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A Squashed Philosophers Complete Text The Complete text of: Either / Or By: Søren Kierkegaard Year: 1843 Translated by: Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong This is based on an OCR scan, it has been partly edited, but still contaions significant errors. Squashed Philosophers also has: More texts like this one, see The Catalogue An easy-to read abridged version of this text EITHER/OR by Søren Kierkegaard CONTENTS Part I Historical Introduction Preface Diapsalmata The Immediate Erotic Stages Or The Musical-Erotic The Tragic In Ancient Drama Reflected In The Tragic In Modern Drama Silhouettes The Unhappiest One The First Love Rotation Of Crops The Seducer's Diary Part II The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage Equilibrium between the Aesthetic and the Ethical in the Development of Personality Ultimatum EITHER/OR - A FRAGMENT OF LIFE edited by Victor Eremita PART I CONTAINING A'S PAPERS Is reason then alone baptised, are the passions pagans? PREFACE It may at times have occurred to you, dear reader, to doubt somewhat the accuracy of that familiar philosophical thesis that the outer is the inner and the inner is the outer. Perhaps you yourself have concealed a secret that in its joy or in its pain you felt was too intimate to share with others. Perhaps your life has put you in touch with people about whom you suspected that something of this nature was the case, although neither by force nor by inveiglement were you able to bring out into the open that which was hidden. Perhaps neither case applies to you and your life, and yet you are not unacquainted with that doubt; like a fleeting shape, it has drifted through your mind now and then. A doubt such as this comes and goes, and no one knows whence it comes or whither it goes. I myself have always been rather heretically minded on this philosophical point and therefore early in my life developed the habit of making observations and investigations as well as possible. For guidance, I have consulted the authors whose view I shared in this respect-in brief, I have done all I could to make up for what has been left undone in the philosophical writings. Gradually, then, hearing became my most cherished sense, for just as the voice is the disclosure of inwardness incommensurable with the exterior, so the ear is the instrument that apprehends this inwardness, hearing the sense by which it is appropriated. Consequently, every time I found a contradiction between what I saw and what I heard, my doubt was confirmed and my zeal for observation increased. A priest who hears confessions is separated by a grillwork from the person making confession; he does not see him, he only hears. As he listens, he gradually forms a picture of the other's outward appearance corresponding to what he hears; thus he finds no contradiction. It is different, however, when one sees and hears simultaneously but sees a grillwork between oneself and the speaker. My efforts to make observations along this line have been quite varied as far as results are concerned. At times I have had luck, at times not, and to obtain any returns along these paths, one needs luck. But I have never lost the desire to continue my investigations. If at times I have been about to regret my persistence, so also at times my efforts have been crowned with unexpected good fortune. It was just such unexpected good fortune that in a most curious manner put me in possession of the papers I hereby have the honor to present to the reading public. In these papers, I had an opportunity to take a look at the lives of two men, which confirmed my suspicion that the outer is not the inner. This was especially true of one of them. His exterior has been a complete contradiction of his interior. To a certain extent, it is also true of the other, inasmuch as he has hidden a more significant interior under a rather insignificant exterior. For the sake of order, it is probably best to tell first how I happened to come into possession of these papers. It is now about seven years since I spotted in a secondhand shop here in the city a writing desk that immediately attracted my attention. It was not a modern piece of work, had been used considerably, and yet it captivated me. It is impossible for me to explain the basis of this impression, but most people presumably have had a similar experience during their lives. My daily route took me past this secondhand dealer and his writing desk, and I never let a day go by without fixing my eyes on it in passing. Gradually that desk assumed a history for me; to see it became a necessity to me, and when on a rare occasion it was necessary to make a detour for its sake, I did not hesitate. With time, as I looked at it, the desire awakened in me to own it. To be sure, I felt that it was a strange desire, since I had no use for this piece of furniture, and it would be a prodigality for me to purchase it. But desire, as is known, is very sophistical. I found a pretext for going into the secondhand shop, inquired about other things, and as I was about to leave I casually made a very low offer for the writing desk. I thought the dealer would possibly accept it. In that case, it would be a coincidence that played into my hands. It certainly was not for the sake of the money that I acted this way, but for the sake of my conscience. It misfired; the dealer was exceptionally rigid. For a time, I again walked by every day and gazed at the desk with enamored eyes. You must make up your mind, I thought. Suppose it is sold; then it is too late, and even if you managed to get hold of it again, you still would never have the same impression of it. My heart pounded when I went into the shop. I bought it and paid for it. This is the last time you are going to be so prodigal, I thought. In fact, it is really lucky that you did buy it, for every time you look at it you will be reminded of how prodigal you were; with this desk commences a new period in your life. Ah, desire is very eloquent, and good intentions are always on hand. The writing desk was set up in my apartment, and just as in the first phase of my infatuation I had my pleasure in gazing at it from the street, so now I walked by it here at home. Gradually I learned to know its numerous features, its many drawers and compartments, and in every respect I was happy with my desk. But it was not to remain that way. In the summer of, my duties allowed me to make a little journey to the country for a week. Arrangements were made with the coachman for five o'clock in the morning. The clothes I needed to take along had been packed the previous evening; everything was in order. I was already awake at four o'clock, but the picture of the beautiful countryside I was going to visit had such an intoxicating effect on me that I fell asleep again or into a dream. Presumably my servant wanted me to have all the sleep I could get, for he did not call me until six-thirty. The coachman was already blowing his horn, and although ordinarily I am disinclined to obey the orders of others, I have always made an exception of a coachman and his poetic motifs. I dressed quickly and was already at the door when the thought crossed my mind: Do you have enough money in your pocketbook? There was not much. I opened the desk to pull out the money drawer and take what happened to be at hand. But the drawer would not budge. Every expedient was futile. It was a most calamitous situation. To run into such difficulties at the very moment when the coachman's enticing tones were still ringing in my ears! The blood rushed to my head; I was furious. Just as Xerxes had the sea whipped, so I decided to take dreadful revenge. A hatchet was fetched. I gave the desk a terrible blow with it. Whether in my rage I aimed wrong or the drawer was just as stubborn as I, the result was not what was intended. The drawer was shut, and the drawer stayed shut. But something else happened. Whether my blow struck precisely this spot or the vibration through the entire structure of the desk was the occasion, I do not know, but this I do know-a secret door that I had never noticed before sprung open. This door closed off a compartment that I obviously had not discovered. Here, to my great amazement, I found a mass of papers, the papers that constitute the contents of the present publication. My decision remained unchanged. At the first post house, I would borrow some money. In the greatest haste, a mahogany box that usually contained a pair of pistols was emptied and the papers deposited into it. Joy was victorious and had gained an unexpected augmentation. In my heart, I begged the desk's forgiveness for the rough treatment, while my thought found its suspicion strengthened-that the outer is certainly not the inner-and my experiential thesis was confirmed: it takes a stroke of luck to make such discoveries. In the middle of the forenoon, I reached Hillemd, straightened out my finances, and gained an overall impression of the glorious region. Right away the next morning, I began my excursions, which now took on quite another character than I originally had intended. My servant accompanied me with the mahogany box. I looked for a romantic spot in the forest where I would be as safe as possible from any surprise and there took out the documents. The innkeeper, noticing these frequent rambles in the company of a mahogany box, volunteered that perhaps I was practicing shooting with my pistols. I was much obliged to him for this remark and let him continue under that impression. A quick look at the discovered papers readily showed me that they formed two groups, with a marked external difference as well. The one was written on a kind of letter-vellum, in quarto, with a rather wide margin. The handwriting was legible, sometimes even a bit meticulous, in one place slovenly. The other was written on full sheets of beehive paper with ruled columns such as legal documents and the like are written on. The handwriting was distinct, somewhat drawn out, uniform and even; it seemed to be that of a businessman. The contents immediately appeared to be different also: the one contained a number of aesthetic essays of varying lengths; the other consisted of two long studies and a shorter one, all with ethical content, it seemed, and in the form of letters. On closer inspection, this difference was entirely confirmed. The latter group does indeed consist of letters written to the author of the first group. But it is necessary to find a more concise expression to characterize the two authors. With that in mind, I have gone through the papers very carefully but have found nothing or practically nothing. As far as the first author, the aesthete, is concerned, there is no information at all about him. As far as the other, the letter writer, is concerned, we learn that his name is William and that he has been a judge, but the court is not stipulated. If I were to hold scrupulously to the historical and call him William, I would lack a corresponding designation for the first author; I would be obliged to give him an arbitrary name. For this reason, I have preferred to call the first author A, the second B. Besides the longer pieces, a number of scraps of paper were found on which were written aphorisms, lyrical utterances and reflections. The handwriting itself indicated that they belonged to A, and the contents confirmed this. Then I tried to organize the papers in the best manner. With B's papers it was rather easy to do. One letter presupposes the other. In the second letter, we find a quotation from the first; the third letter presupposes the two preceding ones. Organizing A's papers was not so easy. Therefore I have let chance fix the order-that is, I have let them remain in the order in which I found them, without, of course, being able to decide whether this order has chronological value or ideal significance. The scraps of paper lay loose in the compartment, and I therefore had to assign them a place. I have placed them first, because it seemed to me that they could best be regarded as preliminary glimpses into what the longer pieces develop more coherently. I have called them Diapsalmata and added as a kind of motto: ad se ipsum [to himself]. In a way, this title and the motto are by me and yet not by me. They are by me insofar as they are applied to the whole collection, but they belong to A himself, for the word Diapsalmata was written on one of the scraps of paper, and on two of them appear the words ad se ipsum. In keeping with what A himself has often done, I have also had printed on the inside of the title page a short French poem found above one of these aphorisms. Inasmuch as the majority of these aphorisms have a lyrical form, I thought it appropriate to use the word ~Diapsalmata as the general title. If the reader considers this an unfortunate choice, I owe it to the truth to admit that it is my own idea and that the word certainly was used with discrimination by A himself for the aphorism over which it was found. The ordering of the individual aphorisms I have left to chance. That the particular expressions often contradict one another, I found entirely appropriate, for this indeed belongs essentially to the mood; I decided it was not worth the trouble to arrange them so the contradictions were less obvious. I followed chance, and it is also chance that called my attention to the fact that the first and last aphorisms are somewhat complementary in that the one piercingly feels, as it were, the pain of being a poet, and the other relishes the satisfaction in always having the laughter on one's side. As far as A's esthetic treatises are concerned, there is nothing about them that I would stress. They were all ready for printing, and if they contain any difficulties, I must let them speak for themselves. For my part, may I point out that to the Greek quotations found here and there I have added a translation taken from one of the better German translations. The last of A's papers is a narrative titled "The Seducer's Diary." Here we meet new difficulties, inasmuch as A does not declare himself the author but only the editor. This is an old literary device to which I would not have much to object if it did not further complicate my own position, since one author becomes enclosed within the other like the boxes in a Chinese puzzle. This is not the place to explain in greater detail what confirms me in my view; I shall only point out that the prevailing mood in A's preface somehow manifests the poet. It really seems as if A himself had become afraid of his fiction, lwhich, like a troubled dream, continued to make him feel uneasy, also in the telling. If it was an actual event of which he had secret knowledge, then I find it strange that the preface carries no trace of A's joy over seeing the realization of the idea he had often vaguely entertained. The idea of the seducer is suggested in the piece on the immediate erotic as well as in "Silhouettes"-namely, that the counterpart to Don Giovanni must be a reflective seducer in the category of the interesting, where the issue therefore is not how many he seduces but how. I find no trace of such joy in the preface but indeed, as noted previously, a trepidation, a certain horror, that presumably has its basis in his poetic relation to this idea. And A's reaction does not surprise me, for I, too, who have nothing at all to do with this narrative-indeed, am twice removed from the original author-I, too, sometimes have felt quite strangely uneasy when I have been occupied with these papers in the stillness of the night. It seemed to me as if the seducer himself paced my floor like a shadow, as if he glanced at the papers, as ifhe fixed his demonic eyes on me, and said, "Well, well, so you want to publish my papers! You know that is irresponsible of you; you will indeed arouse anxiety in the darling girls. But, of course, in recompense you will make me and my kind innocuous. There you are mistaken, for I merely change the method, and so my situation is all the more advantageous. What a flock of young girls will run straight into a man's arms when they hear the seductive name: a seducer! Give me half a year, and I will produce a story that will be ever so much more interesting than everything I have so far experienced. I picture to myself a young, energetic girl of genius having the extraordinary idea of wanting to avenge her sex on me. She thinks she will be able to coerce me, to make me taste the pains of unhappy love. That, you see, is a girl for me. If she herself does not think of it profoundly enough, I shall come to her assistance. I shall writhe like the Molbos' eel.  And when I have brought her to the point where I want her, then she is mine." But perhaps I have already misused my position as editor to burden the readers with my observations. The situation must be my excuse; the dubiousness of my position, owing to A's calling himself the editor and not the author of this narrative, allowed me to be carried away. Anything else I have to add about this narrative I can do only in my role as editor. That is, I believe that in this narrative there is a specification of time. Here and there in the diary a date is given, but the year is lacking. Thus, I seem unable to go further, but I believe that by scrutinizing the dates more closely I have found a lead. Admittedly, every year has an April, aJuly, an August, etc., but it by no means follows that April  is a Monday every year. I have done some checking and have found out that this specification fits the year . Whether A has thought of this, I cannot decide, but I hardly think so, for in that case he would not have taken as much precaution as he otherwise does. Nor does the diary say: Monday, April, etc. It says merely: April . In fact, the entry begins like this: So, on Monday-and attention is thereby diverted, but by reading through the entry under this date one sees that it must have been a Monday. I have, then, a specified time for this narrative, but every attempt I have made so far to use it to determine the time of the other treatises has failed. I could just as well have assigned it place number three, but, as I said before, I have preferred to let chance prevail, and everything remains in the order in which I found it. As far as B's papers are concerned, they order themselves easily and naturally. But I did make one change in them: I have permitted myself to give them titles, because the letter form made it difficult for the author to give a title to these inquiries. Should the reader, therefore, after familiarizing himself with the contents, find that the titles were not felicitously chosen, I shall always be willing to put up with the pain inherent in having done something wrong when one wanted to do something well. Occasionally there is in the margin a comment, which I have made into a footnote lest I encroach distractingly upon the text. As far as B's manuscript is concerned, I have not permitted myself to make any changes whatsoever but have scrupulously regarded it as a document. Perhaps I could easily have deleted an occasional negligence, which is quite understandable when one considers that he is merely a letter writer. I did not wish to do so, because I feared going too far. When B supposes that out of a hundred people who go astray in the world ninety-nine are saved by women and one by divine grace,  it is easy to see that he is not very good in mathematics, inasmuch as he gives no place to those who are actually lost. I could easily have made a little change in the numbers, but to me there is something much more beautiful in B's miscalculation. In another place, B mentions a Greek wise man by the name of Myson and relates that he enjoyed the rare good fortune of being counted among the seven sages, when their number is set at fourteen.  For a while, I was perplexed about the source of B's wisdom and also about which Greek author he could be quoting. I immediately suspected that it was Diogenes Laertius, and by checking JfiKher l and Mod:ri l I did indeed find reference to him. B's account might very well need correction, for the matter does not stand just as he relates, even though among the ancients there is some uncertainty in the designation of who the seven sages were, but I still did not think it worth the trouble; it seemed to me that his remark, even though not exactly historical, did have another value. As early as five years ago, I had reached the point where I am at present; I had ordered the papers as they are now arranged, had decided to publish them, but nevertheless felt it was best to wait for a time. I considered five years a suitable interval. These five years are over, and I begin where I left off. Presumably I need not reassure the reader that I have not left untried any means of tracing the authors. The secondhand dealer did not keep records, which, as is commonly known, is rarely the case with secondhand dealers; he did not know from whom he had purchased that piece of furniture. He seemed to remember buying it at a mixed auction. I shall not venture to tell the reader about the many futile attempts that have cost me so much time, so much the less because recollection of them is no pleasure to me. I can share the results with the reader very briefly, for the results were nothing at all. As I was about to carry out my decision to publish these papers, I had one particular misgiving. Perhaps the reader will permit me to speak quite candidly. The question occurred to me whether I might not become guilty of an indiscretion toward the unknown authors. But the more familiar I became with the papers, the more that misgiving diminished. The papers were of such a nature that, despite all my careful scrutiny, they yielded no information. A reader would be even less likely to find anything, since I do presume to be the equal of any reader, not in taste and sympathy and insight, but certainly in diligence and indefatigability. Therefore, if it was assumed that the unknown authors were still alive, that they lived here in the city, that they would unexpectedly recognize their own papers-nevertheless, nothing would result from the publication, provided that the authors themselves remained silent, for, in the most rigorous sense, these papers, as is ordinarily said of all printed matter, are silent. Another misgiving I had was in and by itselfless important, fairly easy to dismiss, and has been dismissed even more easily than I had expected. It occurred to me, namely, that these papers could become a financial consideration. I thought that it would be quite proper for me to accept a little honorarium for my pains as editor, but I would have to regard an author's honorarium as much too large. Just as the honest Scottish farmers in The White Lady  decide to buy the estate and cultivate it and then give it to the earls of Evenel if they should ever come back, so I decided to invest the honorarium on behalf of the unknown authors in order, if they should ever come forward, to be able to give them the whole amount together with interest and interest on the interest. If the reader has not already decided on the basis of my complete awkwardness that I am no author, nor a literary man who makes a profession of being an editor, then the naiveté of this reasoning will surely remove all doubts. This misgiving, then, was dismissed far more easily, for an author's honorarium in Denmark is no manorial estate, and the unknown authors would have to stay away a long time before their honorarium, even with interest and interest on the interest, would become a financial consideration. All that remained was only to give these papers a title. could call them Papers, Posthumous Papers, Found Papers, Lost Papers, etc. There is, of course, a multiplicity of variations, but none of these titles satisfied me. In determining the title, I have therefore allowed myself some freedom, a deception for which I shall attempt to give an accounting. In my continual preoccupation with these papers, it dawned on me that they might take on a new aspect if they were regarded as belonging to one person. I know very well all the objections that could be made against this view-that it is unhistorical, and that it is improbable inasmuch as it is unreasonable that one person could be the author of both parts, although the reader could easily be tempted by the pun that â°when one has said A, one must also say B. Nevertheless I have been unable to abandon the idea. So, then, there was a person who in his lifetime had experienced both movements or had reflected upon both movements. A's papers contain a multiplicity of approaches to an esthetic view of life. A coherent esthetic view of life can hardly be presented. B's papers contain an ethical view of life. As I allowed my soul to be influenced by this thought, it became clear to me that I could let it guide me in determining the title. The title I have chosen expresses precisely this. The reader cannot lose much because of this title, for during his reading he may very well forget the title. Then, when he has read the book, he can perhaps think of the title. This will release him from every final question-whether A actually was persuaded and repented, whether B was victorious, or whether perhaps B finally came around to A's thinking. In this respect, these papers come to no conclusion. If someone finds this inappropriate, he is still not justified in calling it a defect but ought to call it a misfortune. I for my part regard it as a piece of good fortune. We sometimes come upon novels in which specific characters represent contrasting views of life. They usually end with one persuading the other. The point of view ought to speak for itself, but instead the reader is furnished with the historical result that the other was persuaded. I consider it fortunate that these papers provide no enlightenment in this respect. Whether A wrote the esthetic pieces after receiving B's letters, whether his soul subsequently continued to flounder around in its wild unruliness or whether it calmed down-I do not find myself capable of offering the slightest enlightenment about this, inasmuch as the papers contain nothing. Neither do they contain any hint as to how it went with B, whether he was able to hold fast to his point of view or not. Thus, when the book is read, A and B are forgotten; only the points of view confront each other and expect no final decision in the particular personalities. I have nothing more to say, except that it occurred to me that the honored authors, if they were aware of my undertaking, might wish to complement their papers with a word to the reader. I shall therefore add a few words with a guided pen. A presumably would have no objection to the publication of the papers, and he probably would shout to the reader, "Read them or do not read them, you will regret it either way." What B would say is more difficult to determine. He perhaps would reproach me for something or other, especially with regard to the publication of A's papers; he would make me feel that he had no part in it, that he would wash his hands. Having done that, he perhaps would address the book with these words: "Go out into the world, then; avoid, if possible, the attention of the critics; visit an individual reader in a favorably disposed hour, and if you should encounter a reader of the fair sex, then I would say: My charming reader, in this book you will find something that you perhaps should not know, something else from which you will presumably benefit by coming to know it. Read, then, the something in such a way that, having read it, you may be as one who has not read it; read the something else in such a way that, having read it, you may be as one who has not forgotten what has been read." As editor, I shall add only the wish that the book may meet the reader in a favorably disposed hour and that the charming reader may succeed in scrupulously following B's well-intentioned advice. November 1842 THE EDITOR DIAPSALMATA ad se ipsum [to himself] Grandeur, savoir, renommée, Amitié, plaisir et bien, Tout n'est que vent, que fumée: Pour mieux dire, tout n'est rien [Greatness, knowledge, renown, Friendship, pleasure and possessions, All is only wind, only smoke: To say it better, all is nothing). What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. It is with him as with the poor wretches in Phalaris's bronze bull, who were slowly tortured over a slow fire; their screams could not reach the tyrant's ears to terrify him; to him they sounded like sweet music.  And people crowd around the poet and say to him, "Sing again soon"-in other words, may new sufferings torture your soul, and may your lips continue to be formed as before, because your screams would only alarm us, but the music is charming. And the reviewers step up and say, "That is right; so it must be according to the rules of esthetics." Now of course a reviewer resembles a poet to a hair, except that he does not have the anguish in his heart, or the music on his lips. Therefore, I would rather be a swineherd out on Amager and be understood by swine than be a poet and be misunderstood by people. It is common knowledge that the first question in the first and most compendious instruction given to a child is this: What does baby want? The answer is: Da-da.  And with such observations life begins, and yet we deny hereditary sin.  And yet whom does the child have to thank for his first thrashings, whom else but his parents. I prefer to talk with children, for one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings; but those who have become that-good Lord!lO How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought-they demand freedom of speech. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't feel like riding the motion is too powerful; I don't feel like walking-it is too tiring; I don't feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don't feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don't feel like doing that, either. Summa Summarum: I don't feel like doing anything. There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death. Tested Advice for Authors One carelessly writes down one's personal observations, has them printed, and in the various proofs one will eventually acquire a number of good ideas. Therefore, take courage, you who have not yet dared to have something printed. Do not despise typographical errors,  and to become witty by means of typographical errors may be considered a legitimate way to become witty. Generally speaking, the imperfection in everything human is that its aspirations are achieved only by way of their opposites. I shall not discuss the variety of formations, which can give a psychologist plenty to do (the melancholy have the best sense of the comic, the most opulent often the best sense of the rustic, the dissolute often the best sense of the moral, the doubter often the best sense of the religious), but merely call to mind that it is through sin that one gains a first glimpse of salvation. In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant-my depression. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he beckons to me, calls me aside, even though physically I remain on the spot. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known-no wonder, then, that I return the love.   There is a rambling of loquacity  that in its interminability has the same relation to the result as the incalculable lists of Egyptian kings have to the historical outcome. Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.  â°It is cause for alarm to note with what hypochondriac profundity Englishmen of an earlier generation have spotted the ambiguity basic to laughter. Thus Dr. Hartley has observed: dass wenn sich das Lachen zuerst bei Kindem zeiget, so ist es ein entstehendes Weinen, welches durch Schmerz erregt wird, oder ein plotzlich gehemtes und in sehr kurzen Zwischenraiimen wiederholtes Gefiihl des Schmerzens [that when laughter first makes its appearance in the child, it is a nascent cry that is excited by pain or a suddenly arrested feeling of pain repeated at very short intervals (see Flogel, Geschichte der comischen Litteratur, I, p. ). What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding; what if laughter really were weeping! There are particular occasions when one may be most painfully moved to see a person standing utterly alone in the world. The other day  saw a poor girl walking utterly alone to church to be confirmed. Comelius Nepos tells of a general who was kept confined with a considerable cavalry regiment in a fortress; to keep the horses from being harmed because of too much inactivity, he had them whipped daily-in like manner,  live in this age as one besieged, but lest  be harmed by sitting still so much,  cry myself tired.  say of my sorrow what the Englishman says of his house: My sorrow is my castle.  Many people look upon having sorrow as one oflife's conveniences.   I feel as a chessman must feel when the opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.   Aladdin  is so very refreshing because this piece has the audacity of the child, of the genius, in the wildest wishes. Indeed, how many are there in our day who truly dare to wish, dare to desire, dare to address nature neither with a polite child's bitte, bitte [please, please] nor with the raging frenzy of one damned? How many are there who-inspired by what is talked about so much in our age, that man is created in God's image-have the authentic voice of command? Or do we not all stand like Noureddin, bowing and scraping, worrying about asking too much or too little? Or is not every magnificent demanding eventually diminished to morbid reflecting over the I, from insisting to informing, which we are indeed brought up and trained to do.   I am as timorous as a sheva, as weak and muted as a daghesch lene; I feel like a letter printed backward in the line, and yet as uncontrollable as a pasha with three horse tails, as solicitous for myself and my thoughts as a bank for its banknotes, indeed, as reflected into myself as any pronomen refiexivum [reflexive pronoun]. Yes, ifit were true of miseries and sorrows as it is true of conscious good deeds-that those who do them lose their reward-then I would be the happiest person, for I take all my cares in advance, and yet they all remain behind.   The tremendous poetical power of folk literature is manifest, among other ways, in its power to desire. In comparison, desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor. Desire in folk literature is fully aware that the neighbor does not possess what it seeks any more than it does itself. And if it is going to desire sinfully, then it is so flagrant that people must be shocked. It is not going to let itself be beaten down by the cold probability calculations of a pedestrian understanding. Don Juan still strides across the stage with his, ladyloves. Out of reverence for the venerableness of tradition, no one dares to smile. If a poet had dared to do this in our age, he would be laughed to scorn. What a strange, sad mood came over me on seeing a poor wretch shuffling through the streets in a somewhat worn pale green coat flecked with yellow.  I felt sorry for him, but nevertheless what affected me most was that the color of this coat so vividly reminded me of my childhood's first productions in the noble art of painting. This particular color was one of my favorite colors. Is it not sad that these color combinations, which I still think of with so much joy, are nowhere to be found in life; the whole world finds them crude, garish, suitable only for Niirnberg prints.  If they are encountered occasionally, the meeting is always unfortunate, as this one is. It is always a feeble-minded person or a derelict-in short, always someone who feels alienated in life and whom the world will not acknowledge. And I, who always painted my heroes with this eternally unforgettable yellow-green tinge to their coats! Does this not happen with all the color combinations of childhood? The gleam that life had at that time gradually becomes too intense: too crude, for our dull eyes. Alas, fortune's door does not open inward so that one can push it open by rushing at it; but it opens outward, and therefore one can do nothing about it.   have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic that things do not go in life as in the novel, where opportunity is always so favorable. I complain that in life it is not as in the novel, where one has hardhearted fathers and nisses and trolls to battle, and enchanted princesses to free. What are all such adversaries together compared with the pale, bloodless, tenacious-of-life nocturnal forms with which I battle and to which I myself give life and existence.   How sterile my soul and my mind are, and yet constantly tormented by empty voluptuous and excruciating labor pains! Will the tongue ligament of my spirit never be loosened; will I always jabber? What I need is a voice as piercing as the glance ofLynceus, as terrifying as the groan of the giants, as sustained as a sound of nature, as mocking as an icy gust of wind, as malicious as echo's heartless taunting, extending in range from the deepest bass to the most melting high notes, and modulated from a solemn-silent whisper to the energy of rage. That is what I need in order to breathe, to give voice to what is on my mind, to have the viscera of both anger and sympathy shaken. -But my voice is only hoarse like the scream of a gull or moribund like the blessing on the lips of the mute. What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. So it is with me; before me is continually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured. The most beautiful time is the first period of falling in love, when, from every encounter, every glance, one fetches home something new to rejoice over. My observation oflife makes no sense at all. I suppose that an evil spirit has put a pair of glasses on my nose, one lens of which magnifies on an immense scale and the other reduces on the same scale. The doubter is Mâ£~a(J'tLyo~EVO~ [one who is whipped]; like a spinning top, he remains on the point for a shorter or longer period depending on the strokes of the whip; he is not able to remain on the point any more than the top is. The most ludicrous of all ludicrous things, it seems to me, is to be busy in the world, to be a man who is brisk at his meals and brisk at his work. Therefore, when I see a fly settle on the nose of one of those men of business in a decisive moment, or ifhe is splashed by a carriage that passes him in even greater haste, or Knippelsbr  tilts up, or a roof tile falls and kills him,  I laugh from the bottom of my heart. And who could keep from laughing? What, after all, do these busy bustlers achieve? Are they not just like that woman who, in a flurry because the house was on fire, rescued the fire tongs? What more, after all, do they salvage from life's huge conflagration? n the whole, I lack the patience to live. I cannot see the grass grow, and ifI cannot do that, I do not care to look at it at all. My views are the superficial observations of a "fahrender Scholastiker [traveling scholastic]" who dashes through life in the greatest haste. It is said that our Lord satisfies the stomach before the eyes. That is not what I find: my eyes are surfeited and bored with everything, and yet I hunger. Ask me what you wish; just do not ask me for reasons. A young girl is excused for not being able to state reasons; she lives in feelings, it is said. It is different with me. Ordinarily I have so many and most often such mutually contradictory reasons that for this reason it is impossible for me to state reasons. It also seems to me that with cause and effect the relation does not hold together properly. Sometimes enormous and gewaltige [powerful] causes produce a very klein [small] and insignificant little effect, sometimes none at all; sometimes a nimble little cause produces a colossal effect.  And now the innocent pleasures oflife. It must be granted to them that they have only one flaw-that they are so innocent. Moreover, they are to be enjoyed in moderation. When my physician prescribes a diet for me, there is some reason in that; I abstain from certain specified foods for a certain specified time. But to be dietetic in keeping the diet-that is really asking too much.   Life for me has become a bitter drink, and yet it must be taken in drops, slowly, counting. No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out. Time passes, life is a stream, etc., so people say. That is not what I find: time stands still, and so do I. All the plans I project fly straight back at me; when I want to spit, I spit in my own face. SWhen I get up in the morning, I go right back to bed again. I feel best in the evening the moment I put out the light and pull the feather-bed over my head. I sit up once more, look around the room with indescribable satisfaction, and then good night, down under the feather-bed. What am I good for? For nothing or for anything whatever. It is a rare ability; I wonder if it will be appreciated in life? God knows whether places are found by girls looking for ajob as a general servant or, for want of that, as anything whatever. Sne ought to be a riddle not only to others but also to oneself. I examine myself; when I am tired of that, I smoke a cigar for diversion and think: God knows what our Lord actually intended with me or what he wants to make of me. SNo woman in maternity confinement can have stranger and more impatient wishes than I have. Sometimes these wishes involve the most insignificant things, sometimes the most sublime, but they all have to an equally high degree the momentary passion of the soul. At this moment I wish for a bowl of buckwheat cereal. I recall from my school days that we always had buckwheat cereal on Wednesdays. I recall how smooth and white the cereal was served, how the butter smiled at me, how warm the cereal looked, how hungry I was, how impatient to get permission to begin. Such a bowl of buckwheat cereal! I would give more than my birthright  for it. OVirgilius[sic] the sorcerer had himself hacked to pieces and put in a caldron to be cooked for eight days in order by this process to be rejuvenated. He arranged for someone to watch so that no interloper would peer into the caldron. But the watchman could not resist the temptation; it was too soon, and Virgilius, as an infant, disappeared with a scream. I dare say that I also peered too soon into the caldron, into the caldron oflife and the historical process, and most likely will never manage to become more than a child. "Never lose courage! When troubles pile up most appallingly about you, you will see a helping hand in the clouds"so said His Reverence Jesper Morten  at vespers recently. Well, I am accustomed to walking a great deal under the open sky, but I have never noticed such a thing. A few days ago while on a walking tour, I became aware of such a phenomenon. It was really not a hand, but more like an arm, that reached out of the cloud. I fell into contemplation, and the thought came to me: If only Jesper Morten were here so he could decide whether this was the phenomenon he referred to. As I stood there lost in these thoughts, a passerby addressed me and said as he pointed up to the clouds, "Do you see that funnel-shaped cloud? One seldom sees such a thing in these parts. Sometimes it carries whole houses along with it." Good heavens, I thought, is that a funnel-shaped cloud-and took to my heels as fast as I could. What would His Reverence Jesper Morten have done, I wonder, in my place? Let others complain that the times are evil. I complain that they are wretched, for they are without passion. People's thoughts are as thin and fragile as lace, and they themselves as pitiable as lace-making girls. The thoughts of their hearts are too wretched to be sinful. It is perhaps possible to regard it as sin for a worm to nourish such thoughts, but not for a human being, who is created in the image of God. Their desires are staid and dull, their passions drowsy. They perform their duties, these mercenary souls, but just like theJews, they indulge in trimming the coins a little; they think that, even though our Lord keeps ever so orderly an account book, they can still manage to trick him a little. Fie on them! That is why my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There one still feels that those who speak are human beings; there they hate, there they love, there they murder the enemy, curse his descendants through all generations-there they sin. My time I divide as follows: the one halfI sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius. To be a perfect human being is indeed the highest. Now I have corns-that is always of some help. My life achievement amounts to nothing at all, a mood, a single color. My achievement resembles the painting by that artist who was supposed to paint the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea and to that end painted the entire wall red and explained that the Israelites had walked across and that the Egyptians were drowned. Human dignity is still acknowledged even in nature, for when we want to keep birds away from the trees we set up something that is supposed to resemble a human being, and even the remote resemblance a scarecrow has to a human being is sufficient to inspire respect. If erotic love [Elskov] is to have any meaning, in its hour of birth it must be shone upon by the moon, just as Apis, in order to be the true Apis, must have been shone upon by the moon. The cow that gave birth to Apis is said to have been shone upon by the moon in the moment of conception. The best demonstration of the wretchedness of life [TilvCl'relse] is that which is obtained through a consideration of its glory. Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it. They are like that dwarf who guarded a kidnapped princess in his castle. One day he took a noon nap. When he woke up an hour later, she was gone. Hastily he pulls on his seven-league boots; with one step he is far past her. M Y soul is so heavy that no thought can carry it any longer, no wing beat can lift it up into the ether any more. If it is moved, it merely skims along the ground, just as birds fly low when a thunderstorm is blowing up. Over my inner being broods an oppressiveness, an anxiety, that forebodes an earthquake. How empty and meaningless life is. -We bury a man; we accompany him to the grave, throw three spadefuls of earth on him; we ride out in a carriage, ride home in a carriage; we find consolation in the thought that we have a long life ahead of us. But how long is seven times ten years? Why not settle it all at once, why not stay out there and go along down into the grave and draw lots to see to whom will befall the misfortune of being the last of the living who throws the last three spadefuls of earth on the last of the dead? Girls do not appeal to me. Their beauty passes away like a dream and like yesterday when it is past.  Their faithfulnessyes, their faithfulness! Either they are faithless-this does not concern me any more-or they are faithful. If I found such a one, she would appeal to me from the standpoint of her being a rarity; but from the standpoint of a long period of time she would not appeal to me, for either she would continually remain faithful, and then I would become a sacrifice to my eagerness for experience, since I would have to bear with her, or the time would come when she would lapse, and then I would have the same old story. Wretched fate! In vain do you prink up your wrinkled face like an old prostitute, in vain do you jingle your fool's bells. You bore me; it is still the same, an idem per idem [the same by the same]. No variation, always a rehash. Come, sleep and death; you promise nothing, you hold everything. â°Those two familiar violin strains! Those two familiar violin strains here this very moment out in the street. Have I lost my mind; out oflove for Mozart's music, have my ears ceased to hear? Is this a reward of the gods, to give unhappy me, who sits like a beggar at the door of the temple, ears that themselves perform what they hear? Only those two violin strains, for now I hear nothing more. Just as in that immortal overture they burst forth out of the deep chorale tones, so here they disentangle themselves from the noise and tumult of the street with the total surprise of a revelation. -It must be close by, for now I hear the light dance tunes. -So it is to you that lowe this joy, you two unfortunate artists. -One of them was probably seventeen years old, wearing a green Kalmuk coat with large bone buttons. The coat was much too large for him. He held the violin tightly under his chin; his cap was pulled down over his eyes. His hand was concealed in a fingerless glove; his fingers were red and blue with cold. The other one was older and wore a chenille coat. Both were blind. A little girl, who presumably guided them, stood in front of them, thrust her hands under her scarf. We gathered one by one, a few admirers of those melodies-a postman with his mailbag, a little boy, a maidservant, a couple of dock workers. The elegant carriages rolled noisily by; the carts and wagons drowned out the melodies, which emerged fragmentarily for a moment. You two unfortunate artists, do you know that those strains hide in themselves the glories of the whole world? -Was it not like a rendezvous?In a theater, it happened that a fire started offstage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed-amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke. What, if anything, is the meaning of this life? If people are divided into two great classes, it may be said that one class works for a living and the other does not have that need. But to work for a living certainly cannot be the meaning of life, since it is indeed a contradiction that the continual production of the conditions is supposed to be the answer to the question of the meaning of that which is conditional upon their production. The lives of the rest of them generally have no meaning except to consume the conditions. To say that the meaning of life is to die seems to be a contradiction also. Real enjoyment consists not in what one enjoys but in the idea. If I had in my service a submissive jinni who, when I asked for a glass of water, would bring me the world's most expensive wines, deliciously blended, in a goblet, I would dismiss him until he learned that the enjoyment consists not in what I enjoy but in getting my own way. So I am not the one who is the lord of my life; I am one of the threads to be spun into the calico of life! Well, then, even though I cannot spin, I can still cut the thread. All will be acquired in stillness and made divine in silence. It is true not only of Psyche's expected child that its future depends on her silence. Mit einem Kind, das gottlich, wenn Du schweigstDoch menschlich, wenn Du das Geheimniss zeigst [With child, divine, if you are silentBut human, if you disclose the secret].   seem destined to have to suffer through  all possible moods, to be required to have experiences of all kinds. At every moment I lie out in the middle of the ocean like a child who is supposed to learn to swim. I scream (this I have learned from the Greeks, from whom one can learn the purely human). Admittedly, I have a swimming belt around my waist, but I do not see the support that is supposed to hold me up. It is an appalling way to gain experience. It is quite striking that the two most appalling contrasts provide a conception of eternity. If I picture that unfortunate bookkeeper who went mad in his despair over having ruined a business firm by stating in the account book that seven and six are fourteen-if I picture him, indifferent to everything else, repeating to himself day in and day out, "Seven and six are fourteen," I have a symbol of eternity. If! imagine a lush harem beauty, reclining on a couch in all her charm and unconcerned about anything in the world, then I have again a symbolfor eternity. What philosophers say about actuality [Virkelighed] is often just as disappointing  as it is when one reads on a sign in a secondhand shop: Pressing Done Here. If a person were to bring his clothes to be pressed, he would be duped, for the sign is merely for sale. For me nothing is more dangerous than to recollect [erindre]. As soon as I have recollected a life relationship, that relationship has ceased to exist. It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. That is very true, but it becomes fonder in a purely poetic way. To live in recollection is the most perfect life imaginable; recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality, and it has a security that no actuality possesses. A recollected life relationship has already passed into eternity and has no temporal interest anymore. â°If anyone should keep a diary, I am the one, in order to refresh my memory [Hukommelse] a bit. It frequently happens that with the passage of time I have completely forgotten the reasons that moved me to this or that, with regard not only to trivialities but also to the most crucial steps. If the reason occurs to me, it can sometimes be so strange that I cannot even believe that it was the reason. This doubt would be removed if! had something written to refer to. On the whole, a reason is a curious thing. If! regard it with all my passion, it develops into an enormous necessity that can set heaven and earth in motion; ifI am devoid of passion, I look down on it derisively. -For some time now, I have been speculating about what really was the reason that moved me to resign as a schoolteacher. When I think about it now, it seems to me that such an appointment was just the thing for me. Today it dawned on me that the reason was precisely this-that I had to consider myself completely qualified for this post. IfI had continued in my job, I would have had everything to lose, nothing to gain. For that reason, I considered it proper to resign my post and seek employment with a traveling theater company, because I had no talent and consequently had everything to gain. It takes a lot of naivete to believe that it helps to shout and scream in the world, as if one's fate would thereby be altered. Take what comes and avoid all complications. In my early years, when I went to a restaurant, I would say to the waiter: A good cut, a very good cut, from the loin, and not too fat. Perhaps the waiter would scarcely hear what I said. Perhaps it was even less likely that he would heed it, and still less that my voice would penetrate into the kitchen, influence the chefand even if all this happened, there perhaps was not a good cut in the whole roast. Now I never shout anymore. Social endeavors and the associated beautiful sympathy become more and more widespread. In Leipzig, a committee formed out of sympathy for the sad fate of old horses has decided to eat them. have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the silence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains silent. The same thing happened to me that, according to legend, happened to Parmeniscus, who in the Trophonean cave lost the ability to laugh but acquired it again on the island of Delos upon seeing a shapeless block that was said to be the image of the goddess Leto. When I was very young, I forgot in the Trophonean cave how to laugh; when I became an adult, when I opened my eyes and saw actuality, then I started to laugh and have never stopped laughing since that time. I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to become a councilor, that the rich delight oflove was to acquire a well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollars, that cordiality was to say "May it do you good" after a meal, that piety was to go to communion once a year.  