How expert I became is comprehensible only to someone who knows what it means to attempt nothing, not the slightest thing, except by virtue of reflection, which is like someone’s having to use an artificial leg for walking and not being able to take a step without it, and at the same time wanting to conceal from people (something that can be successfully done in regard to reflection) that it is an artificial leg. A person needs to know only how much he does spontaneously in order to know what it means not to do the slightest thing without calculation. He needs to know the difference between coming to a lively gathering and being promptly happy and, on the other hand, coming out of the deepest darkness of depression and yet arriving precisely at the time stipulated in the invitation and with the kind of blithe spirit that the company and surroundings demand. If one is not in love, one becomes weary on the way.
Once a week she went to singing lessons—this I knew. I knew where her singing teacher lived. Far from making any attempt to force my way into this circle, I wished only to watch her secretly. Fortunately, it so happened that on the same street there lived a pastry baker whose shop she passed when she went to her lessons and when she returned. Here I had my resting place. Here I sat and waited; here I watched her, myself unseen; here the secret growth of love increased and was enjoyably encouraged before my eyes. It was a second-rate café and I could be fairly sure of not being taken by surprise. Some of my associates, however, became aware of it. I made them believe that the coffee was incomparably the [VI 193] best in the entire city—in fact, with great feeling I even urged them to try it. A few of them went there one day and tasted it—and of course found it to be poor, as it indeed was. I argued with them vehemently. As a result, when they and some others were discussing why I always went to that café, one of them said, “Ah, it’s just his usual contrariness! Just as a whim he claimed that the coffee was superb, and now merely to be in the right he forces himself to drink the bilge. That’s the way he is—a good head but as stubborn as they come, and the way to pay him back, as with Diogenes, is not by contradicting him but by ignoring him30 and in casu [in this case] his visits to the café.” Another one thought that I was quite disposed to fixed ideas, and he found it amusing that I could actually believe that the coffee was good. Basically, however, all of them were wrong, because to my taste, too, the coffee was bad. On the other hand, they were not wrong in paying me back by granting my wish to be left in peace with my pastry baker and his coffee. If I had pleaded with them about it, I could hardly have been so secure. I drank the coffee, did not think much about it, but here was the place I waited, here it was I nourished my love with the longing and refreshed it with the sight, and from here I took much home with me when the sight had vanished. I never dared sit by the window, but when I sat in the middle of the room, my eye could take in the street and the sidewalk on the other side where she walked; but the passerby could not see me. Oh, what a beautiful time, what fond recollection, what sweet unrest, what a happy sight—when I adorned my hidden life with the magic of love!
When I attended grammar school as a boy I had a Latin teacher whom I frequently recall. He was very capable, and by no means was it the case that we learned nothing from him, but at times he was somewhat strange or, if you choose to look at it that way, somewhat absentminded. Yet his absent-mindedness was a matter not of losing himself in thought, falling silent, etc., but of occasionally speaking suddenly in a completely different voice and from a completely different world. One of the books we read with him was Terence’s Phormio. It tells of Phaedria, who fell in love with a cither player and was reduced to following her to and from school. The poet then says:
ex advorsum ei loco
Tonstrina erat quaedam; hic solebamus fere
plerumque eam opperiri, dum inde rediret domum
[right opposite
was a barber’s shop; that’s where we used generally for the most part to wait for her to come out and go home].31
[VI 194] With pedagogic gravity the teacher asked the pupil why dum in this instance takes the subjunctive. The pupil answered: Because it means the same as dummodo [if only]. Correct, replied the teacher, but thereupon began to explain that we were not to regard the subjunctive mood in an external way as if it were the particle as such that took the subjunctive. It was the internal and the psychical that determined the mood, and in the case at hand it was the optative passion, the impatient longing, the soul’s emotion of expectancy. Thereupon his voice changed completely, and he went on to say: The person sitting and waiting there in that barber shop as if it were a café or a public place such as that is not an indifferent man but a man in love waiting for his beloved. In fact, if he had been a porter, a chair carrier, a messenger, or a cabdriver who was waiting there, then the waiting could be thought of as occupying the time while the girl was at her music and singing lesson, which is not to be considered subjunctive but indicative, unless it was the case that these gentlemen were waiting to be paid, which is a very mediocre passion. Language really ought not to be allowed to express that kind of expectation in the subjunctive mood. But it is Phaedria who is waiting, and he is waiting in a mood of: If only she, if she would only, would that she might only soon, soon come back; and all this is appropriately the subjunctive mood. There was a solemnity and a passion in his voice that made his pupils sit as if they were listening to a spectral voice. He fell silent, then cleared his throat, and said with the usual pedagogical gravity: Next.
This was a recollection from my school days. Now it is clear to me that my unforgettable Latin teacher, although he concerned himself only with Latin, could have taken on other subjects as well as Latin.
