In margin: By chance I went into my old café. Thus everything was like the old days.—Pap. V B 98:18 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 392:27-393:11:
Indeed, if in the beginning I had suspected someone else, I [V B 122 3 218] believe it would have been almost impossible for my depression to take hold of me, but I would have known better how to evaluate her passion and her facial expressions.
In margin: And it is her first love to which she returns—thus she has lost nothing in my eyes. Absorbed in myself, I have not noticed that anything like that was in her; she has not had occasion to say anything, and thus it nevertheless is possible. That such a thing could have happened to me is, after all, a little joke on me, but it makes no difference if only she is held [V B 122.3 219] in the idea; then I ask no more. She possibly would have disturbed my life-view; now she does not. It is good that I never knew of any such person; it would have disturbed me in my grieving.—Pap. V B 122:3 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 393:14-15:
. . . . . for it fits my nature so completely that I can say: Thus and only thus could I feel my way in the erotic. As soon as I dare to call it an incident, the incident is precisely just as comic as it is tragic. The comic consists in our having exchanged roles. She screams, I suffer, she dies, I live, she loves again, I remain the same, she becomes happy a second time, I continue to be the unhappy one. And what is even more comic, only in this way can my story become intelligible to others. I would hardly dare to confess the truth of the matter on my deathbed lest the esteemed funeral procession burst into unseemly laughter at burying such an unhappy lover.—Pap. V B 122:4 n.d., 1844
From final copy; see 393:15:
As soon as I have peace and she is free and consequently I dare to call the whole thing an incident, then I may say: It is precisely just as comic as tragic. The comic consists in our having exchanged roles. She laments, I suffer, she dies, I live, she loves again, I remain the same, she becomes happy a second time, I am and remain the unhappy one and there the matter rests. And what is even more comic is that as soon as I shall talk about it with someone I must talk in such a way that she is the suffering one, I the one who walks jauntily, for otherwise he believes that I am poking fun at him, and I must go on this way lest the esteemed funeral procession that some day will follow me to the grave burst into unseemly laughter at burying such an unhappy lover.—Pap. VI B 8:14 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 393:17-19:
What should I say? Should I change the deception a bit and seek an understanding in: Jack does it, you do it, everyone does it126—that, after all, would be a new untruth, for I am absolutely unchanged, and it never occurred to me to think of any other girl.—Pap. V B 122:5 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 393:38-394:2:
No, only when I am silent can I keep my soul full of pathos so that she and life’s whirlpool do not hurl me into the ludicrous. I am as prepared as possible for what will happen; it is my consolation that I believe myself able to hold back.—Pap. V B 122:6 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 395:38-396:5:
As for myself, my understanding teaches me that I have benefited from these two months, that she has even less of an idea of me and my personality. To me it would be a terrible thought to be separated from a person to whom I had entrusted some of the innermost content of my life, especially from a young girl who perhaps would speedily enough fall in love again and then have the content of my life to dabble in during the love embrace. Let them hug and kiss; it is of no concern to me, but my personality was and is a closed book for her. If my inclosing reserve has crushed me, it has also benefited me in that it has made me suspicious even of the person I called my beloved.—Pap. V B 113 n.d., 1844
From final copy, with penciled parentheses and underlining; see 396:23:
. . . . . (and with the utmost labor yet continually hidden in the chaste modesty of the deception), . . . . . —Pap. VI B 8:15 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 398:1:
Postscript by Frater Taciturnus
—Pap. V B 148:1 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 371:3-372:18:
My dear reader, if you are in any way a professional, you will readily see that the character I have constructed is a demonic individuality tending toward and approximating the religious. That kind of thing is always of interest especially to the religious—and to Liebhabere [amateurs]. As for the female individuality with whom he, to use a ballet term, performs the routine figures, she is altogether ordinary. She is a charming girl etc. I have clung firmly to only one thing in the construction for the specific purpose of illuminating him, and that is that she lacks religious presuppositions.
The girl is kept altogether ordinary; [*] precisely such a person illuminates him best; because of that he has the added suffering of wanting with the strain of despair to have her be something great.
[*]In margin: she is what is called a nice girl.
—Pap. V B 148:4 n.d., 1844
In margin of sketch; see 398:24-399:2:
My interest is not to be a poet but to make out the meaning of the religious. That it will not be thought that the religious is for striplings* and stupid people—that is my aim in this story.
In margin: *and the unshaven
—JP V 5722 (Pap. V B 148:5) n.d., 1844
Deleted from draft; see 399:23-400:27:
[Penciled in margin: N.B.]
[V B 154 260] In the period of engagement, she does everything that a lovable girl would do. She is reserved, no wonder, since all his singularity is not exactly cheering to a young girl. Then erotic love emerges; then she gives him a most charming little curtsey, [V B 154 261] and he understands it in his categories. Then she beseeches him* to remain with her. She shows him every possible sympathy by wanting to put up with everything in him; it is and remains sympathy, even if he has another concept of it. After that time, she does nothing at all, but his passion sees everything. Even if she is assumed to have nodded to him in church, the distance is such that it was difficult to observe, and even if it is so, for we have no factual certainty, then it would be just like that curtsey, and only for his eyes does this have enormous meaning.
