Steppenwolf

by Hermann Hesse

  'It is coming,' the other one said. And from the empty chambers in the interior of the theatre I heard some beautiful, terrible music ring out, the passage from Don Giovanni that accompanies the appearance of the Stone Guest. Arriving from the beyond, the world of the Immortals, the icy sounds of it echoed spine-chillingly throughout the haunted building.

  'Mozart!' I thought, conjuring up the most noble and best-loved images of my inner life.

  Behind me I now heard the sound of laughter, bright and ice-cold laughter, a product of the gods' sense of humour, originating from another world unheard of by human beings, a world beyond experienced suffering. I turned round, chilled to the bone yet delighted by this laughter, and there was Mozart walking towards me. Laughing, he passed by me and, strolling nonchalantly towards one of the theatre's boxes, opened the door and went in. Eagerly I followed him, the God of my youth, the object of my love and veneration throughout my life. The music continued to ring out. Mozart was standing at the front rail of the box, but nothing could be seen of the theatre. In the immeasurable space beyond him all was darkness.

  'You see,' Mozart said, 'the effect music can achieve even without a saxophone. Mind you, I certainly wouldn't want to be standing too close to that splendid instrument either.'

  'Where are we?' I asked.

  'We are in the last act of Don Giovanni. Leporello is already down on his knees. An excellent scene, and the music's not bad either, come to think of it. It may still possess all sorts of qualities that are very human, but there's no denying that you can already hear traces of the world beyond in it, in the laughter - don't you agree?'

  'It's the last great piece of music to have been written,' I said solemnly, like a schoolmaster. 'True, Schubert was still to follow, then Hugo Wolf came along, and I mustn't leave out poor magnificent Chopin either. Now you're frowning, Maestro. Oh, yes, there is also Beethoven, he too is marvellous. Yet, however beautiful all of that is, there is something piecemeal about it, a sense of things fragmenting. No human being has again produced a composition that is so perfectly integrated a whole as Don Giovanni.'

  'Take it easy,' Mozart said, with a laugh that was terribly scornful. 'I suppose you're a musician yourself. Well, I've given up the job, gone into retirement. If from time to time I take a look at what's still going on in the profession, it's just for fun.'

  He raised his hands as if conducting an orchestra and somewhere or other I saw a moon or some equally pale heavenly body rising. I was gazing out over the edge of the box into immeasurable depths of space. Mists and clouds were swirling in it; mountain ranges and coastlines came dimly into view; and beneath us stretched a desert-like plain as wide as the earth. On this plain we could see a venerable-looking old gentleman with a long beard who was walking mournful-faced at the head of an enormously long procession of tens of thousands of men dressed in black. He looked dejected and desperate, and Mozart said:

  'Look, that's Brahms. He is doing his utmost to achieve salvation, but he's still got a long way to go.'

  He told me that the black-clad thousands were the people who had sung or played all the notes in Brahms's scores that had been judged superfluous by the gods.

  'All too densely orchestrated, you see, waste of material,' said Mozart with a nod.

  And immediately after this we saw Richard Wagner marching at the head of an army just as large. He had the look of a martyr as he trudged along wearily, and we could sense what a heavy burden on him the thousands in his wake were.

  'In my youth,' I remarked sadly, 'these two composers were regarded as the greatest opposites imaginable.'

  Mozart laughed.

  'Yes, that's always the case, but viewed from a certain distance, opposites like that tend to look more and more like one another. It wasn't, incidentally, a personal fault of either Wagner or Brahms to go in for such dense orchestration, it was a fault of the age they lived in.'

  'What? And they now have to pay so dearly for it?' I exclaimed indignantly.

  'Naturally. The law must take its course. Only when they have discharged the debt of their age will it become clear whether enough still remains that is personal to them to make a reassessment of their value worthwhile.'

  'But surely neither of them is responsible for it?'

  'Of course not, any more than you are responsible for the fact that Adam ate the apple, but you still have to pay for it.'

  'But that's terrible.'

  'Certainly. Life is always terrible. We are not responsible for things, yet we have to answer for them. Just by virtue of being born we are guilty. You must have enjoyed a strange kind of religious education if you didn't know that.'

