the girls rings and said he wanted to marry them. It was quite clear he was already becoming infantile. There were rumors, of course, and people laughed. Then he went away again, to take up a teaching post, but there it was demonstrated that for this world he was no longer suitable. One day he came into the schoolroom with one bare foot; one of his feet was missing its shoe and stocking. He no longer knew what he was doing, or else he was simply doing what his other, mad mind commanded him. During this same period he erased a demerit that had been recorded in his military service record, one he’d received years before on account of a serious failing on his part. As a result — since this bold crime came to light — he was locked up in prison. From there, since his mental state was soon apparent, he was transferred to a madhouse, where he still lives today. I know all these things because I was often his companion, over many years, both in civilian life and in the military, and I also helped bring him to the place where he is now, where he had to be brought unfortunately.”