In margin: *in a little note she herself brings
—Pap. V B 154 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 399:11-402:25:
I shall now tease him a little. For example, by reminding him of a remark by another author, by asking him whether he became mad by being faithful to her, or did he remain faithful to her because he was mad. Indeed, in a certain sense it is funny to see a horror like that, a troglodyte or cave dweller, come sneaking out after secretly having listened to human talk and now wanting to imitate them. In the nineteenth century. It is good he does not appear in the external actuality, for then he would have the boys chasing him. To take seriously the whole rigmarole that everyone knows so well about loving only once etc., something one condones only in a young person, and that only once in his life, and in someone drunk. The time of youth is indeed the time of preparation, and therefore in it we lay up supplies for life; thus everyone takes along a little mouthful of romantic sayings to help himself through life according to the specification: he is sociable in friendship, is friendly in society, and on the whole pleasant and continually friendly. But it is only something one says; it is a kind of putty or paste with which one glues social life together.
Yet the erotic interests me less. The religious is the main consideration, and he has in fact established an ethical point of view before he becomes engaged. He is unable to love; for the girl he can become a powerful ministering spirit who, like the jinni of the lamp, indulges her in everything, or he can become what he became, but a lover he is not.
Otherwise, the remarkable thing about this horror is that he is not at all visible in the external and to that extent he cannot have the boys chasing him. Unlike other enthusiasts, he does not wish to transform the world and express his enthusiasm; he is free in his enthusiasm, not bound, for precisely the form of
opposition makes him free.—Pap. V B 148:34 n.d., 1844
Deleted from draft; see 404:24-25:
. . . . . in two sections: (1) about the erotic relation, (2) about the religious, and under each of these I shall bring the thought back again to specific points, in the working out of which I always have him in mente [in mind].
What is unhappy
A
The erotic relation.
—Pap. V B 150:2 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 405:26-452:13:
[V B 149 2 252] [Deleted:
A
The erotic relation]
[Penciled: para. 1]
(1) unhappy love
[Penciled: para. 2]
(2) misunderstanding as the principle for the tragic
his misunderstanding in relation to her
comparison with Hamlet
he has not offended her by
what happened later but by
beginning see p. 11 bottom [Pap. V B 148:34]
[Penciled: para. 3]
(3) the need for the historical in the tragic, greater than in the comic, and the disappearance of this difference in the form of the imaginary construction.
[Penciled: para. 4]
(4) dialectical repentance as transition to ethical repentance*
the boundary between the
esthetic and the ethical
see the black book, p. 3 top [Pap. V B 148:9]
[Penciled: p. 6 (Pap. V B 148:27-28)]
[Penciled: David (Uriah)]
He himself has some guilt because of
the deception, that he had such an awful time.
[V B 149 2 253] * one cannot come to repent, because it is as if one should act—or the reverse, to stop thinking about one’s guilt is it not to cease to repent, and yet it can be necessary.
This state of suspension is
like treading water.
—Pap. V B 149:2 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 404:29-416:4:
The book will end with a few added remarks explaining that this construction is specifically different from the famous unhappy love stories of the past.
Petrarch.
Abelard.
Romeo.
Axel.
and showing what meaning this could have for esthetics. —A little reference to Heiberg’s stupid remarks about the drama that the times now demand—that is, what Martensen and other cavaliers are applauding.—Pap. V B 148:2 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 412:11-15:
But poetry cannot have anything to do with self-contradiction, [V B 150.4 254] and it is not inspired by assurances from the man himself or from his friend, who swears that one evening when they [V B 150:4 255] were out walking he heard him say: I will sacrifice my life for the good cause; or from a visitor, who in his own living room heard him say: I will present myself to the king and speak in this manner etc.—Pap. V B 150:4 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 412:29:
Certainly speculative drama must be what the times demand, and the times indeed are advancing. When this drama comes, we shall then see what an enormous advance has been made since Shakespeare.—Pap. V B 150:5 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 415:20-36:
Thus I have heard women hawkers using Kantian phrases. No, that which is unpopular, that which people who could rattle off terminologies could not do, is to stick to one thought, and that which always is and remains unpopular is to think with ethical passion.—Pap. V 150:7 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 417:35-418:5:
The comic and the tragic in pairing unlikes together in erotic love, like her and him here.
(What Socrates says in Phaedo about the chain that is taken off and has caused pain but now causes a sense of well-being, and the comic and the tragic in this, which Aesop is supposed to have composed.)
