Peter Camenzind (15 page)

I had always sung a tune, or hummed, to the beat of oars on the water. I sang softly to myself now and realized that I was singing verse. I remembered it and wrote it down at home, as a souvenir of that beautiful evening on the lake in Zurich:

Wie eine weisse Wolke

Am hohen Himmel steht,

So licht und schön und ferne

Bist du, Elisabeth.

Die Wolke geht und wandert,

Kaum hast du ihrer acht,

Und doch durch deine Träume

Geht sie bei dunkler Nacht.

Geht und erglänzt so selig,

Dass fortan ohne Rast

Du nach der weissen Wolke

Ein süsses Heimweh hast.

[“Like the white cloud, high in the sky, you are bright and beautiful and unattainable, Elizabeth. / The cloud drifts and wanders off while you look at it, yet in the dark night it drifts through your dreams / —drifts and shines so blissfully that forevermore you will ache for the white cloud with sweet desire.”]

*   *   *

On my return to Basel there was a letter for me from Assisi. It was from Signora Nardini and full of good news. She had found a second husband after all. But I think I'll just quote her letter to you:

My very dear Herr Peter!

Allow your faithful friend the liberty of writing to you. It has pleased God to grant me a piece of great good fortune and I would like to invite you to my wedding on the twelfth of October. His name is Menotti. He has little money, yet he loves me very much and knows all about the fruit trade. He is handsome but not as strong and beautiful as you, Herr Peter! He will sell fruit on the piazza while I look after the shop. Lovely Marietta—you remember, our neighbor's girl—is also getting married, but only to a stonemason from out of town.

I think of you every day and have told many people about you. I am very fond of you and have donated four candles to Saint Francis in memory of you. Menotti will be happy too if you come to the wedding. If he gets unfriendly with you then, I'll make him stop. Unfortunately little Matteo Spinelli is really a louse as I always said he was. He always stole lemons from me and now they've taken him away because he stole twelve lire from his father, the baker, and because he poisoned the dog of the beggar Giangiacomo.

I wish you the blessing of God and of Saint Francis. I long to see you.

Your devoted and faithful friend,

Annunziata Nardini

Postscript — Our harvest was so-so. The grapes didn't do well at all, and there weren't enough pears either. But we had plenty of lemons, so many we had to sell them cheap. A horrible accident happened in Spello. A young fellow killed his brother with a rake. No one knows why. He must have been envious of him even though they were brothers.

*   *   *

Unfortunately, I could not accept the invitation, tempting though it was. I sent my best regards and promised to visit in the spring. Then I took a present I had bought for the children in Nuremberg and went to see the carpenter.

There I found a great and unexpected change. Between the window and the table was crouched a grotesque figure in something like a baby's highchair. This was Boppi, the wife's brother, a poor, half-paralyzed hunchback for whom no other place had been found after his mother's death. The carpenter had taken him in quite reluctantly, and the cripple's presence was like a dead-weight on the desolate household. They had not yet grown used to him. The children were frightened; his embarrassed sister pitied him halfheartedly; and her husband was obviously disgruntled.

Boppi had no neck. His was an ugly double hunch on which rested a large, sharp-featured head with a strong nose, a broad forehead, and a beautiful, languishing mouth. His eyes were clear and calm, yet frightened, and his small, delicate hands lay white and unmoving on his narrow breast. I too felt embarrassed and put off by the pathetic intruder. It was uncomfortable to listen to the carpenter recount the invalid's story while he sat in the same room gazing at his hands, neither of us talking to him. He was born crippled but had completed grade school. He had been able to make himself somewhat useful for many years by weaving in straw. Then repeated attacks of gout had partially paralyzed him. For years now, he'd either lain in bed or been propped up on cushions in his strange chair. His sister said she remembered he used to sing beautifully to himself at one time, though sometimes she hadn't heard him sing for years, and never once since he had moved into the house. While all this was being told and discussed, he sat there staring into the distance. I felt ill at ease and soon left and did not come again for some days.

