Here the diary ends for the time being. It deals with nothing, yet not in the sense of Louis XVI’s diary, the alternating contents of which are supposed to have been: on one day, went hunting; the second day, rien [nothing]; the third day, went hunting.427 It contains nothing, but if, as Cicero says, the easiest letters deal with nothing, then sometimes it is the hardest life that deals with nothing.
[VI 371] LETTER TO THE READER428
from
Frater Taciturnus
My dear reader, if you in any way are of my profession, you will immediately perceive that the character conjured up here is a demoniac character in the direction of the religious—that is, tending toward it. 429How honestly, how amply he does his part by talking so that you can see him (loquere ut videam) [speak so that I may see],430 no one knows better than I, who, often exhausted, often wearied, have been tempted to abandon him and to give up patience, which amount to the same thing, which is also why, by heeding the stars and by reading coffee grounds by virtue of my scaldic vision and eagle eye,431 I pronounce the matchless prophecy that two-thirds of the book’s few readers will quit before they are halfway through, which can also be expressed in this way—out of boredom they will stop reading and throw the book away. Since he is standing on a dialectical pinnacle, one must be able to calculate with infinitely small numbers if one wants to observe him. For a round sum, be it ever so large if it nevertheless is round, one does not buy admission to his dialectical performances, and thus one would be better off not finding it worth the trouble to observe such a puppet. 432Yet it may well have its importance to pay attention to him, because one is able to study the [VI 372] normal in the aberration and, if nothing else, always learn this much, that the religious is not something to make light of as something one can easily do, or something for stupid people and unshaven striplings, since it is the most difficult of all, even though absolutely accessible and absolutely enough for everyone, which is already difficult to understand, just like the contradiction that the same water in the same place is so shallow that a sheep can wade and so deep that an elephant can swim.
The girl I have kept altogether ordinary (in particular have only had her lack religious presuppositions) and deliberately so, in order that she can better illuminate him and teach him to exert himself. It would take frightful effort, perhaps even be impossible, to raise a very small object with a hydraulic jack, or to weigh half a pound with a quarter-ton steelyard: and likewise I have also thought that if there has to be a misunderstanding, it had better be of some use.
433The erotic and the erotic relationship, however, are of minor concern to me. I use it mainly for orientation in the religious, so one does not become all confused and think that the religious is the first spontaneity,434 the first immediacy, or a little bit of this and that: drives and natural impulses and youthfulness, in which with an admixture of a little spirit there is a bit of fermentation. —The girl is what one properly calls a nice girl.* In novels and plays, and actually not until the [VI 373] fifth act, “a girl like that” makes a man happy; in actuality’s five acts she does the best she can; in the imaginary psychological construction [Experiment],437 she cannot make him happy—not because she cannot (for she can), but because she never has a chance—that is why they make each other unhappy. By endowing her differently, I would merely have prevented my main character from being adequately illuminated. With her charm, she does him a significant service, more than any general maid who does everything, and that is already a great deal for an ordinary girl in an imaginary psychological construction, for she does not belong there.
* The female character, of course, is only suggested in general outlines: a very young, lovable girl within the esthetic scope of naïveté. I shall sketch her here, since otherwise she is not discussed in her totality. I continually have him in mente, respecting, of course, the psychological probability that she does not emerge from her esthetic naiveté. 435In the period of the engagement she is reserved at first. His singularity and unerotic behavior were certainly bound to make a girl feel strange. She cannot bear it, becomes bored with it, wrinkles her nose, and puts her foot down. Then comes a little incident, and she relents; she places the chair beside her and bids him sit down while she charmingly in the most endearingly roguish manner does a little fall on her knees. But he, a miserable hero as a lover, he cannot understand this, and in no situation does he more resemble qua lover the immortal knight of the rueful countenance than when he is seated this way. Now he wants to leave her. In her agony, she beseeches him by God and everything holy that she can think of. She herself brings the note to him; she does not suspect that there could be anything wrong in that. Now the final struggle of separating begins. She manifests all her lovable sympathy, which is ready to be satisfied with any condition, and this is the endearing sympathetic resignation naïveté. She cannot [VI 373] express herself in any other way, and even if one were inconsistently to demand an indication of reflection’s resignation, his deception and his desperate conduct in the deception completely prevent any genesis or expression of a reflective sympathy. Thus she is altogether charming, but nevertheless with only enough resilience, if it could be measured, so that there is the psychological possibility of a new love affair, even if psychologically the pattern may be varied.