  By now I was feeling well and truly miserable. I had a vision of myself trudging dog-tired through that desert plain in the beyond, bearing the burden of the countless superfluous books I had written, all the essays and journalistic pieces too, and following in my train the host of those obliged to work on them as typesetters or to swallow the whole lot as readers. My God! And then there was Adam and the apple, and all the rest of that original sin business into the bargain! So all of that had to be atoned for, endless purgatory endured, before it would even be possible to consider whether there was still something of personal, individual value left behind, or whether all my activities and their consequences had been mere foam on the waves, a performance signifying nothing in the overall current of events.

  When he saw my long face Mozart started to laugh. He laughed so much he turned somersaults in the air and played trills with his feet. And in doing so he shouted at me: 'Hey, my lad, you look so sad, are things that bad? Worried about your readers, the greedy bleeders? Printers' devils, rabble-rousers, sabre-rattlers? Laugh? My sides I've split, you stupid twit, I've nearly shit myself! You're so naive, prone to believe and constantly grieve, I'll sing a psalm on your behalf, but just for a laugh. What waffle and piffle, what melodramatic monkeying around! Come, wiggle and waggle your tail, don't shilly-shally or dilly-dally on the way! To hell with you and your scribble and scrawl, you deserve to be lynched for all that you pinched from Goethe and Nietzsche et al.'

  This was simply too much to take. There was no time to dwell on my former melancholy now. I was so angry that I seized Mozart by his pigtail, which grew longer and longer like the tail of a comet as he hurtled off into space with me whirling along behind. God, it was cold out there! What a glacial, rarefied atmosphere these Immortals were able to survive in! Yet it put you in a cheerful mood, this ice-cold air; as I was just able to appreciate for a brief moment before falling unconscious. It was a bitterly sharp, icy cheerfulness that I felt penetrating my being like cold steel, and it made me want to laugh in just as bright, uninhibited and unearthly a manner as Mozart had done. But then, before I had chance to, I stopped breathing and lost consciousness.

  When I came to again I was battered and bewildered. The white light of the corridor was reflected in its shiny floor. I was not in the realm of the Immortals, not yet. No, I was still in this world, the world of mystery and suffering, of Steppenwolf figures and agonizingly complex entanglements. It was not a good place to be, not a place I could abide for any length of time. I had to put an end to this existence.

  Harry was facing me in the large mirror on the wall. He did not look well. He looked much the same as on that night after his visit to the professor's and the dance in the Black Eagle. But that was in the distant past, years, centuries ago. Harry was older now, he had learned to dance, visited the Magic Theatre, heard Mozart laugh. He was no longer frightened of dances, women or knives. Even a moderately talented person matures if he has raced his way through a few centuries. I took a long look at Harry in the mirror. I could still recognize him all right. He still looked a tiny bit like the fifteen-year-old Harry who had encountered Rosa one Sunday in March up in the rocks and, fresh from his confirmation, had raised his hat to her. Yet since then he had grown a good few hundred years older, had studied music and philosophy to the point were he was fed up with both, had drunk h
is fill of Alsace wine in the Steel Helmet, had taken part in debates on the God Krishna with reputable scholars, had loved Erika and Maria, made friends with Hermione, shot down passing cars and slept with that sleek Chinese woman in Marseille. In meetings with Goethe and Mozart he had also managed to tear various holes in the mesh of time and pseudo-reality in which he remained trapped. And even though he had lost his precious chessmen, he still had a trusty knife in his pocket. Onwards, Harry, old man, weary old chap!

  Ugh! How bitter life tasted! I spat at the Harry in the mirror, I kicked out at him, shattering him to pieces. Slowly I walked along the echoing corridor, examining the doors of the Magic Theatre that had promised so many wonderful things, but now there wasn't an inscription to be seen on any of them. I paced by all hundred of them slowly, as if inspecting troops. Hadn't I been to a masked ball earlier today? Since then a hundred years had gone by. Soon there won't be any more years. Something still needed to be done. Hermione was still waiting. Ours would be a strange wedding. These were troubled waters I was drifting in, pulled along by a murky current, a slave, a Steppenwolf. Ugh!

  I stopped by the last of the doors, drawn to it by the murky current. O Rosa, O my distant youth, O Goethe and Mozart!