Penciled in margin: see p. 2 [Pap. V B 148:4-8]
see p. 6 [Pap. V B 147:27-28]
see p. 7 [Pap. V B 148:29]
see p. 11 bot. [Pap. V B 148:34]—
Pap. V B 148:21 n.d, 1844
From draft; see 418:8-19:
That the opposite is simultaneous, poetry cannot accept, for in the very same moment it itself ceases.—Pap. V B 150:8 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 419:21-420:25:
Misunderstanding has its comic side. I had a maid who wanted to do everything to please me and to care for me, but she could not understand anything but that it was lovely in winter to have enough firewood and to make a fire, and I could not bear warm temperatures—and she stoked the fire and yet was indescribably fond of me.
In margin: Gulliver’s Travels
—Pap. V B 148:22 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 420:7-15:
A deaf man who slowly opens a door that squeaks—he believes that he is doing it so well, instead of doing it quickly so that it would be over.—Pap. V B 148:23 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 420:16-25:
In other respects, one will see that there is a kind of weak [V B 150 9 255] point of unity here, for he indeed does not want to disturb; therefore the comic and the tragic are also present in a dim twilight, but not essentially, for the substance of passion is not posited. Another example, about which one must say that one does not know whether to laugh or to cry, because there is a little more emotion but still no pathos. A man takes a poor old man into his house as his servant. He is very kind to him, and the faithful servant is utterly devoted to him. The man is prosperous, and the servant comes from straitened circumstances. Someone who has lived as that poor man had knows that poor people are accustomed to saying and thinking that it must be wonderful in winter to have enough firewood for the stove. The rich man has enough firewood, but, indulged to [V B 150 9 256] the nth degree, he can tolerate only a certain temperature. The faithful servant stokes and stokes the fire and cannot understand anything else than that he is doing the best thing. But here, too, no essential passion is posited.—Pap. V B 150:9 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 423:11-15:
Therefore the story begins twice. The night reports are interpretations of possibility and of his own ideality. It is a good contrast to those who blaze most intensely in the first moment. In the morning reports he has already perceived (i.e. consequently in actuality) that it is not so bad; he has imagined her bound to another, and in the night reports it takes a long time before he achieves that. —So it is with depression.—Pap.V B 148:7 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 423:20-424:35:
. . . . . the verse from Shakespeare in Börne, vol. VII, p. 245.127 Her most dangerous and most critical moment is when she has staked everything and in the two months when she sees him, his image vanishes, and even more so when he has left her. With him it is the reverse; she becomes greater and greater, until his sympathy becomes despondent; it is the crisis of strength and health.—Pap. V B 148:8 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 423:33-36:
(1) The girl became far greater to him after he left her. The difference between the morning and midnight reports.
(2) What his inclosing reserve means, he never says.
He does say what once bound him in depression,
but not what binds him.
—Pap. V B 148:6 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 424:36-427:11:
[V B 148:30 246] I have deliberately shaped his entire situation in life so that he never has an event, a certainty, but everything becomes dialectical for him.
[V B 148:30 247] He sees her, she is pale, this actually proves nothing
whatsoever, can have many reasons.
He sees her three times on Hauser Square. Can be
purely accidental
He sees her in church—proves nothing whatsoever,
perhaps it is not even as he thinks.
I could not make him otherwise; unlike novelists I have no actuality to hold on to. The idea requires that he get to see her again, but the idea requires that he get to see her in such a way that he has no certaint
y, no fact.—Pap. V B 148:30 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 425:30-39 fn.:
How fatiguing it must be to be inclosingly reserved, I can best see in the fact that it is fatiguing to think it, indeed, exhausting and wearisome to take care of small details.
For example, the piece dated midnight, February 13. It could simply have said, “According to the medical report, she feels well.” Most readers would very likely have found that enough, and yet the whole design would have been spoiled, for then there would have been one single little point at which he would have received a direct piece of information instead of his needing to have everything dialectical so that he never acquires factual certainty. The good reader would also have immediately asked: How did he obtain this medical report.—Pap. V B 148:31 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 425:28-426:1:
Addenda to Guilty?/Not-Guilty?
[Deleted:
(1) the whole situation in the church amounts to nothing; at that distance she may have been nodding to someone else, perhaps did not nod at all.
(1) such a right reverend monologue etc., addendum that witnesses about the Christian faith.
(2) “a possibility” the significance of this story is that Quidam of the imaginary construction thinks through the category* that is the form of the depression, see end of journal.
* and has it lead to insanity.]
(3) himself deceived by life etc., addendum by wanting to be an observer.
[Deleted:
(4) I do not see it this way; I see only the unity of the comic and the tragic—is it perhaps because I am not the person involved. these words are to be deleted.]
—Pap. V B 153 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 426:9-38:
One can almost always grant that there is much good in an inclosingly reserved person, but he is also a fine confectioner and one must also turn out his threadbare side. —I shall certainly manage him; I myself have conjured him up, although I cannot argue with him, for the devil himself cannot do that.—Pap. V B 148:32 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 427:17-36:
Stages on Life’s Way Page 68