I had been strong and healthy all my life. I had never once been seriously ill and regarded invalids, especially cripples, with pity and with some contempt too. It did not suit me at all to have my leisurely, cheerful life in the bosom of this family disturbed by the coming of this miserable creature. Therefore I postponed my visit from one day to the next and tried vainly to think of a way to get the cripple out of the house. There had to be some inexpensive way of placing him in a hospital or nursing home. A number of times I even thought of going to see the carpenter to talk to him about it. But I hesitated to bring up the subject myself, and I had a childish horror of meeting the invalid. It filled me with revulsion to see him and to shake his hand.

So I let the first Sunday pass and did nothing. The second Sunday, I was all set to take the early-morning train to the Jura Mountains when I felt suddenly ashamed of my cowardice. I stayed home and went to see the carpenter after lunch.

With great reluctance I shook Boppi's hand. The carpenter was in a bad humor and suggested we go for a walk. He said he was fed up with this misery. I was glad to find him in a frame of mind receptive to my suggestion. His wife wanted to stay home, but Boppi asked her to go along with us. He said it was just as well if he was alone. If he had a book to read and a glass of water within reach, they could lock the door behind them and not worry about it.

And we who thought of ourselves as decent, goodhearted people locked him in and went for a walk. And we enjoyed ourselves, had fun with the children, and delighted in the golden autumn sun. We did not feel ashamed or worry about having left the cripple alone in the house. On the contrary, we were glad to be rid of him. With relief we breathed in the clear, sun-warmed air and gave every appearance of being an appreciative, healthy family enjoying God's Sunday with understanding and gratitude.

Boppi was not mentioned until we were all seated around a table at an outdoor restaurant. The carpenter complained what a burden the lodger was, sighed at the room he took up and the expenses that were incurred on his account, and finally laughed, saying: “Well, at least we can be happy for an hour out here without him disturbing us.”

These thoughtless words made me realize that the helpless cripple, beseeching, suffering Boppi, whom we did not love, whom we wanted to get rid of, sat sad and alone, locked in one room. It would be getting dark shortly and he would be unable to light the lamp or move closer to the window. He would have to put down the book and wait in the dark, with no one to talk to or pass the time with, while we drank wine, laughed, and enjoyed ourselves. And then I remembered that I had told the neighbors in Assisi about St. Francis and had boasted that he had taught me to love all mankind. Why had I studied the saint's life and learned by heart his hymn to love and tried to retrace his footsteps in the Umbrian hills, when I allowed a poor and helpless creature to lay there suffering though I could help him?

The weight of an invisible, mighty hand fell on my heart, crushing it with shame and hurt, and I began to tremble. I knew that God wanted a word with me.

“You love a household,” he said, “where people treat you well and where you spend many happy hours. And the day I grace this house with my presence, you run off and scheme to drive me out! You saint, you prophet, you poet!”

I felt as though I were gazing at myself in a clear and infallible mirror where I could see that I was a liar, a braggart, a coward and perjurer. It hurt, it was bitter, humiliating, and horrible. But what hurt in me and suffered agonies and reared up in pain deserved to be broken and destroyed.

Abruptly I rose and left, finishing neither my wine nor my bread, and rushed back to town. In my excitement I was tortured by the unbearable fear that something might have happened to Boppi: there might have been a fire; he might have fallen from his chair, might lie suffering, perhaps dying, on the floor. I could see him lying there, myself standing by his side, forced to endure the cripple's reproachful looks.

Breathlessly I reached the house and stormed up the stairs. Then it occurred to me that the door was locked and I had no key. Yet my fear subsided at once, for even before I reached the door I heard singing inside. It was a strange moment. With trembling heart and completely out of breath I stood on the dark landing and listened to the cripple's singing within. Slowly I calmed down. He sang softly and gently and somewhat mournfully. It was a popular love song, “Flowers, pink and white.” I knew that he had not sung for a long time and I was deeply moved that he used this quiet hour alone to be happy for a while in his own way.