  Opening the door, I was witness to a scene that was simple and beautiful. I discovered two naked people lying side by side on rugs on the floor: beautiful Hermione and handsome Pablo. They were fast asleep, utterly exhausted by lovemaking, one's appetite for which, though seemingly insatiable, is nonetheless rapidly satiated. Beautiful, beautiful people, splendid images, wonderful bodies. Under Hermione's left breast there was a fresh, round, richly dark mark, a love bite from Pablo's beautiful gleaming teeth. It was there that I plunged my knife in, as far as the blade would go. Blood flowed over Hermione's tender white skin. If the whole situation had been slightly different, if things had turned out a little differently, I would have kissed the blood away. As it was, I didn't. I just watched the blood flowing and saw the look of agony and utter astonishment in her eyes as they briefly opened. Why is she astonished? I thought. Then it occurred to me that I ought to close her eyes, but they closed again of their own accord. The deed was done. She just turned on her side a little. As she did so I saw a fine, delicate shadow playing between her armpit and her breast. It reminded me strongly of something or other, but annoyingly I could not remember what. Then she lay still.

  I looked at her for a long time. Eventually, as if waking from sleep, I started with fright and made to leave. At that moment I saw Pablo open his eyes and stretch his arms and legs. Then he bent down over Hermione's dead body and smiled. He will never learn to take anything seriously, I thought. Whatever happens just makes the chap smile. Carefully turning up one corner of the rug, Pablo covered Hermione with it as far as her breast so that the wound was no longer visible. Then he silently left the theatre box. Where was he going? Were they all leaving me here alone? I stayed there, alone with the half-shrouded body of the dead woman that I loved and envied. Her boyish curl was hanging down over her pale forehead, her slightly open mouth stood out bright red from the extreme pallor of her face, her delicately perfumed hair allowed just a glimpse of her small, finely sculpted ear.

  Her wish was now fulfilled. I had killed the woman I loved even before she had fully become mine. I had done this unimaginable deed and now I was kneeling there and staring into space, not knowing what it meant, unsure even as to whether it had been the right and proper thing to do, or the opposite. What would that shrewd chess player, what would Pablo have to say about it? I knew nothing. I was incapable of thinking. As the colour drained from Hermione's face the red glow of her lipstick became more and more intense. My whole life had been just like that. What little happiness and love I had experienced was like this rigid mouth of hers - a touch of red on the face of a corpse.

  And the dead face, the dead white shoulders, the dead white arms exuded a breath of cold air that slowly crept up on me, making me shudder. In this atmosphere of wintry desolation and isolation, this slowly, very slowly increasing chill, my hands and lips started to freeze. Had I extinguished the sun? Had I killed the heart of all life? Was this the deathly cold of outer space I could feel invading?

  Shuddering, I stared at Hermione's petrified forehead, at her stiff curl of hair, at her coolly shimmering, pale, shell-shaped ear. The chilling cold they exuded was lethal, but beautiful nevertheless. It had a wonderful ring to it, splendid vibrations. It was music!

  Had I not already shuddered with cold like this once before, much earlier, and at the same time experienced something akin to happiness? Had I not heard this music once before? Yes, in Mozart's presence, in the presence of the Immortals.

  Some lines of poetry came into my head. I had found them somewhere or other once long ago:

  Unlike you we've found ourselves a home

  Up in the starry ether, bright and cold.

  Oblivious to the passing hours and days,

  We're neither male nor female, young nor old ...

  Our life is eternal, cool and unchanging;

  Cool and star-bright, our laughter knows no end ...

  Then the door to the box opened and in came Mozart. I had to look twice before recognizing him because he was in modern dress, without his knee breeches and buckled shoes, and without his pigtail. He sat down by me, so close that I almost tried to hold him back, lest the blood from Hermione's breast that had run on to the floor should dirty his clothes. He sat down and started working in a really detailed fashion on some gadgets and bits of apparatus that lay to hand on the floor. He was taking it very seriously, adjusting this and that and screwing parts together with those admirably skilful and agile fingers of his which I would have dearly loved to have seen playing the piano. I watched him deep in thought, or rather I was not so much thinking as dreaming, absorbed by the sight of his fine, clever hands, heartened but also somewhat unnerved to feel him so close. I paid no attention at all to whatever it was he was actually up to with the screwdriver and the gadgetry he was fiddling around with.