This I saw, and I laughed. What is it that binds me? From what was the chain formed that bound the Fenris wolf? It was made of the noise of cats' paws walking on the ground, of the beards of women, of the roots of cliffs, of the grass of bears, of the breath of fish, and of the spittle of birds. I, too, am bound in the same way by a chain formed of gloomy fancies, of alarming dreams, of troubled thoughts, of fearful presentiments, of inexplicable anxieties. This chain is "very flexible, soft as silk, yields to the most powerful strain, and cannot be torn apart. " Strangely enough, it is always the same thing that preoccupies a person throughout all the ages of life, and one always goes just so far, or, rather, one goes backwards. In grammar school, when I was fifteen years old, I wrote very suavely on demonstrations for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, on the concept of faith, and on the meaning of miracles. For my examen artium [student examination],  I wrote a composition on the immortality of the soul, for which I was awarded preP ceteris [distinction or first honors); later I won the prize for a composition on this subject. Who would believe that in my twenty-fifth year, after such a solid and very promising beginning, I would have come to the point of not being able to present a single demonstration for the immortality of the soul. From my school days, I especially recall that a composition of mine on the immortality of the soul was extravagantly praised and read aloud by the teacher because of the excellence of language as well as of content. Alas, alas, alas! I threw away this composition long ago. How unfortunate! My doubting soul perhaps would have been captivated by it, by the language as well as by the content. So this is my advice to parents, superiors, and teachers-that they urge the children in their charge to keep the Danish compositions written in the fifteenth year. To give this advice is the only thing I can do for the benefit of the human race. To a knowledge of the truth, I perhaps have come; to salvation, surely not.  What shall I do? Be active in the world, people say. Should I then communicate my sorrow to the world, make one more contribution to prove how pitiable and wretched everything is, perhaps discover a new, hitherto undetected stain [Plet] in human life? I could then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, just like the man who discovered the spots [pletter] on Jupiter.  I still prefer to remain silent. SHow much the same human nature is! With what innate genius a little child can often show us a vivid picture of the larger scale. I was really amused today by little Ludvig. He sat in his tiny chair and looked around with visible delight. Then the nursemaid, Maren, walked through the room. "Maren!" he shouted. "Yes, little Ludvig," she answered with her customary friendliness and came over to him. He tilted his big head to one side a bit, fastened his enormous eyes on her with a certain roguishness and then said quite phlegmatically, "Not this Maren; it was another Maren." What do we adults do? We shout to the whole world, and when it approaches us in a friendly manner we say, "It was not this Maren." My life is like an eternal night; when I die, I shall be able to say with Achilles: Du bist vollbracht, Nachtwache meines Daseyns [You are fulfilled, nightwatch of my life]. My life is utterly meaningless. When I consider its various epochs, my life is like the word Schnur inthe dictionary, which first of all means a string, and second a daughter-in-law. All that is lacking is that in the third place the word Schnur means a camel, in the fourth a whisk broom.  amjust like the Liineburger swine. My thinking is a passion. I am expert at rooting up truffies for others; I find no pleasure in them myself. I take the problems on my nose, but I can do no more with them than to throw them back over my head. n vain do I resist. My foot slips. My life nevertheless remains a poet-existence. Can anything worse be imagined? I am predestined; fate laughs at me when it suddenly shows me how everything I do to resist becomes a factor in such an existence [Tilva'relse]. I can describe hope so vividly that every hoping individual will recognize my description as his own; and yet it is forgery, for even as I am describing it I am thinking of recollection [Erindring]. lOOBut there is yet another demonstration of the existence of God that has hitherto been overlooked. It is introduced by a servant in Aristophanes' The Knights, - (Demosthenes and Nicias conversing): fruwoEVlj:;. n:oiov OQETaI:;; EtEOV TjYEi YUQ EOUI:;; NLXlUI:;. EYWYE.   NLXlUI:;. tL~ EOiatv EXQOl:; d~: OUX dxotwl:;; flj~ooEVrll:;â·   . EU n:QoooLOa~ELI:; ~E. [DE. NIC. DE. NIC. DE.   Stat-at-ues is it? What, do you really think That there are gods? I know it. Know it! How? I'm such a wretched god-detested chap. Well urged indeed].   How dreadful boredom is-how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like. Would that there were a loftier, stronger expression, for then there would still be one movement. I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain. The vulture pecked continually at Prometheus's liver;l the poison dripped down continually on Loki;  it was at least an interruption, even though monotonous. Pain itself has lost its refreshment for me. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death. !Os And what could divert me? Well, if I managed to see a faithfulness that withstood every ordeal [Prove/se], an enthusiasm that endured everything, a faith that moved mountains; ifI were to become aware of an idea that joined the finite and the infinite. But my soul's poisonous doubt consumes everything. My soul is like the Dead Sea, over which no bird is able to fly; when it has come midway, it sinks down, exhausted, to death and destruction. lHow strange! With what equivocal anxiety about losing and keeping, people nevertheless cling to this life. At times I have considered taking a decisive step compared with which all previous ones were but child's play-to set out on the great voyage of discovery. As a ship is saluted with a cannonade when it is launched, so I would salute myself. And yet. Is it courage that I lack? If a stone fell down and killed me, that would still be a way out. Tautology is and remains the highest principle, the highest maxim of thought.  No wonder, then, that most people use it. It is not so impoverished, either, and can well fill out a whole life. It has a jesting, witty, entertaining form; this is [the category of] infinite judgments.  This kind of tautology is the paradoxical and transcendental kind. It has the serious, scientific, and edifying form. The formula is as follows: when two quantities are equal in size to one and the same third quantity, they are all of equal size. III This is a quantitative conclusion. This kind of tautology is especially useful on podiums and in pulpits, where one must say much. The disproportion of my body is that my forelegs are too short. Like the hare from New Holland, I have very short forelegs but extremely long hind legs. Ordinarily, I sit very still; ifI make a move, it is a tremendous leap, to the horror of all those to whom I am bound by the tender ties of kinship and friendship. Either/Orl An Ecstatic Discourse Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way. lIS Whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the stupidities of the world, and you will regret it; weep over them, and you will also regret it. Laugh at the stupidities of the world or weep over them, you will regret it either way. Whether you laugh at the stupidities of the world or you weep over them, you will regret it either way. Trust a girl, and you will regret it. Do not trust her, and you will also regret it. Trust a girl or do not trust her, you will regret it either way. Whether you trust a girl or do not trust her, you will regret it either way. Hang yourself, and you will regret it. Do not hang yourself, and you will also regret it. Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. Whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. This, gentlemen, is the quintessence of all the wisdom of life. It is not merely in isolated moments that I, as Spinoza says, view everything aeterno modo [in the mode of eternity],  but I am continually aeterno modo. Many believe they, too, are this when after doing one thing or another they unite or mediate these opposites. But this is a misunderstanding, for the true eternity does not lie behind either! or but before it. Their eternity will therefore also be a painful temporal sequence, since they will have a double regret on which to live. My wisdom is easy to grasp, for I have only one maxim, and even that is not a point of departure for me. One must differentiate between the subsequent dialectic in either! or and the eternal one suggested here. So when I say that my maxim is not a point of departure for me, this does not have the opposite of being a point of departure but is merely the negative expression of my maxim, that by which it comprehends itself in contrast to being a point of departure or not being a point of departure. My maxim is not a point of departure for me, because if I made it a point of departure, I would regret it, and ifI did not make it a point of departure, I would also regret it. If one or another of my esteemed listeners thinks there is anything to what I have said, he merely demonstrates that he has no head for philosophy. If he thinks there is any movement in what has been said, this demonstrates the same thing. But for those listeners who are able to follow me, although I do not move, I shall now elucidate the eternal truth by which this philosophy is self-contained and does not concede anything higher. That is, ifI made my maxim a point of departure, then I would be unable to stop, for ifI did not stop, I would regret it, and if I did stop, I would also regret it, etc. But if I never start, then I can always stop, for my eternal starting is my eternal stopping. Experience shows that it is not at all difficult for philosophy to begin. Far from it. It begins, in fact, with nothing  and therefore can always begin. But it is always difficult for philosophy and philosophers to stop. This difficulty, too, I have avoided, for if anyone thinks that I, in stopping now, actually stop, he demonstrates that he does not have speculative comprehension. The point is that I do not   stop now, but I stopped when I began. My philosophy, therefore, has the advantageous characteristic of being brief and of being irrefutable, for if anyone disputes me, I daresay I have the right to declare him mad. The philosopher, then, is continually aeterno modo and does not have, as did the blessed Sintenis, only specific hours that are lived for eternity.  Why was I not born in Nyboder,  why did I not die as a baby? Then my father would himself have laid me in a little casket, taken me under his arm, carried me out to the grave on a Sunday morning, would himself have cast the earth on it and in a low voice said a few words understandablc only to himself. Only in the happy days of yore could people have the idea of babies weeping in Elysium because they died so prematurely. I have never been joyful, and yet it has always seemed as if joy were my constant companion, as ifthc buoyantjinn ofjoy danced around me, invisible to others but not to me, whose eyes shone with delight. Then when I walk past people, happy-go-lucky as a god, and they envy me because of my good fortune, I laugh, for I despise people, and I take my rcvenge. I have never wished to do anyone an injustice, but I have always made it appear as if anyone who came close to me would be wronged and injured. Then whcn I hear others praised for their faithfulness, their integrity, I laugh, for I despise people, and I take my revenge. My heart has never been hardened toward anyone, but I have always made it appear, especially when I was touched most deeply, as if my heart were closed and alien to every feeling. Then whcn I hear others lauded for their good hearts, see them loved for their deep, rich feelings, then I laugh, for I despise people and take my revenge. When I see myself cursed, abhorred, hated for my coldness and heartlessness, thcn I laugh, then my rage is satisfied. The point is that if the good people could make me be actually in the wrong, make me actually do an injusticc-well, then I would have lost. My misfortune is this: an angel of death always walks at my side, and it is not the doors of the chosen ones that I sprinkle with blood as a sign that he is to pass b y I_no, it is precisely their doors that he enters-for only recollection's love is happy. Wine no longer cheers my heart; a little of it makes me sadmuch, depressed. My soul is dull and slack; in vain do Ijab the spur of desire into its side; it is exhausted, it can no longer raise itself up in its royal jump. I have lost all my illusions. In vain do I seek to abandon myself in joy's infinitude; it cannot lift me, or, rather, I cannot lift myself. Previously, when it merely beckoned, I mounted, light, hearty, and cheerful. When I rode slowly through the forest, it seemed as if! were flying. Now, when the horse is covered with lather and is almost ready to drop, it seems to me that I do not move from the spot. I am alone, as I have always been-forsaken not by men, that would not pain me, but by the happy jinn ofjoy, who trooped around me in great numbers, who met acquaintances everywhere, showed me an opportunity everywhere. Just as an intoxicated man collects a wanton throng of young people around him, so they flocked about me, the elves of joy, and my smile was meant for them. My soul has lost possibility. If I were to wish for something, I would wish not for wealth or power but for the passion of possibility, for the eye, eternally young, eternally ardent, that sees possibility everywhere. Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not. And what wine is so sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating! Where the rays of the sun do not reach, the tones still manage to come. My apartment is dark and gloomy; a high wall practically keeps out the light of day. It must be in the next courtyard, very likely a wandering musician. What instrument is it? A reed pipe? . . . . . What do I hear-the minuet from Don Giovanni. Carry me away, then, you rich, strong tones, to the ring of girls, to the delight of the dance. -The pharmacist pounds his mortar, the maid scrubs her kettle, the groom curries his horse and knocks the currycomb on the cob-   blestones.  These tones are only for me; only to me do they beckon. Oh, thank you, whoever you are! Thank you! My soul is so rich, so hearty, so intoxicated with joy! Salmon is in itself very delicious eating, but too much of it is bad for the health, inasmuch as it is a heavy food. For this reason, once when there was a great catch of salmon, the police in Hamburg ordered each master of a household to give his servants salmon not more than once a week. Would that there might be a similar police notice with regard to sentimentality. My sorrow is my baronial castle, which lies like an eagle's nest high up on the mountain peak among the clouds. No one can take it by storm. From it I swoop down into actuality and snatch my prey, but I do not stay down there. I bring my booty home, and this booty is a picture I weave into the tapestries at my castle. Then I live as one already dead. Everything I have experienced I immerse in a baptism of oblivion unto an eternity of recollection. Everything temporal and fortuitous is forgotten and blotted out. Then I sit like an old grayhaired man, pensive, and explain the pictures in a soft voice, almost whispering, and beside me sits a child, listening, although he remembers everything before I tell it. The sun is shining brilliantly and beautifully into my room; the window in the next room is open. Everything is quiet out on the street. It is Sunday afternoon. I distinctly hear a lark warbling outside a window in one of the neighboring courtyards, outside the window where the pretty girl lives. Far away in a distant street, I hear a man crying "Shrimp for sale." The air is so warm, and yet the whole city is as if deserted. -Then I call to mind my youth and my first lovewhen I was filled with longing; now I long only for my first longing. What is youth? A dream. What is love? The content of the dream. Something marvelous has happened to me. I was transported to the seventh heaven. There sat all the gods assembled.   [ As a special dispensation, I was granted the favor of making a wish. "What do you want," asked Mercury. "Do you want youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the most beautiful girl, or anyone of the other glorious things we have in the treasure chest? Choose-but only one thing." For a moment I was bewildered; then I addressed the gods, saying: My esteemed contemporaries, I choose one thing-that I may always have the laughter on my side. Not one of the gods said a word; instead, all of them began to laugh. From that I concluded that my wish was granted and decided that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste, for it would indeeq have been inappropriate to reply solemnly: It is granted to yoU.   THE IMMEDIATE EROTIC STAGES or THE MUSICAL-EROTIC   INSIGNIFICANT [platitudinous] INTRODUCTION   From the moment my soul was first astounded by Mozart's music and humbly bowed in admiration, it has often been a favorite and refreshing occupation for me to deliberate on the way that happy Greek view of the world that calls the world a xo!lo~ [cosmos] because it manifests itself as a well-organized whole, as an elegant, transparent adornment for the spirit that acts upon and operates throughout it, the way that happy view lets itself be repeated in a higher order of things, in the world of ideals, the way there is here again a ruling wisdom especially wonderful at uniting what belongs together, Axel with Valborg, Homer with the Trojan War, Raphael with Catholicism, Mozart with Don Juan. There is a paltry disbelief that seems to contain considerable healing power.  It thinks that such a connection is accidental and sees nothing more in it than a very fortunate conjunction of the various forces in the game of life. It thinks that it is accidental that the lovers find each other, accidental that they love each other. There might have been a hundred other girls with whom he could have been just as happy, whom he could have lovedjust as much. It considers that many a poet has lived who would have been just as immortal as Homer if that glorious subject matter had not been taken over by him, many a composer who would have been just as immortal as Mozart if the opportunity had offered itself. This wisdom contains considerable consolation and balm for all mediocrities, who thereby see themselves in a position to delude themselves and like-minded people into thinking that they did not become as exceptional as the exceptional ones because of a mistaken identification on the part of fate, a mistake on the part of the world. This produces a very convenient optimism. But it is abhorrent, of course, to every high-     minded soul, every optimate, to whom it is not as important to rescue himself in such a paltry manner as it is to lose himself by contemplating greatness; whereas it is a delight to his soul, a sacred joy, to see united that which belongs together. This is good fortune, not in the sense of the accidental, and thus presupposes two factors, whereas the accidental consists in the un articulated interjections of fate. This is good fortune in history, the divine interplay of the historic forces, the festival period of the historic epoch. The accidental has only one factor: It is accidental that Homer, in the history of the Trojan War, acquired the most remarkable epic subject matter imaginable. Good fortune has two factors: It is fortunate that this most remarkable epic subject matter came into the hands of Homer. Here the emphasis is just as much on Homer as on the subject matter. Here is the deep harmony that pervades every production we call classic. So also with Mozart: It is fortunate that the perhaps sole musical theme (in the more profound sense) was given to-Mozart. With his Don Giovanni, Mozart joins that little immortal band of men whose names, whose works, time will not forget because eternity recollects them. And although it makes no difference, once one is in, whether one ranks highest or lowest-because in a certain sense everyone ranks equally highsince all rank infinitely high, and although it is just as childish to argue about first and last places here as it is to argue about the place assigned in church on confirmation day, I am still too much of a child, or, more correctly, I am infatuated, like a young girl, with Mozart, and I must have him rank in first place, whatever it costs. And I will go to the deacon and the pastor and the dean and the bishop and the whole church council, and I will beseech and implore them to grant my request, and I will challenge the whole congregation on the same matter, and if my appeal is not heard, my childish wish not fulfilled, then I will secede from the association, then I will divorce myself from its way of thinking, then I will form a sect that not only places Mozart first but has no one but Mozart. And I will beseech Mozart to forgive me that his music did not inspire me to great deeds but made me a fool who, because of   The Immediate Erotic Stages   him, lost the little sense I had and now in quiet sadness usually passes the time humming something I do not understand, and like a ghost prowls night and day around something I cannot enter. mmortal Mozart! You to whom lowe everything-to whom lowe that I lost my mind, that my soul was astounded, that I was terrified at the core of my being-you to whom I owe that I did not go through life without encountering something that could shake me, you whom I thank because I did not die without having loved, even though my love was unhappy. No wonder, then, that I am much more zealous for his glorification than for the happiest moment of my own life, much more zealous for his immortality than for my own existence [TilvtXr]. Indeed, ifhe were taken away, ifhis name were blotted out, that would demolish the one pillar that until now has prevented everything from collapsing for me into a boundless chaos, into a dreadful nothing. Yet I certainly need not fear that any age will deny him a place in that kingdom of the gods, but I do need to be prepared for people to find it childish of me to insist that he have first place. And although I by no means propose to feel ashamed of my childishness, although it will always have more significance and value for me than any exhaustive consideration precisely because it is inexhaustible, I shall nevertheless try by way of deliberation to demonstrate his legitimate claim. In a classic work, good fortune-that which makes it classic and immortal-is the absolute correlation of the two forces. This correlation is so absolute that a subsequent reflective age will scarcely be able, even in thought, to separate that which is so intrinsically conjoined without running the danger of causing or fostering a misunderstanding. For example, if it is said that it was Homer's good fortune that he acquired that most exceptional epic subject matter, this can lead one to forget that we always have this epic subject matter through Homer's conception, and the fact that it appears to be the most perfect epic subject matter is clear to us only in and through the transubstantiation due to Homer. If, however, Homer's poetic work in permeating the subject matter is emphasized, then one runs the risk of forgetting that the poem would never have become   what it is if the idea with which Homer permeated it was not its own idea, if the form was not the subject matter's own form. The poet wishes for his subject matter, but, as they say, wishing is no art; this is quite correct and truthfully applies to a host of powerless poetic wishes. To wish properly, however, is a great art, or, more correctly, it is a gift. It is the inexplicability and mysteriousness of genius, just as with a divining rod [nskeqvist], which never has the notion to wish [enske] except in the presence of that for which it wishes. Hence, wishing has a far deeper significance than it ordinarily does; indeed, to abstract reason it appears ludicrous, since it rather thinks of wishing in connection with what is not present, not in connection with what is present. There was a school of estheticians who, because of a onesided emphasis on the significance of form, were not without guilt in occasioning the diametrically opposite misunderstanding. It has often struck me that these estheticians were as a matter of course attached to Hegelian philosophy, inasmuch as both a general knowledge of Hegel and a special knowledge of his esthetics give assurance that he strongly emphasizes, especially with regard to the esthetic, the importance of the subject matter.  Both parts, however, essentially belong together, and a single observation will be sufficient to show this, since otherwise a phenomenon of this sort would be inexplicable. Ordinarily, it is a single work or a single suite of works that marks the particular individual as a classic poet, artist, etc. The same individuality may have produced many different things, but they are not to be compared with it. For example, Homer also wrote a Batrachomyomachia  but did not become a classic writer or immortal through it. To say that this is due to the unimportance of the theme is indeed foolish, since the classic consists in the balance. Now, if whatever makes a classic work classic lies simply and solely in the producing individual, then everything he produced would inevitably be classic, somewhat in the sense, although higher, in which bees always produce a certain kind of cell. To answer that it was due to his having been more fortunate with the one than with the other would really say nothing. For one thing, this is merely a splen-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   did tautology that all too frequently in life enjoys the honor of being regarded as an answer; for another, as an answer it pertains to a relativity other than that of the question. It throws no light on the relation between subject matter and form and at best could come under consideration if the question pertained solely to the formative activity. It is likewise the case with Mozart that only one of his works makes him a classic composer and absolutely immortal. That work is Don Giovanni. Everything else he has composed can please and delight, arouse our admiration, enrich the soul, satisfy the ear, delight the heart; but no service is done to him and his immortality by throwing everything together and making it all equally great. Don Giovanni is his reception piece.  With Don Giovanni, he enters that eternity which lies not outside time but in the midst of it, which is not hidden from the eyes of men by any curtain, into which the immortals are not admitted once and for all but are continually being admitted, inasmuch as the generation passes by and directs its gaze toward them, is happy in its contemplation of them, goes to its grave, and the next generation in turn goes by and is transfigured in contemplating them. With his Don Giovanni, Mozart enters the rank of those immortals, of those visibly transfigured ones, whom no cloud takes away" from the eyes of men; with Don Giovanni he stands supreme among them. This last assertion, as I said above, I shall attempt to demonstrate. All classic productions rank equally high, as previously noted, because each one ranks infinitely high. Consequently, if one nevertheless wants to introduce a certain order into this series, it stands to reason that it cannot be based on anything essential, for that would mean that there was an essential difference, and that in turn would mean that the word "classic" was wrongly predicated of all of them. If a classification were based on the dissimilar nature of the subject matter, one would immediately be involved in a misunderstanding, which in its wider extension would end with the annulment of the whole concept of the classic. The subject matter is an essential element, inasmuch as it is one factor, but it is not the absolute, since it is only one element. It could be pointed out that in a   sense certain kinds of classic works have no subject matter, whereas in others, however, the subject matter plays a very important role. The former is the case with works we admire as classic in architecture, sculpture, music, painting-especially the first three, and even in painting, insofar as there is any question of subject matter it has importance almost solely as an occasion. The second is true of poetry, this word understood in its widest meaning to denote all artistic production that is based on language and the historical consciousness. This comment is in itself altogether correct, but it is a mistake to base a classification on it by regarding the absence or presence of subject matter as an advantage or a detriment to the creative individual. If it is strictly understood, the result will be to argue the very opposite of what was really intended, as is always the case when one moves abstractly in dialectical qualifications, where it is the case that one not only says one thing and means something else but says something else; what one thinks one is saying one does not say but says the opposite. So it is when the subject matter is made the principle of division. In speaking of it, one speaks of something entirely different: namely, the formative activity. But the same thing happens if one starts with the formative activity and emphasizes it alone. In maintaining the distinction here and emphasizing that in some respects the formative activity is creative to the degree that it creates the subject matter in the process, whereas in other respects it receives the subject matter, then here again, although one thinks one is speaking of the formative activity, one is actually speaking of the subject matter and is basing the classification on the division of the subject matter. The same holds for the formative activity as the point of departure in such a classification as for the subject matter. Consequently, a single aspect cannot be used as the basis for an order of rank, because it is still too essential to be sufficiently accidental, too accidental to be a basis for an essential ranking. But this thoroughgoing mutual permeation-which justifies saying, if one wishes to speak clearly, that the subject matter permeates the form and also that the form permeates the sub-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   ject matter-this mutual permeation, this like-for-like in the immortal friendship of the classic, may serve to illuminate the classic from a new side and to limit it in such a way that it does not become too copious. In fact, the estheticians who one-sidedly stressed the poetic activity have broadened this concept so much that this pantheon became adorned, indeed, overdecorated, to such a degree with classic knickknacks and bagatelles that the unsophisticated notion of a cool hall with a few particular great figures utterly vanished, and instead that pantheon became a storage attic. According to this esthetic view, every artistically skillful little dainty is a classic work that is assured of absolute immortality; indeed, in this kind of hocus-pocus, such trifles are admitted first of all. Although paradoxes are otherwise detested, the paradox that the least was actually art was not dismaying. The untruth was in a one-sided emphasis on the formal activity. Therefore, such an esthetic view could last only for a certain period, that is, so long as there was no awareness that time mocked it and its classic works. In the realm of esthetics, this view was a form of the radicalism that has similarly manifested itself in so many spheres; it was an expression of the unbridled producing individual in his equally unbridled lack of substance. Like so many others, however, this effort found its subduer in Hegel. It is a sad truth about Hegelian philosophy that on the whole it has by no means achieved the importance, neither for the past nor for the present age, that it would have achieved if the past age had not been so busy scaring people into it but had rather possessed a little more calm presence of mind in appropriating it to itself, and if the present age had not been so indefatigably active in driving people beyond it.  Hegel reinstated the subject matter, the idea, in its rights and thereby ousted those transient classic works, those superficialities, those twilight moths from the arched vaults of classicism. It is by no means our intention to deny these works the value that is their due, but the point is to watch out lest here, as in so many other places, the language become confused, the concepts enervated. A certain eternity may be readily attributed to them, and this is their merit, but still this eternity is actually     only the eternal moment that any true artistic production has, but not the full eternity in the midst of the shifts and changes of the times. What these productions lacked was ideas, and the more formally perfect they were, the more quickly they burned themselves out. As technical skill was more and more developed to the highest level of virtuosity, the more transient this virtuosity became and the more it lacked the mettle and power or balance to withstand the gusts of time, while more and more exalted it continually made greater claims to being the most distilled spirit. Only where the idea is brought to rest and transparency in a definite form can there be any question of a classic work, but then it will also be capable of withstanding the times. This unity, this mutual intimacy in each other, every classic work has, and thus it is readily perceived that every attempt at a classification of the various classic works that has as its point of departure a separation of subject matter and form or of idea and form is eo ipso a failure. Another way might be proposed. The medium through which the idea becomes visible could be made the object of consideration. Having noted that one medium is richer and another less rich, one could base the division on this difference by finding a facilitation or an impediment in the varying richness or poverty of the medium. But the medium stands in an all too necessary relation to the whole production to keep a division based on it from becoming entangled in the above-mentioned difficulties after a few turns of thought. I believe, however, that the following observations will open the prospect for a division that will have validity precisely because it is completely accidental. The more abstract and thus the more impoverished the idea is, the more abstract and thus the more impoverished the medium is; hence the greater is the probability that no repetition can be imagined, and the greater is the probability that when the idea has acquired its expression it has acquired it once and for all. On the other hand, the more concrete and thus the richer the idea and likewise the medium, the greater is the probability of a repetition. As I now place the various classic works side by side and, without wishing to rank them, am amazed that all stand   The Immediate Erotic Stages   equally high, it nevertheless will be readily apparent that one section has more works than another or, if it does not, that there is the possibility that it can have, whereas any possibility for the other is not so readily apparent. I would like to develop this point in somewhat more detail. The more abstract the idea is, the less the probability. But how does the idea become concrete? By being permeated by the historical. The more concrete the idea, the greater the probability. The more abstract the medium is, the less the probability; the more concrete, the more. But what does it mean that the medium is concrete except that it either is, or is seen in its approximation to, language, for language is the most concrete of all media. Hence, the idea that is disclosed in sculpture is totally abstract and has no relation to the historical; the medium through which it becomes manifest is likewise abstract. Consequently, it is very probable that the section of classic works that comprises sculpture will include only a few. The witness of time and the agreement of experience bear me out on this. But if I take a concrete idea and a concrete medium, the situation is different. Homer certainly is a classic epic poet, but precisely because the idea that becomes manifest in the epic is a concrete idea and because the medium is language, it is conceivable that the section of classic works that includes the epic has many works, which are all equally classic because history continually provides new epic subject matter. Here, too, the witness of history and the agreement of experience bear me out. If I now base a division on the completely accidental, it really cannot be denied that it is accidental. But if reproached for it, I then reply that the reproach is a mistake, for it is supposed to be just that. It is accidental that one section has or can have more works than another. But since this is accidental, it is easy to see that the class that has or can have the most works may very well be placed uppermost. At this point, I could persist in what I said before and calmly reply that this would be perfectly legitimate but that I ought to be all the more praised for my consistency because I altogether accidentally placed the opposite section uppermost. But I shall not do that.â·â· On the   [   other hand, I shall appeal to a circumstance that speaks in my favor-namely, the circumstance that the sections that include the concrete ideas are not closed and cannot be closed in this way. Therefore, it is more natural to place the others first and with regard to the latter group always to keep the double doors open. But if someone says that this is an imperfection, a defect in that first class, then he is plowing outside the furrows of my consideration, and I cannot pay any attention to what he says, however exhaustive it is, for it is indeed a â·fixed point that, viewed essentially, all are equally perfect. But, then, which idea is the most abstract? Here, of course, the question concerns an idea that can become a theme for artistic treatment, not ideas that are suitable for scholarly-scientific presentation. Which medium is the most abstract? I will answer this question first. It is the medium that is furthest removed from language. Before answering that question, however, may I recall that there is a circumstance related to the final solution of my task. That is, the most abstract medium does not always have the most abstract idea as its theme. Thus the medium that architecture uses is undoubtedly the most abstract, and yet the ideas that are manifest in architecture are not at all the most abstract. Architecture stands in a much closer relation to history than, for example, sculpture does. Here again appears the possibility of a new choice. For the first class in that order of precedence, I can choose either the works with the most abstract medium or those with the most abstract idea. In that respect, I prefer the idea, not the medium. Sculpture, painting, and music have abstract media as does architecture, but this is not the place to go further into that exploration. The most abstract idea conceivable is the sensuous! in its elemental originality [Genialitet]Y But through which medium can it be presented? Only through music. It cannot be presented in sculpture because it has a qualification of a kind of inwardness; it cannot be painted, for it cannot be caught in definite contours. In its lyricism, it is a force, a wind, impatience, passion, etc., yet in such a way that it exists not in one instant but in a succession of instants, for if it existed in one instant, it   The Immediate Erotic Stages   could be depicted or painted. That it exists in a succession of instants expresses its epic character, but still it is not epic in the stricter sense, for it has not reached the point of words; it continually moves within immediacy. Consequently, it cannot be presented in poetry, either. The only medium that can present it is music. Music has an element of time in itself but nevertheless does not take place in time except metaphorically. It cannot express the historical within time. In Mozart's Don Giovanni, we have the perfect unity of this idea and its corresponding form. But precisely because the idea is so very abstract and because the medium also is abstract, there is no probability that Mozart will ever have a competitor. Mozart's good fortune is that he has found a subject matter that is intrinsically altogether musical, and if any other composer were to compete with Mozart, there would be nothing for him to do except to compose Don Giovanni all over again. Homer found a perfect epic subject matter, but because history offers more epic subject matter, many more epic poems are conceivable. Such is not the case with Don Giovanni. What I really mean will perhaps be seen best in indicate the difference by reference to a related idea. Goethe's Faust is really a classic work, but it is a historical idea, and therefore every extraordinary time in history will have its Faust. Faust has language as its medium, and since this is a much more concrete medium, for that reason, too, many works of the same kind are conceivable. But in the same sense as the classic works of Greek sculpture, Don Giovanni is and remains the only one of its kind. However, since the idea of Don Giovanni is even much more abstract than that which constitutes the basis of sculpture, it is readily seen that whereas in sculpture there are many works, in music there is only a single work. To be sure, many more classic works in music are conceivable, but there still is only one work of which it can be said that its idea is altogether musical in such a way that the music does not help along as accompaniment but discloses its own innermost nature as it discloses the idea. Therefore Mozart with his Don Giovanni stands highest among those immortals. But I shall give up this whole exploration. It is written only     for those who have fallen in love. And just as it does not take much to make children happy, so it is, as is well known, that the love-enraptured often rejoice in very odd things. It is like a vehement lovers' quarrel over nothing, and yet it has its value-for the lovers. Although the foregoing discussion has tried in every possible way imaginable or unimaginable to gain recognition for Mozart's Don Giovanni as supreme among all classic works, it nevertheless has made as good as no attempt to demonstrate that this work actually is classic, for the few scattered hints found here, by appearing merely as hints, simply show that the aim was not to demonstrate but occasionally to illuminate. This approach might seem more than odd. To demonstrate that Don Giovanni is a classic work in the strictest sense is a task for reflection, but the other endeavor is completely irrelevant to the proper domain of reflection. The movement of thought is calmed by having recognized that it is a classic work and that every classic production is equally perfect; to thinking, anything more one wants to do is suspect. To that extent, the entire foregoing part is entangled in a self-contradiction and easily disintegrates into nothing. But this is quite proper, and such a self-contradiction is deeply rooted in human nature. The admiration, sympathy, and veneration in me, the child in me, the woman in me, demanded more than what thought could provide. Thought was calm, rested happy in its knowledge; then I went to it and begged it to bestir itself once more, to venture the ultimate. It knew very well that this was futile, but since I am usually on good terms with it, it did not refuse me. It labored in vain; egged on by me, it was continually going beyond itself and continually collapsing back into itself. It was continually looking for a foothold and finding none, continually trying to find bottom, but could neither swim nor wade. It was both a laughing and a c~ying matter. Therefore I did both and was very grateful that it had not denied me this service. And although I now know perfectly well that it is useless, it could still very well occur to me to ask thought to play once again the game that to me is inexhaustible material for enjoyment. Every reader who finds the game boring is, of course, not of my kind; it is meaningless   The Immediate Erotic Stages   to him, and here as everywhere children who are alike play together best. To him, the entire foregoing part is a superfluity; whereas to me it has such great importance that I say with Horace: Exilis domus est, ubi non et multa supersunt [Poor is the house where there's not much to spare].   To him it is foolishness, to me wisdom; to him it is boring, to me a source ofjoy and merriment. That kind of reader would therefore be incapable of appreciating my lyrical thought, which is so ecstatic that it goes beyond thought. But perhaps he would be kind enough to say, "We shall not quarrel about that; I skip that part. See now if you can come to the far more important matter of demonstrating that Don Giovanni is a classic work, for I admit that this would be a really appropriate introduction to the exploration proper." To what extent it would be an appropriate introduction, I shall leave in abeyance, but the trouble here for me is that I in turn cannot appreciate him, for no matter how easy it may be for me to demonstrate it, it would still never occur to me to demonstrate it. But although I always assume the matter settled, the following will many times and in maay ways illuminate Don Giovanni in this respect, just as the foregoing discussion has already contained a few hints. The immediate task of this exploration is to show the significance of the musical-erotic and to that end in turn to indicate the various stages, which, since they are all characterized by the immediate erotic, also harmonize in this, that essentially they are all musical. What I have to say about this lowe solely to Mozart. Therefore, if anyone should be courteous enough to admit that I am right in what I aim to set forth but has some doubts whether it is in Mozart's music or whether, instead, I put it into the music, I can assure him that not only the little I am able to set forth is in Mozart's music, but infinitely much more. Yes, I can assure him that this very thought gives me the boldness to venture to try to explain a few things   in Mozart's music. What one has loved with youthful infatuation, what one has admired with youthful enthusiasm, that with which one has kept secret, enigmatic company in the inwardness of the soul, that which one has hidden in the heartone always approaches this with a certain shyness, with mixed feelings, when one knows that the purpose is to understand it. What one has come to know piece by piece, just as a bird gleans each little straw for itself, happier over each little bit than over all the rest of the world; what the loving ear, solitary, has absorbed, solitary in the great crowd, unnoticed in its secret hiding place; what the avid ear has picked up, never satisfied, what the avaricious ear has preserved, never secure, of which the faintest echo has never disappointed the sleepless attention of the reconnoitering ear; what one has lived in during the day and relived at night, what has driven away sleep and made it restless, what one has dreamed about in sleep, what one has awakened to in order awake to dream about it again, for the sake of which one has leaped out of bed in the middle of the night out of fear of forgetting it; what has made its appearance to one in the most inspired moments, what one has always had at hand like a woman's needlework, what has accompanied one on bright moonlit nights, in lonely forests by the lake, on gloomy streets, in the middle of the night, at the break of day; what has sat with one on the same horse, what has been company in the carriage; what has permeated the home, what one's room has witnessed, what has resonated in the ear, what has reverberated in the soul, what the soul has spun into its finest fabric-this now shows itself to thought. Just as in the old tales those enigmatic beings, draped in seaweed, rise up from the bottom of the sea, so this rises up from the sea of recollection, intertwined with mementos. The soul becomes sad and the heart mellow, for it is as if one were taking leave of it, as if one were parting never to meet again, neither in time nor in eternity. One feels that one is being unfaithful, that one has betrayed one's pact; one feels that one is no longer the same, not as young, not as childlike; one fears for oneself, that one will lose what made one happy, blissful, and rich; one fears for what one loves, that it will suffer in this   The Immediate Erotic Stages   change, will perhaps appear less perfect, that it will possibly fail to answer the many questions, alas, and then all is lost, the magic is gone, and it can never again be evoked. As for Mozart's music, my soul knows no fear, my confidence no limits. For one thing, what I have understood hitherto is only very little, and enough will always remain, hiding in the shadows of presentiment; for another, I am convinced that if Mozart ever became entirely comprehensible to me, he would then become completely incomprehensible to me. To make the claim that Christianity brought sensuality into the world seems boldly venturesome. But as they say: Boldly ventured is half won. So it also holds here; it will become evident upon reflection that in the positing of something, the other that is excluded is indirectly posited. Since sensuality generally is that which is to be negated, it really comes to light, is really posited, first by the act that excludes it through a positing of the opposite positive. Sensuality is posited as a principle, as a power, as an independent system first by Christianity, and to that extent Christianity brought sensuality into the world. But if the thesis that Christianity has brought sensuality into the world is to be understood properly, it must be comprehended as identical to its opposite, that it is Christianity that has driven sensuality out of the world, has excluded sensuality from the world. Sensuality was first posited as a principle, as a power, as an independent system by Christianity. I could add one more qualification that perhaps most emphatically shows what I mean: sensuality was placed under the qualification of spirit first by Christianity. This is quite natural, for Christianity is spirit, and spirit is the positive principle it has brought into the world. But when sensuality is viewed under the qualification of spirit, its significance is seen to be that it is to be excluded, but precisely because it is to be excluded it is defined as a principle, as a power, for that which spirit, which is itself a principle, is supposed to exclude must be something that manifests itself as a principle, even though it does not manifest itself as a principle until the moment when it is excluded. Of course, to protest against my thesis that sensuality existed in the world prior to Christianity would be   rather foolish, inasmuch as it goes without saying that whatever is to be excluded always exists prior to that which excludes it, even though, understood in another way, it comes into existence [bliver til] only when it is excluded. This in turn occurs because it comes into existence in another sense, and that is why I promptly said that boldly ventured is only half won. Consequently, the sensual certainly did exist in the world before, but it was not qualified spiritually. How, then, did it exist? It was qualified psychically. This was its nature in paganism, and if one wishes to look for its most perfect expression, it was in Greece. But the sensual psychically qualified is not contrast or exclusion, but harmony and consonance. But precisely because the sensual is posited as harmoniously qualified, it is posited not as a principle but as a consonant encliticon.  