That's the way it is: life loves to put serious and deeply emotional events in a humorous context. I perceived at once how shameful and ridiculous my position was. In my panic I had run for miles, only to find myself without a key. Now I could either leave again or shout my good intentions through two closed doors. I stood on the stairs, wanting to console the poor fellow, to show him my sympathy and help him pass the time, while he sat inside, unaware of my presence, singing. It undoubtedly would only have frightened him if I had called attention to myself by knocking or shouting.

So I had no choice but to leave. I strolled for an hour through the streets and the Sunday crowds, then I found that the family had returned. This time I shook Boppi's hand without reluctance. I sat down next to him, engaged him in conversation, and asked what he was reading. It seemed natural to offer him some books to read, and he thanked me for that. When I suggested Jeremias Gotthelf, it turned out that he was familiar with his work. Gottfried Keller, however, was unknown to him and I promised to lend him some of Keller's books.

Next day when I brought the books I had a chance to be alone with him, for his sister was just going out and her husband was in the workshop. I confessed how ashamed I felt for leaving him alone the day before and said I would be glad to sit with him sometimes and be his friend.

The invalid turned his large head slightly in my direction, looked at me, and said, “Thank you.” That was all. But for him to turn his head was a great effort; it was as if I had received tenfold embraces from someone healthy. And his eyes were so bright and innocent that I blushed with shame.

Now I faced the more difficult task of speaking to the carpenter. The best course seemed to be an outright confession of my fear and shame of yesterday. Unfortunately, he did not understand what I had in mind, but at least he was willing to discuss it. Finally he accepted my proposal that the cripple should be our mutual responsibility, that we would share the trifling expense of keeping him, and I received permission to visit him whenever I wished. I was free to consider him my brother.

Fall was warm and beautiful for an exceptionally long time that year. That was why the first thing I did was buy Boppi a wheelchair and take him out every day, mostly in the company of the children.

Chapter Eight

I
T SEEMS
to have been my bad luck always to receive more than I could return, from life and friends. It had been that way with Richard, Elizabeth, Signora Nardini, and it had been so with the carpenter. Now, a full-grown man who did not think all that badly of himself, I found myself the astonished and grateful pupil of a wretched cripple. If ever the time comes when I complete and publish the work I started so long ago, it will contain little of value not learned from Boppi. This was the beginning of a good and happy period in my life, and I have drawn sustenance from it ever since. I was granted the privilege of gazing clearly and deeply into a magnificent soul left unscathed by illness, loneliness, poverty, and maltreatment.

All the petty vices that spoil and embitter our beautiful, brief lives—anger, impatience, mistrust, lies, all these insufferable, festering sores that disfigure us—had been burned out of this man through long, intense suffering. He was no sage or angel but a person full of understanding and generosity who, under the stress of horrible agonies and deprivations, had learned to accept being weak and to commit himself into God's hands without being ashamed.

I once asked him how he came to terms with his weak and pain-racked body.

“It's quite simple,” he replied, laughing. “I wage a perpetual war with my illness. Sometimes I win an encounter, sometimes I lose one, and we go on skirmishing anyway. At times we both withdraw and there is a temporary cease-fire, but we each lie in wait for the other to become impudent, then we start in all over again.”

I had always felt that I had an unerring eye, that I was a good observer. But Boppi taught me even there. He loved nature, especially animals, and so I frequently took him to the zoo. There we spent delightful hours. Before long, Boppi knew them all and, as we always took bread and sugar, some animals came to recognize us, and we made all kinds of friends. Oddly enough, we were particularly fond of the tapir. His only virtue, which he did not share with the rest of the animals, was a certain cleanliness. Otherwise we found him unintelligent, unfriendly, ungrateful, and an extreme glutton. Other animals, the elephant, deer, and chamois in particular, even the ragged bison, always showed some sign of gratitude for the sugar they received: either they threw us a grateful look or they allowed me to pet them. The tapir gave no such indication at all. As soon as we approached, he promptly appeared at his fence, chewed slowly and methodically what we gave him and, when he saw that we had no more, went off without as much as blinking an eye. Since he neither begged nor thanked us for what we gave him but accepted it routinely, like a natural tribute, we took this to be a sign of pride and character and called him the customs collector.