If someone is really to have a primitive385 impression in such a place, either there must be an event or one must have another way, as I have in my depression. If not, then there is danger that the proceeds of a person’s life add up to this: he was young and still remembers many enjoyable impressions [VI 354] from that time, many happy days; then he was married, and everything went well, except that he once became very ill, and a physician, the first one available, was hastily summoned, and so Professor D. came and proved to be a very careful physician, and thus became the family physician; also in Pastor P. he found an earnest spiritual counselor, of whose deep religiousness and sincerity he was more convinced than of his own religiousness and therefore he became fonder of him year after year. Then he became acquainted with many congenial families, associated with them, and then he died. And why should it not be beautiful to have had a happy youth and to remember it; why should it not be gratifying to have learned to know Professor D. and Pastor P., but if this is supposed to be the ultimate when all is said and done—then I would rather not have inconvenienced either the professor or the pastor but would rather have heard the howling of the wolves and learned to know God.
In love stories, the messenger the lover uses is often a dwarf, a deformed person, an old hag—who would ever believe it was a love message; my depressing ideas are likewise a messenger from what was my first love [Kjærlighed], from what must always remain my one and only love. They terrify me, but they have never had the sender’s permission to annihilate me, to weaken my spirit, to make me a burden to others. Whether that will happen, I do not know; whether it will happen at once or soon, I do not know, for then I would not be depressed. But this I do know, they have led me to the most blessed certainty—and thus it can be the same with the mode of conveyance, “whether one comes limping, comes hobbling, without any pomp or circumstance.”386 In this very moment, I am overwhelmed by the thought that I have been able to persevere. Ah, in solitude I never wish for death. I do not understand how people can suddenly become so sluggish that they wish for death. Quite the reverse, the darker things get around me, the more I desire to live in order to persevere with myself, in order to see whether my enthusiasm was an idle word or an energizing power, whether it was a strong drink that foams by itself or a cheap beer that does indeed foam—but because of an added foreign substance. And if one can understand how terrible it can be for someone battling to [VI 355] become king to think of an untimely death just when he is closest to his goal, then I can understand that the person whose life is radically shaken, who has no confidant at his breast, and no impressa vestigia [footprints]387 for his feet, considers it important to him that death not come and make it impossible for him to find out whether this path was feasible or a mirage infatuated him, whether his resolution, which renounced all rhetorical devices, was just as full of chatter as that of the rhetoricians.
June 18. Midnight.
Am I guilty, then? Yes. How? By my having begun what I could not carry out. How do you understand it now? Now I understand more clearly why it was impossible for me. What then is my guilt? That I did not understand it sooner. What is your responsibility? Every possible consequence for her life. Why every possible one, for this certainly seems to be an exaggeration? Because here it is not a matter of an event but of an act and an ethical responsibility, the consequences of which I do not dare to arm against by being courageous, for courage in this case means opening oneself to them. What can serve as your excuse? That my total individuality predisposed me to something in which I have been corroborated on all 388sides, which, if I had sought a confidant, I would find confirmed—namely, “that a depressed person should not torment his wife with his sufferings but like a man should inclose them within himself.” What is your consolation? That I, in acknowledging this guilt, also sense a Governance in it all. Precisely because I had considered this matter to the best of my ability and acted as honestly as was possible for me on the strength of what I knew, precisely for that reason I see an agency that has led me on to a point where I understood myself as I perhaps otherwise never would have, but also learned this in such a way that I shall not become haughty. What is your hope? That it can be forgiven, if not here then nevertheless in an eternity. Is there anything dubious about this forgiveness? Yes, there is—that I do not have her forgiveness; and she is and remains an intermediate court, a legitimate court, that must not be bypassed. Her forgiveness certainly cannot justify me eternally, [VI 356] no more than a person’s implacability can harm anyone but himself, but her forgiveness is a part of a divine procedure. Why, then, do you not have it? Because I could not make myself understandable to her. It would, of course, have been much easier simply to obtain it and thus to be released from this dreadful state of suspension in which I can find a foothold only by assuming the most extreme possibility of responsibility. You were not asked about what is easiest or hardest, for one can also choose what is wrong even though one chooses the hardest. Why, then, do you not have it? Because I could not obtain it. When by letter I broke the engagement, I requested it. This she would not understand and therefore forced me to use the only means left to rescue her: to place the misunderstanding of deception between us. My pursuance of this showed me that the deception itself actually expressed the truth—that she did not understand me at all. 389Her idea of me was that I had more worldly tastes, that I wanted my freedom because the relationship became too confining for me. Precisely because this was her idea, her pride was offended, and this was why she was reckless in using every means. 