A nobleman, Herr von Griesenau by name, had a coachman, Joseph, whom no other employer would have put up with. He lived in a ground floor room near the
gatekeeper’s lodge, for he was too fat and short of breath to climb stairs. All he had to do was drive a coach, but even for this he was employed only on special
occasions, to honor a visitor perhaps; otherwise, for days on end, for weeks on end, he lay on a couch near the window, with remarkable rapidity blinking his small eyes
deep-sunken in fat as he looked out of the window at the trees which—
Joseph the coachman lay on his couch, sat up only in order to take a slice of bread and butter and herring from a little table, then sank back again and stared vacantly
around as he chewed. He laboriously sucked in the air through his large round nostrils; sometimes, in order to breathe in enough air, he had to stop chewing and open his
mouth; his large belly trembled without stop under the many folds of his thin, dark blue suit.
The window was open, an acacia tree and an empty square were visible through it. It was a low ground floor window. Joseph saw everything from his couch and
everybody on the outside could see him. It was annoying, but he hadn’t been able to climb stairs for the last six months at least, ever since he had got so fat, and thus
was obliged to live on a lower story. When he had first been given this room near the park keeper’s lodge, he had pressed and kissed the hands of his employer, Herr
von Griesenau, with tears in his eyes, but now he knew its disadvantages: the eternal observation he was subjected to, the proximity of the unpleasant gatekeeper, all the
commotion at the entrance gate and on the square, the great distance from the rest of the servants and the consequent estrangement and neglect that he suffered—he
was now thoroughly acquainted with all these disadvantages and in fact intended to petition the Master to permit him to move back to his old room. What after all were
all these newly hired fellows standing uselessly around for, especially since the Master’s engagement? Let them simply carry him up and down the stairs, rare and
deserving man that he was.
An engagement was being celebrated. The banquet was at an end, the company got up from the table; all the windows were open, it was a warm and beautiful evening
in June. The fiancée stood in a circle of friends and acquaintances, the others were gathered in small groups; now and then there was an outburst of laughter. The man
to whom she was engaged stood apart, leaning in the doorway to the balcony and looking out.
After some time the mother of the fiancée noticed him, went over to him and said: “Why are you standing here all alone? Aren’t you joining Olga? Have you
quarreled?”
“No,” he answered, “we haven’t quarreled.”
“Very well,” the mother said, “then join your fiancée! Your behaviour is beginning to attract attention.”
The horror in the merely schematic.
The landlady of the rooming house, a decrepit widow dressed in black and wearing a straight skirt, stood in the middle room of her empty house. It was still perfectly
quiet, the bell did not stir. The street, too, was quiet; the woman had purposely chosen so quiet a street because she wanted good roomers, and those who insist on quiet
are the best.
27 May. Mother and sister in Berlin. I shall be alone with my father in the evening. I think he is afraid to come up. Should I play cards [Karten] with him? (I find the
letter K offensive, almost disgusting, and yet I use it; it must be very characteristic of me.) How Father acted when I touched F.
The first appearance of the white horse was on an autumn afternoon, in a large but not very busy street in the city of A. It passed through the entranceway of a house
in whose yard a trucking company had extensive storerooms; thus it would often happen that teams of horses, now and then a single horse as well, had to be led out