After the engagement she does nothing at all. Even there where the psychological possibility points most dangerously at him, in the meeting at church, it is not assumed that it is an actuality (but it is also a long way from being a psychological impossibility), for his passion sees everything there is, as in this case, despite the distance. But even if he has seen accurately, the whole thing would be a little fancy on her part, perhaps a little favor, perhaps because it now occurred to her that she had been too severe with him—a little fancy ad modum [like] that little fall on her knees. But he, who with respect to her has undertaken “to try to abolish fate and chance,” he has naturally qualified himself to be continually led by the nose, just as he is by various remarks about her future that he, unfortunately for him, has elicited from her, remarks that did not mean much to her when she said them, whereas he feels eternally obliged repeatedly to make everything of them.436
As a lover, the male character would hardly succeed in the world. His conduct and his fidelity are so grandiose, impractical, and awkward that one could be tempted to ask along with, I think, a French author438—whether he became mad because [VI 374] he was faithful to the girl, or he remained faithful to her because he was mad, for as a lover he is mad. If he actually existed, if I were able to give flesh and blood to a character in an imaginary construction, if he lived in our day and in his interiority so that his exterior appearance would not be a deception, it would be an out-and-out comedy. How funny it would be to see such a spook, troglodyte, or cave dweller come sneaking out after listening secretly to people’s romantic talk and claim to be an unhappy lover of the first rank! He would have the street urchins on his tail, that is certain. An anachronism like that in the nineteenth century!—when everyone knows that unhappy lovers are like those snakes with seven heads, whom Linné proved did not exist, were a figment of the imagination.439 To take seriously that summary that everyone knows so well: to love once, to make each other happy, etc.—to act in virtue of that with the utmost effort in a way that is condoned only in the action of a very young person once in his life and at most for half a day, to work oneself to death in an empty ceremonial service that aims to introduce utterly obsolete customs and manners—that would really be rich material for comedy. It goes without saying that just as one learns language in one’s childhood, so also in youth one provides for one’s whole life and stores up among other things a little supply of beautiful idioms and enthusiastic turns of phrase that serve oneself and others for a lifetime and are sociable in friendship and friendly in society and unceasingly friendly. That idioms last for a lifetime is, of course, quite as it should be, so much the more so because they provide a somewhat varied service and are a little f
anciful adornment for youth on its happiest day, a pleasantry when mamma says it, and a witticism in a very old man’s mouth. But that love is supposed to have the same indestructible quality, to say nothing of unhappy love, betrays a slovenly upbringing; I at least say with Pernille: I thank my parents in my grave that I was brought up differently.440 Indeed, who these days buys an umbrella for a whole lifetime as they did in olden days, or a silk dress, a really good one that will be useful for a lifetime, or a fur coat for eternity? One readily admits that the quality [VI 375] is perhaps not like that of Chinese satin; one readily admits that the owner does not treat his clothes as carefully as that Chinese satin was handled, but the advantage of being able to procure them brand-new three or four times and the advantage of being able to be careless with one’s clothes are nevertheless obvious. This wisdom must not be regarded as being for the select few—luckily it is public knowledge (praised be our century!). Thus one sees an unhappy lover as rarely as one sees a cape of Chinese satin. And then to want to be an unhappy lover, although he may not even be one, yes, to make it a point of honor, that is trying in utter madness to pick a quarrel with the world; the only worse madness would be for him to assume that he was not the only one but that there was a whole tribe of the same kind. It is well known that Don Quixote believed that he himself was a knight-errant. His madness by no means reaches its climax in this idea—Cervantes is much more profound than that. When Don Quixote had been healed of his sickness and the licentiate is already beginning to hope he has recovered his mind, he wants to test him a little. He speaks to him about different things and then suddenly intersperses the news that the Moors have invaded Spain. Then there is only one way to save Spain, answers Don Quixote. “What is that?” asks the licentiate. Don Quixote refuses to tell; only to His Faithful Majesty, the King of Spain, will he disclose his secret. Finally he yields to the licentiate’s pleas and, sworn to secrecy and with the solemnity of a father confessor, he receives that famous knight’s confession: “The only way is for His Faithful Majesty to send out a call to arms to all the knights-errant.”441 To be a knight-errant oneself is, if you please, the work of a half-mad man, but to populate all Spain with knights-errant is truly a delirium furibundum [raging madness]. In this respect, my hero has more sense, for he has understood the age in such a way that he himself becomes the only knight of unhappy love [Kjærlighed].