390To her, regaining me had to depend essentially on my being led back to duty and on the arousing of my sympathy. If I had then spoken directly and said: The maintenance of the relationship is my own wish—I would not have been permitted to say more, but she would have been jubilant and said something like this: “O dear one, you do not know how happy you are making me. It is your own wish; alas, I had given up faith in that and learned to be satisfied with less until it again became your wish, but now everything is fine, in fact, more than just fine, it is splendid—you wish it and I wish it, so every hindrance is gone.” What does this mean? It means that she does not understand me at all. So I chose not to make myself understood but to give her to understand that I was tired of her, that I was a deceiver, a muddlehead. Her rescue depended on my holding firmly to this. But what, then, would it mean suddenly to beg for her forgiveness? It would sound as if I were making a fool of her. The word “forgiveness” between us places everything on a religious basis. To inveigle forgiveness from her is not, however, what is demanded of me. If I were to speak, I would have to admit my fault; but also, if this is going to be in earnest, she must be able to understand my justification. As soon as the discussion began, she would limit herself to understanding the first half and thereupon understand none of the rest, which then means that she would misunderstand [VI 357] the first part. If I could have been understandable to her in my entire makeup and consequently her forgiveness could have become something other than a comedy situation, then her behavior to me would have been so shocking that she would have needed my forgiveness instead, and 391so I would have done enough with that note. But as things stood, anything I said in the vein of truth would only contribute to making the two months even longer, for then she would be prompted to become more and more vehement in her approach—yet without gaining anything. 392To that extent, then, the most I have to reproach myself for is the earnest words I secretly interspersed in the confusion. Thus I do not have forgiveness. An official forgiveness between two who do not understand each other is an empty gesture and just as dubious as a contract drawn up in writing between two people, one of whom can neither write nor read handwriting. The greater mutual safeguard in having a written agreement compared with a verbal agreement disappears in a double manner: the person who cannot read handwriting has only what he has heard on which to stand and has no way of knowing whether what is written there is what was read aloud to him, and his signature becomes meaningless; the other person has
the burden of having to be solely responsible for both of them, although the document is really supposed to be mutual. Before I can really be forgiven, she must be able to place herself in my position; otherwise her forgiveness becomes just like a written statement from someone who cannot read handwriting—indeed, her forgiveness is even less, for the person who cannot read handwriting can very well understand what the discussion is all about, but forgiveness from the person who cannot or will not understand what the discussion is about is just as meaningless as an approval of a petition by one who does not know what is being sought in the petition. This, then, is why I have no forgiveness! I thought to honor her more by not tricking such a thing out of her; I have done what I believed to be due her or, more correctly, it happened for her sake: forgiveness has been made as difficult as possible for me. My break with actuality was of such a nature that it is a simple consequence that genuine forgiveness on her part is inconceivable, for this would indeed place me in continuity with actuality.393
This is the way the whole thing stands in time. As far as eternity394 is concerned, it is my hope that there we shall understand each other and that there she will forgive me. In time it becomes a dialectical goad in my pain that wounds me in many ways because it disturbs my view of life in regard to sympathy and also in regard to the deception. It is troubling [VI 358] that a deception, be it ever so pious and well intentioned, should have that much power; 395and there is always the possibility that the deception can acquire an epigrammatic power to satirize. The most poetic is also most ethical. For her it would be most poetic to remain devoted to me or to remain true to herself in her love, and this would also be the most terrible revenge on me. 396Every prosaic revenge eo ipso makes my responsibility lighter because it is less ethical.
How consistent life is! There is not anything that is true in one sphere that is not true in another. What profound earnestness that the laws of life are such that everyone must serve them whether he wants to or not. The Governance that requires a conciliatory spirit of every person also knows how to affirm itself, for precisely when the individual wants to avenge himself, the affair becomes easiest for the guilty party; and on the other hand, when the one offended chooses to be conciliatory, then Governance places the emphasis of revenge in this mildness. 397Caesar did many an illustrious deed, but even if nothing were preserved but one single statement he is supposed to have made, I would admire him. After Cato committed suicide, Caesar is supposed to have said, “There Cato wrested from me my most beautiful victory, for I would have forgiven him.”398
My demand to life is this—that it would make it clear whether I was trapped in self-delusion or I loved faithfully, perhaps more faithfully than she. How long I must persevere is not known. Even if the age of oracles vanished long ago, there is still one thing of which the simplest and the most profound person must, if he talks about it, talk mysteriously—that is: time. Without a doubt, it is the most difficult mystery, just as it is also supposed to be the most profound wisdom, to arrange one’s life as if today were the last day one lives and also the first in a sequence of years.399
June 19. Morning.
A year ago today. Yet these tears that force their way out of her eyes force out of my brain the possibility of impossibilities. Even though it is a superfluous gesture, I nevertheless cannot stop doing it. Hence I shout to the world, just in case [VI 359] someone might hear me: I bid, I bid half my life for a half year of happiness with her: I bid it for fourteen days: I bid it for the wedding day—is there no stroke of the hammer?
No! —But I must go to work. The person who is sentenced for life is used for hazardous work; so also is it with me and with my work.