A year ago I escorted her home in the evening. There was no one else who could be asked to do it. In the company of several others, I walked happily along at her side. And yet it seemed to me that I was almost happier in my hiding place; to come so close to actuality, yet without actually being closer, results in distancing, whereas the distance of concealment draws the object to oneself. 32What if the whole thing were an illusion? Impossible. Why, then, do I feel happier in the distance of possibility? For the reason I myself have given; anything else is dark imagining. She is indeed the only one I love [VI 195] and have loved, and I will never love anyone else. But neither will I stoop to learn, as they say, to know her by testing and investigating her nature. She is my beloved, and the secret task of my love is to imagine everything lovable about her until I almost perish from impatience. The time and the hour may not yet be at hand; my soul is resolved.
January 9. Morning.
A year ago today. I count the moments; if only a chance to talk with her is granted to me, the die is cast. I have thought the whole thing over anew—her or nothing at all. God in heaven, would that this might turn out happily! To pray about her, I would not dare, except with the boundless reservation that makes me pray not about her but about what is beneficial for me. I have never dared to pray to God about anything in any other way, have never wished to pray in any other way. No doubt a person is closest to God on the shortcut of resignation, but this shortcut is a complete journey around life. In a certain sense I fear her Yes almost more than her No. Intimate as I am with silence and with dark thoughts, a No suits me better. But a Yes—yes, that is my only wish. After all, it does not have to suit the rest of me; to me it will mean that just as I have a dark corner in my soul where I am a lodger in depression, so now joy will also live with me; when I belong to her, I shall be able to concentrate my whole soul on making her as happy as it is possible for me. I ask no more in the world than that my soul might still have one abode where joy is at home, one object upon which I can concentrate in order to make happy and to be made happy.
I have not cared to test her or, as they say, to learn to know her. Constantly running through my mind is the verse: Martha, Martha, you have so many cares; one thing is needful.33 This one thing needful is: she is the beloved. I think that we do suit each other in this way: if I am good enough, she is always so. Of
dangers I have no fear, nor of self-sacrifices, either, so far from it that I almost find a joy in the absurd wish [VI 196] that she was unhappy. Truly, the only thing I fear is that she might be far happier without me.
I have, however, almost spied on her surroundings, her life situation. Fortunately these are propitious for me. Her family lives in almost idyllic peace. Her father is a serious man, and the mother’s death has mollified his nature and diffused a friendliness that certainly has something sad about it but also something open and inviting. Cheerfulness is not turned away from this place, but neither is happiness sought outside or in the prolix company of every Tom, Dick, and Harry. The mother’s death has helped the children to draw closer together more earnestly and to center their thoughts on their home, where the father, not without sadness but all the more solicitously, protects his children and not ungraciously lets himself be rejuvenated by the legitimate demands of the young people upon life. That is just as I wish it to be. Her surroundings are the kind that favor my undertaking and the happiness of my future more than a duenna favors the knight’s understanding with his beloved. I would not dare to tear a girl out of her accustomed surroundings and transplant her in an alien way of life.34
So come, then, hour of opportunity. I want to speak to her; I do not want to write or to appeal to any third party. It is my belief that a love in all honesty, an inwardness of conviction, a resoluteness of choice give the short word, give the voice itself, an expressiveness, a trustworthiness that to the person involved is more convincing and more satisfying than the result of the deliberations of fathers and friends, who still do not know one. What I want to say can be short, the shorter the better, just so it is said face to face. If I had eloquence, if I had the power to fascinate, how uneasy I would be lest I use it, and if I did use it, I would eventually pay most dearly for it. I fear no one as I fear myself. Woe is me if I discovered that there had been a single deceitful word in my mouth, a single word by which I had tried to prevail upon her.
January 11. Morning.
A year ago today. It is really exhausting, almost too much for me to keep my soul at the peak of resolution. In the same way a woodcutter swings his ax over his head and this posture [VI 197] multiplies the force many times; with all his might, he sets himself, as it were, in opposition, every muscle quivers in the effort. But just for one moment. Oh, that these moments might be shortened! Oh, that I do not make a false step! If in this almost preternatural state I do not grasp an actuality, if this potentiation in the service of a new reflection turns against me, then I am exhausted, perhaps demolished forever. O time, time, how terrible you are to struggle with! O man, how strangely you are constituted: to be able to be so strong and to be able to fall before nothing! Although I now feel strong, strong as a Greek god, I also realize that if nothing happens, I am crushed.