Yet, to repeat, the erotic is of minor concern to me. I have utilized it as Constantin Constantius ventured to use it in a book entitled Repetition (Copenhagen: 1844),442 a venture that did not, however, succeed, for he remained within the esthetic. The collision consisting of a man’s becoming a poet because of a girl and therefore being unable to become her [VI 376] husband lies within the sphere of the esthetic. The collision itself can, of course, only awaken a young person’s concern, and I do not understand why Constantin has concealed from the young man what any practical fellow easily perceives—that the collision is resolved without any difficulty. He marries her and thus does not become a poet. That is indeed what he fears; he does just the opposite and perhaps thereby becomes a poet. If not every girl can make a man into a poet, then every woman can hinder a man in becoming a poet if he marries her, that I can guarantee him, and especially and best of all the girl who was on the way to making him a poet, for the poet’s association with the muse is very different from a marriage relationship; and muses, along with whatever fabulous beings belong to them, do best by keeping their distance. And since there is nothing so embarrassing for a being that has flesh and blood as to have to be a muse, the adored one will naturally do everything to frustrate him in becoming a poet and encourage his every attempt to become a real husband. This whole collision is something my hero could have invented, something he could have thought up in order to pay the girl a compliment. In saying this, I do not mean to offend that young man, for in his youthfulness he can mean it in a good way. However, such a fancy could not occur to my hero; he is much too advanced for that. All the better—that is, all the more strongly does the misunderstanding show up.
Fortunately my hero does not exist outside my imaginary construction in thought. In actuality he cannot be the butt of laughter. This is fortunate enough, but it is even more fortunate for me that my task cannot be that of having to argue with him or dialecticize him out of his dialectical difficulty. Such a person, as an actually existing individual, would be able to provide enough to do for a Doctor Seraphicus [Angelic Doctor]443 combined with a Magister Contradictionum [Master of Dialectic],444 and when all is said and done, they perhaps would not be able to do a thing. To whatever they would come up with, he would presumably answer: I thought of that myself; now, you just listen. And thereupon he would interpret the dialectical objection until he had gradually changed it in his favor. Nor would it help to terrify him with pathos, for he is also man enough to express the most opposite point of view with pathos.