Today she said the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard from her. In a certain sense it hit right in the heart. When a shot suddenly hits dead center in target shooting, the scorekeeper takes the precaution first of ascertaining whether it was an accidental shot, a shot in the air, a shot without aim, a weapon that perhaps went off by itself. She told me that she really believed that I was mad. But upon being scrutinized it proved to be a wild shot, and perhaps nothing she has said has more clearly shown me the difference between us. To be sure, in a certain sense a depressed person is mad, but to comprehend this madness takes considerable dialectic and considerable pathos. Anyone who says this in somewhat the same way one would say of a man dressed rather ludicrously, “Oh! He is mad,” shows eo ipso that there is not a trace of an intimation of what madness really is. The whole thing was a false alarm. It was an impetuous outburst that in its hurry did not know what else to say. And now and then she is a bit impetuous. She says that I am malevolent, not good. She said this again yesterday. Such a statement is a coveted stimulus to my nonsensical chatter, which immediately seized upon it. Well, I see it now; we do understand each other. The matter is quite simple. You merely give a statement something like this: In case something happens to me, I the undersigned declare that I do indeed feel respect. Say and write “respect” . . . . . or what was it I wanted to say? It was indeed respect that you do not feel. Everything is becoming all mixed up for me. It is in novels that one certainly has respect—so, I do not feel respect, and since true love, real love, is unimaginable without respect, then etc. As you see, it can be done in two ways. In other words, when respect and love join together against a person, then good night, Ole.400 One can, however, come out of it just as well with the help of respect alone as with the help of love. In other words, if one considers what respect really is . . . . . Here I was interrupted. She cannot keep from laughing [VI 360] when I am really laying on the nonsense. 401This consoles me. Basically she is suffering less from this than I, who in such a preposterous way have to work her loose.
June 24. Midnight.
Not even what I am writing here is my innermost meaning. I cannot entrust myself to paper in that way, even though I see it in what is written. Think of what could happen! The paper could disappear; there could be a fire where I live and I could live in uncertainty about whether it was burned or still existed; I could die and thus leave it behind me; I could lose my mind and my innermost being could be in alien hands; I could go blind and not be able to find it myself, not know whether I stood with it in my hands without asking someone else, not know whether he lied, whether he was reading what was written there or something else in order to sound me out.
Recollect it I can, and more swiftly than the briefest fraction of a moment. Lessing was indeed wrong in saying that the swiftest thing of all, swifter than sound and light, is the transition from good to evil,402 for even swifter is das Zugleich, the all-at-once. Indeed, transition itself is a time, but that which is all-at-once is swifter than any transition. Transition is still a qualification of time, but the speed with which that which once was and never is forgotten is present, although it was indeed present: that speed is the swiftest of all, for it is so swift that its being absent is, of course, but an illusion.
June 26. Morning.
A year ago today.
I bid my whole life for the wedding day; and we are, after all, two. No! That we are not, for she is not bidding in the same way; she wants to struggle but also to have a future. Of course, she must not leave her honor and her pride in the lurch. No stroke of the hammer.
Yesterday the nonsensical talk went on undauntedly as always. [VI 361] We discussed my dismissal and that this would be the most sagacious thing she could do, if I might make a recommendation. The result would be that I would soon regret it and return like a whipped cur. She took this advice with the laconic answer “Yes!” and added, “No, I don’t trust you an inch.” I saw from that what a poor opinion she really has of me, and what a mistaken exaggerated trust she has in the significance of her personal presence. That is a bit of luck. But then, just as the nonsensical talk was going best, she bursts into tears. A person who is in desperate need always has supranatural powers, and therefore my countenance stayed completely unaltered. Thereupon she said: Let me cry; it is a relief. By law all to
rture is forbidden; truly this is a dreadful torture. But I must respect the argument, but not in such a way that it disturbs me. And there is also a consolation in my not having avoided the sight from which a person in my position, when he is about to take his dismissal in a contemptible role, usually excuses himself. Then the nonsensical talk began again, and it does not seem to signify as much to her as to me.
Not to dare to say an earnest word, for it would, of course, be madness if I, the guilty one, were to admonish or comfort, but is it not also insane to sit here and look on! But the good thing about it is that it is my presence that goads her, even if against her will, to express herself this way. When I am absent, she hardly does it and perhaps does not feel the urge to do it.
Just suppose a third person had witnessed this situation! Just suppose someone who did nothing but write riddles and someone who grew old by guessing riddles were to join forces and guess 403which of the two is suffering more, on whom the impression is deeper! Tell us then, you man of experience, of a vortex that confused existence—but I have seen a confusion in which it seemed as if the commotion would not obey the rudder of an honest will! Tell about a dead calm that was the despair of all effort—but I saw a dead calm in which a lover worked and worked and almost became the beloved’s murderer—not out of malice, not by accident, but in accord with his most honest conviction.
[VI 362] June 30. Midnight.
What a toil and trouble is my life! My existence is nothing but molimina [vain efforts]; I cannot come back to myself. Whether that will ever happen in the world of time, I do not know. And if I become free so that I can integrate myself again, I may have trouble separating the alien parts that I nevertheless do not really want to separate. If I become free, there will still be an anxiety in my inclosed reserve that she has been changed.
Stages on Life’s Way Page 44