This view will be of importance in illuminating the various forms the erotic takes in various stages of the development of world consciousness and thereby guide us to the category of the immediate-erotic as identical with the musical-erotic. In Greek culture, the sensuous was controlled in the beautiful individuality, or, to put it more accurately, it was not controlled, for it was not an enemy to be subdued, not a dangerous insurgent to be held in check; it was liberated to life and joy in the beautiful individuality. Thus the sensuous was not posited as a principle. The psychical aspect constituting the beautiful individuality was inconceivable without the sensuous; for this reason the erotic based on the sensuous was not posited as a principle either. Erotic love [Elskov] was everywhere present as an element and present as an element in the beautiful individuality. The gods, no less than men, knew its power; the gods, no less than men, knew happy and unhappy love affairs. But in none of them was erotic love present as a principle; insofar as it was in them, in the single individual, it was there as an element of erotic love's universal power, which, however, was present nowhere and therefore not even in the Greek conception or in the Greek consciousness. It could be objected that Eros was indeed the god of erotic   The Immediate Erotic Stages   love and that therefore erotic love must be considered present in him as a principle. But apart from the fact that here again erotic love does not rest upon the eroti<; in such a way that this is based solely upon the sensuous, but upon the psychical, there is also another circumstance to be noted, one that I shall now stress in somewhat more detail. Eros was the god of erotic love but was not himself in love. Insofar as the other gods or men detected the power of erotic love in themselves, they attributed it to Eros, traced it back to him, but Eros himself did not fall in love, and if it did happen to him once,  it was an exception; and although he was the god of erotic love, he was far behind the other gods, far behind men, in the number of his affairs. That he fell in love is as good as to say that he, too, yielded to the universal power of erotic love, which thus in a way became a power outside himself, which in being spurned by him had no place at all now where it could be sought. His erotic love is not based on the sensuous, either, but upon the psychical. It is a genuinely Greek idea that the god of erotic love is not in love himself, whereas all the others are indebted to him for their own falling in love. IfI were to imagine a god or a goddess of longing, it would be genuinely Greek that, whereas everyone who knew the sweet unrest or pain of longing would trace it to this being, this being would itself know nothing oflonging. I know of no more precise way to designate what is distinctive in this relation than to say that it is the opposite of a representative relation. In the representative relation, the total power is concentrated in a single individual, and the particular individuals participate therein to the extent that they participate in the particular movements of that one. I could also say that this relation is the opposite of the one underlying incarnation. In incarnation, the full plenitude oflife is in the single individual, and this is for the others only through their beholding it in the incarnated individual. Therefore, in the Greek relation it is the reverse. That which is the god's power is not in the god but in all the other individuals, who trace it back to him; he himself is almost powerless, impotent, because he communicates his power to all the rest of   EitherlOr, I   the world. The incarnated individual imbibes, as it were, power from all the others, and thus the fullness is in that one, and in the others only insofar as they behold it in this individual. This is important for what follows, just as in and by itself it is significant with regard to the categories the world consciousness uses at various times. Hence, we do not find the sensuous as a principle in Greek culture; neither do we find the erotic as a principle based upon the principle of the sensuous; and even if we had found it, we still perceive-something that is of the greatest importance in this exploration-that the Greek consciousness did not have the strength to concentrate all of it in a single individual but from a point that does not have it radiates it to all the others in such a way that this constituting point is almost recognizable by being the only one that does not have that which it gives to all the others. So it was Christianity that posited sensuality as a principle, just as it posited the sensuous-erotic as a principle. The idea of representation was introduced into the world by Christianity. IfI now imagine the sensuous-erotic as a principle, as a power, as a domain, defined in relation to spirit-that is, defined in such a way that spirit excludes it-if I imagine this principle concentrated in a single individual, then I have the concept of the sensuous-erotic in its elemental originality [Genialitet]. This is an idea that Greek culture did not have, that Christianity first introduced into the world, although only indirectly. If the elemental originality of the sensuous-erotic in all its immediacy insists on expression, then the question arises as to which medium is the most suitable for this. The point that particularly must be kept in mind here is that it insists on being expressed and presented in its immediacy. In its mediacy and in being reflected in another medium, it falls within language and comes under ethical categories. In its immediacy, it can be expressed only in music. In this connection, I must ask the reader to recall something said about this in the insignificant introduction. The significance of music thereby appears in its full validity, and in a stricter sense it appears as a Christian art or, more correctly, as the art Christianity posits in excluding it from itself, as the medium for that which Christianity ex-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   cludes from itself and thereby posits. In other words, music is the demonic. In elemental sensuous-erotic originality, music has its absolute theme. This, of course, does not mean that music cannot express anything else, but nevertheless this is its theme proper. Similarly, sculpture can depict something other than human beauty, and yet this is its absolute theme. Painting can depict something other than celestially transfigured beauty, and yet this is its absolute theme. In this regard, the point is to see the basic concept in each art and not to be confused by whatever else it can do. The basic concept of man is spirit, and one should not be confused by the fact that he is also able to walk on two feet. The basic concept of language is thought, and one should not be confused by the fact that a few emotional people are of the opinion that the greatest importance oflanguage is in the production of inarticulate sounds. At this point, may I be permitted a little insignificant interlude; praeterea censeo [furthermore I am of the opinionJ that Mozart is the greatest of all the classic authors, that his Don Giovanni deserves the highest place among all the classic works. As to music regarded as a medium, this, of course, is always a very interesting question. Whether I am capable of saying anything adequate about it is another question. I am well aware that I do not understand music; I readily admit that I am a layman. I do not hide the fact that I do not belong to the chosen tribe of music experts, that at most I stand in the doorway as a gentile convert drawn from afar to this place by a strange, irresistible impulse--but no further. Yet it is possible that the little I have to say, if received with kindness and indulgence, may have a single comment that will be found to contain something true, even if it is concealed under a peasant's coat. I stand outside music, and from this position I observe it. That this position is very imperfect, I readily admit; that compared with the lucky ones standing inside I do not manage to see very much, I do not deny. But I go on hoping that from my position I, too, can communicate an illuminating detail, although the initiated could do it much better-indeed, to a certain degree even understand better what I say than I do myself.     If I imagined two kingdoms bordering each other, one of which I knew rather well and the other not at all, and if however much I desired it I were not allowed to enter the unknown kingdom, I would still be able to form some idea of it. I would go to the border of the kingdom known to me and follow it all the way, and in doing so I would by my movements describe the outline of that unknown land and thus have a general idea of it, although I had never set foot in it. And if this were a labor that occupied me very much, if I were unflaggingly scrupulous, it presumably would sometimes happen that as I stood with sadness at the border of my kingdom and gazed longingly into that unknown country that was so near and yet so far, I would be granted an occasional little disclosure. And even though I feel that music is an art that requires considerable experience if one is really to have an opinion on it, I comfort myself again as so often before with the paradox that also in presentiment and ignorance one can have a kind of experience. It is a comfort to me that Diana, who had not given birth herself, came to the aid of women in labor-indeed, that she had this ability from infancy as an inborn gift, so that when she was born she herself helped Latona in her labor pains.  The kingdom that I know, to whose outermost boundary I shall go to discover music, is language. If the various media are ordered according to a specific process of development, language and music must be placed closest to each other, and that is also why it has been said that music is a language, which is more than a clever observation. If one is inclined to indulge in cleverness, one could say that sculpture and painting, too, are each a kind of language, inasmuch as every expression of an idea is always a language, since the essence of the idea is language. Clever folk therefore speak of the language of nature, and soft-headed clergy occasionally open the book of nature for us and read something that neither they nor their listeners understand. If the observation that music is a language did not amount to anything more than that, I would not bother with it but would let it go unchallenged and pass for what it is. But that is not the case. Not until spirit is posited is language installed in its rights, but when spirit is posited, everything that   The Immediate Erotic Stages   is not spirit is excluded. Yet this exclusion is a qualification of spirit, and consequently, insofar as that which is excluded is to affirm itself, it requires a medium that is qualified in relation to spirit, and this medium is music. But a medium that is qualified in relation to spirit is essentially language; now, since music is qualified in relation to spirit, it is legitimately called a language. Language, regarded as medium, is the medium absolutely qualified by spirit, and it is therefore the authentic medium of the idea. To elaborate this more thoroughly is neither within my competence nor in the interest of this little inquiry. Just one specific comment, which again leads me into music, should find a place here. In language, the sensuous as medium is reduced to a mere instrument and is continually negated. That is not the case with the other media. Neither in sculpture nor in painting is the sensuous a mere instrument; it is rather a component. It is not to be negated continually, either, for it is continually to be seen conjointly. It would be a strangely backward consideration of a piece of sculpture or of a painting if I were to behold it in such a way that I took pains to see it independently of the sensuous, whereby I would completely cancel its beauty. In sculpture, architecture, and painting, the idea is integral to the medium, but the fact that the idea does not reduce the medium to a mere instrument, does not continually negate it, expresses, as it were, that this medium cannot speak. It is the same with nature. Therefore, it is properly said that nature is dumb, and architecture and sculpture and painting; it is properly said despite all the fine, sensitive ears that can hear them speak. Therefore, it is foolish to say that nature is a language, certainly as foolish as to say that the mute speaks, since it is not even a language in the way sign language is. But that is not the case with language. The sensuous is reduced to a mere instrument and is thus annulled. If a person spoke in such a way that we heard the flapping of his tongue etc., he would be speaking poorly; if he heard in such a way that he heard the vibrations of the air instead of words, he would be hearing poorly; ifhe read a book in such a way that he continually saw each individual letter, he would be reading poorly.   Language is the perfect medium precisely when everything sensuous in it is negated. That is also the case with music; that which is really supposed to be heard is continually disengaging itself from the sensuous. It has already been pointed out that music as a medium does not rank as high as language, and that is why I said that music, understood in a certain way, is a language. Language addresses itself to the ear. No other medium does this. The ear, in turn, is the most spiritually qualified sense. Most people, I believe, will agree with me on this point. If anyone wishes more information about this, I refer him to the preface to Steffens's Karrikaturen des Heiligsten.  Apart from language, music is the only medium that is addressed to the ear. Here again is an analogy and a testimony to the sense in which music is a language. There is much in nature that is addressed to the ear, but what affects the ear is the purely sensate; therefore nature is mute, and it is a ludicrous fancy that one hears something because one hears a cow bellow or, what is perhaps more pretentious, a nightingale warble; it is a fancy that one hears something, a fancy that the one is worth more than the other, since it is all six of one and a half dozen of the other. Language has its element in time; all other media have space as their element. Only music also occurs in time. But its occurrence in time is in turn a negation of the feelings dependent upon the senses [det Sandselige]. That which the other arts produce suggests their sensuousness precisely by having its continuance in space. There is, of course, much in nature that occurs in time. For example, when a brook ripples and keeps on rippling, there seems to be a qualification of time involved therein. But this is not so, and if anyone absolutely insists that the qualification of time must be present here, then one must say that it certainly is so but that it is spatially qualified. Music does not exist except in the moment it is performed, for even if a person can read notes ever so well and has an ever so vivid imagination, he still cannot deny that only in a figurative sense does music exist when it is being read. It actually exists only when it is being performed. That might seem an imperfection   The Immediate Erotic Stages   in this art in comparison with the other arts whose works continually exist because they have their continuance in the sensuous. But this is not so. It is indeed a demonstration that it is a higher, a more spiritual art. Now, if I start with language in order, by a movement through it, to sound out music, as it were, the matter looks something like this. IfI assume that prose is the language form that is most remote from music, I already detect in the oration, in the sonorous construction of its periods, an echo of the musical, which emerges ever more strongly at various stages in the poetic declamation, in the metrical construction, in the rhyme, until finally the musical element has developed so strongly that language leaves off and everything becomes music. Indeed, this is a pet phrase poets use to indicate that they, as it were, abandon the idea; it disappears for them, and everything ends in music. This might seem to imply that music is even closer to perfection as a medium than language. But this is one of those sentimental misconceptions that sprout only in empty heads. That it is a misconception will be pointed out later. Here I wish only to draw attention to the remarkable circumstance that by a movement in the opposite direction I once again encounter music, namely, when I descend from prose permeated by the concept until I end up with interjections, which in turn are musical, just as a child's first babbling is musical. Here the point certainly cannot be that music is closer to perfection as a medium than language, or that music is a richer medium than language, unless it is assumed that saying "Uh" is more valuable than a complete thought. But what does this mean-that where language leaves offI find the musical? This indeed expresses perfectly that language is bounded by music on all sides. From this we also see the connection with that misconception that music is supposed to be a richer medium than language. In other words, when language leaves off, music begins; when, as is said, everything is musical, one is not progressing but retrogressing. This is why-and perhaps the experts will agree with me on this-I have never had any sympathy for the sublimated music that thinks it does not need     words. Ordinarily, it thinks itself superior to words, although it is inferior. The objection presumably could be made that if it is true that language is a richer medium than music, then it is incomprehensible that an esthetic analysis of the musical involves such great difficulty, incomprehensible that here language continually shows itself to be a poorer medium than music. But this is neither incomprehensible nor unexplainable. Music always expresses the immediate in its immediacy. This is also the reason that in relation to language music appears first and last, but this also shows that it is a mistake to say that music is closer to perfection as a medium. Reflection is implicit in language, and therefore language cannot express the immediate. Reflection is fatal to the immediate, and therefore it is impossible for language to express the musical, but this apparent poverty in language is precisely its wealth. In other words, the immediate is the indeterminate, and therefore language cannot grasp it; but its indeterminacy is not its perfection but rather a defect in it. We indirectly acknowledge this in many ways. For example, we say: I cannot really explain why I do this or that in such a way-I play it by ear. For something that has no connection with the musical, we often use a phrase taken from music but denote thereby the vague, the unexplained, the immediate. N ow, if it is the immediate, qualified by spirit, that receives its proper expression in the musical, the question may be raised again more pointedly: What kind of immediacy is it that is essentially the theme of music? The immediate, qualified by spirit, can be qualified in such a way that it either comes within the realm of spirit or is outside the realm of spirit. When the immediate, qualified by spirit, is qualified in such a way that it falls within the realm of spirit, it can certainly find its expression in the musical, but this immediacy still cannot be music's absolute theme, for when it is qualified in such a way that it will fall within the realm of spirit, this suggests that music is in alien territory; it forms a prelude that is continually being annulled. But if the immediate, qualified by spirit, is qualified in such a way that it is outside the realm of spirit, then music has in this its absolute theme. For the former immediacy, it is   The Immediate Erotic Stages   unessential for it to be expressed in music, whereas it is essential for it to become spirit and consequently to be expressed in language. For the latter, however, it is essential that it be expressed in music; it can be expressed only therein and cannot be expressed in language, since it is qualified by spirit in such a way that it does not come within the realm of spirit and thus is outside the realm of language. But the immediacy that is thus excluded by spirit is sensuous immediacy. This is linked to Christianity. Sensuous immediacy has its absolute medium in music, and this also explains why music in the ancient world did not become properly developed but is linked to the Christian world. So it is the medium for the immediacy that, qualified by spirit, is qualified in such a way that it is outside the realm of spirit. Of course, music can express many other things, but this is its absolute theme. It is also easy to discern that music is a more sensuous medium than language, inasmuch as considerably more emphasis is placed on the sensuous sound in music than in language. Consequently, sensuousness in its elemental originality is the absolute theme of music. The sensuous in its essential nature is absolutely lyrical, and in music it erupts in all its lyrical impatience. That is, it is qualified by spirit and therefore is power, life, movement, continual unrest, continual succession. But this unrest, this succession, does not enrich it; it continually remains the same; it does not unfold but incessantly rushes forward as if in a single breath. If! were to describe this lyricism with a single predicate, I would have to say: It sounds-and with this I come back again to the elemental originality of the sensuous as that which in its immediacy manifests itself musically. That on this point even I could say a good deal more, I know; that it will be easy for the experts to clear everything up in an entirely different way, I am sure. But since no one, as far as I know, has made an attempt to do so or made a move toward doing so, since they merely go on repeating that Mozart's Don Giovanni is the crown among operas without developing further what they mean by that, although they all say it in a way that clearly shows that they thereby mean to say   something more than that Don Giovanni is the best opera, that there is a qualitative difference between it and all other operas, which certainly cannot be looked for in anything but the absolute relation between idea, form, subject matter, and medium-since, I repeat, this is the situation, I have broken silence. Perhaps I have been too hasty; perhaps I would have succeeded in saying it better ifI had waited even longer. Perhaps. I do not know. But this I do know, that I did not hurry in order to have the pleasure of talking, that I did not hurry because I feared that someone more expert would beat me to itbut I hurried because I feared that ifI, too, remained silent the stones would begin to speak  in praise of Mozart, to the disgrace of every human being to whom the gift of speech has been granted. What has already been said I assume will be more or less sufficient, as far as this little exploration is concerned, since essentially it is supposed to blaze the trail for a description of the immediate erotic stages as we come to know them in Mozart. Before turning to that, however, I wish to mention a fact that from another side can lead our thinking to the absolute relation between the sensuous in its elemental originality and the musical. It is well known that music has always been the object of suspicious attention on the part of religious fervor. Whether it is right in this or not does not concern us here, for that would indeed have only religious interest. It is not, however, without importance to consider what has led to this. Ifl trace religious fervor on this point, I can broadly define the movement as follows: the more rigorous the religiousness, the more music is given up and words are emphasized. The different stages in this regard are represented in world history. The last stage excludes music altogether and adheres to words alone. I could embellish these statements with a multiplicity of specific comments, but I shall refrain and merely quote a few words by a Presbyterian who appears in a story by Achim v. Arnim: "Wir Presbyterianer halten die Orgel fUr des Teufels Dudelsack, womit er den Ernst der Betrachtung in Schlummer wiegt, so wie der Tanz die guten Vorsatze betaubt [We Presbyterians regard the organ as the devil's bagpipe, with which he lulls to   The Immediate Erotic Stages   sleep the earnestness of contemplation, just as dance deadens good intentions]. " This must be regarded as a remark instar omnium [worth them all]. What reason can there be to exclude music in order thereby to make words alone predominant? That words, when they are misused, can confuse the mindjust as much as music, all revivalist sects will surely admit. There must, then, be a qualitative difference between them. But that which religious fervor wants to have expressed is spirit; therefore it requires language, which is the spirit's proper medium, and rejects music, which for it is a sensuous medium and thus always an imperfect medium with which to express spirit. Whether religious fervor is right in excluding music is, as stated, another question, but its view of the relation of music to language may be perfectly correct. Music need not be excluded, then, but it must be understood that in the realm of spirit it nevertheless is an imperfect medium and that consequently it cannot have its absolute theme in the immediately spiritual qualified as spirit. It by no means follows that one must regard it as the devil's work, even though our age provides many horrible proofs of the demonic power with which music can grip an individual and this individual in turn intrigues and ensnares the crowd, especially a crowd of women, in the seductive snares of anxiety by means of the full provocative force of voluptuousness. It by no means follows that one must regard it as the devil's work, even though one detects with a certain secret horror that this art, more than any other art, frequently torments its devotees in a terrible way, a phenomenon, strangely enough, that seems to have escaped the attention of the psychologists and the mass, except on a particular occasion when they are alarmed by a desperate individual's scream of anxiety. But it is quite noteworthy that in folk legends, and consequently in the folk consciousness that the legends express, the musical is again the demonic. I cite, as an example, Irische Elfenmarchen by Grimm,, pp., , , and .  As for the immediate-erotic stages, I am indebted for what I can say about them solely to Mozart, to whom on the whole I am indebted for everything. But since the classification I shall   [   attempt here can only indirectly, through someone else's interpretation, be traced back to him, I have examined myself and the classification before beginning in earnest, lest I in any way might spoil for myself or a reader the joy of admiring Mozart's immortal works. Anyone who wishes to see Mozart in his true immortal greatness must consider his Don Giovanni, in comparison with which everything else is incidental, unimportant. But if one considers Don Giovanni in such a way that one includes specific things from Mozart's other operas in this point of view, then I am convinced that one will neither disparage him nor harm oneself and one's neighbor. There will be occasion to rejoice that the intrinsic power of music is fully expended in Mozart's music. Moreover, when I use the term "stage" as I did and continue to do, it must not be taken to mean that each stage exists independently, the one outside the other. I could perhaps more appropriately use the word "metamorphosis." The different stages collectively make up the immediate stage, and from this it will be seen that the specific stages are more a disclosure of a predicate in such a way that all the predicates plunge down in the richness of the last stage, since this is the stage proper. The other stages have no independent existence; by themselves they are only for representation, and from that we also see their fortuitousness in relation to the last stage. But since they have found a separate expression in Mozart's music, I shall discuss them separately. But, above all, they must not be thought of as persons on different levels with respect to consciousness, since even the last stage has not yet attained consciousness; at all times I am dealing only with the immediate in its total immediacy. The difficulties that always arise when music is made the object of esthetic consideration will of course not be absent here either. The chief difficulty in the foregoing was that, whereas I wanted to demonstrate by way of thought that the elemental originality of the sensuous is music's essential theme, this still can be demonstrated properly only by music, just as I myself also came to a knowledge of it through music. The difficulty with which the subsequent discussion must   The Immediate Erotic Stages   struggle is more particularly this: since that which music expresses, the theme under discussion here, is essentially the proper theme of music, music expresses it much better than language is capable of doing, which shows up very poorly alongside it. Indeed, if I were dealing with the different levels of consciousness, the advantage naturally would be on my side and on the side oflanguage, but that is not the case here. Consequently, what will be developed here can have meaning only for the person who has heard and continually keeps on listening. For him it perhaps may contain a particular hint that can prompt him to listen again. FIRST STAG⣠  The first stage is suggested by the Page in Figaro. The point here, of course, is not to see a single individual in the Page, something one is so easily tempted to do when in thought or in actuality the Page is represented by a person. It then becomes difficult to avoid the intrusion of something incidental, some irrelevant idea (which more or less does happen with the Page in the play), so that he becomes more than he is supposed to be, for in a certain sense he promptly becomes that as soon as he becomes an individual. But in becoming more, he becomes less; he ceases to be the idea. This is why he cannot be given lines, but the music remains the only adequate expression, and thus it is noteworthy that Figaro and Don Giovanni, in their original form from the hand of Mozart, belong to opera seria [serious opera].  If, then, the Page is regarded in this way as a mythical character, the characteristic features of the first stage will be found expressed in the music. The sensuous awakens, yet not to motion but to a still quiescence, not to delight andjoy but to deep melancholy. As yet desire is not awake; it is intimated in the melancholy. That which is desired is continually present in the desire; it arises from it and appears in a bewildering dawning. This occurs in the sphere of the sensuous, is put at a distance by clouds and mists, and is brought closer by reflection in them. Desire possesses what will become the object of its desire but possesses it   [   without having desired it and thus does not possess it. This is the painful, but also in its sweetness the fascinating and enchanting contradiction, which with its sadness, its melancholy, resonates through this stage. Its pain consists not in there being too little but rather in there being too much. The desire is quiet desire, the longing quiet longing, the infatuation quiet infatuation, in which the object is stirring and is so close to the desire that it is within it. That which is desired floats above the desire, sinks down into it, not because of the desire's own drawing power or because of being desired. That which is desired does not vanish, does not squirm out of desire's embrace, for then desire would indeed awaken; but without being desired, it is there for desire, which then becomes depressed precisely because it cannot begin to desire. As soon as desire awakens or, more correctly, in and with its awakening, desire and the object of desire are separated; now desire breathes freely and soundly, whereas before it could not draw its breath because of that which was desired. When desire has not awakened, that which is desired fascinates and captivates-indeed, almost causes anxiety. The desire must have air, must find escape; this occurs through their being separated. That which is desired shyly flees, bashful as a woman, and the separation occurs; that which is desired vanishes et apparet sublimis [and is seen aloft] or in any case outside desire. Painters say that a ceiling painted with figures, one alongside the other, presses down; a single figure done lightly and elusively elevates the ceiling. Such is the relation between desire and the desired in a first and a later stage. Desire, consequently, which in this stage is present only in a presentiment of itself, is devoid of motion, devoid of unrest, only gently rocked by an unaccountable inner emotion. Just as the life of the plant is confined to the earth, so it is lost in a quiet ever-present longing, absorbed in contemplation, and still cannot discharge its object, essentially because in a more profound sense there is no object; and yet this lack of an object is not its object, for then it would immediately be in motion, then it would be defined, if in no other way, by grief and pain; but grief and pain do not have the implicit contradiction char-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   acteristic of melancholy [Melancholi] and depression [Tungsindighed], do not have the ambiguity that is the sweetness in melancholy. Although desire in this stage is not qualified as desire, although this intimated desire is altogether vague about its object, it nevertheless has one qualification-it is infinitely deep. Like Thor, it sucks through a horn, the tip of which rests in the ocean; but the reason that it cannot suck its object to itself is not that the object is infinite, but that this infinity cannot become an object for it. Thus the sucking [Sugen] does not indicate a relation to the object but is identical with its sighing [Suk], and this is infinitely deep. In accord with the description of the first stage given here, it is very significant that the music for the role of the Page is arranged for a woman's voice. The inconsistency in this stage seems to be suggested by this contradiction; the desire is so vague, the object so little separated from it, that what is desired rests androgynously in the desire, just as in plant life the male and female are in one blossom. The desire and the desired are joined in this unity, that they both are neutrius generis [of neuter gender]. Although the speaking lines belong not to the mythical Page but to the Page in the play, the poetic character Cherubino, and although consequently they cannot be considered in this connection, since for one thing they do not belong to Mozart and for another they express something entirely different from what is under discussion here, I nevertheless want to emphasize in some detail one particular line because it gives me an opportunity to characterize this stage in its analogy to a later stage. Susanna mocks Cherubino because he, too, is in a way infatuated with Marcellina, and the Page has no other answer handy than to say: She is a woman.  With regard to the Page in the play, it is essential that he be in love with the countess, unessential that he can fall in love with Marcellina, which is merely an indirect and paradoxical expression for the violence of the passion with which he is captivated by the countess. With regard to the mythical Page, it is equally essential that he be in love with the countess and with Marcellina, for feminin-   ity is indeed his object, and this they both have in common. Therefore, when we later hear about Don Giovanni: Even coquettes as old as sixty He gladly records in his tally,  we have the perfect analogy to this, except that the intensity and firmness of the desire are far more developed. Now, if! were to venture an attempt at characterizing Mozart's music with a single predicate pertaining to the Page in Figaro, I would say: It is intoxicated with erotic love; but, like all intoxication, an intoxication with erotic love can also have two effects, either a heightened transparent joy oflife or a concentrated obscure depression. The latter is the case with the music here, and this is indeed proper. The music cannot explain why this is so, for it is beyond its power to do that. Words cannot express the mood, for it is too heavy and dense to be borne by words-only music can render it. The basis of its melancholy lies in the deep inner contradiction we tried to point out earlier. We now leave the first stage, epitomized by the mythical Page; we let him, depressed, continue to dream about what he has, melancholy, to desire what he possesses. He never goes further; he never moves from the spot, for his movements are illusory, and hence there is no movement at all. The Page in the play is another matter; with true and honest friendliness we shall be interested in his future. We congratulate him on having become a captain; we permit him to kiss Susanna once more in farewell. We shall not betray him with regard to the mark on his forehead, which no one can see except the one who knows about it.  But no more than this, my good Cherubino, or we shall call the count, and then it will be "Be om There is the door! To your regiment! After all, he is no child, and no one knows that better than I do." SECOND STAGE   This stage is epitomized by Papageno in The Magic Flute.  Here again, of course, the point is to separate the essential   The Immediate Erotic Stages   from the accidental, to evoke the mythical Papageno and forget the actual character in the play, and especially here, since this character in the play has become involved in all sorts of dubious nonsense. In this connection, it would not be devoid of interest to go through the whole opera to show that its theme, regarded as a theme for an opera, is a failure at its deepest level. There would also be no lack of opportunity to illuminate the erotic from a new side by observing how the attempt to put a more profound ethical view into it, in such a way that it tries its hand at all sorts of rather important dialectical engagements, is a daring venture that has ventured far beyond the boundaries of music, so that it was impossible even for a Mozart to invest it with any deeper interest. The distinguishing tendency in this opera is precisely the unmusical, and therefore, despite some perfect concert numbers and a few deeply moving, pathos-filled lines, it is by no means a classic opera. But all this cannot concern us in the present little exploration. Our only concern here is Papageno. This is a great advantage for us, if for no other reason than that we are thereby exempt from any attempt to explain the significance of Papageno's relation to Tamino, a relation that in design appears so profound and thoughtful that it practically becomes unthinkable because of its very thoughtfulness. Such a treatment of The Magic Flute perhaps could seem arbitrary to one or another reader, because it sees both too much in Papageno and too little in the rest of the opera; he may not be able to sanction our conduct. This is because he does not agree with us on the point of departure for any consideration of Mozart's music. This, in our judgment, is Don Giovanni, and it is also our conviction-without denying the importance of making each opera the subject of a special study-that the greatest veneration of Mozart is shown if several other operas are looked at in relation to this one. Desire aWjlkens, and just as we always realize that we have dreamed only in the moment we awaken, so also here-the dream is over. This awakening in which desire awakens, this jolt, separates desire and its object, gives desire an object. A dialectical qualification that must be strictly maintained is this:   only when there is an object is there desire; only when there is desire is there an object. The desire and the object are twins, neither of which comes into the world one split second before the other. But even though they came into the world absolutely coinstantaneously, and even though they do not have an interval of time between them, as twins generally have, the significance of this coming into existence [Tilblivelse] is not that they are united but rather that they are separated. But this movement of the sensuous, this earthquake, splits the desire from its object infinitely for a moment; but just as the moving principle shows itself for a moment as disuniting, so it manifests itself in turn as wanting to unite the separated. The result of the separation is that desire is torn out of its substantial repose in itself, and as a consequence of this, the object no longer falls under the rubric of substantiality but splits up into a multiplicity. Just as the plant's life is confined to the soil, so the first stage is captivated in substantiaPS longing. Desire awakens, the object flees, multiple in its manifestation; longing tears itself loose from the soil and takes to wandering. The flower acquires wings and flutters, fitful and tireless, here and there. Desire turns toward the object; it is also internally moved. The heart beats, sound and happy; the objects swiftly appear and vanish, but before each disappearance there is nevertheless an instant of enjoyment, a moment of contact, short but sweet, glowworm brilliant, fitful and fleeting as the alighting of a butterfly, and as harmless, and there are innumerable kisses, but so quickly enjoyed that seemingly only that is taken from one object which is bestowed on the next. Only momentarily is there a presentiment of a deeper desire, but this presentiment is forgotten. In Papageno, desire aims at discoveries. This urge to discover is the pulsation in it, its liveliness. It does not find the proper object of this exploration, but it discovers the multiplicity in seeking therein the object that it wants to discover. In this way desire is awakened, but it is not qualified as desire. If it is kept in mind that desire is present in all three stages, then it can be said that in the first stage it is qualified as dreaming, in   The Immediate Erotic Stages   the second as seeking, in the third as desiring. That is, the seeking desire is not yet desiring desire; it is only seeking that which it can desire but does not desire it. Therefore, perhaps the most suggestive predicate for it is: it discovers. If we compare Papageno with Don Giovanni, then his journey through the world is something more than a journey of discovery; not only does he enjoy the adventure of a journey of discovery, but he is a knight who is out for victories (veni-vidi-vice [I came, I saw, I conquered]).  The discovery and the victory are identical here; indeed, in a certain sense one may say that in the victory he forgets the discovery or that the discovery lies behind him, and he therefore leaves it to his servant and secretary Leporello, who keeps a list in quite another sense than I would imagine Papageno would keep an account. Papageno selects, Don Giovanni enjoys, Leporello reviews. As with every stage, I can represent in thought what is characteristic of this stage, but always only in the moment it has ceased to be. But even if I could describe ever so completely what is characteristic of it and give the reason for it, there would always be something left over that I cannot express and that nevertheless wants to be heard. It is too immediate to be contained in words. So it is with Papageno-it is the same song, the same melody; he begins all over again as soon as he finishes, and so on continually. The objection could be made to me that it is altogether impossible to express something immediate. In a way, this is entirely correct, but, in the first place, the immediacy of spirit has its immediate expression in language, and, in the second place, if a change occurs in it through the intervention of thought, it still remains essentially the same simply because it is a qualification of spirit. But here it is an immediacy of the sensuous, which as such has a completely different medium, where as a consequence the disparity between the media makes the impossibility absolute. If I were to venture to characterize with a single predicate the Mozart music in the part of the play that concerns us, I would say: It is exuberant, merrily twittering, bubbling over with love. What I must emphasize particularly is the first aria and the chimes; the duet with Pamina and later with Papagena   falls completely outside the qualification of the immediatemusical. But if one takes the first aria into consideration, then one presumably will approve the predicates I have used and, if one pays closer attention, will also have the opportunity to see what importance the musical has where it appears as the absolute expression for the idea and how this as a consequence is immediate-musical. As is known, Papageno accompanies his cheerful liveliness on a reed flute. Surely every ear has felt strangely moved by this accompaniment. But the more one thinks about it, the more one sees in Papageno the mythical Papageno, the more expressive and the more characteristic it proves to be. One does not weary of hearing it over and over again, for it is the absolutely adequate expression of Papageno's whole life, whose whole life is such an uninterrupted twittering, without a care twittering away uninterruptedly in complete idleness, and who is happy and contented because this is the substance of his life, happy in his work and happy in his singing. As is known, the opera is very profoundly designed in such a way that Tamino's and Papageno's flutes harmonize with each other. And yet what a difference! Tamino's flute, which nevertheless is the one the play is named after, miscarries completely, and why? Because Tamino simply is not a musical character. This is due to the misbegotten structure of the whole opera. Tamino with his flute becomes very boring and sentimental, and if all the rest of his development, his state of consciousness, is considered, then every time he takes out his flute and blows a piece on it one thinks of the peasant in Horace (rusticus exspectat, dum defluat amnis [the bumpkin waiting for the river to run out]), except that Horace did not give his peasant a flute for pointless pastime. As a dramatic character, Tamino is completely beyond the musical, just as in general the spiritual development the play wants to accomplish is a completely unmusical idea. Tamino has simply come so far that the musical ceases, and therefore his flute playing is only a waste of time to drive away thoughts. Music is indeed excellent for driving away thoughts, even evil thoughts, as in the case of David, whose playing is said to have driven away Saul's evil mood.  But there is a considerable il-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   lusion here, for it does so only insofar as it leads the consciousness back into immediacy and soothes it therein. Therefore, the individual may feel happy in the moment of intoxication but becomes only all the more unhappy. Here I may be permitted a comment quite in parenthesi. Music has been used to cure insanity and in a certain sense this goal has been attained, and yet this is an illusion. When insanity has a mental basis, it is always due to a hardening at some point in the consciousness. This hardening must be overcome, but for it to be truly overcome the road to be taken must be the very opposite of the one that leads to music. When music is used, one is on the wrong road altogether and makes the patient even more insane, even ifhe seems not to be so anymore. What I have said about Tamino's flute playing I presumably can let stand without fear of having it misunderstood. It is not at all my intention to deny what in fact has been acknowledged many times, that music may have its importance as an accompaniment when entering a foreign domain, namely, the domain of language. The defect, however, in The Magic Flute is that the whole piece tends toward consciousness, and as a consequence the actual tendency of the piece is to annul the music, and yet it is supposed to be an opera, and not even this idea is clear in the piece. Ethically qualified love or marital love is set as the goal of the action, and therein lies the play's basic defect, for whatever that is, ecclesiastically or secularly speaking, one thing it is not, it is not musical-indeed, it is absolutely unmusical. The first aria, then, has its great importance musically as the immediate-musical expression of Papageno's whole life-and history, which is the absolutely adequate expression for this in the same degree that music is, is history only metaphorically. The chimes, however, are the musical expression for his activity, of which, in turn, a notion is gained only through the music; it is enchanting, tempting, alluring, just like the playing of the man who made the fish stop and listen.  The spoken lines, which are either Schikaneder's or the Danish translator's, are generally so lunatic and foolish that it is almost incomprehensible how Mozart has brought as   much out of them as he has done. To have Papageno say of himself, "I am a child of nature," and then in the very same moment make a liar of himself, can be regarded as an example instar omnium [worth them all]. An exception could be made of the words in the text of the first aria, that he puts the girls he catches into his cage.  If one puts a little more into them than the author himself in all likelihood did, then they characterize precisely the innocence of Pap age no's activity, just as we have suggested above. We now leave the mythical Papageno. The fate of the actual Papageno cannot concern us. We wish him happiness with his little Papagena, and we gladly let him seek his joy in populating a primeval forest or a whole continent with nothing but Papagenos. THIRD STAGE   This stage is epitomized by Don Giovanni. Here I am not in the position, as heretofore, of having to isolate a specific portion of an opera; here the point is not to separate but to synthesize, since the whole opera is essentially the expression of the idea and, with the exception of a few particular numbers, centers essentially in this and with dramatic necessity gravitates to this as its pivot. Here again there will be occasion to see in what sense I can call the previous stages by that name when I call Don Giovanni the third stage. I indicated earlier that they do not have any separate existence, and since my starting point is this third stage, which actually is the whole stage, they cannot very well be regarded as one-sided abstractions or preliminary anticipations, but rather as intimations of Don Giovanni, except that there still is always something left over that somewhat justifies use of the word "stage"-namely, that they are one-sided intimations, that everyone of them intimates only one side. The contradiction in the first stage consisted in the inability of desire to find an object, but, without having desired, desire did possess its object and therefore could not begin desiring. In the second stage, the object appears in its multiplicity, but   The Immediate Erotic Stages   since desire seeks its object in this multiplicity, in the more profound sense it still has no object; it is still not qualified as desire. In Don Giovanni, however, desire is absolutely qualified as desire; intensively and extensively it is the immediate unity of the two previous stages. The first stage ideally desired the one; the second desired the particular in the category of multiplicity; the third stage is the unity of the two. In the particular, desire has its absolute object; it desires the particular absolutely. In this resides the seductiveness that we shall discuss later. In this stage, therefore, desire is absolutely genuine, victorious, triumphant, irresistible, and demonic. Therefore, of course, it must not be overlooked that the issue here is not desire in a particular individual but desire as a principle, qualified by spirit as that which spirit excludes. This is the idea of the elemental originality of the sensuous, as suggested above. The expression for this idea is Don Juan, and the expression for Don Juan, in turn, is simply and solely music. It is especially these two observations that will now be stressed continually from various sides, and thereby the classic significance of this opera will be indirectly demonstrated. Meanwhile, to make it easier for the reader to maintain an overview, I shall attempt to gather the scattered observations under specific themes. To say something specific about this music is not my aim, and with the aid of all congenial spirits I shall take care not to scare up a mass of pointless but very noisy predicates or in linguistic excess to make manifest the impotence of languageand all the more so since I regard it not as an imperfection on the part oflanguage but as a high potency, but for this reason I am more willing to acknowledge music within its boundary. What I want to do, however, is in part to illuminate the idea from as many sides as possible and its relation to language and thereby continually to encompass more and more the territory where music is at home, to provoke it, so to speak, to declare itself, without my being able to say, when it can be heard, any more than: Listen. I think that thereby I have wanted to do the best that esthetics is able to do; whether I shall be successful is another matter. In only a single place will a predicate, like an   arrest warrant, provide a description of it, but I shall not therefore forget or allow my reader to forget that the person who has an arrest warrant in his hand has by no means thereby apprehended the person it names. Furthermore, the design of the whole opera, its inner structure, will be discussed separately in the appropriate place, but again in such a way that I do not permit myself to shout loudly enough for two: Oh, bravo, schwere Noth, Gotts Blitz, bravissimo but just keep on tempting forth the musical and think that thereby I have wanted to do the best one is capable of doing purely esthetically with the musical. Therefore, I shall not give a running commentary on the music, which essentially cannot contain anything but subjective incidentals and idiosyncrasies and can apply only to something corresponding in the reader. Even a commentator like Dr. Hotho, so discriminating and fertile in reflection, so copious in expression, has been unable to avoid, on the one hand, having his interpretation deteriorate into verbiage (which is supposed to constitute recompense for Mozart's sonority or sound like a faint echo, a pale copy of Mozart's rich, full-toned luxuriance) and, on the other hand, having Don Giovanni at times become more than he is in the opera, become a reflective individual, and at times become less. The latter comes about, of course, because the deep and absolute point of Don Giovanni has escaped Hotho. For him Don Giovanni is still only the best opera; it is not qualitatively different from all other operas. But if one has not discerned this with the ubiquitous certainty of the speculative eye, then one cannot speak worthily or validly about Don Giovanni, even though, if one has discerned it, one would be able to speak far more magnificently and richly and, above all, more truthfully about it than the one who here dares to speak. I shall, however, continually track down the musical in the idea, the situation, etc., explore it by listening, and when I have brought the reader to the point of being so musically receptive that he seems to hear the music although he hears nothing, then I shall have fmished my task, then I shall fall silent, then I shall say to the reader, as I say to myself: Listen. You friendly jinn who protect all innocent love, I commit my   The Immediate Erotic Stages   whole mind to you; guard my laboring thoughts so that they may be found worthy of the subject; form my soul into a euphonious instrument; let the gentle breeze of eloquence hasten over it; send the refreshment and blessing of fruitful moods! You righteous spirits, you who guard the boundaries of the kingdom of beauty, guard me lest I, in confused enthusiasm and blind zeal to make Don Giovanni all in all, do it an injustice, disparage it, make it something other than what it really is, which is the highest! You powerful spirits who know how to grasp men's hearts, stand by me so that I may capture the reader, not in the net of passion or the wiles of eloquence, but in the eternal truth of conviction.   . The Elementary Originality of the Sensuous Qualified as Seduction When the idea of Don Juan emerged is not known; only this much is certain-that it is linked to Christianity and through Christianity to the Middle Ages. Even if the idea could not be traced with some certainty back to this world-historical period in the human consciousness, every doubt would be removed at once by a consideration of the inner nature of the idea. On the whole, the Middle Ages is the idea, partly conscious, partly unconscious, of representation; the totality is represented in a particular individual, yet in such a way that it is only a particular aspect that is defined as the totality and that is now manifest in a particular individual, who is therefore both more than and less than an individual. Then alongside this individual stands another individual, who just as totally represents another aspect of the content of life-for example, the knight and the scholastic, the clergyman and the layman. Here the great dialectic of life is continually exemplified in representative individuals, who are ordinarily paired opposite to each other. Life is continually approached sub una specie [under one form], and there is no inkling of the great dialectical unity that life possesses in unity sub utraque specie [under both forms]. The contrasts, therefore, are generally indifferent, detached from one another. Of this the Middle Ages was not aware. Thus the Middle Ages itself actualized the idea of rep-   [   resentation unconsciously, whereas a later reflection first perceives the idea in it. If the Middle Ages places before its own consciousness an individual as representative of the idea, then it usually places another individual alongside him in relation to him. This relation, then, is customarily a comic relation, in which one individual, as it were, makes up for the other's disproportionate magnitude in actual life. For example, the king has the fool by his side, Faust has Wagner, Don Quixote has Sancho Panza, Don Juan has Leporello. This structure also is linked essentially to the Middle Ages. Consequently the idea is linked to the Middle Ages, but in the Middle Ages it is not linked to a particular poet-it is one of those powerful, primitive ideas that emerge from the folk consciousness with autochthonic originality. The Middle Ages had to make the discord between the flesh and the spirit that Christianity brought into the world the subject of its reflection and to that end personified each of the conflicting forces. Don Juan, then, if! dare say so, is the incarnation of the flesh, or the inspiration of the flesh by the spirit of the flesh itself. This notion has already been brought out sufficiently in the foregoing discussion; what I would like to call attention to here, however, is whether Don Juan ought to be assigned to the earlier or later Middle Ages. That he stands in an essential relation to the Middle Ages is easy for anyone to see. Either he is the contentious, mistaken anticipation of the erotic, which became manifest in the knight, or chivalry is still only a relative contrast to spirit, and not until the contrast split even more deeply did Don Juan emerge as sensuality that is mortally opposed to spirit. The erotic in the age of chivalry has a certain resemblance to that in Greek culture in that both are psychically qualified, but the difference is that its psychical qualification lies within a universal spiritual qualification or a qualification as totality. The idea of femininity is continually in motion in many ways, which was not the case in Greek culture, where everyone was just the beautiful individuality but there was no intimation of femininity. Therefore, in the consciousness of the Middle Ages, the erotic of chivalry was also   The Immediate Erotic Stages   in a moderately conciliatory relation to spirit, even though spirit in its zealous rigor held it suspect. If the point of departure is that the principle of spirit is posited in the world, then, on the one hand, it may be supposed that the most striking contrast, the most scandalous separation, was the first to appear, and thereafter it was gradually mitigated. In that case, Don Juan belongs to the earlier Middle Ages. But if it is assumed that the relation gradually developed into this absolute contrast, which is also more natural inasmuch as spirit takes more and more of its shares of stock out of the united corporation in order to work alone, whereby the real oxaV<'>UAOV [offensecomes to light, then Don Juan belongs to the later Middle Ages. Then we are led in time to the point where the Middle Ages begins to soar, where we then also meet a related idea, namely, Faust, except that Don Juan must be placed a little earlier. As spirit, qualified solely as spirit, renounces this world, feels that the world not only is not its home but is not even its stage, and withdraws into the higher realms, it leaves the worldly behind as the playground for the power with which it has always been in conflict and to which it now yields ground. Then, as spirit disengages itself from the earth, the sensuous shows itself in all its power. It has no objection to the change; indeed, it perceives the advantage in being separated and is happy that the Church does not induce them to remain together but cuts in two the band that binds them. Stronger than ever before, the sensuous now awakens in all its profusion, in all its rapture and exultation, and-just as that hermit in nature, taciturn echo, who never speaks first to anyone or speaks without being asked, derived such great pleasure from the knight's hunting horn and from his melodies of erotic love [Elskov], from the baying of the hounds, from the snorting of the horses, that it never wearied of repeating it again and again and finally, as it were, repeated it very softly to itself in order not to forget it-so it was that the whole world on all sides became a reverberating abode for the worldly spirit of sensuousness, whereas spirit had forsaken the world.   In the Middle Ages, much was told about a mountain that is not found on any map; it is called Mount Venus. There sensuousness has its home; there it has its wild pleasures, for it is a kingdom, a state. In this kingdom, language has no home, nor the collectedness of thought, nor the laborious achievements of reflection; there is heard only the elemental voice of passion, the play of desires, the wild noise of intoxication. There everything is only one giddy round of pleasure. The firstborn of this kingdom is Don Juan. But it is not said thereby that it is the kingdom of sin, for it must be contained in the moment when it appears in esthetic indifference. Only when reflection enters in does the kingdom manifest itself as the kingdom of sin, but then Don Juan has been slain, then the music stops, then one sees only the desperate defiance that powerlessly resists but can find no firm ground, not even in sounds. When sensuousness manifests itself as that which must be excluded, as that with which the spirit does not wish to be involved, but when spirit has not as yet convicted it or condemned it, sensuousness takes this form, is the demonic in esthetic indifference. It is a matter of only a moment; soon all is changed, and then the music, too, is over. Faust and Don Juan are the Middle Ages' titans and giants, who in the grandness of their achievements are not different from those of antiquity, except admittedly in this, that they stand isolated, do not form an amalgamation of powers that only through amalgamation become heaven-storming; instead, all the power is concentrated in this one individual. Don Juan, then, is the expression for the demonic qualified as the sensuous; Faust is the expression for the demonic qualified as the spiritual that the Christian spirit excludes. These ideas have an essential relation to each other and are very similar, and consequently it could be expected that they also have this in common, that both have been preserved in a legend. As is known, this is the case with Faust. There is a folk book, the title of which is rather familiar even though the book itself is little used, which is especially strange in our age when everybody is so engrossed in the idea of Faust. So it goes-while every would-be assistant professor or professor thinks he will   The Immediate Erotic Stages   be accredited as intellectually mature by the reading public through the publication of a book about Faust, in which he faithfully repeats what all the other graduates and scholarly confirmands have already said, he thinks he dares to ignore such an insignificant little folk book. It never occurs to him how beautiful it is that true greatness is common to all, that a farmhand goes to Tribler's widow  or to a ballad-monger on Halmtorv  and reads it half aloud to himself at the same time Goethe is writing a Faust.  Indeed, this folk book deserves attention. Above all, it has what is praised as a commendable quality in wine: it has bouquet. It is a splendid vintage from the Middle Ages, and, when it is opened, such an aromatic, delicious, and distinctive fragrance flows forth that one has a very special feeling. But enough of this. I would only point out that there is no such legend about Don Juan. No folk book, no ballad has preserved his memory by being published continually this year.  Presumably a legend has existed nevertheless, but in all probability it was limited to only a few hints that were perhaps even briefer than the few stanzas on which Burger's Lenore ! is based. Perhaps it contained only a number, for, unless I am greatly mistaken, the present number,, , does belong to a legend. A legend that has nothing else seems somewhat meager and in a way easily accounts for its not being written down, but still this number has an excellent quality, a lyrical recklessness, which many perhaps do not notice because they are so accustomed to seeing it. Although this idea has not found its expression in a folk legend, it has been preserved in another way. As is known, DonJuan existed long ago as melodrama; indeed, this was probably its first existence. But here the idea was conceived comically; moreover, it is noteworthy that just as the Middle Ages was very proficient in fitting out ideals, it was equally sure to see the comic in the preternatural magnitude of the ideal. To make Don Juan a braggart who imagined he had seduced all the girls and to have Leporello believe his lies certainly was not an altogether bad comic design. And even if that has not been the case, even if that has not been the idea, the comic twist still could never be avoided, since it   is implicit in the contradiction between the hero and the arena in which he moves. Thus the Middle Ages may be allowed to tell about heroes so mightily constructed that their eyes were a foot apart,  but if an ordinary man were to come onstage and pretend to have eyes a foot apart, the comic would be well under way. The above remarks about the legend of Don Juan would not have been included here if they were not closely related to the subject of this study, if they did not serve to lead our thoughts to the goal already set. The reason that this idea, compared with Faust, has such a meager past is no doubt due to something enigmatic in it as long as it was not perceived that music is its proper medium. Faust is idea, but an idea that also is essentially an individual. To conceive of the spiritual-demonic concentrated in one individual is natural to thought, whereas to conceive of the sensuous in one individual is impossible. Don Juan continually hovers between being idea-that is, power, life-and being an individual. But this hovering is the musical vibration. When the sea heaves and is rough, the seething waves in their turbulence form pictures resembling creatures; it seems as if it were these creatures that set the waves in motion, and yet it is, conversely, the swelling waves that form them. Thus, DonJuan is a picture that is continually coming into view but does not attain form and consistency, an individual who is continually being formed but is never finished, about whose history one cannot learn except by listening to the noise of the waves. When Don Juan is comprehended in this way, there is meaning and deep significance in everything. If I imagine a particular individual, if I see him or hear him talk, then his having seduced, becomes comic; for as soon as he is a particular individual, the accent falls on an altogether different place-that is, the emphasis is on those whom he has seduced and how. The naIvete of legend and popular superstition can successfully state such things without hinting at the comic; for reflection, this is not possible. But when he is conceived in music, then I do not have the particular individual, then I have a force of nature, the demonic, which no more wearies of se-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   ducing or is through with seducing than the wind with blowing a gale, the sea with rocking, or a waterfall with plunging down from the heights. For that matter, the number of the seduced canjust as well be any number whatever, a much larger number. In translating the libretto for an opera, the translator frequently has a very difficult task to do it so accurately that not only is the translation singable but the meaning harmonizes fairly well with the text and thus with the music. I cite, as an example of its sometimes being an altogether indifferent matter, the number in the list in Don Giovanni, without, however, taking it as lightly as people usually would take it, thinking that nothing depends on such things. On the contrary, I view the matter with great esthetic seriousness and therefore regard it as a matter of indifference. But I do want to commend one quality of the number, --namely, that it is uneven and accidental, which is by no means unimportant; it gives the impression that the list is not at all final, but rather that Don Giovanni is on the move. We almost feel sorry for Leporello, who not only, as he himself says, must hold watch outside the door but, in addition, must keep account books so complex that they would give an experienced office secretary enough to do. The sensuous as it is conceived in Don Juan, as a principle, has never before been so conceived in the world; for this reason the erotic is here qualified by another predicate: here the erotic is seduction. Strangely enough, the idea of a seducer was totally lacking in Greek culture. It is not my intention to laud Greek culture in any way for this, because, as everyone knows, the gods as well as human beings were promiscuous in love affairs; neither do I censure Christianity, for, after all, it has the idea only outside itself. The reason Greek culture lacks this idea is that its whole life is qualified as individuality. Thus the psychical is predominant, or always in harmony with the sensuous. Its love was therefore psychical, not sensuous, and it is this that instills the modesty that rests over all Greek love. They fell in love with a girl, moved heaven and earth to possess her; when they succeeded, they perhaps grew weary of   her and sought a new love. In their inconstancy, they certainly could have a certain resemblance to DonJuan, and, to mention just one example, Hercules undoubtedly could provide a considerable list if one bears in mind that he sometimes took interest in entire families, numbering as many as fifty maidens  and, as a kind of family son-in-law, polished them all off, by some accounts, in a single night. Yet he is essentially different from a Don Juan: he is no seducer. When one reflects on Greek love, it is according to its concept essentially faithful simply because it is psychical; and it is something accidental in the particular individual that he loves many; and with regard to the many he loves, it is again accidental every time he loves a new one; when he loves one, he is not thinking of the next one. Don Juan, however, is a downright seducer. His love is sensuous, not psychical, and, according to its concept, sensuous love is not faithful but totally faithless; it loves not one but all-that is, it seduces all. It is indeed only in the moment, but considered in its concept, that moment is the sum of moments, and so we have the seducer. Chivalric love is also psychical and therefore, according to its concept, essentially faithful; only the sensuous, according to its concept, is essentially faithless. But its faithlessness manifests itself in another way also: it continually becomes only a repetition. Psychical love contains the dialectical in two ways. For one thing, there is in it doubt and disquietude about whether it will be happy, see its desire fulfilled, and be loved. Sensuous love does not have this concern. Even aJupiter is unsure of his victory, and this cannot be otherwise; indeed, he himself cannot wish it otherwise. This is not the case with Don Juan; he is brisk about his business and must always be regarded as completely victorious. This could seem to be to his advantage, but it is actually destitution. Furthermore, psychical love also has another dialectic in that it is different also according to the relationship with each particular individual who is the object of love. Therein lies its richness, its fullness of content. Such is not the case with Don Juan. For this he has no time; for him everything is merely an affair of the moment. In a certain sense it can be said of psychical love that to see her and to   The Immediate Erotic Stages   love her are the same, but this only suggests a beginning. It holds true in a different way in connection with Don Juan. To see her and to love her are the same; this is in the moment. In the same moment everything is over, and the same thing repeats itself indefinitely. If one imagines Don Juan as having psychical love, then to place, in Spain becomes ludicrous and a contradiction that is not even in accordance with the idea. It becomes an extravagance with a disturbing effect, even if one fancied that he was conceived ideally. If there is no medium other than language to describe this love, then one is in trouble, for as soon as one has given up the naivete that can simple-mindedly maintain that in Spain there are, , something more is demanded: namely, psychical individualizing. The esthetic is not at all satisfied with tossing everything together this way and wanting to astonish with the size of the number. Psychical love moves precisely in the rich variety of the individual life, where the nuances are the really significant. Sensuous love, however, can toss everything together. For it, the essential is completely abstract femininity and at most the more sensuous difference. Psychical love is continuance in time; sensuous love is disappearance in time, but the medium that expresses this is indeed music. Music is superbly suited to achieve this, since it is much more abstract than language and therefore articulates not the particular but the universal in all its universality, and yet it articulates this universality not in the abstraction of reflection but in the concretion of immediacy. To give an example of what I mean, I shall discuss in some detail the second servant aria: the list of those seduced. This number may be regarded as Don Juan's true epic. If you doubt the correctness of what I say, then try an imaginary construction. Imagine a poet, one more fortunately equipped by nature than anyone preceding him. Give him richness of expression; give him mastery and authority over the powers oflanguage; let everything that has a breath oflife be obedient to him, submissive to his slightest hint; let everything wait, prepared and primed, upon his word of command; let him be surrounded by a considerable company oflight skir-   mishers, fleet-footed messengers who run down thought in its swiftest flight; let nothing escape him, not even the slightest movement; let him lack no secret, nothing ineffable, in the entire world-then give him the task of celebrating Don Juan in epic style, of unrolling the list of the seduced. What will be the result: he will never finish. The defect, if you please, of the epic is that it can go on as long as necessary; his hero, the improviser, Don Juan, can go on as long as necessary. The poet will now introduce multiplicity, and there will always be enough in it that will please, but he will never achieve the effect Mozart achieved, for even if he did eventually finish,  he still would not have said half of what Mozart has expressed in this one number. Mozart did not become involved in multiplicity; there are certain large formations that pass by. This has an adequate basis in the medium itself, in the music, which is too abstract to express the differences. Hence the musical epic is relatively somewhat short, and yet in an unrivaled way it has the epic quality of being able to go on as long as necessary, since one can always have it begin from the beginning and listen to it again and again, simply because the universal is expressed and is expressed in the concretion of immediacy. Here one does not hear Don Giovanni as a particular individual; one does not hear what he says but hears his voice, the voice of the sensuous, and hears it through the longings of femininity. Don Giovanni can become epic only by continually finishing and continually being able to begin all over again, for his life is the sum of repellerende moments [Momenterj that have no coherence, and his life as the moment is the sum of moments and as the sum of moments is the moment. Don Giovanni lies within this universality, in this hovering between being an individual and a force of nature; as soon as he becomes an individual, the esthetic acquires completely different categories. That is why it is quite in order and has deep inner significance that in the seduction that occurs in the play, Zerlina's seduction, the girl is an ordinary peasant girl. Pseudo-estheticians, who, pretending to understand poets and composers, contribute everything to a misunderstanding of them, will   The Immediate Erotic Stages   perhaps inform us that Zerlina is an unusual girl. Anyone who believes this shows that he has totally misunderstood Mozart and that he is using incorrect categories. That he misunderstands Mozart is certainly clear, for Mozart has purposely kept Zerlina as insignificant as possible, which Hoth  also is aware of, without, however, perceiving the basic reason. If Don Giovanni's love had been qualified otherwise than as sensuous, if he had been a seducer in the intellectual-spiritual sense-something we shall consider later-then it would have been a basic defect in the piece to have the heroine be a little peasant girl in the seduction that engages us dramatically in the play. In that case, the esthetic would demand that he be given a more difficult task. But for Don Giovanni these differences do not apply. If! may imagine that he would speak about himselfin this way, he would perhaps say, "You are mistaken. I am no husband who needs an unusual girl to make me happy; every girl has what makes me happy, and therefore I take them all." That is how the words I touched on earlier must be understood: even coquettes as old as sixty-or in another place: pur che porti la gonel/a, voi sapete que! che fo [if she just wears a skirt, you know well enough what he does].  For Don Giovanni, every girl is an ordinary girl, every love affair a story of everyday life. Zerlina is young and beautiful, and she is a woman; this is the extraordinary that she shares with hundreds of others. But it is not the extraordinary that Don Giovanni desires, but the ordinary that she shares with every woman. If this is not the case, then Don Giovanni ceases to be absolutely musical; then the esthetic demands words, lines, whereas now, since it is the case, Don Giovanni is absolutely musical. I would like to illuminate the inner structure of the piece from another side as well. Elvira is a dangerous enemy to Don Giovanni. This is frequently emphasized in the lines by the Danish translator.  Certainly it is a mistake for Don Giovanni to have lines to speak, but it does not follow from this that there should not be a single good comment among them. So Don Giovanni is afraid of Elvira. Presumably some esthetician would give a thorough explanation of this by coming up with a long rigmarole about Elvira as an extraordinary girl etc. This   misses the point completely. She is dangerous to him because she has been seduced. In the same way, in entirely the same way, Zerlina is dangerous to him when she has been seduced. As soon as she has been seduced, she is raised to a higher sphere; she has a consciousness that Don Giovanni lacks. That is why she is dangerous to him. This, again, is not because of the accidental but because of the universal. So Don Giovanni is a seducer; his eroticism is seduction. This no doubt says very much when it is understood properly, but very little when it is interpreted with a certain customary vagueness. We have already seen that with respect to Don Giovanni the concept of a seducer is essentially modified, since the object of his desire is the sensuous and this alone. This was important in order to display the musical in Don Giovanni. In antiquity, the sensuous found its expression in the mute stillness of sculpture; in the Christian world, the sensuous had to burst out in all its impatient passion. Although it can thus be truly said that Don Giovanni is a seducer, this term, which can easily confuse the weak brains of some estheticians, frequently gives occasion for misunderstanding when some random comments that could be said about such a person and have been scraped together then are automatically transferred to Don Giovanni. At times, by tracking down Don Giovanni's cunning, they have exposed their own to the light of day; at times they have talked themselves hoarse explaining his machinations and ingenuity-in short, the word "seducer" has prompted everyone to deal with him as best he could and to contribute his bit to a total misunderstanding. Provided that it is more urgent for one to say something correct than to say anything whatsoever, one must apply the word "seducer" to Don Giovanni very cautiously. This is not because Don Giovanni is so perfect, but because he does not fall within ethical categories at all. Therefore, I would rather call him a deceiver, since there is always something more ambiguous in that term. To be a seducer always takes a certain reflection and consciousness, and as soon as this is present, it can be appropriate to speak of craftiness and machinations and subtle wiles.  Don Giovanni lacks this consciousness. There-   The Immediate Erotic Stages   fore, he does not seduce. He desires, and this desire acts seductively. To this extent he does seduce. He enjoys the satisfaction of desire; as soon as he has enjoyed it, he seeks a new object, and so it goes on indefinitely. Thus he does indeed deceive, but still not in such a way that he plans his deception in advance; it is the power of the sensuous itself that deceives the seduced, and it is rather a kind of nemesis.  He desires and continually goes on desiring and continually enjoys the satisfaction of desire. He lacks the time to be a seducer, the time beforehand in which to lay his plan and the time afterward in which to become conscious of his act. A seducer, therefore, ought to possess a power that Don Giovanni does not have, however well equipped he is otherwise: the power of words. As soon as we give him the power of words, he ceases to be musical, and the esthetic interest becomes a different one. Achim v. Arnim tells somewhere of a seducer with an entirely different style, a seducer who falls within ethical categories. Arnim describes him with words that in their truthfulness, boldness, and pithiness are almost a match for a stroke of the bow by Mozart. He declares that he could speak with a woman in such a way that if the devil grabbed him he would talk himself free if he could manage to speak with his dam. This is the genuine seducer; the esthetic interest here is also something else: namely, the how, the method.  Therefore there is something very profound (perhaps most people have not noticed it) in the fact that Faust, who reproduces DonJuan, seduces only one girl, whereas Don Giovanni seduces by the hundreds; but in intensity this one girl is seduced and destroyed in an entirely different way than all those Don Giovanni deceived-precisely because Faust as a reproduction has an intellectual-spiritual quality. The power of a seducer like that is speech: that is, the lie. A few days ago, I heard a soldier speaking with another soldier about a third one who had deceived a girl; he did not describe it in detail, and yet his expression was excellent: "He knew how to do it with lies and all that." Such a seducer is of a kind entirely different from Don Giovanni, differs from him essentially, which can also be seen in this, that he and his activities are extremely unmusical and   esthetically fall within the category of the interesting.  Therefore, from the properly esthetic point of view, the object of his desire is also something more than the merely sensuous. But what kind of power is it, then, by which Don Giovanni seduces? It is the energy of desire, the energy of sensuous desire. He desires total femininity in every woman, and therein lies the sensuous, idealizing force with which he simultaneously enhances and overcomes his prey. The reflection of this immense passion enhances and develops the desired one, who blushes in heightened beauty because of its reflection. Just as the fire of the enthusiast envelops with a seductive luster even those uninvolved persons who have some relation to him, so in a far deeper sense he transfigures every girl, since his relation to her is an essential relation. This is why all the finite differences vanish for him in comparison with the main point: to be a woman. The old ones he rejuvenates into the beautiful middle age of womanhood; the child he almost matures in an instant; everything that is woman is his prey (pur che porti la gonella, voi sapete que! che fl). But this must not be understood as if his sensuousness were blindness; instinctively he knows very well how to make distinctions, and, above all, he idealizes. If I think back momentarily to a preceding stage, to the Page, the reader will perhaps recall that already in speaking of him I compared a remark by the Page with a remark by Don Giovanni. I have the mythical Page remain; I have the actual one join the army. IfI now were to imagine that the mythical Page had extricated himself and had begun to move, I would call to mind here a comment by the Page that applies to Don Giovanni. When Cherubino, light as a bird, boldly leaps through the window, it affects Susanna so powerfully that she nearly faints, and when she has recovered she cries out, "See how he runs-oh, won't he be a success with the girlS!" This is entirely appropriate for Susanna to say, and the reason for her fainting is not simply the performance of the bold leap but rather that he has already been a success with her. In fact, the Page is the eventual Don Giovanni, although this must not be ludicrously construed, as ifby growing older the Page became Don Giovanni. Now, Don Giovanni not only is a success with   The Immediate Erotic Stages   the girls, but he makes the girls happy-and unhappy-yet strangely enough in such a way that that is what they want, and it would be a poor sort of girl who would not wish to become unhappy in order to have been happy once with Don Giovanni. Therefore, even ifI go on calling Don Giovanni a seducer, I nevertheless do not at all think of him slyly laying his plans, subtl y calculating the effect of his intrigues; that by which he deceives is the sensuous in its elemental originality, of which he is, as it were, the incarnation. Shrewd levelheadedness is lacking in him; his life is sparkling like the wine with which he fortifies himself; his life is turbulent like the melodies that accompany his joyous repast; he is always jubilant. He needs no preparation, no plan, no time, for he is always ready; that is, the power is always in him, and the desire also, and only when he desires is he properly in his element. He sits down to dinner; happy as a god he flourishes his goblet-he rises with the napkin in his hand, ready for the attack. IfLeporello awakens him in the middle of the night, he always wakes up sure of his victory. But this power, this force, cannot be expressed in words; only music can give us a notion of it; for reflection and thought it is inexpressible. The craftiness of an ethically defined seducer I can clearly put into words, and music would venture in vain to carry out this task. With Don Giovanni, it is the opposite. What kind of power is it? No one can say. Even if I asked Zerlina about it before she goes to the ball: By what power does he enthrall you?-she would answer: No one knows. And I would say: Well spoken, my child! You speak more wisely than the wise men oflndia; richtig, das weisz man nicht [correct, no one knows that], and the trouble is that I cannot explain it, either. This power in Don Giovanni, this omnipotence, this life, only music can express, and I know no other predicate to describe it than: it is exuberant gaiety. Thus when Kruse has Don Giovanni, as he comes onstage at Zerlina's wedding, say, "Cheer up, children! You are indeed all dressed as for a wedding," he is saying something entirely appropriate and also something more than he perhaps thinks. Indeed, he himself   brings the gaiety with him, and as for the wedding, it is not without significance that they are all dressed as for a wedding, because Don Giovanni is the groom not only for Zerlina, but he celebrates with games and songs the wedding of the young girls in the whole parish. No wonder that they flock about him, the happy maidens. Nor are they disappointed, for he has enough for all. Flattery, sighs, bold glances, tender handclasps, secret whispers, the dangerous closeness, the tempting distance-and yet these are only the lesser mysteries, prenuptial gifts. It is a delight for Don Giovanni to survey such a rich harvest; he takes care of the whole parish, and yet it perhaps does not take him as long a time as Leporello spends at the office. All this discussion leads again to the real subject of this investigation, that Don Giovanni is absolutely musical. He desires sensuously; he seduces with the demonic power of the sensuous; he seduces all. Words, lines, are not suitable for him, for then he immediately becomes a reflective individual. He does not have that kind of continuance at all but hurries on in an eternal vanishing, just like the music, which is over as soon as the sound has stopped and comes into existence again only when it sounds once again. Therefore, ifI were to raise the question of Don Giovanni's appearance, is he handsome, young or old, approximately how old, then it would only be a concession from my side and what can be said about it can expect to find a place here in the same way a tolerated sect finds a place in the state church. Handsome he is, not exactly young; if I were to suggest his age, I would suggest thirty-three years, which is the age of a generation. The dubiousness of becoming involved in such investigations is that one easily loses the totality in dwelling on the particular, as if Don Giovanni seduced with his handsomeness or anything else that could be mentioned; then one sees him but no longer hears him, and thereby he is lost. So if I, trying to do my part to help the reader gain a picture of Don Giovanni, were to say: See, there he stands! See how his eyes flame; he smiles triumphantly, so sure is he of his conquest. See his royal countenance, claiming that which is Caesar'sY   The Immediate Erotic Stages   See how lightly he steps in the dance, how proudly he offers his hand. Who is the lucky one to whom it is offered? Or if I were to say: Look, there he stands in the forest shadows; he is leaning against a tree and accompanies himself on a guitar, and look, over there among the trees a young maiden is disappearing, alarmed like a startled wild deer. But he is in no hurry; he knows that she is seeking him. Or if I were to say: There he rests on the lake shore in the luminous night, so handsome that the moon stands still and relives the love affair of its youth, so handsome that the young maidens of the town would give everything in daring to sneak over and make use of a moment of darkness to kiss him while the moon is rising again to shine in the heavens-if I did that, the alert reader would say: See here, there he has spoiled everything for himself; he himself has forgotten that Don Giovanni is not to be seen but is to be heard. Therefore I do not do that but say: Listen to Don Giovanni-that is, if you cannot get an idea of Don Giovanni by hearing him, then you never will. Listen to the beginning of his life; just as the lightning is discharged from the darkness of the thunderclouds, so he bursts out of the abyss of earnestness, swifter than the lightning's flash, more capricious than lightning and yet just as measured. Hear how he plunges down into the multiplicity of life, how he breaks against its solid embankment. Hear these light, dancing violin notes, hear the intimation of joy, hear the jubilation of delight, hear the festive bliss of enjoyment. Hear his wild flight; he speeds past himself, ever faster, never pausing. Hear the unrestrained craving of passion, hear the sighing of erotic love, hear the whisper of temptation, hear the vortex of seduction, hear the stillness of the moment-hear, hear, hear Mozart's Don Giovanni.   . Other Versions ofDon Juan Considered in Relation to the Musical Interpretation It is common knowledge that the idea of Faust has been the subject of numerous interpretations, but this is by no means the case with Don Juan. This might seem strange, all the more so since the second idea characterizes a far more universal period in the development of individual life than the first. But the     ready explanation of this is that the Faustian idea presupposes a kind of intellectual-spiritual maturity, which much more naturally lends itself to interpretation. Besides that, as I have pointed out above with respect to the fact that there does not exist a legend of that kind about Don Juan, people obscurely felt the difficulty with respect to the medium until Mozart discovered the medium and the idea. From that moment on, the idea first gained its deserved position and in turn has more than ever filled a span of years in individual life, but so satisfyingly that the urge to condense poetically what was experienced in fantasy did not become a poetic necessity. This in turn is an indirect demonstration of the absolutely classic rank of the Mozart opera. The ideal along this line had already found its perfect artistic expression to such a degree that it could indeed be tempting, but not tempting to poetic productivity. Mozart's music certainly has been tempting, for where is the young man who has not had a moment in his life when he would have given half his kingdom to be a Don Juan, or perhaps all of it, when he would have given half his lifetime for one year of being Don Juan, or perhaps his whole life? But that was as far as it went. The more profound natures, who were moved by the idea, found everything, even the softest breeze, expressed in Mozart's music; in its grandiose passion, they found a full-toned expression for what stirred in their own inner beings, they perceived how every mood strained toward that music just as the brook hurries on in order to lose itself in the infinitude of the sea. These natures found just as much text as commentary in the Mozartian Don Juan, and thus as they glided onward and downward in its music and relished the joy oflosing themselves in this way, they also acquired the riches of admiration. The Mozartian music was in no respect too narrow; on the contrary, their own moods were expanded, took on a preternatural magnitude when they rediscovered them in Mozart. The lower natures, who have no intimation of the infinite, perceive no infinitude. The bunglers, who think themselves a Don Juan because they have pinched a peasant girl's cheek, put their arms around a waitress, or made a young girl blush, of course understand neither the idea nor Mozart, or   The Immediate Erotic Stages   how to produce a Don Juan themselves, except as a ludicrous freak, a family idol, who perhaps to the misty, sentimental eyes of some cousins would seem to be a true Don Juan, the epitome of all charm. In this sense, Faust has not as yet found an expression and, as noted above, never can, inasmuch as the idea is much more concrete. An interpretation of Faust can merit being called perfect, and yet a later generation will give rise to a new Faust, whereas Don Juan, because of the abstract character of the idea, lives on forever, in every age, and to wish to produce a Don Juan after Mozart will always be like wanting to write an Ilias post Homerum [Iliad after Homer] in a sense even more profound than is the case with Homer. Now even if what has been developed here is correct, it by no means thereby follows that a particular gifted nature should not have attempted to interpret Don Juan in some other way. Everyone knows this, but not everyone may have noticed that the model for all other interpretations is essentially Moliere's Don Juan; but this, in turn, is much older than Mozart's and is also comic, and in relation to Mozart's Don Giovanni is like a fairy tale in Mus;eus'so interpretation in relation to a version by Tieck.  Therefore, I can in fact limit myself to a discussion of Moliere's Don Juan, and as I try to make an esthetic assessment of it, I shall indirectly be assessing the other interpretations. But I make an exception of Heiberg's Don Juan.  He himself declares in the title that it is "modeled partly on Moliere." This is indeed entirely true, but nevertheless Heiberg's play has a great advantage over Moliere's. This no doubt is due to the sure esthetic eye with which Heiberg always comprehends his task, the taste with which he knows how to discriminate, but in the present instance it is still not impossible that Prof. Heiberg was indirectly influenced by Mozart's interpretation to see-namely, how Don Juan must be interpreted as soon as music is not made its proper expression or he is placed in completely different esthetic categories. Professor Hauch has also produced a Don Juan  that is on the verge of falling within the category of the interesting. Therefore, as I go on to discuss the other group of versions of Don Juan, I presumably need not point out to the reader that this is done not for their     own sake in the present little exploration but only in order to illuminate the significance of the musical interpretation more fully than was possible in the previous discussion. The turning point in the interpretation of Don Juan has already been designated above in this way: as soon as he is given spoken lines, everything is changed. That is, the reflection that motivates the lines reflects him out of the vagueness in which he is only musically audible. This being so, it might seem that Don Juan could be interpreted best as ballet.  It is indeed well known that he has been interpreted in this way. Yet this interpretation must be commended for having known its powers, and for this reason it has limited itself to the final scene, where the passion in Don Juan would be most readily visible in the pantomimic play of muscles. As a consequence, here again DonJuan is presented not in his essential passion but according to the accidental, and the poster advertising such a performance always includes more than the play; that is, it says that it is Don Juan, the seducer Don Juan, whereas the ballet presents almost nothing more than the torments of despair, the expression of which, since it has to be solely in pantomime, he shares with many others who are in despair. What is essential in Don Juan cannot be presented in ballet, and everyone readily feels how ludicrous it would be to watch DonJuan infatuating a girl by means of dance steps and ingenious gesticulations. Don Juan is an inner qualification and thus cannot become visible or appear in bodily configurations and movements or in molded harmony. Even if Don Juan is not given speaking lines, an interpretation of Don Juan that nevertheless uses words as a medium is conceivable. And there actually is such an interpretation by Byron.  That Byron was in many ways particularly endowed to present a Don Juan is certain enough, and therefore one can be sure that when that undertaking failed, the reason was not in Byron but in something far deeper. Byron has ventured to bring Don Juan into existence for us, to tell us of his childhood and youth, to construct him out of the context of his finite liferelationships. But Don Juan thereby became a reflective personality who loses the ideality he has in the traditional picture.   The Immediate Erotic Stages   I shall quickly explain here the change that takes place in the idea. When Don Juan is interpreted musically, I hear in him the total infinitude of passion, but also its infinite power that nothing can resist; I hear the wild craving of desire, but also the absolute victoriousness of this desire, against which any attempted opposition would be ineffectual. If thought dwells just once on the obstruction, then it is more likely to gain importance just by inciting passion than by actually creating opposition; the pleasure is increased, the victory is certain, and the obstruction is only a stimulation. In Don Juan, I have such a rudimentarily stirred life, demonically powerful and irresistible. This is his ideality, and this I can enjoy undisturbed, because to me music presents him not as a person or individual but as a power. IfDonJuan is interpreted as an individual, then he is eo ipso in conflict with the world about him. As an individual, he feels the constraint and the fetters of these surroundings; as a great individual he may triumph over them, but one immediately feels that the difficulties of the obstructions play a different role here. The interest is preoccupied essentially with them. But Don Juan is thereby drawn under the rubric of the interesting. Ifby means of turgid words he were to be presented here as absolutely victorious, one would promptly feel this to be unsatisfactory, since it does not belong to an individual as such to be victorious, and one demands the crisis of conflict. The opposition that the individual must combat can in part be something external that is not so much in the object of attention as in the surrounding world; it can in part be in the object itself. The first has been the preoccupation of nearly all the interpretations of Don Juan because they have clung to the element of the idea that as an erotic he must be triumphant. If, on the other hand, the other side is stressed, only then, I believe, is there any prospect of a significant interpretation of Don Juan that would form a counterpart to the musical Don Juan, whereas any interpretation of Don Juan that lies between these would always have imperfections. In the musical Don Juan, there would then be the extensive seducer; in the other, the intensive. So the latter Don Juan is not presented as possessing   his object with one single blow-he is not the immediately qualified seducer; he is the reflective seducer.  That which occupies us here is the subtlety, the cunning, whereby he knows how to steal into a girl's heart, the dominion he knows how to gain over it, the enthralling, deliberate, progressive seduction. How many he has seduced is of no importance here; what occupies us is the artistry, the meticulousness, the profound cunning with which he seduces. Ultimately the enjoyment itself becomes so reflective that by comparison it becomes quite different from the musical Don Juan's enjoyment. The musical Don Juan enjoys the satisfaction; the reflective Don Juan enjoys the deception, enjoys the craftiness. The immediate pleasure is past, and reflection on the enjoyment is enjoyed more. In this respect, there is a little hint in Moliere's interpretation, except that this can by no means be developed, because all the remainder of the interpretation is a hindrance. Don Juan's desire is aroused because he sees a girl happy in her relation to the one she loves; he begins to be jealous. This is an interest that in the opera would not occupy us at all, simply because Don Juan is not a reflective individual. As soon as Don Juan is interpreted as a reflective individual, an ideality corresponding to the musical ideality can be attained only when the matter is shifted into the psychological realm. What is achieved, then, is the ideality of intensity. Therefore, Byron's Don Juan must be regarded as a failure because it stretches out epically. The immediate Don Juan must seduce,; the reflective Don Juan needs to seduce only one, and how he does it is what occupies us. The reflective Don Juan's seduction is a tour de force in which every particular little episode has its special significance; the musical DonJuan's seduction is a turn of the hand, a matter of a moment, more quickly done than said. It reminds me of a tableau I once saw. A handsome young man, a real ladies' man. He was playing with some young girls, all of them at that dangerous age when they are neither adults nor children. Among other things, they amused themselves by jumping over a ditch. He stood at the edge and helped them jump by taking them around the waist, lifting them lightly into the air, and setting them down on the other side. It was a charming   The Immediate Erotic Stages   picture; I delighted in him as much as in the young girls. Then I thought of Don Juan. They themselves run into his arms, these young girls; then he seizes them, and just as quickly, just as nimbly sets them down on the other side of the ditch oflife. The musical Don Juan is altogether victorious and therefore, of course, is also in complete possession of every means that can lead to this victory, or, more correctly, he is in such complete possession of the means that it seems as ifhe did not need to use them-that is, he does not use them as means. As soon as he becomes a reflective individual, it is apparent that there is something called means. If the poet now gives them to him but along with them makes the opposition and the obstruction so alarming that the victory becomes doubtful, Don Juan then falls under the rubric of the interesting, and in this respect many interpretations of Don Juan are imaginable, until one reaches what we previously called intensive seduction. If the poet denies him the means, the interpretation falls under the rubric of the comic. A consummate interpretation that has drawn him under the rubric of the interesting, I have not seen; it holds true, however, of most versions of Don Juan that they approach the comic. This is easily explained by their attachment to Moliere, in whose interpretation the comic is dormant, and it is to Heiberg's credit that he was clearly aware of this and therefore not only calls his playa marionette show but in so many other ways has the comic shine forth. As soon as a passion, in being depicted, is denied the means to its satisfaction, either a tragic or a comic turn will be produced. A tragic turn cannot very well be produced when the idea is perceived to be wholly unjustified, and therefore the comic is so close at hand. If I portray an individual with a passion for gambling and then give him five rix-dollars to gamble away, the turn would be comic. This does not entirely apply to Moliere's Don Juan, but still there is a similarity. IfI have Don Juan be financially embarrassed, plagued by creditors, he promptly loses the ideality he has in the opera, and the effect becomes comic. The famous comic scene in Moliere, which as a comic scene is very good and is also very appropriate in his comedy, should, of course,   EitherlOr, I   [   never be included in the opera, where it has a totally disturbing effect. That Moliere's version aims at the comic is apparent not only in the comic scene just mentioned, which, ifit were completely isolated, would prove nothing, but in the whole design, which bears the imprint of it. Sganarelle's first and last lines, the beginning and the end of the whole play, more than adequately testify to this. Sganarelle begins with a eulogy on a pinch of snuff, from which one sees, among other things, that he must not be so very busy in this DonJuan's service; he ends by complaining that he is the only one who has been wronged. If one considers that Moliere also has the statue come and fetch Don Juan and that he, although Sganarelle also has been a witness to this dreadful thing, puts these words into his mouth as ifhe were saying that the statue, since, incidentally, it devoted itself to practicing justice on earth and punishing vice, also ought to have been ready to pay Sganarelle the wages due him for long and faithful service to DonJuan, which his master, because of his sudden departure, did not find himself in a position to do-if one considers this, one will sense the comic in Moliere's DonJuan.  (Heiberg's version, which has the great advantage over Moliere's of being more correct, has also in many ways produced a comic effect by putting a random kind of learning into Sganarelle's mouth, which makes us see in him a prattling charlatan who after attempting many things ends up as Don Juan's servant.) The hero in the piece, Don Juan, is anything but a hero; he is a hapless fellow who probably failed his examinations and now has chosen another career. Indeed, we learn that he is a son of a very distinguished man who, with a conception of his forefather's great name, moreover is trying to inspire him to virtue and immortal deeds, but this is so unlikely in view of all his other behavior that one is inclined to think the whole thing a lie that Don Juan himself has invented. His conduct is not very chivalrous: we do not see him with sword in hand carving a path through life's difficulties; now he gives this one a clout on the ear, now the next one-indeed, he as much as comes to blows with one girl's fiance. o So if Moliere's Don Juan really is a knight, the   The Immediate Erotic Stages   poet is very adept at making us forget it and strives therefore to have us see a rowdy, a common rake, who is not afraid to use his fists. Anyone who has had a chance to observe what we call a rake also knows that this class of men has a great preference for the sea. He will therefore also find it entirely appropriate that Don Juan has caught sight of a couple of skirts and immediately sets after them in a boat from Kallebostrand, a Sunday adventure at sea, including the capsizing of the boat. Don Juan and Sganarelle are almost dispatched and at last are saved by Pedro and the tall Lucas, who at first were betting on whether it actually was human beings out there or a stone, a bet that costs Lucas one mark, eight shillings, which is almost too much for Lucas and Don Juan. If one finds this entirely appropriate, the impression is shaken for a moment when we learn that Don Juan is also the fellow who has seduced Elvira, murdered the Commander, etc., something one finds extremely unreasonable and that in turn must be explained as a lie in order to bring about harmony. If Sganarelle is supposed to give us a notion of the passion raging in Don . Juan, then his expression is such a travesty that it is impossible to keep from laughing-for example, when Sganarelle tells Gusman that Don Juan, in order to obtain the one he wants, "would gladly marry her dog or cat-yes, even worse, marry you, too. " Or when he makes the remark that his master is a disbeliever not only in love but also in medicine.  