So then I met her. We met as we both were visiting the family who lived on Kronprindsesse Street.35 The mistress of the house was upstairs with her grandparents; since my errand was to her, her daughter was so kind as to fetch her. —Thus we were all alone. Very likely a more propitious occasion would not offer itself so soon or such a safeguarded moment. The grandmother was somewhat deaf but, as old people frequently are, very inquisitive; hence everything had to be said loudly and clearly, which does, however, take some time. As she ran out, Juliane had slammed the hall door behind her and thus had locked out herself and her mother. The situation, however, did not facilitate any more prolonged expectoration or the natural deceptions of an ardent feeling, but it would compel her to use all her powers so that no one would notice anything, and if on their entering they should find her to be a little different than usual, they would naturally attribute it to Juliane’s tactlessness in leaving us alone and even more so since my having to go out in the hall and open the door would give occasion for a little hilarity. The dramatic, however, is much quicker; a half minute was enough for me to survey what becomes rather prolix when I want to call it forth for recollection.
Am I, then, not perfidious; is there not something calculated in everything I undertake? Good God, if I use my sagacity precisely out of concern for her, what more can I do? The words spoken could now remain a secret between her and me; no one, not a soul, could suspect that a moment such as this was used in this way; if it so pleased her, the words spoken could be as null and void as if they were never spoken. The situation was precisely such that it prevented her from saying anything—if in her agitation she might otherwise have uttered a word to someone, a word that she perhaps would bitterly regret.
What I did say, I do not know, but I shivered inwardly, and although my voice was calm, it was nevertheless deep with emotion; I cannot describe how, but it was an indescribable [VI 198] relief to pour it out. I am convinced that what I said had all the interior truth of my passion. She stood as if paralyzed; she trembled visibly; she answered not a word. —I heard footsteps on the stairs, the doorbell rang, I opened it. The laughter was a great help, and the conversation began—it had worked out as planned. Now my wish was that she would be the first to go and thereby avoid our leaving together, which could be suspicious. By leaving first, she would also be safeguarded against any questions. Very likely she realized the same, for she departed. I stayed for an hour to divert attention.
Thereupon I went home and wrote to her father asking for her hand. Now every mundane deliberation, every sympathetic and concerned consideration on the occasion of such an important step was welcome to me and in my opinion entirely appropriate. Far from desiring to avoid this, I want every difficulty, every doubt, definitely to have its say; every danger must become clear to her. But my first words, my declaration of love, must be affirmed; it must not be thrown in with all these deliberations as just one more document. If I have kept silent so long, I also have the right to make my declaration without art, without guile, but just as my mood commands when it concentrates the full power of silent passion into a crucial declaration and at a crucial moment. This is the impression I want her to have of me, the impression I myself want to have—the rest I commit to God, as also this, but in another way.
Have I overwhelmed her? Have I made too strong an impression? Are the unexpected and a passionate outburst combined in one statement too much for a young girl to bear? Why was she silent? Why did she tremble? Why did she become almost alarmed at me? When the castle gate has not been opened for many years, it is not opened noiselessly like an inside door that turns with springs. When the door of silence has been shut for a long time, then the word does not come out like the hello and goodbye of a quick tongue; when one has staked everything on one word, when someone has willed one thing for years and years and now is to say it—not to a friend but to the one in whose hands lies its fulfillment—then the voice is not as disinterested as that of a watchman who calls out what time it is, and is interested in a way quite different from that of someone who is counting slabs of peat. Why, [VI 199] then, am I afraid; why am I restless; why does my reflection already want to wound me, as if there were something subtle in being silent so long, something demonic in being able to do so, something cunning in utilizing the moment, something unjustified in using the simplest means and the most honest course of action because this is perhaps the most effective?
January 12. Morning.
A year ago today. It is settled. So they did not make the testing period long for me. Well, I needed that, for I am very exhausted. O possibility, you sinewy, agile athlete, in vain one tries to lift you off the ground in order to take away your strength,36 for you can be stretched as long as an eternity and yet keep your footing; in vain one tries to put you at a distance, for you are one’s self. Yes, I know that you will still be the one who some day takes my life, but not this time. Let go of me, you withered hag, whose embrace is as revolting to me as was the forest hag’s to Roland’s squires.37 Shrivel up to the nothing that you are; lie there like a wind-dried grass-snake until once again you come to life and once again become tough and elastic and able to ea
t away at my soul! At this moment your power is broken. The testing period is over—if only it has not been too short, if only no one hurried her into making a resolution, if only they made the whole matter difficult enough for her.
So rejoice, my soul! She is mine! God in heaven, I thank you! Now for a little day of rest so that I can really rejoice in her, for I know very well that I can indeed do nothing, nothing at all, without seeing her and thinking of her.
The first kiss—what bliss! A girl with a joyful temperament, happy in her youth! And she is mine. What are all dark thoughts and fancies but a cobweb, and what is depression but a fog that flies before this actuality, a sickness that is healed and is being healed by the sight of this health, this health that, after all, is mine since it is hers, is my life and my future. Riches she does not have; this I know, I know it very well; nor is it necessary either, but she can say, as an apostle said to the [VI 200] paralytic, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you; stand up, be well!”38
Stages on Life’s Way Page 24
