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the bridges by the lake,
     experienced a feeling of light-heartedness. Such and similar matters are set down
     for us in the most economical manner on a couple of pages. Of the walk itself, we
     learn nothing and nothing about what he may have pondered in his mind as he walked.
     The only occasion on which I see the traveller Robert Walser freed from the burden
     of himself is during the balloon journey he undertook, during his Berlin years, from
     Bitterfield––the artificial lights of whose factories were just beginning to
     glimmer––to the Baltic coast. "Three people, the captain, a gentleman, and a young
     girl, climb into the basket, the anchoring cords are loosed, and the strange house
     flies, slowly, as if it had first to ponder something, upward…. The beautiful
     moonlit night seems to gather the splendid balloon into invisible arms, gently and
     quietly the roundish flying body ascend and … hardly so that one might notice,
     subtle winds propel it northward." Far below can be seen church spires, village
     schools, farmyards, a ghostly train whistle by, the wonderfully illuminated course
     of the Elbe in all its colors.

    "Remarkably white, polished-looking plains alternate with gardens and
     small wildernesses of bush. One peers down into regions where one's feet would
     never, never have trod, because in certain regions, indeed in most, one has no
     purpose whatever. How big and unknown to us the earth is!" Robert Walser was, I
     think, born for just such a silent journey through the air. In all his prose works
     he always seeks to rise above the heaviness of earthly existence, wanting to float
     away softly and silently into a higher, freer realm. The sketch about the balloon
     journey over a sleeping nocturnal Germany is only one example, one which for me is
     associated with Nabokov's memory of one of his favorite books from his childhood.
     In
     his picture-book series, the black Golliwog and his friends––one of whom is a kind
     of dwarf or Lilliputian person––survive a number of adventures, end up far away from
     home and are even captured by cannibals. And then there is a scene where an airship
     is made of "yards and yard of yellow silk … and an additional tiny balloon […]
     provided for the sole use of the fortunate Midget. At the immense altitude," writes
     Nabokov, "to which the ship reached, the aeronauts huddled together for warmth while
     the lost little soloist, still the object of my intense envy notwithstanding his
     plight, drifted into an abyss of frost and stars––alone." 3
    ––TRANSLATED BY JO CATLING
    1. Walter Benjamin.
     "Robert Walser," in
Selected Writings: vol 2. 1927-34
(Harvard).
    2. Vladimir Nabokov,
Nikolai
     Gogol
(New Directions).
    3. Vladimir Nabokov,
Speak,
     Memory
(Random House).

The Tanners
    –1–
    One morning a young, boyish man walked into a bookshop and asked to
     be introduced to the proprietor. His request was granted. The bookseller, an
     old
     man of quite venerable appearance, gave a sharp glance at the one standing
     rather shyly before him and instructed him to speak. “I want to become a
     bookseller,” said the youthful novice, “I yearn to become one, and I don’t know
     what might prevent me from carrying out my intentions. I’ve always imagined the
     trade in books must be an enchanting activity, and I cannot understand why I
     should still be forced to pine away outside of this fine, lovely occupation.
     For
     you see, sir, standing here before you, I find myself extraordinarily well
     suited for selling books in your shop, and selling as many as you could possibly
     wish me to. I’m a born salesman: chivalrous, fleet-footed, courteous,
     quick, brusque, decisive, calculating, attentive, honest—and yet not so
     foolishly honest as I might appear. I am capable of lowering prices when a poor
     devil of a student is standing before me, and of elevating them as a favor to
     those wealthy individuals who, as I can’t help