Now, if Moliere's interpretation of Don Juan, regarded as a comic version, were correct, I would not discuss it any further, since in this investigation I am dealing only with the ideal interpretation and the significance of music for it. I could then be satisfied with pointing out the noteworthy fact that only in music has Don Juan been interpreted ideally in the ideality he has in the Middle Age's traditional conception. The lack of an ideal interpretation in the medium oflanguage could then provide an indirect proof for the legitimacy of my thesis. But here I can do more, precisely because Moliere is not correct, and what prevents him from being so is that he has retained something of the ideal in Don Juan along the lines attributable to traditional conception. As I point out, it will again be apparent     that this can be expressed essentially only by music, and thus once again I come back to my original thesis. Right away in the first act of Moliere's Don Juan, Sganarelle has a very long speech in which he attempts to give us a notion of his master's unbounded passion and the multiplicity of his adventures. This speech parallels precisely the servant's second aria in the opera. The speech produces only a comic effect, nothing more, and here again Heiberg's version has the advantage in that the comic is less heterogeneous than in Moliere. This [speech], however, is an attempt to prompt in us an intimation of his power, but it is ineffective; only music can achieve this unity, because simultaneously with a description of Don Juan's conduct, at the same time as the list is unrolled for us, it makes us hear the power of the seduction. In Moliere, the statue comes in the last act to fetch DonJuan. Even though the poet, by means of an advance warning, attempted to provide a motive for the statue's stepping forth, this stone nevertheless is always a stumbling block from a dramatic point of view. If Don Juan is ideally interpreted as power, as passion, then heaven itself must intervene. If not, it is always dubious to use such strong means. Indeed, the Commander did not need to inconvenience himself, since it is far more practicable for Mr. Paaske to have Don Juan put into the debtor's prison. This would be entirely in the spirit of modern comedy, which does not need such great powers in order to crush, simply because the moving powers themselves are not very grandiose. It would be quite modern to have Don Juan come to know the commonplace bounds of actuality. In the opera, it is entirely appropriate to have the Commendatore come again, but, after all, his conduct has ideal truth. The music immediately makes the Commendatore more than a particular individual; his voice is enlarged to the voice of a spirit. Therefore, just as Don Juan in the opera is interpreted with esthetic earnestness, so also is the Commendatore. In Moliere, he comes with an ethical solemnity and heaviness that make him almost ludicrous; in the opera, he comes with esthetic lightness and metaphysical truth. No power in the play, no power on earth, has been able to constrain Don Juan; only a spirit, an apparition, is able to do that. Understood correctly,   The Immediate Erotic Stages   this in turn will illuminate the interpretation of Don Juan. A spirit, an apparition, is reproduction; this is the secret implicit in the coming again. But Don Juan is capable of everything, can withstand everything, except the reproduction of life, precisely because he is immediate, sensate life, of which spirit is the negation. Thus, Sganarelle, as interpreted by Moliere, becomes unexplainable, a person with an extremely confused character. Once again, the disruptive element here is that Moliere has preserved something of the traditional. Since DonJuan on the whole is a power, this is also manifest in his relation to Leporello. The latter feels drawn to him, overwhelmed by him, is assimilated by him, and becomes merely an organ for his master's will. It is precisely this vague, opaque sympathy that makes Leporello a musical person, and it is entirely appropriate that he is not capable of detaching himself from Don Juan. It is another matter with Sganarelle. In Moliere, Don Juan is a particular individual, and consequently Sganarelle enters into a relation with him as an individual. Now, if Sganarelle feels indissolubly linked to him, it is no more than a reasonable esthetic demand to insist on information about how this can be explained. It does not help that Moliere has him declare that he cannot detach himself from him, for the reader or spectator sees no reasonable basis for it, and whether there is a reasonable basis is precisely the issue here. Leporello's inconstancy is well motivated in the opera, because in his relation to Don Juan he is closer to being an individual consciousness, and therefore the DonJuanian life is reflected differently in him, although he still is not really able to penetrate it. In Moliere, Sganarelle is also sometimes worse, sometimes better, than Don Juan, but it becomes incomprehensible that he does not leave him, since he does not even receive his wages. If anyone imagines a unity in Sganarelle comparable to the sympathetic musical vagueness Leporello has in the opera, there is no alternative except to admit that this is biased foolishness. Here again is an example of how the musical must be featured in order that Don Juan can be interpreted in his true ideality. The defect in Moliere is not that he has interpreted him comically but that he has not been correct.     Moliere's Don Juan is also a seducer, but the piece gives us only a poor idea of it. That Elvira in Moliere's play is Don Juan's wife is without a doubt very appropriately designed with a view to the comic effect. It is immediately apparent that one is dealing with an ordinary person who uses promises of marriage to deceive a girl. Elvira thereby loses all the ideal stance she has in the opera, where she counters with no weapon other than that of offended womanhood, whereas here we imagine her with her marriage documents, and Don Juan loses the seductive ambiguity of being a young man and an experienced husband-that is, experienced in all ventures outside marriage. How he deceived Elvira, by what means he lured her out of the convent, all this we presumably are to learn from a few of Sganarelle' s lines, but since the seduction scene that occurs in the play does not give us an occasion to admire Don Juan's art, confidence in those reports is naturally weakened. Insofar as Moliere's Don Juan is comic, this was indeed unnecessary; but since he himself still wants to have us understand that his Don Juan actually is the hero Don Juan, who has infatuated Elvira and murdered the Commander, the mistake in Moliere is readily apparent. Then, however, one is also made to reflect on whether this really was not due to the impossibility of portraying Don Juan as a seducer without the aid of music, unless, as noted above, one enters the psychological, which, again, cannot readily acquire dramatic interest. Furthermore, in Moliere, one does not hear him as he infatuates the two young girls, Mathurine and Charlotte; the infatuation occurs offstage. Since here in turn Moliere has us conjecture that Don Juan has given them promises of marriage, one again has only mediocre thoughts about his talent. To deceive a girl with a promise of marriage is a very inferior art, and because someone is small enough to do that, it certainly does not follow that he is great enough to be called Don Juan. The only scene that seems to be intended to depict Don Juan for us in his seductive, yet scarcely tempting, activity is the scene with Charlotte.  But to tell a young peasant girl that she is beautiful, that she has sparkling eyes, to ask her to turn around so that one can look at her shape, does not betray anything extraordinary in Don Juan but betrays a lecherous   The Immediate Erotic Stages   fellow who looks at a young girl the way a trader looks at a horse. Admittedly the scene does have a comic effect, and if it was supposed to have only that, I would not discuss it here. But since this, his notorious venture, has no relation to the many affairs he must have had, this scene in turn contributes directly or indirectly to showing the imperfection of the comedy. Moliere seems to have wanted to make something more of him, seems to have wanted to maintain the ideal in him, but he lacks the medium, and thus everything that actually occurs is rather insignificant. On the whole, it may be said that in Moliere's DonJuan we come to know only historically that he is a seducer; it is not made visible dramatically. The scene in which he shows himself most active is the scene with Charlotte and Mathurine,  where he leads both of them on with talk and continually makes each one think that she is the one he has promised to marry. But what draws our interest here is not his seductive art but a very ordinary theatrical intrigue. In conclusion, I perhaps can illuminate what has been discussed here with a comment frequently heard: that Moliere's DonJuan is more moral than Mozart's Don Giovanni. But precisely this, properly understood, is high praise of the opera. In the opera, not only is there talk about a seducer, but Don Juan is a seducer, and it cannot be denied that in every detail the music often can be seductive enough. But so it ought to be, and this is precisely its greatness. Therefore, to say that the opera is immoral is fatuous and comes only from people who do not understand how to interpret a totality but are trapped by details. The definitive aim of the opera is highly moral, and the impression it leaves is altogether beneficent, because everything is large-scale, everything has genuine, unadorned pathos, the passion of desire no less than the passion of earnestness, the passion of enjoyment no less than the passion of anger.   . The Inner Musical Construction of the Opera Although the heading of this section must be regarded as already adequately enlightening, I nevertheless shall take the precaution of noting that it naturally is not my intention at all   to make an esthetic assessment of the piece Don Giovanni or to trace the dramatic structure of the text. One must always be careful about taking something apart in this way, especially if it is a classic production. I repeat again here what I have already frequently emphasized in the foregoing discussion-that Don Juan can be expressed only musically; this I myself have learned essentially through the music, and for this reason I ought to take care in every way lest it seem that the music lends a hand in an extraneous manner. If the matter is treated in that way, then for my part the music in this opera may be admired as much as one wishes-its absolute meaning has not been grasped. However talented Hotho's exposition is otherwise, he has not kept himself free of this kind of false abstraction, and therefore it cannot be regarded as satisfactory. His style, his exposition, and his reproduction are lively and stirring; his categories are indefinite and nebulous; his interpretation of Don Giovanni is not permeated by one thought but is disintegrated into many. For him Don Giovanni is a seducer. But even this category is indefinite, and yet it must be specified in what sense he is that, as I have tried to do. Many things that are true in themselves are said about this seducer; but since general conceptions are permitted to be much too prevalent here, such a seducer readily becomes so reflective that he ceases to be absolutely musical. He goes through the piece scene by scene; his account is refreshingly leavened by his individuality, in a few places perhaps a bit too much. When this happens, there frequently follow sympathetic outpourings on how beautifully and richly and profusely Mozart has expressed all this. But this lyrical rapture over Mozart's music is not enough, and however well it suits the man, and however beautifully he knows how to express himself, Mozart's Don Giovanni is not acknowledged in its absolute validity by this interpretation. This acknowledgment is what I am striving for, because this acknowledgment is identical with the proper insight into what constitutes the subject of this investigation. Therefore, my aim is to make the subject of consideration not the whole opera but the opera in its totality, not to discuss the individual parts separately but as far as possible to incorporate   The Immediate Erotic Stages   them into the whole, to see them not as detached from the whole but integrated in it. In a drama, the main interest is naturally concentrated on what is called the hero of the piece; in relation to him, the other characters take on only subordinate and relative importance. But the more the inward reflection in the drama permeates with its power of distinguishing, the more the subordinate characters also take on a kind of relative absoluteness, if! dare put it that way. This is not a defect at all but is rather a merit, just as the view of the world that can see only the few outstanding individuals and their importance in world development, but does not become aware of the subordinates, certainly ranks higher in one sense but is lower than that which includes the lesser in its equally great validity. The dramatist will succeed in this only to the degree that nothing incommensurable is left over, nothing of the mood from which the drama emerges, that is, nothing of the mood qua mood, but everything is converted into the dramatic sacred coin:  action and situation. To the degree that the dramatist is successful in this, to the same degree the total impact left by his work will be less a mood than a thought, an idea. The more the total impact of a drama is a mood, the more sure one can be that the poet himself has had a presentiment of it as mood and has successively allowed it to come into existence from that and has not apprehended it in the idea and allowed this to unfold dramatically. A drama of that kind suffers from an abnormal preponderance of the lyrical. In a drama, this is a defect, but it is by no means a defect in an opera. The unity in an opera is preserved by the dominant tone that sustains the whole. What has been said here about the total dramatic effect holds also for the separate parts of a drama. If I were to characterize in a single word the effect of the drama insofar as this differs from the effect of any other kind of literature, I would say: Drama works through the contemporaneous. In drama, I see the mutually isolated elements together in the situation, in the unity of action. The more isolated the distinct elements are, the more profoundly the dramatic situation is permeated by reflection, the less the dramatic unity will be a mood and the     more it will be a specific thought. But just as the totality of the opera cannot be permeated by reflection in a way found in drama proper, this is also the case with the musical situation, which admittedly is dramatic but nevertheless has its unity in the mood. The musical situation has the contemporaneous, as does every dramatic situation, but the effect of the forces is a consonance, a concord, a harmony, and the impact of the musical situation is the unity produced by hearing together that which sounds together. The more the drama is permeated by reflection, the more the mood is transfigured into action. The more minor the action, the more predominant the lyrical element. In opera, this is altogether appropriate. Opera does not have so much character delineation and action as its immanent objective; it is not sufficiently reflective for that. On the other hand, unreflective, substantial passion finds its expression in opera. The musical situation is constituted by the unity of mood in the discrete plurality of voices [Stemmefieerhed]. This is precisely the distinctive characteristic of music-that it can maintain the plurality of voices in the unity of mood. Ordinarily when we use the word "plurality," we mean a unity that is the final result; in music such is not the case. The dramatic interest requires swift progress, a stirring tempo, what could be called the law of the immanental acceleration of a falling object. The more the drama is imbued with reflection, the more unremittingly it hastens on. If, however, the lyrical or the epic element is unilaterally dominant, this expresses itself in a kind of anesthetizing that allows the situation to fall asleep and makes the dramatic process and progress sluggish and toilsome. The opera by nature does not have this urgency; it is characterized by a kind of tarrying, a kind of selfextension in time and space. This action does not have the speed of the fall or its direction but moves more horizontally. The mood is not sublimated in character and action. Consequently, the action in an opera can be only immediate action. If we apply all this to the opera Don Giovanni, it will give us occasion to see it in its true classic validity. Don Giovanni is the hero in the opera; the main interest is concentrated upon him; not only that, but he also endows all the other characters   The Immediate Erotic Stages   with interest. This must not, however, be taken in any external sense, for the very secret of this opera is that its hero is also the force in the other characters. Don Giovanni's life is the life principle in them. His passion sets in motion the passion of the others. His passion resonates everywhere; it resonates in and supports the Commendatore's earnestness, Elvira's wrath, Anna's hate, Ottavio's pomposity, Zerlina's anxiety, Mazetto's indignation, Leporello's confusion. As the hero in the opera, Don Giovanni is the denominator of the piece; as the hero gives the name to a piece, as is usually the case, but he is more-he is, if I may put it this way, the common denominator. Compared with his life, the lives of all the others are only derived. If a dominant tone is required for an opera's unity, it is easy to see that a more perfect subject for an opera than Don Juan is unthinkable. In relation to the forces in the play, the dominant tone can be a third force that sustains these. I cite The White Lady as an example of that kind of opera, but in relation to the opera, such a unity is an additional qualification of the lyrical. In Don Giovanni, the dominant tone is none other than the basic force in the opera itself; this is Don Giovanni, but then he, in turn-precisely because he is not character but essential life-is absolutely musical. The other figures in the opera are not characters, either, but essential passions, which are posited by Don Giovanni and to that extent, in turn, become musical. In other words, just as Don Giovanni entwines everybody, so all of them entwine Don Giovanni; they are the external consequences that his life itself continually posits. It is this absolute centrality of Don Giovanni's musical life in the opera that enables it to exercise an unequaled power of illusion, to carry one away into the life that is in the piece. Because of the ubiquity of the musical in this music, one can enjoy a single fragment of it and yet be carried away instantly; one arrives in the middle of the performance and instantly one is in the heart of it, for this heart, which is Don Giovanni's life, is everywhere. It is a common experience that to strain two senses at the same time is not pleasant, and thus it is often disruptive to have to use the eyes a great deal at the same time as the ears are being   [   used. Therefore, one is inclined to shut the eyes when listening to music. This is more or less true of all music, and in sensu eminentiori [in an eminent sense] of Don Giovanni. As soon as the eyes are involved, the impression is disrupted, for the dramatic unity that presents itself to the eye is altogether subordinate and deficient in comparison with the musical unity that is heard simultaneously. My own experience has convinced me of this. I have sat close to the front; I have moved back more and more; I have sought a remote corner in the theater in order to be able to hide myself completely in this music. The better I understood it or thought I understood it, the further I moved away from it-not out of coldness but out oflove, for it wants to be understood at a distance. There has been something strangely enigmatic about this in my life. There have been times when I would have given everything for a ticket; now I do not even need to pay one rix-dollar for a ticket. I stand outside in the corridor; I lean against the partition that shuts me off from the spectators' seats. Then it affects me most powerfully; it is a world by itself, separated from me; I can see nothing but am close enough to hear and yet so infinitely far away. Since the main characters in an opera do not need to be so permeated by reflection that they become transparent as characters, it also follows from this, as was emphasized earlier, that the situation cannot be perfectly developed or full-blown but to a certain degree is sustained by a mood. The same is true of the action in an opera. Action in the strict sense of the word, action undertaken with a consciousness of the goal, cannot be expressed in music, but what one could call immediate action certainly can. Both are the case in Don Giovanni. The action is immediate action; on this point may I refer to my earlier discussion of the sense in which Don Giovanni is a seducer. Because the action is immediate action, it is also entirely appropriate that irony is so prevalent in this piece, for irony is and remains the disciplinarian of the immediate life.  To cite just one example, the Commendatore's reappearance is enormously ironic, for Don Giovanni can surmount any obstruction, but a ghost, as we all know, cannot be slain.  The situation is sustained all the way through by the mood. On this   The Immediate Erotic Stages   point, may I recall Don Giovanni's significance for the whole opera and for the commensurate existence of the other characters in relation to him. I shall indicate what I mean by discussing a single situation in more detail. For that, I choose Elvira's first aria.  The orchestra plays the overture; Elvira enters. The passion raging in her breast must find release, and her song avails her. But, strictly speaking, this would be far too lyrical to be a situation; her aria then would be similar to the monologue in a drama. The only difference would be that the monologue comes closest to expressing the universal individually, the aria to expressing the individual universally. But, to repeat, that would be too little for a situation. Therefore, the case is otherwise. In the background, we see Don Giovanni and Leporello in tense expectation that the woman they have already seen at the window will come forward. Now, if this were a drama, the situation would not be composed of Elvira standing in the foreground and Don Giovanni in the background but would be composed of the unexpected encounter. The interest would center in the way Don Giovanni would escape from it. In the opera, the encounter also has its significance, but a very minor one. The encounter is to be seen; the musical situation is to be heard. The unity in the situation is the concordance in which Elvira and Don Giovanni sound simultaneously. Thus it is quite proper for Don Giovanni to keep himself in the background as much as possible, for he should be unseen, not only by Elvira but also by the spectator. Elvira's aria begins. I do not know how to describe her passion other than as love's hate, a mixed but nevertheless sonorous, resonant passion. She is inwardly agitated; she has found release. She becomes faint for a moment in the way every passionate outburst makes one weak-there is a pause in the music. But her inner agitation sufficiently indicates that her passion still has not found adequate outlet; the diaphragm of wrath must be shaken even more powerfully. But what can evoke this tremor, what provocation? It can be only one thing: Don Giovanni's mockery. Therefore Mozart has utilized the pause-would that I were a Greek, for then I would say he     used it quite divinely-to hurl in Giovanni's mockery. Now her passion flames up more powerfully, explodes even more violently within her, and bursts forth in sound. This is repeated once again; then her inner being trembles, then her wrath and pain burst forth like a stream oflava in the familiar run with which the aria ends. Here one sees what I mean when I say that Don Giovanni resonates in Elvira, that it is something more than a phrase. The spectator should not see Don Giovanni, should not see him together with Elvira in the unity of the situation; he should hear him in Elvira, through Elvira, for it is indeed Don Giovanni who is singing, but he sings in such a way that the more developed the spectator's ear, the more it seems to him as if it came from Elvira herself. Indignation, just like love, creates its object. She is obsessed with Don Giovanni. This pause and Don Giovanni's voice make the situation dramatic, but the unity in Elvira's passion in which Don Giovanni resonates, while her passion is nevertheless posited by Don Giovanni, makes the situation musical. * Viewed as a musical situation, the situation is matchless. But if Don Giovanni is a character and Elvira equally so, the situation is a failure; it is wrong to have Elvira pouring out her heart in the foreground and Don Giovanni mocking in the • In my opinion, Elvira's aria and the situation ought to be interpreted as follows. Don Giovanni's unparalleled irony ought not to be kept outside Elvira's substantial passion but should be concealed in it. They must be heard together. BJust as the speculative eye sees things together, so the speculative ear hears things together. I will take an example from the purely physical world. When a person standing on a high point gazes out over a flat region and sees several roads running parallel to one another, he will, ifhe lacks intuition, see only the roads, and the fields between them will seem to disappear, or he will see only the fields, and the roads will disappear; however, he who has an intuitive eye will see them together, will see the whole section as striped. So also with the ear. What I have said here applies, of course, to the musical situation; the dramatic situation has the added element that the spectator knows that it is Don Giovanni who is standing in the background and Elvira in the foreground. Now, if I assume that the spectator is aware of their earlier relationship (something the spectator cannot know at first), the situation gains much, but one will also perceive that if the accent should fall here, then it would be wrong to keep them apart so long.   The Immediate Erotic Stages   background. Then it is required that I hear them together, yet without provision of the means for it~ and although both of them are characters, they could not possibly harmonize that way. If they are characters, then the encounter is the situation. It was pointed out above that in opera the dramatic haste, the acceleration of the preliminary run, is not required as in drama, that here the situation may be enlarged upon a little. But at the same time this must not deteriorate into a continuous standstill. To give an example of the true middle course, I can underline the situation I just discussed, not as if it were the only one in Don Giovanni or the very best-on the contrary, they are all like this and all perfect-but because the reader has this one most clearly in mind. And yet I tread on dubious ground here, for I confess that there are two arias that must be left out; however perfect they are in themselves, they nevertheless have a disruptive and delaying effect. I would just as soon keep this a secret, but it cannot be helped-the truth must come out. If they are removed, all the rest is just as perfect. The one is Ottavio's, the other, Anna's; both of them are more concert numbers than dramatic music, inasmuch as Ottavio and Anna on the whole have roles much too minor to dare to halt the movement. Remove them, and the rest of the opera has perfect musical-dramatic pace, perfect as no other is. It would be well worth the trouble to go through each particular situation one by one, not to escort it with exclamation marks, but to show its significance, its validity as a musical situation. But this lies outside the boundary of the present little inquiry. Here it was especially important to emphasize Don Giovanni's centrality in the whole opera. Something similar recurs with respect to the particular situations. I would like to explain somewhat more explicitly the justmentioned centrality of Don Giovanni in the opera by considering the other characters in the piece in their relation to him. Just as in the solar system the dark bodies that receive their light from the central sun are always only half-luminous, that is, luminous on the side turned to the sun, so it is also with the characters in this piece. Only that part of life, the side that is turned toward Don Giovanni, is illuminated; otherwise they   are obscure and opaque. This must not be taken in the narrow sense, as if each of these characters were some abstract passion, as if Anna, for example, were hate, Zerlina, irresponsibility. Such insipidity does not belong here at all. The passion in the individual is concrete, but concrete in itself, not concrete in the personality, or, to express myself more specifically, the rest of the personality is devoured by this passion. Now this is absolutely right, because it is an opera we are discussing. This obscurity, this partly sympathetic, partly antipathetic secret affinity with Don Giovanni makes them all musical and makes the whole opera harmonize in Don Giovanni. The only character in the piece who seems to constitute an exception is, of course, the Commendatore, but therefore it is also so sagely designed that he to some degree lies outside the piece or limits it. The more the Commendatore would be drawn to the foreground, the more the opera would cease to be absolutely musical. Therefore, he is continually kept in the background and as nebulous as possible. The Commendatore is the vigorous antecedent clause and the outspoken consequent clause, between which lies Don Giovanni's intermediate clause, but the rich content of this intermediate clause is the substance of the opera. The Commendatore appears only two times. The first time it is night; it is in the background of the theater; we cannot see him, but we hear him fall before Don Giovanni's rapier. Already at the very outset his earnestness, which is made all the more manifest by Don Giovanni's caricaturing mockery, something Mozart has superbly expressed in music-already at the very outset his earnestness is too profound to be human; before he dies, he is spirit. The second time he appears as spirit, and the thundering voice of heaven sounds in his earnest, solemn voice. But just as he himselfis transfigured, so his voice is transfigured into something more than a human voice; he no longer speaks, he passes judgment. Obviously the most important character in the piece, next to Don Giovanni, is Leporello. His relation to his master is intelligible precisely through the music, unintelligible without it. If Don Giovanni is a reflective personality, then Leporello becomes almost an even greater knave than Giovanni is, and it   The Immediate Erotic Stages   becomes unintelligible that Don Giovanni can exercise so much power over him, and the only remaining motive is that he can pay him more than all the others, a motive that even Moliere does not seem to have wanted to use, since he allows Don Juan to be in financial straits. But if we hold fast to Don Giovanni as immediate life, then it is easy to understand that he can exercise a decisive influence on Leporello, that he assimilates him so that he can almost become an organ for Don Giovanni. In a certain sense, Leporello is closer to being a personal consciousness than Don Giovanni. In order to become that, however, he himself would have to clarify his relation to Don Giovanni; but he cannot do that, he cannot break the spell. Here again it holds true that as soon as Leporello has speaking lines he must become transparent to us. Furthermore, in Leporello's relation to Don Giovanni there is something erotic, there is a power with which he enthralls Leporello even against his will. But in this ambiguity he is musical, and Don Giovanni constantly resonates in him-something of which I shall later give an example to show that this is more than a phrase. With the exception of the Commendatore, all the characters stand in a kind of erotic relation to Don Giovanni. He cannot exercise any power over the Commendatore, who is consciousness; the others are in his power. Elvira loves him, and thereby she is in his power; Anna hates him, and thereby she is in his power; Zerlina fears him, and thereby she is in his power. Ottavio and Mazetto go along for the sake of kinship, for the ties of blood are tender. Looking back for a moment over what has been developed here, the reader will perhaps perceive how here again the relation of the idea of Don Juan to the musical has been developed from many sides, how this relation is constitutive of the whole opera, how this is repeated in its several parts. I could very well stop here, but for the sake of greater completeness I shall elucidate this relation by going through a few specific parts. The choice will not be arbitrary. I choose for this the overture, which certainly best gives the dominant tone of the opera in a compact concentration; I choose next the most epic and the most lyrical part in the piece in order to   show how even in the outer limits the perfection of the opera is preserved, the musical-dramatic is sustained, how it is Don Giovanni who musically carries the opera. This is not the place to explain the overall importance the overture has for the opera; here it can only be emphasized that opera's requirement of an overture demonstrates sufficiently the predominance of the lyrical, and that the intended effect is to evoke a mood, something that drama cannot get involved with, since everything there must be transparent. Therefore, it is appropriate that the overture is composed last so that the artist himself can be really saturated with the music. Hence, the overture generally provides a profound glimpse into the composer and his psychical relation to his music. Ifhe fails to catch in it that which is central, ifhe does not have a more profound rapport with the basic mood of the opera, then this will unmistakably betray itself in the overture; then it becomes an assemblage of the salient points interlaced with a loose association of ideas but not the totality that contains, as it really should, the most penetrating elucidation of the content of the music. An overture of that sort is usually also very arbitrary, that is, it can be as long or as short as desired, and the cohesive element, the continuity (since it is no more than an association of ideas), can be spun out as long as desired. Therefore the overture frequently is a dangerous temptation for minor composers; that is, they are easily prompted to plagiarize themselves, steal from their own pockets, which can have a very disruptive effect. Although it is obvious that the overture should not have the same content as the opera, it of course should not contain something altogether different. Indeed, it should have the same content as the opera, but in another way; it should contain it in a central way, and with the full power of what is central it should grip the listener. In this respect, the ever admired overture to Don Giovanni is and remains a perfect masterpiece, so if no other proof of the classic quality of Don Giovanni could be made, it would be sufficient to make this one point, the inconceivability that the one who had the center would not have the periphery also. This overture is no mingling together [Mellemhverandre lOO ] of   The Immediate Erotic Stages   themes; it is not a labyrinthian interlacing of associations of ideas; it is concise, defined, strongly structured, and, above all, impregnated with the essence of the whole opera. It is powerfullike a god's idea, turbulent like a world's life, harrowing in its earnestness, palpitating in its desire, crushing in its terrible wrath, animating in its full-blooded joy; it is hollowtoned in its judgment, shrill in its lust; it is ponderous, ceremonious in its awe-inspiring dignity; it is stirring, flaring, dancing in its delight. And this it has not attained by sucking the blood of the opera; on the contrary, it is rather a prophecy in its relation to the opera. In the overture, the music unfurls its total range; with a few powerful wing beats it soars above itself, as it were, floats above the place where it will descend. It is a struggle, but a struggle in the higher atmosphere. To anyone hearing the overture after he has become more familiar with the opera, it may seem as ifhe had penetrated the hidden workshop where the forces he has learned to identify in the opera move with a primitive power, where they wrestle with one another with all their might. The contest, however, is too uneven; before the battle one force is already the victor. It flees and escapes, but this flight is precisely its passion, its burning restlessness in its briefjoy oflife, the pounding pulse in its passionate ardor. It thereby sets the other force in motion and carries it along with itself. This, which at first seemed so unshakably firm that it was practically immovable, must now be off, and soon the movement is so swift that it seems like an actual conflict. To develop this any further is not feasible; here the point is to listen to the music, for this is not a conflict of words but an elemental fury. I must only call attention to what was discussed earlier, that the interest of the opera is Don Giovanni, not Don Giovanni and the Commendatore-this is already apparent in the overture. Mozart seems to have deliberately designed it in such a way that the deep voice that rings out in the beginning gradually becomes weaker and weaker, almost loses, as it were, its majestic bearing, must hurry to keep pace with the demonic speed that evades it and yet almost attains the power to disgrace it by sweeping it into a race in the brev-     ity of the moment. This gradually creates the transitlOn to the opera itself. Consequently, the finale must be regarded as closely related to the first part of the overture. In the finale, the earnestness comes to itself again, whereas in the rogress of the overture it seemed to be beside itself. Now there is no question of running a race with lust; earnestness returns and thereby has cut off every way of escape to a new race. Therefore, although in one sense the overture is independent, in another sense it is to be regarded as a running start to the opera. I have tried to point this out earlier by refreshing the reader's recollection of the gradual weakening with which the one force approaches the beginning of the work. The same thing is manifest when one observes the other force-that is, it gradually increases; it begins in the overture, grows and increases. Particularly the beginning of it is admirably expressed. We hear it so faintly, so cryptically suggested. We hear it, but it is over so swiftly that it seems as if we had heard something we had not heard. It requires an alert ear, an erotic ear, to notice the first time a hint is given in the overture of the light play of this desire that is so richly expressed later in all its lavish profusion. Since I am not a music expert, I cannot punctiliously designate this place; but I am writing, after all, only for lovers, and they presumably will understand me, some of them better than I understand myself. But I am content with my allotted share, with this enigmatic love affair, and although I otherwise thank the gods that I became a man and not a woman, Mozart's music has taught me that it is beautiful and refreshing and abundant to love as a woman loves. I am no friend of figures of speech; modern literature has made them very distasteful to me. It has gone almost so far that whenever I encounter a figure of speech, an involuntary fear comes over me that its true objective is to conceal an obscurity in the thought. Therefore I shall not risk an injudicious or futile attempt to translate the overture's brisk and pithy brevity into a prolix and empty figurative language. I wish to emphasize only one point in the overture, and to draw the reader's attention to it; I shall use a figure of speech-the only means I have to establish a connection with him.   The Immediate Erotic Stages   This point, of course, is none other than Don Giovanni's initial emergence, the presentiment of him and of the power with which he later breaks through. The overture begins with a few deep, earnest, even notes; then for the first time we hear infinitely far away an intimation that is nevertheless instantly recalled, as if it were premature, until later we hear again and again, bolder and bolder, more and more clamorous, that voice which at first subtly, demurely, and yet seemingly in anxiety, slipped in but could not press through. So it is in nature that one sometimes sees the horizon dark and clouded; too heavy to support itself, it rests upon the earth and hides everything in its obscure night; a few hollow sounds are heard, not yet in motion but like a deep mumbling to itself. Then in the most distant heavens, far off on the horizon, one sees a flash; it speeds away swiftly along the earth, is gone in an instant. But soon it appears again; it gathers strength; it momentarily illuminates the entire heaven with its flame. The next second, the horizon seems even darker, but it flares up more swiftly, even more brilliantly; it seems as if the darkness itself has lost its composure and is starting to move. Just as the eye in this first flash has a presentiment of a great fire, so the ear has a presentiment of the total passion in that dwindling stroke of the violin bow. There is an anxiety in that flash; it is as ifin that deep darkness it were born in anxiety-just so is Don Giovanni's life. There is an anxiety in him, but this anxiety is his energy. In him, it is not a subjectively reflected anxiety; it is a substantiaP anxiety. In the overture there is not what is commonly called-without knowing what one is saying-despair. Don Giovanni's life is not despair; it is, however, the full force of the sensuous, which is born in anxiety; and Don Giovanni himself is this anxiety, but this anxiety is precisely the demonic zest for life. After Mozart has had Don Giovanni come into existence this way, his life now develops for us in the dancing strains of the violin, in which he lightly, fleetingly speeds on over the abyss. When one throws a pebble in such a way that it skims the surface of the water, it can for a time skip over the water in light hops, but it sinks down to the bottom     as soon as it stops skipping; in the same way he dances over the abyss, jubilating during his brief span. But if, as has been observed above, the overture can be regarded as a running start to the opera, if in the overture one descends from that higher atmosphere, then the question is: at what point is it best for one to land in the opera, or how is the begining of the opera achieved? Here Mozart saw the only right thing to do: to begin with Leporello. It might seem that this is not so very meritorious, the more so because almost all the versions of Don Juan begin with a monologue by Sganarelle. But there is a vast difference, and here again one has occasion to admire Mozart's mastery. He has placed the first servant-aria  in immediate connection with the overture.  Leporello's first aria is quite rightly reckoned as belonging to the overture. Leporello's aria corresponds to the not uncelebrated monologue by Sganarelle in Moliere. We shall look more closely at the situation. Sganarelle's monologue is far from unwitty, and when it is read in Prof. Heiberg's light and flowing verse it is very diverting, but the situation itself is defective. I say this more especially with regard to Moliere, for in Heiberg it is another matter, and I say it not to censure Moliere but to show Mozart's merit. A monologue is always more or less a break with the dramatic, and when the poet tries to produce an effect by the wittiness of the monologue rather than by its character, he has broken the rod on himself and has relinquished the dramatic interest. Not so in opera. Here the situation is absolutely musical. I have already pointed out the difference between a dramatic and a musical-dramatic situation. In drama, chatter is not tolerated; action and situation are demanded. In opera there is repose in the situation. But then what makes this situation into a musical situation? It was emphasized earlier that Leporello is a musical character, and yet it is not he who carries the situation. If that were so, his aria would be analogous to Sganarelle's monologue, even though it would be just as certain that a quasi-situation like that is more suitable in opera than in drama. That which makes the situation musical is Don Giovanni, who is within. The center is not in Leporello, who approaches, but in Don Giovanni,   The Immediate Erotic Stages   whom we do not see-but whom we hear. Now, someone could very well object: But we do not hear Don Giovanni. To that I would answer: Indeed, we do, for he resonates in Leporello. For that purpose, I call attention to the transition (vuol star dentro colla bella [you stay inside with the pretty lady]),  in which Leporello is obviously reproducing Don Giovanni. But even if this were not the case, the situation nevertheless is so designed that one involuntarily gets Don Giovanni, too, that one forgets Leporello, who is standing outside, because of Don Giovanni, who is inside. On the whole, with real genius, Mozart has had Leporello reproduce Don Giovanni and thereby has achieved two things: the musical effect that whenever Leporello is alone one hears Don Giovanni, and the parodical effect that when Don Giovanni is present we hear Leporello repeat him and thereby unconsciously parody him. I cite the end of the dance as an example of this. If one asks which part in the opera is the most epic, the answer is easy and indubitable: it is Leporello's second aria, the list.  In a comparison of this aria with the corresponding monologue in Moliere's version, it was pointed out earlier what absolute importance the music has, that precisely by letting us hear Don Giovanni, hear the variations in him, the music produces the effect that words or lines are unable to produce. Here it is of importance to emphasize the situation and the musical in it. Now, if we look around the stage, we see the scenic ensemble consisting ofLeporello, Elvira, and the faithful servant. The faithless lover, however, is not there; he is, as Leporello pointedly puts it, "Yes, he is gone. " This is a virtuosity that Don Giovanni has: he is-and then he is goneand he remains just as opportunely (for himself, that is) gone as a Jeronimus  arrives opportunely. Since it is now obvious that he is gone, it might seem strange that I mention him and in a way bring him into the situation. On closer scrutiny, one perhaps will find it entirely appropriate and here see an example of how literally it must be understood that Don Giovanni is everywhere present in the opera, for this can hardly be more strongly expressed than by pointing out that even when he is   gone he is present. Now, however, we shall let him be gone, since later we shall see in what sense he is present. We shall, however, consider the three characters on the stage. The presence of Elvira is naturally instrumental in bringing about a situation; for it would not do to have Leporello unroll the list for his own pastime, but her position is instrumental in making the situation embarrassing. On the whole, it cannot be denied that sometimes the ridicule made of Elvira's love is almost cruel. For example, in the second act, at the crucial moment when Ottavio finally has gathered courage in his heart and taken the rapier out of its sheath to murder Don Giovanni, she hurls herself between them and then discovers that it is not Don Giovanni but Leporello--a differentiation that Mozart has so powerfully expressed with a kind of plaintive bleat. In the situation at hand, there is likewise something painful in her having to be present in order to know that in Spain there are, , and indeed, worse yet, in the German version she is told that she herself is one of them.  This is a German improvement that is just as foolishly improper as the German translation is ludicrously proper and utterly unsuccessful in a no less foolish way. It is for Elvira that Leporello makes an epic survey of his master's life, and it cannot be denied that it is quite in order for Leporello to recite and Elvira to listen, because both of them are exceedingly interested in it. Therefore, just as we continually hear Don Giovanni in the whole aria, in certain places we hear Elvira, who is visibly present onstage as a witness instar omnium [worth them alll, not because of any accidental privilege on her part but because, since the method essentially remains the same, what pertains to one pertains to all. IfLeporello were a character or a personality permeated by reflection, it would be difficult to imagine such a monologue; but precisely because he is a musical figure who is absorbed in Don Giovanni, this aria has such frt:at significance. It is a reproduction of Don Giovanni's entire life. Leporello is the epic narrator. Such a person certainly ought not to be cold or indifferent to what he is telling, but nevertheless he ought to preserve an objective attitude toward it. This   The Immediate Erotic Stages   is not the case with Leporello. He is completely carried away by the life he is describing; he loses himself in Don Giovanni. So here I have another example of what it means to say that Don Giovanni resonates everywhere. Hence, the situation is not in Leporello and Elvira's conversation about Don Giovanni but in the mood that carries the whole, in Don Giovanni's invisible spiritual presence. To develop in greater detail the transition in this aria, how in the beginning it is quiet and less stirring but becomes more and more intense as Don Giovanni's life resonates in it more and more, how Leporello is more and more swept away by it, wafted away and rocked by these erotic breezes, how it is variously nuanced accordingly as the diversity of femininity that lies within Don Giovanni's range becomes audible in it-this is not the place for that. If one asks which part in the opera is the most lyrical, the answer is perhaps more doubtful, but it can scarcely be open to doubt that the most lyrical part can be accorded only to Don Giovanni, that it would be a violation of the dramatic subordination if a subsidiary character were permitted to occupy our attention in that way. Mozart has complied here, too. This narrows the choice considerably, and on closer scrutiny the contenders can be only the banquet, the first part of the grand finale, or the familiar champagne aria. III As for the banquet scene, up to a point it may certainly be regarded as a lyrical part, and the exhilarating refreshment of the meal, the effervescing wine, the distant festive strains of the music, all unite to heighten Don Giovanni's mood, just as his own conviviality casts an augmented light over the whole enjoyment, the effect of which is so powerful that even Leporello is transfigured in this luxuriant moment, which is joy's last smile, pleasure's farewell greeting.  But still it is more a situation than a purely lyrical part. This, of course, is not due to the eating and drinking onstage, for this in itself, regarded as a situation, is very inadequate. The situation consists in Don Giovanni's being forced out to life's most extreme point. Pursued by the whole world, this triumphant Don Giovanni now has   no other place of residence than a little out-of-the-way room. It is at this most extreme tip on life's springboard that he once again, for want of hearty companions, stirs up all the zest for life in his own breast. If Don Giovanni were a drama, then this internal restlessness in the situation would require that it be as brief as possible. But it is proper in the opera for the situation to be sustained, to be aggrandized with all possible luxuriance, which only sounds the wilder because for the listeners it resonates in the abyss over which Don Giovanni hovers. The champagne aria is different. In my opinion, it would be futile to seek a dramatic situation here, but it is all the more significant as a lyrical outpouring. Don Juan is tired of the many crisscrossing intrigues, but he is by no means fagged out. His soul is just as vigorous as ever; he does not need merry company, does not need to see and hear the effervescing of the wine or to reinvigorate himself with it; his inner vitality breaks forth in him stronger and richer than ever. He is still interpreted ideally by Mozart as life, as power, but ideally in the face of an actuality; here he is ideally intoxicated, so to speak, with himself. If all the girls in the world encircled him at this moment, he would not be dangerous to them, for he is, as it were, too strong to want to infatuate them; even the most multifarious pleasures of actuality are too little for him compared with what he enjoys in himself. What it means to say-that Don Giovanni's essential nature is music-is clearly apparent here. He dissolves, as it were, in music for us; he unfurls in a world of sounds. This aria has been called the champagne aria, and undoubtedly this is very suggestive. But what we must see especially is that it does not stand in an accidental relation to Don Giovanni. Such is his life, effervescing like champagne. And just as the beads in this wine, as it simmers with an internal heat, sonorous with its own melody, rise and continue to rise, just so the lust for enjoyment resonates in the elemental boiling that is his life. Therefore, the dramatic significance of this aria comes not from the situation but from this, that here the opera's dominant tone sounds and resonates in itself. PLATITUDINOUS POSTLUDE If what has been developed here is correct, then I return to my favorite theme-that Mozart's Don Giovanni ought to rank highest among all the classic works. Then I shall once again rejoice over Mozart's fortune [Lykke], a fortune that is truly enviable, both in and by itself and because it makes happy [lykkelig] all those with only a moderate comprehension of his fortune. I at least feel myself to be indescribably happy in having understood Mozart even remotely and having an intimation of his fortune. How much more, then, those who have understood him perfectly, how much more must they feel happy with the fortunate one.   