Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) Read Online Free PDF

forgotten the face of my beloved angel so deeply and indelibly graven in my heart and mind. But it isn’t so; every day of the week and every hour of the day I think of you all and my lovely little Clärchen’s friendly figure floats past me in my dreams, smiling so sweetly at me with her bright eyes as she is wont to do whenever I walk in. Oh how could I put pen to paper in this wretched state that till now distracted my every thought! Something awful came into my life! Dark premonitions of a terrible impending fate cast their pall over me like the shadows of black storm clouds impermeable to any friendly rays of sunlight. Let me tell you then what happened to me. I have to tell you, that much I know; but just to think about it makes it spill out like a mad burst of laughter. Oh my dearest Lothar! How should I begin to make you fathom that what befell me just a few days ago could have such a devastating effect on my life! If only you were here, you could see for yourself; but by now you must surely take me for a crack-brained spook seer. In short, the terrible thing that happened to me, whose fatal impression I have tried in vain to erase from my consciousness, consists in nothing else than that a few days ago, namely on 30 October, at 12 noon, a barometer salesman stepped into my room and offered me his wares. I bought nothing and threatened to throw him down the stairs, whereupon, however, he promptly left of his own accord.
    You suspect, I imagine, that only the most extraordinary life-altering relations could have lent this occurrence such significance, indeed that the very person of that miserable pedlar could have so cut me to the quick. And that is just what happened. I will pull myself together, with all the strength of my will-power, quietly and patiently to recount the circumstances of my early youth as plainly and precisely as possible so that you, with your alert mind, may take everything in and paint as clear as possible a picture of my condition. But even now as I begin, I can hear you laughing and Clara remarking: ‘What childish notions!’ Laugh, if you like, have yourself a right hearty laugh at my expense! Be my guest! But God in heaven, my hair stands on end, and it seems to me as if I were begging you in my mad desperation to make me sound ridiculous, like Franz Moor did Daniel. But it’s time to begin!
    Except for at lunchtime, we, my siblings and myself, saw little of my father during the day. He must have been very busy. After supper, which, according to long-standing custom, was served at seven o’clock, all of us, my mother and us, gathered in my father’s study, and each took our place at a round table. Father smoked and drank a tall glass of beer. Often he told us many wondrous tales and would get so involved in the telling that his pipe went out, and it was my duty to fetch a burning wad of paper for him to relight it, a task that gave me the greatest pleasure. But many times he would just give us picture books to look at and sit there in silence propped up in his easy chair, blowing dense clouds of smoke, so that we all hovered as though in a fog. On such evenings mother was very sad and no sooner did the clock strike nine than she would declare: ‘Now children, to bed! To bed with you! The Sandman’s coming, I can sense it!’ And every time she said it I really did hear the sound of slow, heavy steps lumbering up the stairs; it must have been the Sandman.
    One time the muffled thump and lumbering step sounded particularly grim to me; so I asked mother as she led us away: ‘Mama, who is that evil Sandman who always chases us away from Papa? What does he look like?’
    ‘There is no Sandman, my dear child,’ replied mother; ‘when I say the Sandman is coming, all it means is that you children aresleepy and can’t keep your eyes open, as if somebody had scattered sand in them.’
    Mother’s answer didn’t satisfy me – indeed the notion took firm hold of my childish imagination