  However, it turned out that what he had been assembling and getting to work was a wireless set. Switching on the loudspeaker, he now said: 'It's a broadcast from Munich: Handel's Concerto Grosso in F Major.'

  And in fact, to my indescribable astonishment and horror, what the satanic metal horn of a loudspeaker now immediately spewed out was just that mixture of bronchial slime and chewed-up rubber which owners of gramophones and wireless subscribers have agreed to call music. Yet, just as a thick crust of dirt can conceal an exquisite old-master painting, behind all the murky slime and crackling noise you could indeed recognize the noble structure of this divine music, its princely composition, the cool, ample air it breathed, the full, rich sonority produced by the strings.

  'My God,' I cried in disgust. 'What do you think you are doing, Mozart? Do you seriously want to subject yourself and me to such filth, to let this abominable gadget loose on the two of us, this triumphal invention of our times, the latest successful weapon in their campaign to destroy art? Is this really necessary?'

  Oh, how he laughed now, this uncanny man! His laughter was cold, ghostly, noiseless, yet it was devastating, destructive of everything. Taking intense pleasure in tormenting me, he went on adjusting the damned screws of his wireless set and repositioning the metal horn speaker, thus ensuring that the distorted, lifeless, adulterated music went on seeping into the room. And he laughed as he did so, just as he laughed when answering me.

  'Spare me your pomposities, if you please, neighbour! Incidentally, did you notice that ritardando just now? What a brilliant idea, don't you think? You impatient soul, why not let the thinking behind that ritardando influence you for once? Can you hear the basses? They are striding along like gods, another wonderful idea that old man Handel hit on. Just open up your restless heart to it, and it will bring you peace. I realize that this ridiculous apparatus casts a hopelessly idiotic veil over the distant form of the divine music, but just listen
to it striding by, little man, and let us have no pathos or scorn. Pay attention, you can learn something from it. Notice how, thanks to this crazy sound system, the most idiotic, useless and forbidden feat on earth is made possible. It takes some random piece of music that is being played somewhere or other and hurls it in a stupid, crude and terribly distorted form into a room where it doesn't belong. Yet it cannot destroy the music's original spirit. Inevitably, all it can do is use the music as a vehicle to demonstrate its own tireless technology and mindless creation of commotion. Listen closely, little man, you need to. Come on, prick up your ears! That's right. What you are hearing now, you see, is not just Handel as violated by the radio, a Handel who even in this most abysmal of guises remains divine - no, what you are hearing and seeing, Sir, is at one and the same time an excellent metaphor of all life. When listening to the radio you are hearing and seeing the age-old conflict between ideas and appearances, between eternity and time, between things divine and things human. For you see, my dear friend, just as the radio randomly flings ten minutes' worth of the most magnificent music on earth into totally inappropriate spaces like middle-class drawing rooms and the garrets of the poor, filling the ears of its subscribers with it as they chatter, feed, yawn and sleep; just as it robs this music of all its sensuous beauty, ruins it, reducing it to mere mucus and crackling sounds, yet still failing to kill its entire spirit, so does life or so-called reality send the world's splendid repertoire of images hurling all over the place. It will follow Handel up with a talk on the techniques medium-sized firms use to doctor their balance sheets. It will transform magical orchestral harmonies into an unpalatable porridge of notes. With its technology, its frantic activity, its unrestrained expediency and vanity it will intrude everywhere between idea and reality, between the orchestra and the ear. The whole of life is like that, young man, and we have no choice but to accept the fact and - if we have any sense - laugh about it. People like you have absolutely no right to go criticizing either the radio or life. You ought rather to learn how to listen first, to take seriously what is worth taking seriously, and to laugh about the rest. Or have you yourself by any chance found a better, nobler, more intelligent and tasteful way of living? No, you have not, Monsieur Harry! You have managed to make your life one long appalling story of sickness. You have turned your talents into one great disaster. And it is clear that here you could think of nothing better to do with a girl as good-looking and charming as this than to destroy her by sticking a knife in her body. Surely you don't think that was right?'