THE TRAGIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA REFLECTED IN THE TRAGIC IN MODERN DRAMA AN ESSAY IN FRAGMENTARY ENDEAVOR Delivered before the Symparanekromenoi [Fellowship of the Deadj If someone were to say: The tragic, after all, is always the tragic, I would not have very much to urge to the contrary, inasmuch as every historical development always lies }Vi thin the sphere of the concept. On the assumption that his words have meaning and that the twice-repeated word "tragic" is not intended to form meaningless parentheses around an empty nothing, then his meaning might very well be that the content of the concept did not dethrone the concept but enriched it. On the other hand, it can scarcely have escaped the attention of any observer that there is an essential difference between the tragic, ancient and modern-something that the reading and theater-going public already considers its legal possession as its dividend from the enterprises of the experts in the art. But if, in turn, someone were to affirm the distinction absolutely and, on the basis of it, at first slyly and later perhaps forcibly press this distinction between the tragic in ancient and in modern drama, his behavior would be no less unreasonable than the first person's, since he would [forget] that the foothold so indispensable to him was the tragic itself. This in turn would be so far from distinguishing between the tragic ancient and modern that, contrariwise, it would combine them. Indeed, it must be as a warning against every such one-sided effort to separate that estheticians  always return to the definitions of and requirements for the tragic established by Aristotle  as exhausting the concept. It must be as a warning, and all the more so since everyone must be gripped by a certain sadness because no matter how much the world has changed, the idea of the tragic is still essentially unchanged, just as weeping still continues to be equally natural to humankind. As reassuring as this might seem to one who does not want any separation, least of all any break, the same difficulty that has just been dismissed appears in another and almost more dangerous form. That there is still a continual return to Aristotelian esthetics, not simply because of dutiful deference or old habit, will surely be admitted by anyone who has any acquaintance with modern esthetics  and by this is convinced of the scrupulous attachment to the salient points that were advanced by Aristotles and that are still continually in force in modern esthetics. But as soon as one examines them a little more closely, the difficulty appears at once. The definitions are of a very general kind, and one can very well agree with Aristotle in a way and yet in another sense disagree with him. In order not to enter prematurely into the content of the following exposition by mentioning examples here, I prefer to illustrate my opinion by making a parallel observation with regard to comedy. If an ancient esthetician had said that the presuppositions of comedy are character and situation and that its aim is to arouse laughter, then one could very well return to this again and again, but as soon as one pondered how different the causes of laughter are, one would soon be convinced of what an enormous range this requirement has. Anyone who has ever made the laughter of others and his own the object of observation, who has had in mind, as in this project, not so much the accidental as the universal, who has perceived with psychological interest how different the occasion oflaughter is at every age--that person will readily be convinced that the unchangeable requirement for comedy, that it must arouse laughter, in itself implies a high degree of changeableness in relation to the ideas of the laughable in the varying world consciousness, yet without this difference being so diffuse that the corresponding expression in the somatic functions would be that laughter would manifest itself in weeping. It is the same with respect to the tragic. That which, generally speaking, should be the content of this little exploration will not be so much the relation between the tragic in ancient and in modern drama as it will be an attempt to show how the characteristic feature of the tragic in ancient drama is incorporated in the tragic in modern drama in such a way that what is truly tragic will become apparent. But however much I shall try to make it apparent, I shall abstain from any prophecy that this is what the times demand; there apparent will be devoid of consequence, and all the more so since the whole age is working more toward the comic. To a degree, existence [Tilva?relse] is undermined by the subjects' doubt; isolation continually gains the upper hand more and more, something that can best be ascertained by paying attention to the multifarious social endeavors. That they seek to counteract the isolating efforts of the age is just as much a demonstration of the isolation as is the unreasonable way they seek to counteract it. Isolation always consists in asserting oneself as number; when one wants to assert oneself as one, this is isolation; all the friends of associations will surely agree with me on that, without therefore being able or willing to see that it is altogether the same isolation when a hundred assert themselves simply and solely as a hundred. Number is always indifferent to itself, and it makes absolutely no difference whether it is  or, , or all the inhabitants of the world defined merely numerically. In principle, then, this association-mentality is just as revolutionary as the mentality it wants to counteract. When David really wanted to feel his power and glory, he had his people counted; in our age, however, it may be said that the people, in order to feel their significance over against a superior power, count themselves. But all these associations bear the stamp of arbitrariness and most often are formed for some accidental purpose, whose lord and master, of course, is the association. These numerous associations, therefore, demonstrate the disintegration of the age and themselves contribute to speeding it up; they are the infusiora in the organism of the state that indicate that it has disintegrated. When was it that the hetairias became common in Greece except at the time when the state was in the process of disintegration? And does not our age have a striking likeness to that age, which not even Aristophanes could make more ludicrous than it actually was? Has not the bond that in the political sense held the states together, invisibly and spiritually, dissolved; has not the power in religion that insisted upon the invisible been weakened and destroyed; do not our statesmen and clergymen have this in common, that they, like the augurs of old, cannot look at one another without smiling? A feature in which our age certainly excels that age in Greece is that our age is more depressed and therefore deeper in despair. Thus, our age is sufficiently depressed to know that there is something called responsibility and that this means something. Therefore, although everyone wants to rule, no one wants to have responsibility. It is still fresh in our memory that a French statesman, when offered a portfolio the second time, declared that he would accept it but on the condition that the secretary of state be made responsible.  It is well known that the king in France is not responsible, but the prime minister is; the prime minister does not wish to be responsible but wants to be prime minister provided that the secretary of state will be responsible; ultimately it ends, of course, with the watchmen or street commissioners becoming responsible. Would not this inverted story of responsibility be an appropriate subject for Aristophanes! On the other hand, why are the government and the governors so afraid of assuming responsibility, unless it is because they fear an opposition party that in turn continually pushes away responsibility on a similar scale. When one imagines these two powers face to face with each other but unable to catch hold of each other because the one is always disappearing and is replaced by the other, the one merely appearing in the role of the other-such a situation would certainly not be without comic power. This indeed shows adequately that what really holds the state together has disintegrated, but the isolation resulting from this is naturally comic, and the comic consists in subjectivity's wanting to assert itself as pure form. Every isolated person always becomes comic by wanting to assert his accidentality over against the necessity of the process. No doubt it would be profoundly comic to have an accidental individual hit upon the universal idea of wanting to be the world's liberator. Christ's appearance, however, is in a certain sense the most profound tragedy (in another sense it is infinitely much more), because Christ came in the fullness of time and bore the sin of the whole world-something that I shall particularly stress in connection with what follows. It is generally known that Aristotle gives two sources for action in tragedy, bLUVOLU xui ~eo~ [thought and character],l but he also notes that the primary factor is the l;Et...O~ [end, purpose] and the individuals do not act in order to present characters; rather these are included for the sake of action. Here it is easy to perceive a difference from modern tragedy.  What specifically characterizes ancient tragedy is that the action does not proceed only from character, that the action is not subjectively reflected enough, but that the action itself has a relative admixture of suffering. Ancient tragedy, therefore, did not develop dialogue to the point of exhaustive reflection with everything merged in it; the distinct components of dialogue are actually present in the monologue and chorus. Whether the chorus comes closer to epic substantiality or to the lyrical elan, it nevertheless seems to provide "the more," so to speak, that will not merge in the individuality; the monologue, in turn, has a more lyrical concentration and has "the more" that will not merge in action and situation. In ancient tragedy, the action itself has an epic element; it is just as much event as action. This, of course, is because the ancient world did not have subjectivity reflected in itself. Even if the individual moved freely, he nevertheless rested in substantial determinants, in the state, the family, in fate. This substantial determinant is the essential fateful factor in Greek tragedy and is its essential characteristic. The hero's downfall, therefore, is not a result solely of his action but is also a suffering, whereas III modern tragedy the hero's downfall is not really suffering but is a deed. Thus, in the modern period situation and character are in fact predominant. The tragic hero is subjectively reflected in himself, and this reflection has not only reflected him out of every immediate relation to state, kindred, and fate but often has even reflected him out of his own past life. What concerns us is a certain specific element of his life as his own deed. For this reason, the tragic can be exhausted in situation and lines because no immediacy is left at all. Therefore, modern tragedy has no epic foreground, no epic remainder. The hero stands and falls entirely on his own deeds. What is here briefly but sufficiently developed will have its importance in explaining a difference between ancient and modern tragedy that I regard as very important-the different nature of tragic guilt. It is well known that Aristotle insists that the tragic hero have a~aQ"tia [ error].  But just as the action in Greek tragedy is something intermediate between action and the suffering, so also is guilt, and therein lies the tragic collision. But the more the subjectivity is reflective, the more Pelagianly one sees the individual thrown solely upon himself, the more ethical guilt becomes. Between these two extremes lies the tragic. If the individual has no guilt whatever, the tragic interest is annulled, for in that case the tragic collision is enervated. On the other hand, if he has absolute guilt, he no longer interests us tragically. It is, therefore, surely a misunderstanding of the tragic when our age endeavors to have everything fateful transubstantiate itself into individuality and subjectivity. We want to know nothing about the hero's past; we load his whole life upon his shoulders as his own deed, make him accountable for everything, but in so doing we also transform his esthetic guilt into ethical guilt. In this way, the tragic hero becomes bad, evil actually becomes the tragic subject, but evil has no esthetic interest, and sin is not an esthetic element. This misguided enterprise may somehow have its basis in the working of the whole age toward the comic. The comic lies precisely in the isolation; when one wants to affirm the tragic within this isolation, one has evil in its badness, not the authentic tragic guilt in its ambiguous guiltlessness. It is not difficult to find examples if one looks at modern literature. For example, the work by Grabbe, Faust und Don Juan  (in many ways a work of genius), is built upon evil. But, rather than to argue on the basis of a single work, I prefer to show it in the common consciousness of the whole contemporary age. If one wanted to depict an individual whose unfortunate childhood had played such havoc with him that these impressions caused his downfall, such a thing would have no appeal at all to the present age-not, of course, because it was poorly done, for I take the liberty of assuming it was excellently done, but because this age applies another standard. It will have nothing to do with such coddling; it automatically makes the individual responsible for his life. Consequently, if the individual succumbs, this is not tragic, but it is bad. One would think that the generation in which I have the honor of living must be a kingdom of gods. But this is by no means so; the vigor, the courage, that wants to be the creator of its own good fortune in this way, indeed, its own creator, is an illusion, and when the age loses the tragic, it gains despair. In the tragic there is implicit a sadness and a healing that one indeed must not disdain, and when someone wishes to gain himself in the superhuman way our age tries to do it, he loses himself  and becomes comic. Every individual, however original he is, is still a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family, of his friends, and only in them does he have his truth. Ifhe wants to be the absolute in all this, his relativity, then he becomes ludicrous. In languages, there is sometimes found a word that because of its context is so frequently used in a specific case that it eventually becomes, if you please, independent as an adverb in this case.  For the experts such a word has once and for all an accent and a flaw that it never lives down; if, then, this notwithstanding, it should claim to be a substantive and demand to be declined in all five cases, it would be genuinely comic. So it goes with the individual also when he, perhaps extracted from the womb of time laboriously enough, wants to be absolute in this enormous relativity. But ifhe surrenders this claim, is willing to be relative, then he eo ipso has the tragic, even if he were the happiest individual-indeed, I would say the individual is not happy until he has the tragic. Intrinsically, the tragic is infinitely gentle; esthetically it is to human life what divine grace and compassion are; it is even more benign, and therefore I say that it is a motherly love that lulls the troubled one. The ethical is rigorous and hard. Therefore, if a criminal before the judge wants to excuse himself by saying that his mother had a propensity for stealing, especially during the time she was pregnant with him, the judge obtains the health officer's opinion of his mental condition and decides that he is dealing with a thief and not with the thiefs mother. Insofar as the issue here is a crime, the sinner certainly cannot flee into the temple of esthetics, but nevertheless it will indeed have a mitigating word for him. But it would be wrong for him to seek refuge there, for his path takes him to the religious, not to the esthetic. The esthetic lies behind him, and it would be a new sin on his part to seize the esthetic now. The religious is the expression for fatherly love, for it embraces the ethical, but it is mitigated, and by what means-by the very same means that give the tragic its gentleness, by means of continuity. But although the esthetic provides this repose before sin's profound discrepancy is asserted, the religious does not provide it until this discrepancy is seen in all its frightfulness. At the very moment the sinner almost swoons under the universal sin that he has taken upon himself because he felt simply that the more guilty he became the greater would be the prospect of being saved, at that same dreadful moment he has the consoling thought that it is universal sinfulness that has asserted itself also in him. But this comfort is a religious comfort, and anyone who thinks he can attain it in any other way, by esthetic volatilization, for example, has taken the comfort in vain, and he actually does not have it. In a certain sense, therefore, it is a very appropriate discretion on the part of the age to want to make the individual responsible for everything; the trouble is that it does not do it profoundly and inwardly enough, and hence its half-measures. It is conceited enough to disdain the tears of tragedy, but it is also conceited enough to want to do without mercy. And what, after all, is human life, the human race, when these two things are taken away? Either the sadness of the tragic or the profound sorrow and profound joy of religion. Or is this not the striking feature of everything that originates in that happy people l-a depression of spirit, a sadness in their art, in their poetry, in their life, in theirjoy? In the foregoing discussion, I have especially sought to stress the difference between ancient and modern tragedy insofar as it is apparent in the difference in the guilt of the tragic hero. This is the real focal point from which everything emanates in its specific difference. If the hero is unequivocally guilty, monologue vanishes, fate vanishes; then thought is transparent in dialogue, and action in situation. The same thing may be stated from another side-namely, from the perspective of the mood that the tragedy evokes. It is well known that Aristotle maintains that tragedy should arouse fear and compassion [Medlidenhed] in the spectator.  I recall that Hegel in his Esthetics picks up this comment and on each of these points makes a double observation, which, however, is not very exhaustive. When Aristotle distinguishes between fear and compassion, one presumably could rather think of the fear as the mood accompanying the particular and of the compassion as the mood that is the definitive impression. This latter mood is the one I have particularly in mind because it is the one corresponding to tragic guilt and therefore also has the same implicit dialectic as that concept. On this point, Hegel notes that there are two kinds of compassion, the usual kind that turns its attention to the finite side of suffering, and the truly tragic compassion. This observation is altogether correct but to me ofless importance, since that universal emotion is a misunderstanding that can befall modern tragedy just as much as ancient tragedy. But what he adds with regard to true compassion is true and powerful: "das wahrhafte Mitleiden ist im Gegentheil die Sympathie mit der zugleich sittlichen Berechtigung des Leidenden [true sympathy, on the contrary, is an accordant feeling with the ethical claim at the same time associated with the sufferer]" (III, p. ). Whereas Hegel considers compassion more in general and its differentiation in the difference of individualities, I prefer to stress the difference in compassion in relation to the difference in tragic guilt. To indicate this difference at once, I shall separate the Lidende [suffering] in the word Medlidenhed [compassion] and add in each instance the sympathy implicit in the prefix med [with], yet in such a way that I do not come to predicate something about the spectator's mood that could indicate his arbitrariness, but in such a way that in expressing the difference in his mood I also convey the difference in the tragic guilt. In ancient tragedy, the sorrow is more profound, the pain less; in modern tragedy, the pain is greater, the sorrow less. Sorrow always has in it something more substantiaP than pain. Pain always indicates a reflection upon the suffering that sorrow does not know. Psychologically, it is very interesting to observe a child when he sees an adult suffer. The child is not sufficiently reflective to feel pain, and yet his sorrow is infinitely deep. He is not suffi"ciently reflective to have an idea of sin and guilt; when he sees an adult suffer, it does not cross his mind to think about that, and yet if the reason for the suffering is hidden from him, there is a dark presentiment of the reason in the child's sorrow. So it is also, but in complete and deep harmony, with the sorrow of the Greeks, and that is why it is simultaneously so gentle and so deep. On the other hand, when an adult sees a young person, a child, suffer, the pain is greater, the sorrow less. The more pronounced the idea of guilt, the greater the pain, the less profound the sorrow. Applying this now to the relation between ancient and modern tragedy, one may say: In ancient tragedy, the sorrow is more profound, and in the corresponding consciousness the sorrow is more profound. It must continually be kept in mind that this is not in me but in the tragedy and that, in order to understand properly the profound sorrow in Greek tragedy, I must live into the Greek consciousness. Therefore, when so many admire Greek tragedy, it no doubt is often just parroting, for it is obvious that our age at least has no great sympathy for what is the truly Greek sorrow. The sorrow is more profound because the guilt has esthetic ambiguity. In modern times, the pain is greater. One could say of Greek tragedy that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  The wrath of the gods is terrible, but still the pain is not as great as in modern tragedy, where the hero suffers his total guilt, is transparent to himself in his suffering of his guilt. It is appropriate at this point to show, as with tragic guilt, which sorrow is true esthetic sorrow and which is true esthetic pain. The most bitter pain is obviously repentance, but repentance has ethical, not esthetic, reality [Realitet]. It is the most bitter pain because it has the complete transparency of the total guilt, but precisely because of this transparency it does not interest esthetically. Repentance has a holiness that eclipses the esthetic. It does not want to be seen, least of all by a spectator, and requires an altogether different kind of self-activity. To be sure, modern comedy has at times brought repentance onto the stage, but this only betrays a lack ofjudgment in the author. One is indeed reminded of the psychological interest there can beâ· in seeing repentance depicted, but again psychological interest is not the esthetic. This is part of the confusion that manifests itself in so many ways in our day: something is sought where one should not seek it; and what is worse, it is found where one should not find it. One wishes to be edified in the theater, to be esthetically stimulated in church; one wishes to be converted by novels, to be entertained by devotional books; one wishes to have philosophy in the pulpit and a preacher on the lecture platform. This pain, then, is not esthetic pain, and yet it is obviously that which the present age is working toward as the supreme tragic interest. This also turns out to be the case with tragic guilt. Our age has lost all the substantial categories of family, state, kindred; it must turn the single individual over to himself completely in such a way that, strictly speaking, he becomes his own creator. Consequently his guilt is sin, his pain repentance, but thereby the tragic is canceled. Furthermore, suffering tragedy in the stricter sense has essentially lost its tragic interest, for the power that is the source of the suffering has lost its meaning, and the spectator shouts: Help yourself, and heaven will help you-in other words, the spectator has lost compassion, but in a subjective and also in an objective sense compassion is the authentic expression of the tragic. For the sake of clarity, before developing this exposition further, I shall define a little more explicitly true esthetic sorrow. Sorrow and pain move in opposite directions. If one does not want to spoil this by a foolish consistency (something that I shall prevent in also another way), one may say: The greater the guiltlessness, the greater the sorrow. If this is insisted upon, the tragic will be canceled. An element of guilt always remains, but this element is not actually reflected subjectively; this is why the sorrow in Greek tragedy is so profound. To forestall premature conclusions, I shall just point out that overstatements result only in shifting the issue over into another realm. The unity of absolute guiltlessness and absolute guilt is not an esthetic category but a metaphysical one. The real reason people have always had scruples about calling the life of Christ a tragedy is that they felt that esthetic categories do not exhaust the matter. That the life of Christ is something more than can be exhausted in esthetic categories is apparent also in another way-namely, that these neutralize themselves in this phenomenon and are rendered inconsequential. Tragic action always contains an element of suffering, and tragic suffering an element of action; the esthetic lies in their relativity. The identity of an absolute action and an absolute suffering is beyond the powers of the esthetic and belongs to the metaphysical. In the life of Christ there is this identity, for his suffering is absolute, since it is absolutely free action, and his action is absolute suffering, since it is absolute obedience. Thus, the element of guilt that remains is not subjectively reflected, and this makes the sorrow profound. In other words, tragic guilt is more than just subjective guilt-it is hereditary guilt; but hereditary guilt, like hereditary sin, is a substantial category, and it is precisely this substantiality that makes the sorrow more profound. The ever admired trilogy of Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus the King, and Antigone, hinges essentially on this genuine tragic interest. But hereditary guilt involves the contradiction of being guilt and yet not being guilt. The bond by which the individual becomes guilty is precisely [filial] piety, but the guilt that it thereby incurs has every possible esthetic amphiboly. One might promptly think that the people who must have developed the profoundly tragic was the Jewish nation. For example, when it is said of Jehovah that he is ajealous God, that he visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations,  or when we hear those terrible curses in the Old Testament, one could easily be tempted to want to seek tragic material here. But Judaism is too ethically mature for that; even though they are terrible, Jehovah's curses are also righteous punishment. It was not this way in Greece; the wrath of the gods has no ethical character, only esthetic ambiguity. In Greek tragedy itself, there is a transition from sorrow to pain, and I would cite Philoctetes as an example of this.  In a stricter sense, this is a tragedy of suffering. But here, too, a high degree of objectivity still prevails. The Greek hero rests in his fate; his fate is unalterable; of that there can be no further discussion. This element is really the component of sorrow in the pain. The first doubt with which pain really begins is this: Why is this happening to me; can it not be otherwise? To be sure, Philoctetes has something that has always been striking to me and that essentially separates it from that immortal trilogy: a high degree of reflection -the masterly depicted selfcontradiction in his pain, in which there is such profound human truth, but still there is an objectivity that carries the whole. Philoctetes' reflection is not absorbed in itself, and it is genuinely Greek when he laments that no one knows his pain.  There is an extraordinary truth in this, and yet precisely here there is also a manifestation of the difference from the really reflective pain that always wants to be alone with its pain, that seeks a new pain in the solitude of this pain. The true tragic sorrow, then, requires an element of guilt, the true tragic pain an element of guiltlessness; the true tragic sorrow requires an element of transparency, the true tragic pain an element of opacity. I believe this is the best way to suggest the dialectic in which the qualifications of sorrow and pain touch each other, and also the dialectic implicit in the concept: tragic guilt. Since it is at variance with the aims of our association  to provide coherent works or larger unities, since it is not our intention to labor on a Tower of Babel that God in his righteousness can descend and destroy, since we, in our consciousness that such confusion justly occurred, acknowledge as characteristic of all human endeavor in its truth that it is fragmentary, that it is precisely this which distinguishes it from nature's infinite coherence, that an individual's wealth consists specifically in his capacity for fragmentary prodigality and what is the producing individual's enjoyment is the receiving individual's also, not the laborious and careful accomplishment or the tedious interpretation of this accomplishment but the production and the pleasure of the glinting transiency, which for the producer holds much more than the consummated accomplishment, since it is a glimpse of the idea and holds a bonus for the recipient, since its fulguration [Fulgurationp stimulates his own productivity-since all this, I say, is at variance with our association's inclination, indeed, since the periodic sentence just read must almost be regarded as a serious attack on the ejaculatory style in which the idea breaks forth without achieving a breakthrough, to which officiality is attached in our society-therefore, after having pointed out that my conduct still cannot be called mutinous, inasmuch as the bond that holds this periodic sentence together is so loose that the parenthetical clauses therein strut about aphoristically and willfully enough, I shall merely call to mind that my style has made an attempt to appear to be what it is not: revolutionary. Our society requires a renewal and rebirth at every single meeting and to that end requires that its intrinsic activity be rejuvenated by a new description of its productivity. Let us, then, designate our intention as a venture in fragmentary endeavor or the art of writing posthumous [efterladt, left behind] papers. A completely finished work is disproportionate to the poetizing personality; because of the disjointed and desultory character of unfinished papers, one feels a need to poetize the personality along with them. Unfinished papers are like a ruin, and what place of resort could be more natural for the buried? The art, then, is to produce skillfully the same effect, the same carelessness and fortuitousness, the same anacoluthic [anakoluthisk] thought process; the art is to evoke an enjoyment that is never present tense but always has an element of the past and thus is present in the past. This is already expressed in the expression "left behind." Indeed, in a certain sense everything a poet has produced is something left behind, but it would never occur to anyone to call a completely finished work a work left behind, even if it had the accidental feature of not having been published in his lifetime. I also assume it to be a feature of all authentic human production in its truth, as we have interpreted it, that it is property left behind, since it is not granted to human beings to live with an eternal view like the gods'. Consequently, I shall call what is being produced among us property left behind [Efierladenskab], that is, artistic property left behind; negligence [Efierladenhed], indolence, we shall call the genius that we prize; the vis inertiae [force of inertia] we shall call the natural law that we worship. With this I have complied with our hallowed customs and conventions. So, my dear ~uf-tJtaQavExQWf-tEVOL, come closer to me, form a circle around me as I send my tragic heroine out into the world, as I give the daughter of sorrow a dowry of pain as her outfit. She is my work, but still her outline is so indistinct, her form so nebulous, that each and everyone of you can rliebe sig [fall in love] with her and be able to love her in your own way. She is my creation, her thoughts are my thoughts, and yet it is as if in a night of love I had rested with her, as if she in my embrace had confided a deep secret to me, had breathed it out together with her soul, as if she had then instantly changed before me, had disappeared, so that the only trace of her actuality was the mood that remained behind, instead of the reverse situation that she is brought forth by my mood to ever greater actuality. I put words into her mouth, and yet it seems to me as ifI abused her confidence; it seems to me as if she were standing reproachfully behind me, and yet it is the reverse-in her secrecy she becomes ever more visible. She belongs to me, she lawfully belongs to me, and yet at times it is as ifI had cunningly crept into her confidence, as if I always had to look behind me for her; and yet it is the reverse, she is always in front of me-only as I lead her forward does she come into existence. Antigone is her name. I shall keep this name from the ancient tragedy, to which I shall hold for the most part, although from another angle everything will be modern. But first one comment. I am using a female character because I believe that a female nature will be best suited to show the difference. As a woman, she will have enough substantiality  for the sorrow to manifest itself, but as one belonging to a reflective world she will have sufficient reflection to experience the pain. In order for the sorrow to be experienced, the tragic guilt must vacillate between guilt and guiltlessness, and the vehicle by which guilt enters her consciousness must always be a qualification of substantiality. But since the tragic guilt must have this indefiniteness in order for the sorrow to be experienced, reflection must not be present in its infinitude, for then it would reflect her out of her guilt, inasmuch as reflection in its infinite subjectivity cannot allow the factor of hereditary sin, which produces the sorrow, to remain. But since reflection has been awakened, it will reflect her not out of the sorrow but into it; at every moment it will transform sorrow into pain for her. So, then, the family ofLabdakos  is the object of the indignation of the gods:  Oedipus has killed the sphinx, liberated Thebes; Oedipus has murdered his father, married his mother; and Antigone is the fruit of this marriage. So it goes in the Greek tragedy. Here I deviate. With me, everything is the same, and yet everything is different. Everyone knows that he has killed the sphinx and freed Thebes, and Oedipus is hailed and admired and is happy in his marriage with Jocasta. The rest is hidden from the people's eyes, and no suspicion has ever brought this horrible dream into the world of actuality. Only Antigone knows it. How she found out is extraneous to the tragic interest, and in that respect everyone is left to his own explanation. At an early age, before she had reached maturity, dark hints of this horrible secret had momentarily gripped her soul, until certainty hurled her with one blow into the arms of anxiety. Here at once I have a definition of the tragic in modern times, for an anxiety is a reflection and in that respect is essentially different from sorrow. Anxiety is the vehicle by which the subject appropriates sorrow and assimilates it. Anxiety is the motive power by which sorrow penetrates a person's heart. But the movement is not swift like that of an arrow; it is consecutive; it is not once and for all, but it is continually becoming. As a passionately erotic glance craves its object, so anxiety looks cravingly upon sorrow. Just as the quiet, incorruptible eye of love is preoccupied with the beloved object, so anxiety's self-preoccupation is with sorrow. But anxiety has an added factor that makes it cling even harder to its object, for it both loves and fears it. Anxiety has a double function; in part it is the exploring movement that continually makes contact and by this groping discovers sorrow as it circles around it. Or anxiety is sudden; all the sorrow is lodged in one instant, yet in such a way that this instant immediately dissolves in a consecutive series. In this sense, anxiety is a genuine tragic category, and the old saying quem deus vult perdere, primum dementat [whom a god would destroy he first makes mad] is really and truly applicable here. That anxiety is a reflection category is shown by language itself, for I always say that I am anxious about something, and I thereby distinguish between the anxiety and that about which I am anxious, and I can never use "anxiety" objectively; whereas when I say "my sorrow," I can be expressing as much about what I am grieving over as about my sorrow over it. Furthermore, anxiety always contains a reflection on time, for I cannot be anxious about the present but only about the past or the future, but the past and the future, kept in opposition to each other in such a way that the present vanishes, are categories of reflection. Greek sorrow, however, like all Greek life, is in the present, and therefore the sorrow is deeper, but the pain less. Anxiety, therefore, belongs essentially to the tragic. Hamlet is such a tragic figure because he suspects his mother's crime. Robert Ie diable asks how it could happen that he does so much evil. Hgne, whom his mother had conceived with a troll, accidentally comes to see his image in the water and asks his mother whence his body acquired such a form. The difference is easy to see now. In Greek tragedy, Antigone is not occupied at all with her father's unfortunate fate. This rests like an impregnable sorrow on the whole family. Antigone, like every other young Greek girl, goes on living free from care-indeed, since her death is determined, the chorus is sorry for her because she must depart from this life at such a young age, depart from it without having tasted its most beautiful joy-obviously forgetful of the family's own profound sorrow. This by no means says that it is light-mind-edness or that the particular individual stands all alone without concern for his relationships to the family. But this is genuinely Greek. To them, life relationships, like the horizon under which they live, are given once and for all. Even though this is dark and full of clouds, it is also unchangeable. This gives a dominant tone to the soul, and this is sorrow, not pain. In Antigone, the tragic guilt is focused upon a specific point, that she has buried her brother in defiance of the king's injunction. If this is viewed as an isolated fact, as a collision between sisterly love and piety and an arbitrary human injunction, Antigone would cease to be a Greek tragedy; it would be an altogether modern tragic theme. What provides the tragic interest in the Greek sense is that Oedipus's sad fate resonates in the brother's unfortunate death, in the sister's conflict with a specific human injunction; it is, as it were, the afterpains, Oedipus's tragic fate, spreading out into each branch of his family. This totality makes the spectator's sorrow so very profound. It is not an individual who goes under, but a little world; it is the objective grief, unloosed, that now strides ahead, like a force of nature, in its own terrible consistency, and Antigone's sad fate is like the echo of her father's, an intensified sorrow. Therefore, when Antigone, in defiance of the king's injunction, decides to bury her brother, we see in this not so much a free act as a fateful necessity, which visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. There is indeed enough freedom in it to enable us to love Antigone for her sisterly love, but in the inevitability oHate there is also a higher refrain, as it were, that encompasses not only Oedipus's life but also his family. Whereas the Greek Antigone goes on living so free from care that, if this new fact had not come up, one could imagine her life as even happy in its gradual unfolding, our Antigone's life, on the other hand, is essentially at an end.   have not endowed her parsimoniously, and, as is said, a good word in the right place is like golden apples in a silver bowl; so also I have placed the fruit of grief in the bowl of pain. Her endowment is not vainglorious pomp that moth and rust can consume; it is an eternal treasure. Thieves cannot break in and steal it; she herself is too alert for that. Her life does not unfold like the Greek Antigone's; it is turned inward, not outward. The stage is inside, not outside; it is a spiritual stage. My dear ~'lJ!lJtaQavExQW!lEVOL, have I not managed to capture your interest for such a maiden, or shall I resort to a captatio benevolentiae [procedure aimed at gaining the favorable disposition of the judge or listener]? She, too, does not belong to the world in which she lives; although healthy and flourishing, her real life is nevertheless hidden. She, too, although alive, is in another sense dead; her life is quiet and concealed. The world does not hear even a sigh, for her sighing is concealed in the secrecy of her soul. I do not need to remind you that she is by no means a weak and morbid woman; on the contrary, she is proud and energetic. Perhaps nothing ennobles a person so much as keeping a secret. It gives a person's whole life a significance, which it has, of course, only for himself; it saves a person from all futile consideration of the surrounding world. Sufficient unto himself, he rests blissful in his secret; this might be said even though his secret is a most baleful one. So it is with our Antigone. She is proud of her secret, proud that she has been selected in a singular way to save the honor and glory of the lineage of Oedipus. When the grateful nation acclaims Oedipus with praise and thanksgiving, she feels her own significance, and her secret sinks deeper and deeper into her soul, ever more inaccessible to any living being. She feels how much has been placed into her hands, and this gives her the preternatural magnitude that is necessary in order for her to engage us tragically. She must be able to interest us as a particular character. She is more than a young girl in a general sense, and yet she is a young girl; she is a bride, and yet altogether virginal and pure.  As a bride, woman has fulfilled her destiny, and therefore a woman generally can concern us only to the degree that she is brought in relation to this her destiny. There are analogies to this. We speak, for example, of a bride of God; in faith and spirit she has the content in which she rests. In a perhaps still more beautiful sense, I would call our Antigone a bride-indeed, she is almost more, she is a mother. Purely esthetically, she is virgo mater [virgin mother]; she carries her secret under her heart, concealed and hidden. Precisely because she is secretive, she is silence, but this turning back into oneself implicit in silence gives her a preternatural bearing. She is proud of her grief, she is jealous of it, for her grief is her love. But yet her grief is not a dead, static possession; it is continually in motion; it gives birth to pain and is born in pain. Just as when a girl resolves to sacrifice her life for an idea, when she stands there with the sacrificial wreath on her forehead, she stands as a bride, for the great animating idea transforms her, and the sacrificial wreath is like the bridal wreath. She knows not any man, and yet she is a bride; she does not even know the idea that animates her, for that would be unfeminine, and yet she is a bride. So it is with our Antigone, the bride of sorrow. She dedicates her life to sorrowing over her father's fate, over her own. A calamity such as the one that has befallen her father requires sorrow, and yet there is no one who can sorrow over it, since there is no one who knows it. And just as the Greek Antigone cannot bear to have her brother's body thrown away without the last honors, so she feels how harsh it would have been if no one had come to know this; it troubles her that not a tear would have been shed, and she almost thanks the gods because she has been selected as this instrument. Thus, Antigone is great in her pain. Here, too, I can point out a difference between Greek and modern tragedy. It is genuinely Greek for Philoctetes to lament that no one knows what he is suffering; it is a deeply human need to want others to understand it, but reflective pain does not desire this. It does not occur to Antigone to wish anyone to come to know her pain, but instead she feels the pain in relation to her father, feels the justice implicit in sorrowing, which is just as warranted esthetically as is suffering punishment when one has done wrong. Therefore, while it is first the awareness of being destined to be buried alive that extorts this outburst of grief from Antigone in the Greek tragedy,   () LW Matavo~, OUt' EV oQotoi~, Ev vExQoim, !tEtOlXO~, ou ~wmv, ou ttavoum*   [alive to the place of corpses, an alien still, never at home with the living nor with the dead],  our Antigone can say this of herself all her life. There is a striking difference; there is a factual truth in her utterance that diminishes the pain. If our Antigone were to say the same thing, it would be figurative, but the figurativeness is the factual pain. The Greeks do not express themselves figuratively simply because their lives did not have the reflection required for this. Thus, when Philoctetes laments that he lives abandoned and solitary on a desolate island, his remark also has external truth; when, however, our Antigone feels pain in her solitude, it is only figuratively that she is alone, but for this very reason, only then is her pain truly literal. As for the tragic guilt, it is related in part to the fact that she buries her brother and in part to the context of her father's sad fate implied by the two previous tragedies. Here I am face to face again with the curious dialectic that places the family's iniquities in relation to the individual. This is what is inherited. Ordinarily, dialectic is thought to be rather abstract-one thinks almost solely oflogical operations. But life will quickly teach a person that there are many kinds of dialectic, that almost every passion has its own. For this reason, the dialectic that connects the iniquity of kindred or of family to the individual subject in such a way that this one not only suffers under it (for this is a natural consequence against which one would futilely try to harden oneself) but also bears the guilt, participates in it-this dialectic is alien to us, contains nothing constraining for us. If, however, we were to imagine a rebirth of ancient tragedy, then every individual would have to contemplate his own rebirth, not only in the spiritual sense but in the finite sense of the womb of family and kindred. The dialectic that connects the individual with family and kindred is no subjective dialectic, for that elevates the connection and the individual out of the context; it is an objective dialectic. It is essentially [familial] piety. To preserve this cannot be regarded as harmful to the individual. In our day something is deemed to hold in the sphere of nature that is not deemed to hold in the sphere of spirit. Yet one does not want to be so isolated, so unnatural, that one does not regard the family as a whole of which it can be said that when one member suffers, then they all suffer.  One does this spontaneously-otherwise for what reason is the particular individual so afraid that another member of the family may bring disgrace upon it except that he feels a share of the suffering from it. Obviously the individual must put up with this suffering, whether he wants to or not. But since the point of departure is the individual, not the family line, this compulsory suffering is maximum; one feels that the person cannot quite become master of his inherited characteristics but nevertheless desires this as far as possible. But if the individual sees the inherited characteristics as a component of his truth, then this manifests itself in the world of spirit in such a way that the individual participates in the guilt. Perhaps not many are able to comprehend this conclusion, but then they would not be able to comprehend the tragic, either. If the individual is isolated, then either he is absolutely the creator of his own fate, and then there is nothing tragic anymore, but only evil, for it is not even tragic that the individual was infatuated with or wrapped up in himself-it is his own doing; or the individuals are merely modifications of the eternal substance oflife, and so once again the tragic is lost. With respect to tragic guilt, a difference in modern tragedy is readily apparent after it has assimilated the ancient, for only then can this really be discussed. In her childlike piety, the Greek Antigone participates in her father's guilt, and so also does the modern Antigone. But for the Greek Antigone the father's guilt and suffering are an external fact, an unshakable fact, that her sorrow does not move (quod non volvit in pectore [something that she does not turn over in her heart]); and insofar as she personally suffers, as a natural consequence, under her father's guilt, this again is in all its external factuality. But for our Antigone it is different. I assume that Oedipus is dead. Even when he was alive, Antigone knew this secret but did not have the courage to confide in her father. By her father's death, she is deprived of the only means of being liberated from her secret. To confide in any other living being now would be to dishonor her father; her life acquires meaning for her in its devotion to showing him the last honors daily, almost hourly, by her unbroken silence. But one thing she does not know, whether or not her father knew it himself. Here is the modern element: it is the restlessness in her sorrow, it is the amphiboly in her pain. She loves her father with all her soul, and this love draws her out of herself into her father's guilt. As the fruit of such a love, she feels alien to humankind. She feels her guilt the more she loves her father; only with him can she find rest; as equally guilty, they would sorrow with each other. But while the father was living, she could not confide her sorrow to him, for she indeed did not know whether he knew it, and consequently there was the possibility of immersing him in a similar pain. And yet, if he had not known it, the guilt would be less. The movement here is continually relative. If Antigone had not definitely known the factual context, she would have been trivial, she would then have had nothing but a suspicion to struggle with, and that is too little to engage us tragically. But she knows everything; yet within this knowledge there is still an ignorance that can always keep the sorrow in motion, always transform it into pain. In addition, she is continually in conflict with her surrounding world. Oedipus lives in the memory of his people as a fortunate king, honored and extolled; Antigone herself has admired and also loved her father. She takes part in every commemoration and celebration of him; she is more enthusiastic about her father than any other maiden in the kingdom; her thoughts continually go back to him. She is extolled in the land as a model of a loving daughter, and yet this enthusiasm is the only way in which she can give vent to her sorrow. Her father is always in her thoughts, but how-that is her painful secret. And yet she does not dare to abandon herself to sorrow, does not dare to     mourn; she feels how much depends upon her; she fears that a clue would be given if anyone saw her suffering, and so here, too, she finds not sorrow but pain. Developed and elaborated in this way, Antigone can engage us, I believe, and I believe that you will not reproach me for frivolousness or paternal prejudice when I believe that she might very well venture into the tragic line and appear in a tragedy. Hitherto she has been only an epic character, and the tragic in her has had only epic interest. A context appropriate to her is not very difficult to find, either; in that respect, one can very well be satisfied with what the Greek tragedy provides. She has a sister living; I shall have her be a little older and married. Her mother could also be alive. That these two always remain subordinate characters is, of course, taken for granted, as is the fact that tragedy generally contains an epic element in the manner of Greek tragedy, although this need not be so conspicuous because of that; nevertheless, monologue will always playa leading role here, even though the situation ought to be of assistance to it. Everything must be thought of as focused on this one main point of interest that makes up the content of Antigone's life, and when the whole thing is designed in this way, then the question is: How is the dramatic interest to be produced? As described above, our heroine is on the point of wanting to leap over an element in her life; she is beginning to want to live altogether spiritually, something that nature does not tolerate. With her depth of soul, when she ever falls in love, she is bound to love with an extraordinary passion. So here I come to the dramatic interest-Antigone is in love, and I say it with pain-Antigone is head over heels in love.  