Therefore it is by no means my intention to convince him [VI 377] with what I write here, but rather to become aware of something true in him and in much of what he says. I let him pass for what he is, an enthusiast [Sværmer], and an enthusiast of a particular kind, not simply because he has arrived a few centuries too late. Börne has said it felicitously: “The same thing happens to individual enthusiasts in relation to one another as happens to shareholders in a tontine—gradually, as they die off, the share increases for the survivors.”445 No wonder, then, that he as an enthusiast is extraordinarily enthusiastic, since the whole capital, plus interest and interest on the interest, falls to him. Yet he is not merely an enthusiast to such a degree by being of a unique kind but also by not being an immediate enthusiast; he is an enthusiast in the form of deception under which he lives free in his enthusiasm. This is a new expression for the degree of his enthusiasm and shows that this is the highest. A spontaneous, immediate enthusiast, and to this class essentially belong all who have become well known, will either press on jubilantly through all the world’s opposition and plant the banner of victory, or he will weigh heavily upon existence with his suffering—that is, despite all his enthusiasm, the enthusiast still cannot do without the world. My hero does not wish to do this at all; on the contrary, he wants to hide his enthusiasm by an exterior that expresses the opposite; so secure is he in his cause that he does not care or, as he also thinks, does not dare to express it.
I let him pass for what he is and go to the issue. This I shall discuss 446by suggesting specific points, and in working them out I shall always have him in mente.
I.447
What Is Unhappy Love, and
What Is the Variant in the Imaginary Construction?
448From time immemorial, poetry has had in unhappy love [Kjærlighed] an object for its happy love. If, as has been said, it was a mother at her child’s sickbed who invented prayer, [VI 378] prayer that is specifically designed for such a sufferer, one could almost believe that unhappy love has invented poetry. But in that case it is no more than reasonable for poetry to reciprocate and come to the assistance of unhappy love, and it is not too much to ask that it do this willingly.
Unhappy love implies that love is assumed and that there is a power that prevents it from expressing itself happily in the lovers’ union. Nothing is easier to say than this, but to be a poet, who with his divine pathos fills this void and creates with his breath, is to be removed from this trivial remark by a distance equal to the diameter of the earth. Without pathos, no poet. Pathos ranks first, but the next, which stands in an essential and absolute relation to that, is to comprehend penetratingly a profound contrast. If one were to count all the obstacles to the happiness of erotic love [Elskov], there would be on this scale, just as on a thermometer’s, a plus and a minus range. Beginning with the insignificant obstacles, one would reach a point where the change took place and everything became different. It is possible to think of obstacles of such a nature that one would have to say: The task for erotic love is to overcome them. If a poet selects such an obstacle as constitut
ing an unhappy love, then he is not a poet but a satirist against his will. Consequently, it must not be in love’s power to remove the obstacle.
This is how the matter stands or, more accurately, it was standing at this point many years ago. The later period has the common flaw of limping on both sides, neither believing in love as the absolute passion nor choosing obstacles of prima quality; people negotiate with the creditors and they listen to reason—and the item “unhappy love” is dropped and instead there is just one item, “more or less happy love”; there is equality and “one kind of beer” for everyone.
Poetry is connected with immediacy and thus cannot think a duplexity. If there is any doubt for a single moment that the lovers are not absolutely reliable qua lovers, not absolutely prepared within themselves for love’s union, if there is a single doubt, then poetry turns away from the guilty party and declares: “This is a sign to me that you do not love, and therefore I cannot become involved with you.” And in this, poetry also does well, so that it does not itself become a ludicrous power, as it has frequently become in later times through a misunderstood choice of tasks.
Without passion, no poet, and without passion, no poetry. Consequently, if one is to break out of poetry and the rounded-off sphere in which duplexity cannot be accommodated, [VI 379] if this exodus is not to mean losing oneself in commonsensicality and finitude, then it must take place by virtue of a higher passion. To take passion away from poetry and to compensate for what is lost with embellishments, lovely rural scenery, popular woodland scenes, enchanting theatrical moonshine, is a loss akin to wanting to make up for the badness of a book with the elegance of the binding, something that certainly cannot interest the reader but at most the bookbinder. To take passion out of the lines of a play and in compensation have the orchestra fiddle a little is to prostitute poetry and is comic, just as it would be in actual life if the lover, instead of pathos in his breast, had a music box in his pocket for the crucial moment.
Stages on Life’s Way Page 46
