Excerpts from The Robber (tranlated by Susan Bernofsky)

I don't know what time of day it was or what sort of mood prevailed as the Robber ran down a flight of steps furnished with a roof. His steps were wingéd and rang hollowly, so to speak, though we doubt this is the right word, on the wooden steps, but this doesn't stop us from saying he just gave carnations to a woman dressed all in black because he'd seen her go into a florist's shop. The gift didn't cost great sums. His legs carried him all the better for it. He possessed a splendid pair of legs, and with these excellent pins he now entered a schoolhouse so as to present himself at the polling place as a member of the supervisory committee and discharge his duties, which lasted two hours. One voter after the other stepped cautiously, as it were, into the room, placed his ballot in the box, spoke a few words to the committee head and departed. This all proceeded quite comprehensibly, and when the Robber was released from service he made his way across a bridge. We have several of these here, and he asked a public official for permission to leap about freely in a wooded area that constitutes a sort of park for the citizenry. "If you aren't too exuberant, but rather show moderation in your conduct, no objections need be made to your wishes," was the reply, and so the Robber now vaulted over, say, the backs of benches for amusement and to strengthen his limbs. Beneath overhanging foliage stood an ancient stone coat of arms. Above this, a villa district stretched across a hillside with its straight avenues. Here dwelt an affluent woman who, the Robber had heard, always snapped at all her servants, but only because she had a husband who discharged, that is expended his energies abroad without stopping to consider what his wife might think of this. Thanks to the indisposedness of her excellent spouse, this beautiful and kindhearted woman had a sullen cast to her lips, which, incidentally, was quite becoming. She saw herself perhaps a bit too tragically. -- That's how it is for many people: finding themselves displeased, they allow this ounce of displeasure to put them more and more out of sorts, as though they were being borne off in a coach. A person needn't find himself insufferable just because he happens, on some occasion, not to be in good spirits. There's no cause to hate oneself just because one's been, perhaps, a bit hateful. But, alas, this sometimes happens, which is perfectly stupid. One should make an effort not to see just the wickedness in what is wicked, but its beauty as well, for it is beautiful, far, far more beautiful than some dull, friendly face sitting for its photograph, which in itself lacks all value, as it bears witness to a lack of experience. On the fringe of this villa district stands a vestige of forest that actually doesn't look vestigial at all, but has quite a few trunks and depths to show for itself. The Robber now came to a house that was no longer present, or, to say it better, to an old house that had been demolished on account of its age and now no longer stood there, inasmuch as it had ceased to make itself noticed. He came, then, in short, to a place where, in former days, a house had stood. These detours I'm making serve the end of filling time, for I really must pull off a book of considerable length, otherwise I'll be even more deeply despised than I am now. Things can't possibly go on like this. Local men of the world call me a simpleton because novels don't tumble out of my pockets. one road led to the next, and so he passed the Public Health Bureau in which numerous officials pushed their pens around industriously in the interests of the population's health. Former dragoon barracks now served as a museum devoted to schools. Above this building stood the university, surrounded by parks designed by an uncle of the Robber who had spent long years on the Mississippi, where he became a landscape architect. Here, high above the treetops, stood a pavilion which offered an excellent view in all directions and from which one could gaze down upon a pretty sight: a church in the Baroque style standing large, quiet, noble, shapely, beautiful, dainty, massive, inviting and unapproachable beside the train station. In the station's main hall the crowd grew more and more colorful. Trains rolled in, others rolled off, bootblacks blacked the boots offered up to them by people who took all this for granted, paperboys hawked papers, porters loitered about. Travelers with briefcases in their hands stood out among servicemen topped with serviceman's caps, doors were thrust open and slammed shut, tickets requested and dispensed at ticket counters, and hawkers and hawkeresses consumed plates of soup in the restaurant where the Robber once treated an unemployed person to a sausage. Perhaps we'll return to this later. Next to hotels stood department stores, then followed perhaps a bookshop connected to a publishing house which treated its authors with the utmost care and restraint, in that its director advised against importunity, saying: "Maybe things will look up later." Authors tend to show publishers a sort of reverent contempt, a mix of sentiments that meets with wholehearted approval. Further on came, let's say, shops for bathroom fixtures and store windows containing mountains of stockings, and then of course there was the square before that church with the façade that bellied out just a little, which was markedly effective from an architectural standpoint. The upper windows were set a trifle back from the street, while the lower ones jutted forward. There was something reposeful, solid, phlegmatic about this. The house resembled a distinguished gentleman with a bit of a paunch. Then he came to a broad promenade lined with chestnut trees where one could "crown-prince" along. By this the Robber meant leaping from one stone base to the next. These bases supported benches upon which the weary could rest, or knitting women, or children who swept together little piles of sand, and the pigeons and other birds pecked up whatever they could find or what was offered them in an outstretched hand. There was something songlike about the high church windows with their multi-colored streams of light, and often, too, the organ's peals burst forth from the ceremonious interior into the outside world, and then the Robber stood once more before an art gallery and resolved never to read anything again, but all the same he did read this and that on occasion. And then he encountered yet again that one-armed individual, a sort of local celebrity. Once he had enthusiastically greeted here a stenographer who swayed softly as she walked. A mother complained she was neglected by her son, and a son informed him of his longing for the loving care of his mother, who had no time for him, and the sons of the beau monde strolled along before him, and all the daughters of the finest walks of life soared up and down the arch of existence, and now there appeared that man he had once heard saying with great attentiveness to his wife: "You barnyard sow," and an elderly woman possessed only half a nose, but haven't there been museum directors half of whose faces were gradually crumbling, and don't there exist morning-edition editors with innumerable similarities to monarchs? Once he went up to the top of the church tower and for a bit of small change was shown the enormous bells that rang down into his room on Sundays. A priest once invited him to climb up into the pulpit, and the Robber accepted this invitation.