Here, obviously, is the tragic collision. Generally there ought to be somewhat more discrimination about what is called a tragic collision. The more sympathetic the colliding forces are, the more profound but also the more alike they are, the more momentous the collision. So she has fallen in love, and the object of her love [Kjcerlighed] is not unaware of it. Now, my Antigone is no ordinary girl, and her dowry likewise is not ordinary-her pain. Without this dowry, she cannot belong to any man- that, she feels, would be taking too great a risk. To conceal it from such an observant person would be impossible; to wish to have it concealed would be a breach of her love-but with it can she belong to him? Does she dare to confide it to any human being, even to the man she loves? Antigone is strong; the question is not whether for her own sake, to ease her mind, she should confide her pain to someone, for she can very well endure it without support, but can she defend this to the one who is dead? Indeed, by confiding her secret to him, she herself suffers in a way, for her life is also sadly interwoven in that secret. But this does not concern her. The question is only about her father. Consequently, from this angle the conflict is of a sympathetic nature. Her life, which previously was peaceful and quiet, now becomes violent and passionate, at all times selfcontained, of course, and here her lines begin to have pathos. She struggles with herself; she has been willing to sacrifice her life for her secret, but now her love is demanded as a sacrifice. She is victorious-that is, the secret is victorious-and she loses. N ow comes the second collision, because in order for the tragic collision to be really profound, the colliding forces must be alike. The collision described above does not have this quality, for the collision is actually between her love for her father and for herself and whether her own love is not too great a sacrifice. The second colliding force is her sympathetic love for her beloved. He knows that he is loved and audaciously ventures upon his offensive. Of course, her reluctance amazes him; he perceives that there must be some very strange difficulties, but not such as to be insurmountable for him. What to him is of supreme importance is to convince her of how deeply he loves her, indeed, that his life is over ifhe must give up her love. Finally his passion becomes almost unveracious, but only more inventive because of this opposition. With every protestation oflove, he increases her pain; with every sigh, he plunges the arrow of grief deeper and deeper into her heart. He leaves no means untried to move her. Like everyone else, he knows how dearly she loves her father. He meets her at Oedipus's grave, where she has gone to pour out her heart, where she abandons herself to her longing for her father, even if this longing is itself mixed with pain because she does not know how she is going to meet him again, whether or not he knew of his guilt. He surprises her; he beseeches her in the name of the love she has for her father. He perceives that he is making an extraordinary impression on her; he persists, placing all his hope in this means, not knowing that he has actually worked against himself. The focus of interest here, then, is to extort her secret from her. To have her become temporarily deranged and in that way to betray it would be of no help. The colliding forces are matched to such a degree that action becomes impossible for the tragic individual. Her pain is now increased by her love, by her sympathetic suffering with the one whom she loves. Only in death can she find peace. Thus her life is devoted to grief, and she has, so to speak, established a boundary, a dike, against the misfortune that perhaps would have fatefully propagated itself in a following generation. Only in the moment of her death can she confess the fervency of her love; only in the moment she does not belong to him can she confess that she belongs to him.  When Epaminondas was wounded in the battle at Mantinea, he let the arrow remain in the wound until he heard that the battle was won, for he knew that it was his death when it was pulled out.  In the same way, our Antigone carries her secret in her heart like an arrow that life has continually plunged deeper and deeper, without depriving her of her life, for as long as it is in her heart she can live, but the instant it is taken out, she must die. To take her secret away-this is what the lover must struggle to do, and yet it is also her certain death. At whose hand does she fall, then? At the hand of the living or the dead? Jn a certain sense, at the hand of the dead, and what was predicted to Hercules,  that he would be murdered not by a living person but by a dead one, applies to her, inasmuch as the cause of her death is the recollection of her father; in another sense, at the hand of the living, inasmuch as her unhappy love is the occasion for the recollection to slay her. SILHOUETTES PSYCHOLOGICAL DIVERSION [SHADOWGRAPHS] Delivered before the Symparanekromenoi [Fellowship of the Deadj Abgeschworen mag die Liebe immer seyn; Liebes-Zauber wiegt in dieser Hahle Die berauschte, iiberraschte Seele In Vergessenheit des Schwures ein. Gestern liebt' ich, Heute leid' ich, Morgen sterb' ich; Dennoch denk' ich Heut' und Morgen Gern an Gestern [Foresworn may love at all times be; Love-magic lulls down in this cave The soul surprised, intoxicated, In forgetfulness of any oath. Yesterday I loved, Today I suffer, Tomorrow I die, Yet today and tomorrow I like to think Of yesterda y]. EXTEMPORE APOSTROPHE We celebrate in this hour the founding of our society; we rejoice anew that the happy occasion has repeated itself, that the longest day is over and night begins to triumph. We have waited all the day long; just a moment ago we sighed over its length, but now our despair is transformed into joy. To be sure, the victory is not great, and the preponderance of day will last for a long time, but that its domination has been broken does not escape our attention. Therefore, we do not postpone our celebration over the victory of the night until it is plain to all; we do not postpone it until the torpid bourgeois life reminds us that day is declining. No, as a young bride impatiently awaits the coming of night, so we longingly wait for the first onset of night, the first announcement of its coming victory, and the more we have been inclined to despair over our being able to hold out if the days were not shortened, the greater our joy and surprise. A year has gone by, and our society still survives. Should we rejoice over that, dear ~U!AJtaQavEX{)W!EVOL, rejoice that its existence mocks our doctrine of the downfall of everything, or should we not lament instead that it survives and rejoice that in any case it has only one year left to continue, for ifit has not vanished within that time, was it not our decision to dissolve it ourselves? In founding it, we did not make farsighted plans; too familiar with the wretchedness of life and the perfidiousness of existence, we resolved to come to the aid of universal law and obliterate ourselves if it does not forestall us. A year has gone by and our society is still intact; as yet no one has been released, no one has released himself, since everyone of us is too proud for that, because we all regard death as the greatest good fortune. Should we rejoice over this and not rather be sad and take pleasure only in the hope that life's confusion will soon split us up, that the storms oflife will soon carry us om Surely these thoughts are better suited to our society, are more in agreement with the festivity of the moment, with the entire setting. For is it not ingenious and significant that the floor of this little room is strewn, as is the local custom, with foliage, as if for a funeral; and is not nature itself giving us its approval when we take note of the wild storm raging around us, when we pay heed to the wind's powerful voice? Yes, let us be silent for a moment and listen to the music of the storm, its spirited course, its bold challenge, and the defiant roar of the sea and the uneasy sighing of the forest and the desperate crashing of the trees and the faint sibilating of the grass. To be sure, people do say that the voice of the divine is not in the driving wind but in the soft breeze, but our ears, after all, are constructed not to pick up the soft breezes but to swallow the uproar of the elements. And why does it not rage even more violently and put an end to life and the world and this short speech, which at least has the merit exceeding everything else that it is soon ended. Yes, would that the vortex, which is the world's core principle, even if people are not aware of it but eat and drink, marry and propagate themselves with carefree industriousness, would that it might erupt with deep-seated resentment and shake off the mountains and the nations and the cultural works and man's clever inventions; would that it might erupt with the last terrible shriek that more surely than the trumpet of doom announces the downfall of everything; would that it might stir and spin this bare cliff on which we stand as light as thistledown before the breath in its nostrils. The night, however, is being victorious, the day is shortening, and hope is growing! So fill your glasses once again, fellow topers; with this goblet I toast you, silent night, the eternal mother of everything! From you comes everything; to you everything returns. Have mercy again on the world; open up once again to gather in everything and keep us all safe in your womb! I greet you, dark night, I greet you as the victor, and this is my comfort, for in eternal oblivion you shorten everything, day and time and life and the irksomeness of recollection! Since the time when Lessing defined the boundaries between poetry and art in his celebrated treatise Laokoon, it no doubt may be regarded as a conclusion unanimously recognized by all estheticians that the distinction between them is that art is in the category of space, poetry in the category of time, that art depicts repose, poetry motion.  For this reason, the subject for artistic portrayal must have a quiet transparency so that the interior rests in the corresponding exterior. The less this is the case, the more difficult becomes the task for the artist, until the distinction asserts itself and teaches him that this is no task for'him at all. If we apply to the relation between sorrow and joy that which has been casually stated but not developed here, it is easy to perceive that joy is far easier to depict artistically than sorrow. By no means does this deny that grief can be depicted artistically, but it certainly does say that there comes a point where it is essential to posit a contrast between the interior and the exterior, which makes a depiction of it impossible for art. This in turn is due to the singular nature of sorrow. By nature, joy wishes to disclose itself; sorrow wishes to conceal itself, indeed, at times even to deceive. Joy is communicative, sociable, open, wishes to express itself. Sorrow is inclosingly reserved [indesluttet], silent, solitary, and seeks to return into itself. Surely no one who has made life the object of any observation at all will deny the correctness of this. There are people whose make-up is so constituted that when their emotions are stirred the blood rushes to the surface of the skin, and in this way the interior motion becomes visible in the exterior; others are so constituted that the blood recedes, withdraws into the heart chamber and the inner parts of the organism. It is somewh;tt like this with respect to the mode of expressing joy and sorrow. The first make-up described is much easier to observe than the second. In the first, one sees the manifestation; the interior motion is visible in the exterior. In the second, one has an intimation of the interior motion. The exterior pallor is, as it were, the interior's good-bye, and thought and imagination hurry after the fugitive, which hides in the secret recesses. This applies particularly to the kind of sorrow I shall consider more explicitly here, what could be called reflective sorrow. Here the exterior has at most only a suggestion that puts one on the track, sometimes not even that much. This sorrow cannot be depicted artistically, for the interior and the exterior are out of balance, and thus it does not lie within spatial categories. In yet another respect it cannot be depicted artistically, for it does not have inner stillness but is constantly in motion; even if this motion does not enrich it with new effects, the motion itself is nevertheless the essential. Like a squirrel in its cage, it turns around in itself, yet not as uniformly as does that animal, but with a continual alternation in the combination of the interior elements of sorrow. What excludes reflective sorrow as the subject for artistic depiction is that it lacks repose, is not at one with itself, does not come to rest in anyone definite expression. Just as the patient in his pain tosses from one side to the other, so reflective sorrow is tossed about in order to find its object and its expression. If the sorrow is in repose, the interior of sorrow will gradually work its way outward, become visible in the exterior, and in this way become a subject for artistic depiction. If sorrow has inner repose and rest, the motion begins outward from the inside; reflective sorrow moves inward, like blood rushing from the outer surface, and lets one have an intimation of it only because of the fleeting pallor. Reflective sorrow does not involve any essential change in the exterior; even in the first moment of sorrow it hurries inward, and only the more careful observer has an intimation of its disappearance; later it carefully sees to it that the exterior is as inconspicuous as possible. By withdrawing inward in this way, it finally finds an inclosure, an innermost retreat, where it thinks it can remain, and now it begins its uniform movement. Like the pendulum in a clock, it swings back and forth and cannot find rest. It continually begins from the beginning and deliberates anew, interrogates the witnesses, checks and examines the various statements, something it has already done hundreds of times, but it is never finished. In the course of time, the uniformity has something anesthetizing about it. Just as the uniform dripping of rain from the roof, the uniform whirring of a spinning wheel, and the monotonous sound of a man pacing back and forth with measured steps on the floor above have an anesthetizing effect, so reflective grief eventually finds solace in this motion, which as an illusory motion becomes a necessity for it. At last there is a kind of balance; the need to give vent to the grief, insofar as it may ever have asserted itself at all, ceases; the exterior is calm and quiet; and deep within, in its little nook, grief lives like a well-guarded prisoner in an underground prison, who lives on year after year in his uniform movement, walking to and fro in his cubbyhole, never weary of traveling the long or short road of sorrow. Reflective sorrow can be occasioned in part by the individual's subjective quality, in part by the objective sorrow or the occasion of the sorrow. A morbidly reflective individual will transform every sorrow into a reflective sorrow; his individual make-up and structure render it impossible for him to assimilate the sorrow right away. But this is a morbidity that cannot be of particular interest to us, because in that way every accidentality can undergo a metamorphosis by which it becomes a reflective sorrow. It is another matter when the objective sorrow or the occasion of the sorrow in the individual himself fosters the reflection that makes the sorrow into a reflective sorrow. This is everywhere the case when the objective sorrow in itself is not finished, when it leaves a doubt, whatever its nature is. Here at once a great multiplicity appears for thought, greater according to the richness of one's life and experience or one's inclination to engage one's keenness in such imaginary constructions. But it is by no means my intention to go through the whole multiplicity; I want to single out only one aspect as it has appeared for my observation. If the occasion for sorrow is a deception, then the objective sorrow itself is of such a quality that it engenders reflective sorrow in the individual. That a deception is actually a deception is often very difficult to determine clearly, and yet everything depends upon that. As long as this is debatable, the sorrow will find no repose but must continue to ramble back and forth in reflection. Furthermore, if this deception does not involve anything external but a person's whole inner life, his life's innermost core, the probability of the continuance of the objective sorrow becomes greater and greater. But what can more truthfully be called a woman's life than her love? Consequently, if the sorrow of an unhappy love is due to a deception, we have unconditionally a reflective sorrow, whether it continues for a lifetime or the individual conquers it. Unhappy love is in itself undoubtedly the deepest sorrow for a woman, but it does not follow from this that every unhappy love engenders a reflective sorrow. If, for example, the beloved dies, or she perhaps does not find her love returned at all, or her life situation makes the fulfillment of her wish impossible, this certainly is an occasion for sorrow, but not a reflective sorrow, except to the extent that the person concerned was morbid before, and then she thereby lies outside our interest. But if she is not morbid, then her sorrow becomes an immediate sorrow and as such can also become the subject of artistic portrayal, whereas on the other hand it is impossible for art to express and portray the reflective sorrow or the point of it. In other words, immediate sorrow is the immediate imprint and expression of the sorrow's impression, which, just like the picture Veronica preserved on her linen cloth, is perfectly congruous, and sorrow's sacred lettering is stamped on the exterior, beautiful and clear and legible to all. Reflective sorrow, then, cannot become a subject for artistic portrayal. For one thing, it is never really present but is continually in the process of becoming; for another, the exterior, the visible, is a matter of unimportance and indifference. So if art will not limit itself to the naIvete (examples are found in old books) in which a figure is portrayed that can represent almost anything, but one discovers on its breast a plaque, a heart or something similar, on which one may read everything, especially when the figure's posture draws a person's attention to it, even points to it, an effect that could just as well be achieved by writing above it "Please note!"-if art will not do this, it will be obliged to reject pictures of that kind and leave reflective grief to poetic or psychological treatment. It is this reflective sorrow that I aim to single out and, as far as possible, have emerge in a few pictures. I call them silhouettes [Skyggerids], partly to suggest at once by the name that I draw them from the dark side of life and partly because, like silhouettes, they are not immediately visible. If! pick up a silhouette, I have no impression of it, cannot arrive at an actual conception of it; only when I hold it up toward the wall and do not look at it directly but at what appears on the wall, only then do I see it. So it is also with the picture I want to show here, an interior picture that does not become perceptible until I see through the exterior. Perhaps there is nothing striking about the exterior, but when I look through it, only then do I discover the interior picture, which is what I want to show, an interior picture that is too delicate to be externally perceptible, since it is woven from the soul's faintest moods. If! look at a sheet of paper, it perhaps has nothing remarkable about it for immediate inspection, but as soon as I hold it up to the light of day and look through it, I discover the subtle interior picture,  too psychical, as it were, to be seen immediately. So fasten your gaze, dear ~lJ~JtaQavExQw~EVOL, on this interior picture; do not let yourselves be distracted by the exterior, or, more correctly, do not produce it yourselves, for I shall continually draw it aside in order to penetrate better into the interior. But presumably I do not need to encourage this society, of which I have the honor to be a member, to do this, for although we are young, we nevertheless are all old enough not to let ourselves be deceived by the exterior or to stop with that. Would I be indulging in a vain hope if! believed that you will do these pictures the honor of your attention, or would my efforts be foreign and of no consequence to you, not in harmony with the interest of our society, a society that knows but one passion, namely, sympathy with sorrow's secret. As a matter of fact, we, too, form an order; we, too, now and then go out into the world like knights-errant, each his own way, not to fight monsters or come to the aid of innocence or be tried in amorous adventures. All this is of no concern to us, not even the last, for the arrow in a woman's eye does not wound our hardened breasts, and the cheery smiles of happy maidens do not move us, but rather the secret hint of grief. Let others be proud that no girl anywhere can resist their erotic power; we envy them not. We shall be proud that no secret sorrow escapes our attention, that no solitary sorrow is so prudish and so proud that we do not succeed in penetrating its innermost hideout! Which contest is the most dangerous, which requires the most skill and provides the greatest pleasure, we shall not investigate. Our choice is made: we love only sorrow. We are in quest only of sorrow, and wherever we find its trail, we follow it, fearlessly, unwaveringly, until it discloses itself. For this fight we equip ourselves; we practice fighting daily. It is true that sorrow sneaks about in the world so very secretively that only the person who has sympathy for it gains an intimation of it. One walks down the street; one house looks like the other. Only the experienced observer suspects that in this particular house things are quite otherwise at the midnight hour; then an unhappy person paces about, one who found no rest; he goes up the stairs, and his footsteps echo in the stillness of the night. People pass one another in the street; one person looks just like the next, and the next one is like almost everyone else. Only the experienced observer suspects that deep within that one's head resides a lodger who has nothing to do with the world but lives out his solitary life in quiet home-industry work. The exterior, then, is indeed the object of our scrutiny but not of our interest. In the same way, the fisherman sits and looks fixedly at the float; the float, however, does not interest him at all, but rather the movements down at the bottom. Therefore the exterior does indeed have significance for us, but not as a manifestation of the interior, but rather as a telegraphic report that there is something hidden deep within. When one looks long and attentively at a face, sometimes another face, as it were, is discovered within the face one sees. Ordinarily this is an unmistakable sign that the soul is hiding an emigrant who has withdrawn from the exterior face in order to watch over a buried treasure, and the route for the operation of observation is suggested by the fact that the one face seems to be within the other, which indicates that one must try to penetrate inward if one wants to discover anything. The face, which usually is the mirror of the soul, here takes on an ambiguity that cannot be artistically portrayed and that usually lasts only for a fleeting moment. It takes a special eye to see it, a special vision to pursue this unerring indication of secret sorrow. This vision is avid and yet so scrupulous, alarming, and compelling, and yet so sympathetic, persevering, and cunning, and yet so honest and well disposed; it lulls the individual into a sort of pleasant lassitude in which he finds a sensual pleasure in pouring out his sorrow, similar to the sensual pleasure in bleeding to death. The present is forgotten, the exterior is penetrated; the past is resurrected, sorrow's breathing is eased. The person who is grieving finds relief, and the sympathetic knight of grief rejoices over having found what he sought, for we seek not the present but the past, not joy, for it is always present, but sorrow, for its nature is to pass by, and in the present moment we see it just as we see a person when we catch sight of him for just a moment and then he turns down another street and disappears. But sometimes the sorrow conceals itself even better, and the exterior allows us to suspect nothing, not the slightest. It can elude our attention for a long time, but when by chance a look, a word, a sigh, a tone in the voice, a hint in the eyes, a trembling of the lips, or a blunder in the handshake treacherously betrays what has been carefully concealed-then passion is aroused, then the struggle begins. Then it is a matter ofhaving vigilance and perseverance and sagacity, for who is as inventive as secret sorrow, but a solitary lifetime prisoner has adequate time to think up many things, and who is as swift to find concealment as secret sorrow, for no young girl can cover in greater anxiety and haste a bosom she has exposed than hidden sorrow when it is surprised. Then unshakable dauntlessness is required, for the struggle is with a Proteus, but he must give up if one only holds out. Even iflike that sea god he assumed every shape in order to escape, such as a snake twisting in our hands, a lion terrifying us with its roaring, changed into a tree that whispers with its leaves or into roaring water or a crackling fire--at last he must nevertheless prophesy, and sorrow must disclose itself at last. See, these adventures are our delight, our diversion; to try ourselves in them is our knighthood. For that purpose, we arise in the middle of the night like robbers; this is why we risk everything, for no passion is as wild as the passion of sympathy. And we need not fear that there will be a lack of adventures for us but rather fear collision with opposition that is too hard and impregnable, for just as natural scientists report that in blasting boulders that have defied the centuries they have found deep within a living creature that, undiscovered, has maintained life, so also it is indeed possible that there are human beings whose exterior is a firm-as-rock hill that guards their forever hidden life of sorrow. This, however, will not temper our passion or cool our zeal; on the contrary, it will inflame it, because our passion, after all, is not curiosity that satisfies itself with the exterior and the superficial but is a sympathetic anxiety that searches the minds  and hidden thoughts, conjures forth what is hidden by means of witchcraft and invocations, even that which death has withheld from our gaze. It is said that Saul, before the battle, came in disguise to a fortune teller and demanded that she show him Samuel's image.  It surely was not only curiosity that impelled him, not a desire to see Samuel's visible image, but he wanted to know his thoughts, and he undoubtedly waited uneasily until he heard the rigorous judge's censorious voice. Likewise it surely will not simply be curiosity that moves one or another of you, my dear ~lJ~JtaQavExQwâ­ f,tEVOl, to contemplate the pictures I am going to show you. Although I designate them with specific poetic names, by no means is it suggested thereby that it is only these poetic figures who appear before you, but the names must be regarded as nomina appellativa [common nouns], and from my side there is nothing to hinder anyone of you, if you feel inclined, from giving a particular picture another name, a more appealing name, or a name that perhaps comes more naturally to you. Marie Beaumarchais The girl taken as our subject is known to us in Goethe's Clavigo, except that we shall follow her a little further in time, when she has lost dramatic interest, when the accompaniments of sorrow have gradually abated. We shall continue to follow her, for we, knights of sympathy, havejust as much innate gift as acquired skill in being able to keep step in procession with sorrow. Her story is brief: Clavigo became engaged to her; Clavi go left her. This information is enough for the person who is in the habit of observing the phenomena of life as one observes rarities in a curio cabinet; the shorter the better, the more one can manage to see. In the same way, it could be told very briefly that Tantalus thirsts and that Sisyphus rolls a stone up the mountain. IS If someone is in a hurry, it would indeed be a delay to dwell on it any further, since one cannot learn any more than one already knows, which is the whole thing. Whatever is to claim more attention must be of another kind. A group of intimates is gathered around the tea table. The samovar is singing its last verse, and the hostess asks the mysterious stranger to unburden his heart. With that in mind, she has sugar-water andjam brought in, and now he begins. It is a long, prolix story. So it goes in novels, and it is also something quite different: a prolix story and such a brieflittle announcement. Whether it is a brief story for Marie Beaumarchais is another question. One thing is sure; it is not prolix, for a prolix story nevertheless has a measurable length, but a short story sometimes has the mysterious quality that despite all its brevity it is longer than the most prolix. In what has been stated in the foregoing discussion, I have already pointed out that reflective grief does not become visible in the exterior, that is, it does not find its beautiful, composed expression therein. The interior unrest does not permit this transparency, and the exterior is more likely to be consumed thereby; insofar as the interior would declare itself in the exterior, it would likely be a kind of morbidity, which can never become a subject for artistic portrayal, since it does not have the interest of the beautiful. Goethe has suggested this by a few particular hints.  But even if there is agreement on the correctness of this observation, there could be a temptation to regard it as something incidental, and not until one is assured, by deliberating purely poetically and esthetically, that wha the observation states has esthetic truth, not until then will one gain a deeper consciousness. Now, if! were to imagine a reflective sorrow and asked if it could not be portrayed artistically, it would immediately be apparent that the exterior is altogether incidental to it; but if this is true, then artistic beauty is abandoned. Whether she is large or small, significant or insignificant, beautiful or not so beautiful, this is of no consequence; to deliberate on whether it would be more proper to have her incline her head to this side or to that or toward the ground, to have her gaze gloomily or sadly fix her eyes on the ground-all this is utterly inconsequential; the one expresses the reflective sorrow no more adequately than the other. In comparison with the interior, the exterior has become insignificant and inconsequential. The point in reflective sorrow is that the sorrow is continually seeking its object; this seeking is the sorrow's restlessness and its life. But this seeking is a continual fluctuation, and if at every moment the exterior were a perfect expression of the interior, then there would have to be a whole series of pictures in order to portray reflective sorrow; but no particular picture would express the sorrow, and no particular picture would have real artistic value, since it would be not beautiful, but true. These pictures must be looked at in the way one looks at the second hand of a watch; one does not see the works, but the interior movement expresses itself continually in the continually changing exterior. But this changeableness cannot be portrayed artistically, and yet this is the point of the whole thing. If, for example, unhappy love is due to a deception, then its pain and suffering are that the grief cannot find its object. If the deception is proved and the person concerned has perceived that it is a deception, the sorrow certainly does not cease, but then it is an immediate sorrow, not a reflective sorrow. Here the dialectical difficulty is obvious, for what is she sorrowing over? Ifhe was a deceiver, then it was indeed good that he left her, the earlier the better; she should rejoice over it instead and sorrow because she had loved him, and yet it is a deep sorrow that he was a deceiver. But whether it is a deception is the restlessness in sorrow's perpetuum mobile. To establish certainty for the external fact that a deception is a deception is always very difficult, and yet that by no means ends the matter or stops the movement. For love [Kjerrlighed], a deception is indeed an absolute paradox, and therein lies the necessity of a reflective grief. The different factors in love may be amalgamated in the individual in very different ways, and thus love in one person may not be the same as in another; the egotistical may be dominant, or the sympathetic. But whatever the love is in its separate elements and also in its totality, a deception is a paradox that it cannot think, and yet one that it eventually wants to think. Indeed, if the egotistic or the sympathetic element is present absolutely, the paradox is canceled; that is, in the power of the absolute, the individual is beyond reflection. To be sure, he does not think the paradox in the sense that he cancels it by a reflective "how," but he is saved precisely by not thinking it; he is not concerned with reflection's busy reports or confusions-he reposes in himself. Because of its pride, the egotistically proud love regards a deception as impossible; it is not concerned with finding out what can be said for or against, how the person concerned can be defended or excused; it is absolutely sure, because it is too proud to believe that anyone would dare to deceive it. Sympathetic love possesses the faith that can move mountains;! for it, any defense is nothing compared with its unshakable conviction that it was no deception. Every charge proves nothing to the advocate, who explains that it was no deception, explains it not this way or that-but absolutely. But a love like that is seldom seen in this life, or perhaps never. Usually both factors are present in love, and this brings it into relation to the paradox. In the two instances described, the paradox indeed exists for love but does not concern it; in the latter instance, the paradox exists for love. The paradox is unthinkable, and yet love wants to think it, and, in accordance with the momentary predominance of the various factors, it makes an approach in order to think it, often in contradictory ways, but it does not succeed. This path of thinking is infinite and does not end until the individual arbitrarily breaks it off by affirming something else, by a determination of the will; but the individual thereby enters into ethical qualifications and does not engage us esthetically. By a resolve, it attains what it cannot attain on the road of reflection: an end, repose. This holds for every unhappy love that is due to a deception. What may evoke reflective grief even more in Maria Beaumarchais is that it is only an engagement that has been broken. An engagement is a possibility, not an actuality; but precisely because it is only a possibility, it may seem that the effects of being broken are not so great, that it is far easier for the individual to bear this blow. This may indeed be the case at times, but on the other hand the circumstance that it is only a possibility that is destroyed entices much more reflection. When an actuality is shattered, the break is usually far more radical; every nerve is cut, and the break as a break has an implicit completeness. When a possibility is shattered, the momentary pain may not be as great, but frequently it also leaves a little ligament or two whole and undamaged, which remains a constant occasion for continued pain. The destroyed possibility appears transfigured in a higher possibility, whereas the temptation to conjure up a new possibility such as this is not as great when it is an actuality that has been shattered, because the actuality is higher than the possibility. So Clavi go has left her, has perfidiously severed the connection. Accustomed to leaning on him, she does not have the strength to stand when he thrusts her away, and she collapses weakly into the arms of those around her. This seems to be Marie's situation. However, another beginning is also conceivable; it is conceivable that immediately at the outset she had sufficient strength to transform her sorrow into reflective sorrow, that she-either to avoid the humiliation of hearing others talk about her having been deceived or because she nevertheless still thought so highly of him that it would hurt her to hear him denounced again and again as a deceiverpromptly severed all connections with others in order to consume the sorrow in herself and to consume herself in the sorrow. We follow Goethe. Those around her are not unsympathetic; they feel her pain with her, and in feeling it they say: This will be the death of her. Esthetically speaking, this is altogether correct. An unhappy love may be of such a nature that suicide may be regarded as esthetically proper, but then it must not have been due to a deception. If that is the case, then the suicide would lose all loftiness and involve a concession that pride must refuse to give. If, however, it is the death of her, this is the same as saying that he has murdered her. This expression harmonizes entirely with her powerful inner agitation; she finds alleviation in it. But life does not always follow precisely esthetic categories, does not always obey an esthetic norm, and she does not die. This places those around her in an awkward position. They sense that it is inappropriate to go on declaring that she is going to die when she continues to live; in addition, they do not feel able to do it with the same pathos-filled energy as at the beginning, and yet this was a prerequisite if there was to be any solace for her. So they change their method. He was a villain, they say, a deceiver, an abominable person not worth dying for. Forget him; don't give this thing another thought; it was only an engagement. Blot this incident out of your recollection, and once again you are young, can hope again. This incites her, for this pathos of wrath harmonizes with her other moods; her pride finds satisfaction in the vengeful idea of changing the whole thing into a nothing. It was not because he was an extraordinary person that she loved him, far from it; she was very aware of his faults, but she believed he was a good man, a faithful man, and that was why she loved him. It was out of compassion, and therefore it will be easy to forget him, because she never really needed him. Marie and those around her are once again in tune, and the duet between them goes beautifully. Those around her do not find it difficult to believe that Clavigo was a deceiver, for they had never loved him, and therefore there is no paradox. Insofar as they perhaps had liked him (something Goethe suggests with respect to the sister), this very interest arms them against him, and this kindly disposition, which perhaps was little more than kindness, becomes superb inflammable stuff to sustain the flames of hate. Nor do those around her find it difficult to blot out the recollection of him, and therefore they demand that Marie do the same. Her pride breaks forth in hate; those around her add fuel to the flames. She finds relief in violent words and vigorous, drastic intentions and becomes selfintoxicated with them. Those around her are pleased. They do not perceive-something she will scarcely admit to herselfthat in the next moment she is weak and listless; they do not perceive that she is gripped by the anxious presentiment that the energy she has at a particular moment is an illusion. This she carefully hides and confesses to no one. Those around her continue their theoretical exercises successfully but nevertheless begin to want to see tokens of practical effects. They fail to appear. Those around her continue to incite her; her words manifest interior strength, and yet they have a suspicion that there is something wrong. They become impatient, risk the extreme; they drive the spurs of ridicule into her side in order to drive her from cover. It is too late. Misunderstanding has entered in. That he actually was a deceiver entails no humiliation for those around her, but it certainly does for Marie. The revenge offered her, to scorn him, does not really mean very much, because in order for it to mean something he would have to love her, but that he certainly does not do, and her contempt becomes a check that no one will cash. On the other hand, in Clavigo's being a deceiver there is nothing painful for those around her, but there certainly is for Marie, and he still does not totally lack a defender in her inner being. She feels that she has gone too far; she has hinted at a strength she does not possess; she will not admit it. And what consolation is there in scorning him? Then it is better to grieve. In addition, she has in her possession a secret note or two of great importance for clarification of the text but also of such a nature as to place him in a more favorable or more unfavorable light according to the circumstances. She has not, however, initiated anyone into this and does not wish to do so, for if he was not a deceiver, then it would still be conceivable that he would repent of this step and come back or, even more glorious, that he perhaps would not need to repent of it, that he could completely justify himself or explain everything. In that case, it might become an offense if she had made use of it; then the old relationship could never be re-established, and it would be her own fault, for it was she who had shared with others his love's most secret growth with others. And if she could really be convinced that he was a deceiver, well, then nothing mattered anyway, and in any case it would be most gracious of her not to make use of it. In this way, those around her have been instrumental, against their will, in developing a new passion in her, jealousy for her own sorrow. Her decision is made; on every score those around her lack the energy to harmonize with her passion-she takes the veil. She does not enter the convent, but she takes the veil of sorrow, which hides her from every alien glance. Outwardly she is quiet. The whole affair is forgotten; her words give no hint. She herself takes the vow of sorrow, and now she begins her lonely, hidden life. At the same moment, everything is changed; previously it seemed to her as if she could speak with others, but now she is not only bound by the vow of silence that her pride extorted from her with the consent of her love, or that her love required and her pride sanctioned, but now she does not know at all where she is to begin, or how, and this is not because new factors have intervened but because reflection has triumphed. If anyone were now to ask her what she was sorrowing over, she would have nothing to reply, or she would reply in the same way as that sage  who was asked what religion is, and he asked for time to think, and more time to think, and thus the reply was always due. Now she is lost to the world, lost to those around her, immured alive; sadly she closes the last opening. She feels that even at this moment it was perhaps possible to become open; the next moment she is forever removed from them. But it is decided, unshakably decided, and she does not need to fear-as is usual with one who is immured alive--that when the scanty ration of bread and water provided her is used up she will perish, for she has nourishment for a long time. She does not need to fear boredom; she indeed does have something to occupy her. Her exterior is quiet and calm, has nothing remarkable about it, and yet her inner being is not the incorruptible essence of a quiet spirit  but the barren busyness of a restless spirit. She seeks solitude or its opposite. In solitude, she relaxes from the strain always required in forcing her exterior into a particular form. Just as someone who has been standing or sitting for a long time in a forced position pleasurably stretches his body, just as a branch that has long been bent by force and then, when the bond is broken, joyfully takes its natural position again, so also does she find refreshment. Or she seeks the opposite, noise and diversion, in order to be safely preoccupied with herself while everyone else's attention is led to other things, and what is going on around her, the sounds of music, the noisy conversation, sounds so distant that it seems as if she were sitting in a little room by herself, remote from the whole world. And if she perhaps cannot force back the tears, then she is sure to be misunderstood; then perhaps she cries herself out, for when one lives in an ecclesia pressa [persecuted church], it is truly a joy that one's divine service harmonizes in its mode of expression with the public mode. She fears only the quieter sociality, for here she is less unguarded; here it is so easy to make a blunder, so difficult to prevent its being noticed. Outwardly, then, there is nothing to be detected, but inwardly there is bustling activity. Here an interrogation is taking place that with perfect right and special emphasis may be called the third degree; everything is brought out and scrupulously examined-his figure, his facial expression, his voice, his words. It is said that it has sometimes happened that an interrogator, during a third degree such as this, has been captivated by the beauty of the accused, has halted the interrogation, and has been unable to continue it. The court expectantly awaits the result of his interrogation, but it fails to come, and yet it is not at all because the interrogator is neglecting his duty. The jailer can testify that he reports every night, that the accused is brought in, that the interrogation lasts several hours, that during his term there has never been an interrogator as persevering as this official. The court draws the conclusion from all this that it must be a very complicated case. So it goes with her-not just once, but again and again. Everything is presented just as it happened, trustworthily; it demands justice--and love. The accused is summoned: "There he comes, he is turning the corner, he is opening the wicket. See how he hurries; he has longed for me; it is as ifhe threw everything aside in order to come to me as soon as possible. I hear his quick footsteps, faster than my heartbeats; he is coming, there he is "-and the interrogation: it is postponed. "Good Lord, that little phrase--I have repeated it so often to myself, recalled it amid many other things, but I have never paid attention to what is really concealed in it. Yes, it explains everything. He is not in earnest about leaving me; he is coming back. What is the whole world compared with this little phrase. People became tired of me. I did not have a friend, but now I have a friend, a confidant, a little phrase that explains everything. -He returns; he does not look down; he looks at me half reproachfully and says:  you oflittle faith, and this little phrase is poised like an olive leaf on his lips-he is there"-and the interrogation is postponed. Under such circumstances, it is quite in order that there are enormous difficulties involved in passing judgment. A young girl, of course, is not a jurist, but it by no means follows that she cannot pass judgment, and yet this young girl's judgment will always be such that although at first glance it is a judgment, it also contains something more that shows that it is no judgment, and also shows that the very next moment a completely opposite judgment may be passed. "He was no deceiver, because in order to be that, he would have had to be conscious of it himself from the beginning, but that he was not; my heart tells me that he loved me." If the concept of a deceiver is advanced in this way, then perhaps, when all is said and done, a deceiver has never lived. To acquit him for this reason shows an interest in the accused that is incompatible with strict justice and cannot stand up against a single objection. "He was a deceiver, an abominable person, who coldly and heartlessly has made me inordinately unhappy. Before I knew him, I was satisfied. Yes, it is true that I had no idea that I could be so happy or that there was such a wealth injoy as he taught me, but neither did I have any idea that I could become as unhappy as he has taught me to be. Therefore I will hate him, abominate him, curse him. Yes, I curse you, Clavigo; in the secrecy of my soul I curse you. No one must know it; I cannot allow anyone else to do it, for no one but me has the right to do it. I have loved you as no one else has, but  also hate you, for no one knows your cunning as  do. You good gods, to whom revenge belongs, entrust it to me for a little while;  will not misuse it, I will not be cruel. Then I will steal into his soul when he wants to love another-not in order to kill this love; that would be no punishment, for  know that he loves her just as little as he loved me. He does not love people at all; he loves only ideas, thoughts, his powerful influence at court, his intellectual power-I cannot imagine how he can love all these things. I will take it all away from him; then he will learn to know my pain. When he is on the verge of despair, I will give it all back to him again, but he will have me to thank for it-and then I shall be avenged. "No, he was no deceiver. He did not love me anymore; that is why he left me, but that, after all, was no deception. If he had stayed with me without loving me, then he would have been a deceiver; then like a pensioner I would have lived on the love he once had had, lived on his pity, on the mite he perhaps even generously had thrown to me, lived as a burden to him and a torture to myself. Shame on you, wretched, cowardly heart; hold yourself in contempt; learn to be great, learn it from him; he has loved me better than I have understood how to love myself. And I should be angry with him? No, I will go on loving him because his love was stronger, his thoughts prouder, than my weakness and my cowardliness. And perhaps he even still loves me--yes, it was for love of me that he left me. "Yes, now I see it; now I no longer doubt-he was a deceiver.  saw him: he looked proud and exultant; he surveyed me with a mocking glance. At his side was a Spanish girl, luxuriant in beauty. Why was she so beautiful-I could murder her-why am  not just as beautiful? And was  not? -I did not know it, but he taught it to me-and why am I no longer beautiful? Who is to blame for it? Curse you, Clavigo! If you had stayed with me, I would have become even more beautiful, for my love and, along with it, my beauty increased through your words and your assurances. Now I am faded; now I thrive no longer. Compared with a word from you, what power does the tenderness of the whole world have? Oh, would that I were beautiful once again; would that I could please him once again, because only for that reason do I want to be beautiful. Oh, would that he were no longer able to love youth and beauty; then I shall lament more than before, and who can lament as I do! "Yes, he was a deceiver. Otherwise, how could he stop loving me? Have I, then, stopped loving him? Is there not the same law for a man's love as for a woman's? Or is a man supposed to be weaker than the weak? Or did he perhaps make a mistake; was it perhaps an illusion that he loved me, an illusion that disappeared like a dream-is this befitting in a man? Or was it fickleness; is it befitting for a man to be fickle? Why, then, did he assure me in the beginning that he loved me so much? Iflove cannot last, what, then, can last? Yes, Clavigo, you have robbed me of everything, my faith, my faith in love, not just in your love! "He was no deceiver. What snatched him away, I do not know; I do not know that dark power, but it pained him personally, pained him deeply. He did not want to initiate me into his pain; therefore he pretended to be a deceiver. Indeed, if he had taken up with another girl, then I would say he was a deceiver, then no power on earth would bring me to believe anything else, but that he has not done. He thinks perhaps that making himself appear to be a deceiver will diminish the pain for me, will arm me against him. Therefore he appears now and then with young girls, therefore he looked at me so mockingly the other day-to make me furious and thereby to liberate me. No, surely he was no deceiver, and how could that voice deceive? It was so calm and yet so agitated; it sounded from an inwardness, the depth of which I could scarcely suspect, as if it were breaking a path through masses of rock. Can that voice deceive? What is the voice, then-is it a stroke of the tongue, a noise that one can produce as one wishes? But it must have a home somewhere in the soul; it must have a birthplace. And that it did, in the innermost recess of his heart it had its home; there he loved me, there he loves me. To be sure, he had another voice also; it was cold, chilling; it could murder every joy in my soul, squelch every joyous thought, make even my kiss cold and abhorrent to me. Which was the true voice? He could deceive in every way, but this I feel-that tremulous voice in which his whole passion throbbed-that was no deceit; it is impossible. The other was a deception. Or there were evil forces that gained control of him. No, he was no deceiver; that voice that has shackled me to him foreverthat is no deception. A deceiver he was not, even though I never understood him. " The interrogation she will never finish, nor the judgment, either-the interrogation, because there are always interruptions; the judgment, because it is only a feeling. Once this movement begins, it can go on as long as it pleases, and there is no end in sight. Only by a break can it be brought to a haltthat is, by her cutting short this whole movement of thought; but this cannot happen, for the will is continually in the service of reflection, which energizes the momentary passion. When at times she wants to tear herself away from all this, wants to reduce it to nothing, this is again only a mood, a momentary passion, and reflection continually goes on being the victor. Mediation is impossible; if she wants to begin so that this beginning in one way or another is a result of the operations of reflection, then at the same moment she is swept away. The will must be altogether impartial, must begin in the power of its own willing; only then can there be any question of a beginning. If this happens, then she certainly can begin, but then she falls outside our concern entirely, then we gladly turn her over to the moralists or to whoever else wants to take an interest in her. We wish her an honorable marriage and promise to dance on her wedding day, when fortunately the changed name will bring us to forget that it was the Marie Beaumarchais of whom we have spoken. But we return to Marie Beaumarchais. As stated above, her sorrow is characterized by the restlessness that prevents her from finding the object of her sorrow. Her pain cannot find quiet; she lacks the peace that is necessary for any life if it is to be able to assimilate its nourishment and be refreshed by it; no illusion overshadows her with its quiet coolness as she absorbs the pain. She lost childhood's illusion when she acquired that of erotic love; she lost erotic love's illusion when Clavigo deceived her; if it were possible for her to acquire sorrow's illusion, she would be helped. Then her grief would attain masculine maturity, and she would be compensated for her loss. But her sorrow does not thrive, for she has not lost Clavi gohe has deceived her. Her sorrow always remains a tiny wailing infant, a fatherless and motherless child, for if Clavigo had been taken from her, then the child would have had a father in the recollection of his faithfulness and love and a mother in Marie's ardor. She has nothing on which she can bring it up, because what she experienced was beautiful, to be sure, but it had no significance in and by itself but only as a foretaste of the future. And she cannot hope that this child of pain will be transformed into a son of joy; she cannot hope that Clavigo will return, for she will not have the strength to endure a future. She has lost the happy trust with which she would have accompanied him dauntlessly into the abyss, and she has acquired instead a hundred misgivings; at most she would only be able to live through the past with him once again. At the time Clavigo left her, a future lay before her, a future so beautiful, so enchanting, that it almost confused her thoughts; it obscurely exerted its power over her. Her metamorphosis had already begun; then the process was interrupted, her transformation stopped. She had had intimations of a new life, had sensed its powers stir within her; then it was broken off and she was repulsed, and there is no recompense for her, neither in this nor in the future world. That which was to come smiled upon her very generously and mirrored itself in the illusion of her erotic love, and yet everything was so natural and direct. Perhaps a weak reflection has sometimes painted for her a weak illusion that does not affect her temptingly but probably is soothing for a moment. Time will go on for her in this way-until she has consumed the very object of her sorrow, which was not identical with her sorrow but the occasion for her continually seeking an object of her sorrow. If a person possessed a letter that he knew or believed contained information about what he had to consider his life's happiness, but the characters were thin and faint and the handwriting almost illegible, then, presumably with anxiety and agitation, he would read it most passionately again and again and at one moment derive one meaning, at the next moment another, according to how he would explain everything by a word he believed that he had deciphered with certainty, but he would never progress beyond the same uncertainty with which he had begun. He would stare, more and more anxiously, but the more he stared, the less he would see. His eyes would sometimes be filled with tears, but the more frequently this happened to him, the less he would see. In the course of time, the writing would become fainter and less legible; finally the paper itself would crumble away, and he would have nothing left but tear-filled eyes. Donna Elvira We come to know this girl through the opera Don Giovanni, and it will not be unimportant to our subsequent exploration to note in the piece the clues to her earlier life. She was a nun; it is from the peacefulness of a convent that Don Giovanni has snatched her. This suggests the staggering intensity of her passion. This was no silly molly from a finishing school who has learned to love at school, to flirt at parties; whether such a one is seduced is not very important. Elvira, on the other hand, has been brought up under the discipline of the convent, which has not succeeded in rooting out her passion but presumably has taught her to suppress it and thereby to make it even more violent as soon as it is allowed to burst forth. She is sure prey for a Don Giovanni; he will know how to coax out the passion-wild, ungovernable, insatiable, to be satisfied only in his love. In him she has all, and the past is nothing; if she leaves him, she loses all, the past also. She had renounced the world; then there appeared a figure she cannot renounce, and that is Don Giovanni. From now on, she renounces everything in order to live with him. The more meaningful that was which she leaves, the more firmly must she cling to him; the more firmly she has embraced him, the more terrible becomes her despair when he leaves her. From the very outset, her love is a despair; nothing has meaning for her, neither in heaven nor on earth, except Don Giovanni. Elvira is of interest to us in the opera only insofar as her relation to Don Giovanni is of significance to him. If I were to suggest her significance in a few words, I would say that she is Don Giovanni's epic fate, and the Commendatore is his dramatic fate. There is in her a hatred that will seek out Giovanni in every nook, a flame of fire that will illuminate the darkest hiding place, and if she should still not discover him, then there is in her a love that will find him. She joins the others in pursuing Don Giovanni, but if I imagined that all the forces were neutralized, that his pursuers' endeavors canceled one another so that Elvira was alone with Don Giovanni and he was in her power, the hate would arm her to murder him. But her love would forbid it, not out of compassion, because to her he is too great for that, and thus she would continually keep him alive, for if she killed him she would kill herself. Consequently, if there were in the piece no forces in motion against Don Giovanni except Elvira, it would never end, for Elvira herself would prevent, if possible, even the lightning from striking him, in order to take revenge herself, and yet again she would be unable to take revenge. Such is her interest for us in the piece, but here we are concerned only with her relation to Don Giovanni insofar as it has meaning for her. She is the object of interest to many, but in very different ways. Don Giovanni is interested in her before the opera begins; the spectator bestows on her his dramatic interest; but we friends of grief, we accompany her not only to the nearest cross street, not only in the moment when she walks across the stage-no, we accompany her on her solitary way. So, then, Don Giovanni has seduced Elvira and has forsaken her; this is speedily done, as quickly "as the tiger breaks a lily. " If there are, in Spain alone, one is able to see that Don Giovanni is in a hurry and can more or less reckon the speed of the operation. Don Giovanni has forsaken her, but there is no circle of friends into whose arms she can collapse in a swoon. She need not fear that they will surround her too closely-indeed, they know very well how to open ranks in order to expedite her departure. She need not fear that anyone will argue her out of her loss-instead someone may take it upon himself to demonstrate it. She stands alone and forsaken, and no doubt tempts her; it is clear that he was a deceiver who has divested her of everything and abandoned her to infamy and disgrace. Esthetically speaking, however, this is not the worst for her; for a brief time, it rescues her from reflective sorrow, which is surely more painful than immediate grief. Here the fact is indubitable, and reflection cannot come along and change it now to this and now to that. A Marie Beaumarchais may have loved a Clavigo just as ardently, just as wildly and passionately; in relation to her passion, it may be an altogether accidental circumstance that the worst has not happened; she can almost wish that it had, for then there would be an end to the story, then she would be far better armed against him, but that did not happen. The fact she has before her is far more doubtful; its real nature always remains a secret between her and Clavigo. When she thinks of the cold cunning, the shabby commonsensicality it took to deceive her in such a way that it does not look so bad in the eyes of the world, so that she becomes prey to the sympathy that says, "Well, good Lord, it isn't so terrible," she is shocked, she can almost go insane at the thought of the proud superiority for which she has meant nothing at all, which has set a limit for her and said, "Up to here and no further." And yet the whole thing can also be explained in another, a more beautiful, way. But as the explanation changes, the fact itself also changes. Thus, reflection immediately has plenty to do, and reflective sorrow is inescapable. Don Giovanni has forsaken Elvira; everything is clear to her at once. No doubt coaxes sorrow into reflection's parlor; she falls silent in her despair. With a single pulse beat it streams through her, and its streaming is outward; in a blaze the passion shines through her and becomes visible externally. Hate, despair, revenge, love-all burst forth to manifest themselves visibly. At this moment she is pictorial. We immediately see a picture of her in our imagination, and here the exterior is not without significance, reflection over it is not without substance, and its activity is not without meaning as it sorts and chooses. Whether she herself at this moment is a subject for artistic portrayal is another matter, but this much is certain: at this moment she is visible and can be seen-not, of course, in the sense that this or that actual Elvira can actually be seen, which frequently is tantamount to not being seen, but the Elvira we imagine is visible in her essentiality. Whether art is capable of depicting the nuances of expression in her face to such a degree as to make visible the substance of her despair, I shall not decide; but she can be described, and the picture that emerges becomes not merely a burden for memory, which does not matter one way or another, but has its validity. And who has not seen Elvira! It was early one morning that I started a walking tour in one of Spain's romantic regions. Nature was waking up. The trees in the forest shook their heads, and the leaves rubbed, so to speak, the sleep out of their eyes; one tree leaned toward the other to see whether it was out of bed yet, and the whole forest undulated in the cool, fresh breeze. A light fog rose from the earth; the sun snatched it away as ifit were a blanket under which the earth had rested at night and now like a fond mother gazed down on the flowers and every living thing and said: Get up, dear children; the sun is already shining. As I wound my way through a deep mountain pass, my eyes fell on a cloister high up on the top of the mountain, to which a footpath led with many bends. My mind lingered on it-there it lies, I thought, like a house of God firmly grounded on the rock. My guide told me it was a convent known for its strict discipline. My pace slackened and my thoughts also, and what indeed is there to hurry after when one is so near the cloister? I probably would have come to a complete stop if I had not been aroused by a rapid movement nearby. Involuntarily I turned around; it was a knight who hastened past me. How handsome he was, his step so light and yet so vigorous, so royal and yet so fugitive; he turned his head to look back, his face so captivating and yet his glance so restless. It was Don Giovanni. Is he hurrying to a rendezvous, or is he coming from one! But soon he disappeared from my eyes and was gone from my thoughts; my gaze concentrated upon the cloister. Once again I was absorbed in contemplation of the lust oflife and the serene peace of the cloister, when high up on the mountain I saw a female figure. In great haste she came running down the footpath, but the way was steep, and she continually seemed about to plunge down the mountain. She came closer. Her face was pallid, but her eyes were frightfully ablaze. Her body was exhausted; her bosom rose and fell violently, and yet she hurried faster and faster. Her ruilled hair flew loosely in the wind, but even the brisk morning air and her hurried pace were not able to bring color to her cheeks. Her nun's veil was torn and fluttered behind her; her thin white dress would have betrayed much to a profane gaze if the passion in her face had not drawn to itself the attention of even the most corrupt of men. She rushed past me; I did not dare speak to her-her brow was too majestic, her glance too royal, her passion too highborn for that. Where did this girl belong? In the cloister? Do these passions belong there-in the world? This dress-why is she running? Is it to hide her shame and disgrace, or to catch up with Don Giovanni? She runs into the forest, and it closes around her and hides her, and I see her no more but hear only the sighing of the forest. Poor Elvira! Have the trees found out-and yet the trees are better than people, for trees sigh and are silent: people whisper. In this first moment, Elvira can be portrayed, and even if art does not really deal with such things because it will be difficult to find a unity of expression that also has all the multiplicity of her passions, the soul nevertheless demands to see her. I have tried to suggest this by the little picture I outlined above; it was not that I thought she wa? thereby portrayed, but I wanted to suggest that her being described was quite correct, that it was not a capricious whim on my part but a valid claim of the idea. But this is only one element, and therefore we must accompany Elvira further. The movement nearest at hand is a movement in time. Through a series of moments in time, she keeps herself at the almost picture-like peak suggested above. She thereby acquires dramatic interest. With the speed whereby she rushed past me, she catches up with Don Giovanni. This, too, is quite appropriate, for he did forsake her, but he has swept her along into the momentum of his own life, and she must reach him. If she does reach him, all her attention is once again directed outward, and we still do not have reflective sorrow. She has lost all-heaven when she chose the world, the world when she lost Giovanni. Therefore she has nowhere to turn except to him; only by being in his presence can she hold off despair, either by stifling the inner voices with the uproar of hate and rage, which sound in full force only when Don Giovanni is personally present, or by hoping. The latter already hints that the elements of reflective sorrow are present, but as yet they are unable to find time to consolidate inwardly. "First she must be cruelly convinced," so it says in Kruse's adaptation, but this requirement completely betrays the inner disposition. If what has happened has not convinced her that Giovanni was a deceiver, then she will never be convinced. But as long as she demands additional evidence, she will succeed in avoiding the inner turmoil of quiet despair by means of a restless roving life perpetually engaged in a pursuit of Don Giovanni. The paradox is already there before her soul, but as long as she can keep her soul in a state of agitation by means of external evidence that is not supposed to explain the past but throw light on Don Giovanni's present condition, she does not have reflective grief. Hate, bitterness, curses, entreaties, and beseeching alternate, but her soul has still not returned into itself in order to repose in the thought that she has been deceived. She is expecting an explanation from the outside. When, therefore, Kruse has Don Giovanni say: are you now disposed to hear, To take my word-you who suspect me; Then I can almost say, almost improbable Appears the cause that compelled etc., we must guard against thinking that what sounds like mockery to the spectator's ear has the same effect on Elvira. To her, these words are refreshing, for she demands the improbable, and she will believe it precisely because it is improbable. If we now have Don Giovanni and Elvira collide, then we have the choice between having Don Giovanni be the stronger or Elvira. Ifhe is the stronger, then her whole behavior means nothing. She demands "evidence in order to be cruelly convinced"; he is sufficiently gallant not to let it fail to appear. But she naturally is not convinced and demands new evidence, because demanding evidence is a relief, and the uncertainty is refreshing. She then becomes just one more witness to Don Giovanni's achievements. But we could also imagine Elvira as the stronger. That seldom happens, but out of gallantry toward the fair sex we shall do it. She is, then, still in her full beautyit is true that she has wept, but the tears have not quenched the gleam in her eyes; and it is true that she has sorrowed, but sorrow has not ravaged her youthful luxuriance; and it is true that she has grieved, but her grief has not gnawed away at the vitality of her beauty; and it is true that her cheeks have become pallid, but the expression is therefore all the more soulful; and it is true she does not move with the lightness of childlike innocence, but she does step forth with the energetic firmness of feminine passion. This is how she encounters Don Giovanni. She has loved him more than the whole world, more than her soul's salvation; she has cast away everything for him, even her honor, and he was unfaithful. Now she knows only one passionhate; only one thought-revenge. Thus, she is just as great as Don Giovanni, because seducing all the maidens means for the man the same as for the woman-to let herself be seduced once and for all, heart and soul, and then to hate-or, if you please, to love her seducer with an energy that no married woman has. This is how she encounters him. She does not lack the courage to venture out against him; she is not fighting for moral principles, she is fighting for her love, a love she does not base on respect; she is not fighting to become his mate, she is fighting for her love, and this is not satisfied with a contrite faithfulness but demands revenge. Out oflove of him, she has cast away her salvation-if it were offered her again, she would again cast it away in order to avenge herself. Such a character can never fail in its desired effect upon Don Giovanni. He knows the pleasure of inhaling the finest and most fragrant flower of early youth; he knows that it is just for a moment, and he knows what comes later; too often he has seen these pallid figures wither so quickly that it was almost visible. But here something wondrous has happened; the laws for the usual course of existence have been broken. He has seduced a young girl, but her life has not been extinguished, her beauty has not faded-she is transformed and is more beautiful than ever. He cannot deny it; she enthralls him more than any other girl has, more than Elvira herself, for despite all her beauty, the innocent nun was just another girl, his infatuation just another experience-but this girl is the only one of her kind. This girl is armed; she does not hide a dagger in her breast, but she does wear armor-not visible, for her hate is not satisfied by speeches and declamations, but invisible, and it is her hatred. Don Giovanni's passion is aroused; she must be his once again, but this does not happen. Indeed, if she who hated him were a girl who knew his villainy, although she herself had not been deceived by him, then Don Giovanni would conquer. But this girl he cannot win; all his seduction is powerless. Even if his voice were more insinuating than his own voice, his advances craftier than his own advances, he would not move her; even if the angels pleaded for him, even if the Mother of God were to be the bridesmaid at the wedding, it would be futile. Just as in the underworld Dido herself turns away from Aeneas, who was unfaithful to her, so she certainly will not turn away from him but will face him even more coldly than Dido. But this meeting of Elvira and Don Giovanni is only a transitional moment; she walks across the stage, the curtain falls, but we, dear ~u!lJ'taQavExQW!lEVOL, we quietly follow her, for only now does she really become the true Elvira. As long as she is in the vicinity of Don Giovanni, she is beside herself; when she comes to herself, it is appropriate to think about the paradox. Despite all the assurances of modern philosophy and the rash courage of its young ascribers, there are always great difficulties involved in thinking a contradiction.  Presumably a young girl will be forgiven for finding it difficult, and yet this is the task assigned her-to think that the one she loves was a deceiver. She has this in common with Marie Beaumarchais, and yet there is a difference in the way in which each of them comes to the paradox. The fact Marie had for her starting point was intrinsically so dialectical that reflection, with all its concupiscence, had to grasp it at once. As for Elvira, the factual evidence that Don Giovanni was a deceiver seems so obvious that it is hard to see how reflection can take hold of it. Therefore, it grasps the matter from another angle. Elvira has lost everything, and yet a whole life lies before her, and her soul requires money for living expenses. Here two possibilities become apparent-either to enter into ethical and religious categories or to keep her love for Giovanni. If she does the first, she is outside our interest; we will gladly have her enter a home for fallen women or whatever else she wants. But this probably will also be difficult for her, because in order for that to be possible she must first despair; she has once known the religious, and the second time it makes great demands. On the whole, the religious is a dangerous power with which to become involved; it is jealous of itself and does not allow itself to be mocked. When she chose the convent, her proud soul perhaps found rich satisfaction in it, because, say what you will, no girl makes as brilliant a match as she who espouses heaven; but now, on the other hand, now she will have to return penitently, in repentance and contrition. Furthermore, there is always the question whether she can find a priest who can proclaim the gospel of repentance and contrition with the same pithiness as Don Giovanni has proclaimed the glad tidings of pleasure. Consequently, to save herself from this despair, she must cling to Don Giovanni's love, which is all the easier for her to do since she does still love him. A third possibility is unthinkable; that she could be able to find consolation in another man's love would be even more dreadful than the most dreadful. So for her own sake, therefore, she must love Don Giovanni; it is self-defense that bids her do it. And this is the stimulus of reflection that forces her to stare at this paradox: whether she is able to love him even though he deceived her. Every time despair is about to seize her, she takes refuge in the memory of Don Giovanni's love, and in order really to feel comfortable in this refuge, she is tempted to think that he is no deceiver, even though she does this in various ways. A woman's dialectic is remarkable, and only the person who has had the opportunity to observe it can imitate it, whereas the greatest dialectician who ever lived could speculate himself crazy trying to produce it. I have been fortunate enough, however, to know a few outstanding examples of this and through them have had a complete course in dialectics. Oddly enough, one would expect to find them most likely in the metropolis, for the noise and the throngs of people conceal much, but that is not the case--that is, if one wishes to have the perfect type. The finest ones are to be found in the provinces, in small towns, in country houses. The one I am thinking about in particular was a Swedish lady, a maiden of noble birth. Her first lover could not have desired her more ardently than I, her second lover, tried to pursue the thought processes of her heart. But lowe it to the truth to admit that it was not my keenness and ingenuity that gave me the clue, but an accidental circumstance that is too complicated to tell here. She had lived in Stockholm and there had come to know a French count to whose faithless charm [Elskvcerdighed] she became a victim. I can still see her vividly. The first time I saw her, she really did not make any impression on me. She was still lovely, proud and aristocratic of bearing; she did not say very much, and I probably would have gone away no wiser than I came if chance had not made me a party to her secret. From that moment on, she was important to me; she gave me such a vivid picture of an Elvira that I could never weary oflooking at her. One evening I was at a large party with her. I had arrived before she did, had already been waiting some time when I stepped to the window to see whether she was coming, and a moment later her carriage stopped at the door. She stepped out, and immediately her attire made a singular impression on me. She was wearing a thin, light silk coat, much like the domino in which Elvira appears at the dance in the opera. She entered with a grand dignity that was really impressive. She was wearing a black silk gown; she was dressed with the utmost taste and yet quite simply. No jewels embellished her; her neck was unadorned; and since her skin was whiter than snow, I have hardly ever seen so beautiful a contrast as that between her black dress and her white bosom. One frequently sees an unadorned neck, but seldom does one see a girl who really has a bosom. She curtsied to all the guests, and when the master of the house came forward to greet her, she curtsied very low to him; although her lips parted in a smile, I did not hear a word from her. To me her conduct was very fitting, and I, who shared her secret, silently associated with her the words about the oracle: OlrtE AEYEL OUtE XQuJttEL, .,.). . OTJI.WlVEL [neither speaks nor conceals but indicates].  I have learned much from her and, among other things, have had confirmed my frequently made observation that people who conceal a sorrow acquire in the course of time a single phrase or a single idea with which they are able to signify everything to themselves and to the individual they have initiated into it. Compared with the prolixity of sorrow, such a phrase or idea is like a diminutive, like a pet name one employs for daily use. Frequently it has an entirely accidental relation to what it is supposed to signify and almost always owes its origin to an accidental circumstance. Having won her confidence, having succeeded in overcoming her mistrust of me because a chance event had placed her in my power, having had her tell me everything, I frequently went through the whole scale of moods with her. But if she was not so disposed and yet wanted to give me a hint that her soul was engrossed in her grief, she would take me by the hand, look at me and say: I was more slender than a reed, he more glorious than the cedars of Lebanon.  Where she had found these words I do not know, but I am convinced that whenever Charon comes with his boat to take her over to the underworld, he will find not the required oboP in her mouth but these words on her lips: I was more slender than a reed, he more glorious than the cedars of Lebanon! So, then, Elvira cannot find Don Giovanni, and now, all by herself, she must manage to discover the way out of the complication in her life; she must come to herself. She has changed her environment, and thus the help is gone that perhaps would have contributed to drawing out her sorrow. Her new environment knows nothing of her earlier life, suspects nothing, for there is nothing striking or remarkable about her external appearance, no mark of sorrow, no sign that announces to people that there is sorrowing here. She can control every expression, for the loss of her honor can very well teach her that; and even though she does not prize people's opinions very highly, she at least can spare herself their condolences. So now everything is in order, and she can be rather sure of going through life without arousing the suspicions of the curious populace, who ordinarily are just as stupid as they are curious. She has legitimate and unchallenged possession of her sorrow, and only if she were to be so unfortunate as to encounter a professional smuggler, only then would she have to fear a closer interrogation. What is going on within her? Is she sorrowing? Of course, she is! But how is this grief to be characterized? I would call it care for the necessities oflife, because a person's life, after all, does not consist only of food and drink. The soul, too, requires sustenance. She is young, and yet the reserves of her life are used up, but from this it does not follow that she will die. In this respect, she is concerned every day about the next day. She cannot stop loving him, and yet he deceived her, but if he deceived her, then her love has indeed lost its nourishing power. Yes, if he had not deceived her, if a higher power had torn him away, then she would have been as well provided as any girl could wish, for the memory of Don Giovanni was a good deal more than many a living husband. But if she gives up her love, then she is brought to the state of beggary, then she must return to the convent to ridicule and disgrace. Yes, if only she could buy his love again with this! In this way she goes on living. Today, this present day, she still thinks that she can endure, that there is still a little something left to live on, but the next day, that she fears. She deliberates again and again, grasps at every escape, and yet she finds none, and thus she never comes to grieve coherently and healthfully, for she continually searches for the way she is going to grieve. "Forget him, that is what I want; rip his picture out of my soul; I want to ransack myselflike a consuming fire, and every thought that belongs to him must be burned up; only then can I be saved; it is in self-defense. IfI do not rip out every thought of him, even the most remote, I am lost; only in this way can I protect myself. Myself-what is this myself-wretchedness and misery. I was unfaithful to my first love, and now should I make up for it by being unfaithful to my second? "No, I will hate him; that is the only way to satisfy my soul, the only way I can find rest and something to occupy me. I will braid a garland of curses out of everything that reminds me of him, and for every kiss I say: Cursed be you! And for every time he has embraced me: Ten times cursed be you! And for every time he swore he loved me, I will swear that I will hate him. This is going to be my work, my labor; to this I dedicate myself. After all, I became accustomed to praying my rosary in the convent, and so I will still remain a nun who prays early and late. Or should I perhaps be satisfied that he once loved me? I should perhaps be a prudent girl and not throw him away in proud contempt now when I know that he is a deceiver; I should perhaps be a good housewife who, with economic sense, knows how to stretch as far as possible the little that she has. No, I will hate him; only in that way can I tear myself away from him and show myself that I do not need him. But am I not indebted to him at all when I hate him? Am I not living off him? For what is it that nourishes my hatred except my love for him? "He was no deceiver; he had no idea of what a woman can suffer. If he had had that, he never would have forsaken me. He was a man who was to himself enough. Is that, then, a consolation for me? Indeed it is, for my suffering and anguish prove to me how happy I was, so happy that he has no idea of it. Why, then, do I complain because a man is not like a woman, not as happy as she is when she is happy, not as unhappy as she is when she is boundlessly unhappy because her happiness knew no bounds. "Did he deceive me? No! Did he promise me anything? No! My Giovanni was no suitor, no poor chicken thief; a nun does not debase herself for such. He did not ask my hand in marriage; he stretched out his hand, and I grasped it; he looked at me, I was his; he opened his arms, I belonged to him. I clung to him; I entwined myself around him like a climbing plant; I rested my head on his breast and gazed into that all-powerful countenance, with which he ruled the world, and which nevertheless rested upon me as if I were the whole world to him; like a suckling infant I imbibed fullness and richness and bliss. Can I demand more? Was I not his? Was he not mine? And ifhe was not, was I therefore the less his? When the gods wandered upon the earth and fell in love with women, did they remain faithful to their beloveds? And yet it occurs to no one to say that they deceived them! And why not? Because we want a girl to be proud of having been loved by a god. And what are all the gods of Olympus compared with my Giovanni? And should I not be proud-should I disparage him, should I insult him in my thought, allow it to force him into the narrow, wretched laws that apply to ordinary men? No, I will be proud that he has loved me; he was greater than the gods, and I will honor him by making myself into a nobody. I will love him because he belonged to me, love him because he forsook me, and I will go on being his, and I will keep what he throws away. "No, I cannot think about him; every time I recall him, every time my thoughts approach the hiding place in my soul where his memory lives, then it is as ifI committed a new sin. I feel an anxiety, an unspeakable anxiety, an anxiety such as I felt in the convent when I sat in my solitary cell and waited for him and my thoughts terrified me: the prioress's intense scorn, the convent's terrible punishment, my offense against God. And yet was not this anxiety part of it? What was my love for him without it? Indeed, he was not married to me; we had not received the blessing of the Church; the bell had not rung for us; no hymn was sung-and yet what was all the music and celebration of the Church; how would it be able to put me in a mood comparable to this anxiety! -But then he came, and the disharmony of my anxiety dissolved into the most blissful harmony of security, and only faint tremblings voluptuously stirred my soul. Should I fear this anxiety, then; does it not remind me of him; is it not the announcement of his coming? If I could recollect him without this anxiety, then I would not recollect him. He is coming; he asks for silence; he controls the spirits that want to tear me away from him; I am his, blissful in him." If I were to imagine a person in distress at sea, unconcerned about his life, remaining on board because there was something he wanted to save and could not save because of perplexity about what to save, I have an image of Elvira. She is in distress at sea; her destruction is imminent, but it does not concern her; she is not aware of it; she is perplexed about what she should save. Margarete We know this girl from Goethe's Faust. She was a little middle-class girl, not destined, like Elvira, for the convent, but still she was brought up in the fear of the Lord, even though her soul was too childlike to feel the earnestness, as Goethe so incomparably says:   Halb Kinderspiel[eJ, Halb Gott im Herzen [Half sport of childhood, Half God within thee). What we particularly love about this girl is the charming simplicity and humility of her pure soul. The first time she sees Faust, she immediately feels much too inferior to be loved by him, and it is not out of curiosity to know whether Faust loves her that she picks the petals of the daisy-it is out of humility, for she feels too inferior to choose and therefore submits to the oracular bidding of an enigmatic power. Yes, lovable Margarete! Goethe betrayed how you plucked the petals and recited the words: He loves me, he loves me not.  Poor Margarete! You can indeed continue this activity and merely change the words: He deceived me, he deceived me not. In fact, you can cultivate a little piece of ground with this kind of flower and you will have manual labor for your whole life. Commentators have remarked on the striking fact that whereas the legend of Don Juan tells of, seduced in Spain alone, the legend of Faust speaks of only one seduced girl. It may be worth the trouble not to forget this observation, inasmuch as it will be of significance in what follows and will help us characterize what is distinctive in Margarete's reflective sorrow. At first glance, it might seem that the only difference between Elvira and Margarete was the difference between two different individualities who have experienced the same thing. But the difference is far more essential and yet is due not so much to the difference in the two feminine natures as to the essential difference between a Don Juan and a Faust. From the very start, there must be a difference between an Elvira and a Margarete, since a girl who is to make an impression on a Faust must be essentially different from a girl who makes an impression on a Don Juan. Yes, even if! supposed that it was the same girl who engaged the attention of both, it would be something different that appealed to each of them. By being brought into relation with a DonJuan or a Faust, the difference that was present only as a possibility would develop into a full actuality. Faust is admittedly a reproduction of Don Juan, but his being a reproduction is precisely what makes him essentially different from him, even in the stage of life in which he can be called a Don Juan, for to reproduce another stage does not mean only to become that but to become that with all the elements of the preceding stage in it. Therefore, even ifhe desires the same as a Don Juan, he nevertheless desires it in a different way. But in order for him to be able to desire it in a different way, it must also be present in a different way. He has features that make his method different, just as Margarete has features that make another method necessary. His method in turn depends upon his desire, and his desire is different from Don Juan's, even if there is a basic similarity between them. Generally, people think they are saying something very sagacious when they emphasize that Faust ends up by becoming a Don Juan, and yet it does not say very much, for the point is, in what sense does he become that. Faust is a demonic figure, just like a Don Juan, but a superior one. Sensuousness does not acquire importance for him until he has lost a whole previous world, but the consciousness of this loss is not blotted out; it is always present, and therefore he seeks in the sensuous not so much pleasure as distraction. His doubting soul finds nothing in which it can rest, and now he grasps at erotic love [Elskov], not because he believes in it but because it has an element of presentness in which there is a momentary rest and a striving that diverts and that draws attention away from the nothingness of doubt. His pleasure, therefore, does not have the Heiterkeit [cheerfulness] that characterizes a Don Juan. His visage is not smiling, his brow not unclouded, and joy is not his escort; the young girls do not dance into his embrace, but he scares them to himself. What he is seeking, therefore, is not only the pleasure of the sensuous but the immediacy of the spirit. Just as ghosts in the underworld, when a living being fell into their hands, sucked his blood and lived as long as this blood warmed and nourished them, so Faust seeks an immediate life whereby he will be rejuvenated and strengthened. And where can this better be found than in a young girl, and how can he more completely imbibe this than in the embrace of erotic love? Just as the Middle Ages had tales of sorcerers who knew how to prepare a rejuvenating potion and used the heart of an innocent child for it, so this is the strengthening his emaciated soul needs, the only thing that can satisfy him for a moment. His sick soul needs what could be called the first greening of a young heart, and to what else could I compare the early youth of an innocent feminine soul? If! said it is like a flower, I would say too little, for it is more than that; it is a flowering. The vitality of hope and faith and trust burgeons and blossoms in rich multiplicity; gentle yearnings stir in the delicate shoots, and dreams shade their flourishing. In this way it stirs a Faust; it beckons his restless soul like an island of peace in the calm ocean. That it is ephemeral, no one knows better than Faust; he does not believe in it any more than in anything else, but that it exists, of that he assures himself in the embrace of erotic love. Only the plenitude of innocence and childlikeness can refresh him for a moment. In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles has Faust see Margarete in a mirror. His eyes delight in gazing at her, but nevertheless it is not her beauty that he desires, although he takes that in addition. What he desires is the pure, undisturbed, rich, immediate joy of a feminine soul, but he desires it sensually, not spiritually. In a certain sense, then, he does desire as does Don Juan, but still he desires in an entirely different way. At this point, some assistant professor or other, convinced of having been a Faust himself, since otherwise he certainly could not possibly have managed to become an assistant professor, would point out that Faust requires intellectual development and refinement in a girl who is to arouse his desire. Perhaps a larger number of assistant professors would consider this a brilliant observation, and their respective wives and sweethearts would nod approval. But it would miss the point completely, for Faust would desire nothing less. A so-called refined girl would fall within the same relativity as he himself, although this would have no significance for him, would amount to nothing. With her smattering of refinement, she perhaps would tempt this old master of doubt to take her along out into the current, where she would quickly despair. An innocent young girl, however, is within another relativity and thus, in a certain sense, is nothing compared with Faust and yet, in another sense, is enormously much, since she is immediacy. Only in this immediacy is she a goal for his desire, and therefore I said that he desires immediacy not spiritually but sensually. Goethe understood all this perfectly well, and therefore Margarete is a little middle-class girl, a girl one could almost be tempted to call insignificant. Since it is important with respect to Margarete's grief, we shall now consider more closely how Faust presumably must have affected her. Of course, the particular features Goethe has emphasized are of great value, but I nevertheless believe that for the sake of completeness a little modification must be made. In her innocent simplicity, Margarete soon perceives that with respect to faith there is something wrong with Faust. In Goethe, this appears in a little catechization scene, which is unquestionably a superb invention by the poet. The question now is what results this examination may have for their relation to each other. It is apparent that Faust is a doubter, and it seems that Goethe, inasmuch as he does not suggest anything more in this respect, wanted to have Faust continue to be a doubter also in his relation to Margarete. He has tried to draw her attention away from all such probing and to fasten it simply and solely upon the reality of love [Kjeerlighedens Realitet]. But I think, for one thing, that once the problem has come up this would be difficult for Faust, and, for another, I do not think it is psychologically correct. I shall not dwell longer on this point, for Faust's sake, but for Margarete's sake I certainly shall, for ifit is not apparent to her that he is a doubter, then her grief has an added element. So, then, Faust is a doubter, but he is no vain fool who wants to make himself important by doubting what others believe; his doubt has an objective foundation in him. To Faust's credit, this has to be said. But as soon as he wants to press his doubt upon others, a spurious passion can very easily enter in. As soon as doubt is pressed upon others, there is an envy involved that rejoices in wresting from them what they regarded as certain. But in order for this passion of envy to be aroused in the doubter, there must be the possibility of opposition in the individual concerned. The temptation ceases either where there is none whatever or where it would even be unbecoming to suppose it. The latter is the case with a young girl. Face to face with her, a doubter is always in an awkward position. To wrest her faith from her is no task at all for him; on the contrary, he feels that it is only through her faith that she is the great person she is. He feels humbled, for there is in her a natural claim on him to be her supporter if she herself begins to waver. Of course, a clumsy fool of a doubter, a dabbler, presumably could find satisfaction in wresting faith from a young girl and joy in scaring women and children since he cannot terrify men. But this is not the case with Faust; he is too great for that. Consequently, we can agree with Goethe that Faust betrays his doubt the first time, but I hardly believe it will happen with him a second time. This is very important with respect to the interpretation of Margarete. Faust readily perceives that Margarete's entire significance hinges on her innocent simplicity. If this is taken from her, she is nothing in herself, nothing to him. This, then, must be preserved. He is a doubter, but as such he has all the elements of the positive within himself, for otherwise he would be a sorry doubter. He lacks the point of conclusion, and thereby all the elements become negative. She, however, has the point of conclusion, has childlikeness and Innocence. Therefore, nothing is easier for him than to equip her. He has learned from experience that what he talked about as doubt often impressed others as positive truth. So now he finds his joy in enriching her with the opulent content of a way oflooking at things; he takes out all the finery of immediate faith and finds joy in embellishing her with it, for it is very becoming to her, and she thereby becomes more beautiful in his eyes. In so doing, he has the added advantage that her soul attaches itself ever more tightly to his. She really does not understand him at all; like a child she attaches herself tightly to him; what for him is doubt is unswerving truth for her. But at the same time that he is building up [opbygge] her faith in this way, he is also undermining it, for he himself finally becomes the object of faith for her, a god and not a human being. But here I must try to prevent a misunderstanding. It might seem that I am making Faust into a base hypocrite. That is not at all the case. Margarete herself is the one who has brought up the whole matter; with half an eye he appraises the glory she believes is hers and sees that it cannot withstand his doubt, but he does not have the heart to destroy it and even behaves with a certain amiability toward her. Her love gives her significance for him, and yet she becomes practically a child; he condescends to her childlikeness and has his joy in seeing how she appropriates everything. This, however, has the most regretable consequences for Margarete's future. Ifit had become apparent to her that Faust was a doubter, she perhaps could have saved her faith later. In all humility, then, she would have recognized that his high-flying, bold thoughts were not for her; she would have clung fast to what she had. But now she is indebted to him for the content of faith, and yet when he has forsaken her she perceives that he himself has not believed in it. As long as he was with her, she did not discover the doubt; now when he is gone, everything is changed for her, and she sees doubt in everything, a doubt she cannot control since she always includes in her thinking the fact that Faust himself was unable to master it. That whereby Faust, also according to Goethe's interpretation, captivates Margarete is not Don Juan's seductive talent but his prodigious superiority. Therefore, as she herself endearingly expresses it, she really cannot comprehend at all what Faust can see in her that is favorable.  Her first impression of him, then, is completely overwhelming; in relation to him, she feels her nothingness. Hence, she does not belong to him the way Elvira belongs to Don Giovanni, for that is still the expression of independent existence in relation to him, but Margarete completely disappears in Faust; neither does she break with heaven in order to belong to him, for that would imply ajustification in relation to him; imperceptibly, without the slightest reflection, he becomes everything to her. But just as from the beginning she is nothing, so she becomes, ifI dare say so, less and less the more she is convinced of his almost divine superiority; she is nothing, and at the same time she exists only through him. What Goethe said somewhere about Hamlet, that his soul in relation to his body was an acorn planted in a flower pot, with the result, therefore, that it bursts the container, is true of Margarete's love. Faust is far too great for her, and her love must end by shattering her soul. And the moment for this cannot be far distant, for Faust is well aware that she cannot remain in this immediacy; he does not take her into the higher regions of the spirit, for it is that, after all, from which he is fleeing; he desires her sensually-and forsakes her. So Faust has forsaken Margarete. Her loss is so terrible that, because of it, even those around her momentarily forget what they otherwise find difficult to forget-that she is dishonored. She collapses completely and is not even able to think about her loss; even the energy to comprehend her misfortune has been drained out of her. If this condition could continue, it would be impossible for reflective sorrow to commence. But little by little the consolation of those around her brings her to herself, nudges her thought into motion again; but as soon as it is in motion again, it is apparent that she is unable to hold fast to a single one of their observations. She listens to it as if it were not speaking to her, and nothing it says arrests or accelerates the unrest in her thought process. The problem for her is the same as for Elvira-to think that Faust was a deceiverbut it is still more difficult, for she is far more deeply influenced by Faust. He was not merely a deceiver, but he was in fact a hypocrite; she has not sacrificed anything for him, but she owes him everything, and to a certain degree she still has this everything, except that now it proves to be a deception. But is what he said less true because he himself did not believe it? By no means, and yet for her it is, because she believed in it through him. It might seem that reflection would have a more difficult time starting in Margarete; that which frustrates it is the feeling that she was nothing at all. Nevertheless there is a prodigious dialectical elasticity here. If she could sustain the thought that in the strictest sense she was nothing, then reflection would be precluded, and then she would not have been deceived, either, for if one is nothing, there is no relationship, and where there is no relationship, there cannot be a deception, either. To that extent she is at rest. This thought, however, cannot be sustained but suddenly turns into its opposite. The thought that she was nothing expresses only that all the finite differences of love are negated, and therefore it is precisely the expression for the absolute validity of her love, on which, in turn, her absolute justification is based. His conduct, therefore, is not only a deception but an absolute deception, because her love was absolute. And in this she will again be unable to rest, because, since he has been everything to her, she will not even be able to sustain this thought except through him, but she cannot think it through him, because he was a deceIver. As those around her steadily become more and more alien to her, the inner motion begins. Not only has she loved Faust with her whole soul, but he was her life force; through him she came into existence [blev til]. As a result, her soul certainly does not become less agitated in mood than Elvira's, but her particular moods are less agitated. She is on the way to having a basic mood, and the particular mood is like a bubble that rises from the depths and does not have the power to endure; neither is it displaced by a new bubble but is dissolved in the general mood that she is nothing. This basic mood, moreover, is a condition that is felt and does not find expression in any specific outburst; it is unutterable, and the attempt the particular mood makes to lift it, to raise it, is futile. Thus the total mood always resonates in the particular mood; as weakness and powerlessness, it constitutes the resonance for it. The particular mood expresses itself, but it does not mitigate, does not relieve. It is, to borrow a saying from my Swedish Elvira that is definitely very expressive, even if a man does not completely understand it, it is a false sigh, which deceives, and not a genuine sigh, which is a strengthening and beneficial motion. The particular mood is not even full-toned or energetic; her expression is too burdened for that. "Can I forget him? Can the brook, however long it keeps on running, forget the spring, forget its source, sever itself from it? If so, it would just have to stop flowing! Can the arrow, however swiftly it flies, forget the bowstring? If so, its flight would just have to come to an end! Can the raindrop, however far it falls, forget the heaven from which it fell? If so, then it would just have to disintegrate! Can I become someone else, can I be born again of a mother who is not my mother? Can I forget him? Then I would just have to cease to be! "Can I bring him to mind? Can my recollection call him forth now that he has vanished, I who myself am only my recollection of him? This pale, hazy image-is this the Faust I worshipped? I recollect his words, but I do not possess the resonance in his voice! I remember his talks, but my breath is too faint to give them expression. Meaningless, they fall on deaf ears! "Faust,  Faust! Come back, satisfy the hungry, clothe the naked, revive the languishing, visit the lonely one! I certainly know that my love had no meaning for you, but, after all, neither did I demand that. My love lay down humbly at your feet; my sigh was a prayer, my kiss a thank offering, my embrace adoring worship. Will you forsake me for this? Did you not know it beforehand? Or is it not, then, a reason to love methat I need you, that my soul languishes when you are not with me? "God in heaven, forgive me for loving a human being more than I loved you, and yet I still do it; I know that it is a new sin that I speak this way to you.  Eternal Love, let your mercy hold me, do not thrust me away; give him back to me, incline his heart to me again; have mercy on me, God of mercy, that I pray this way again! "Can I curse him, then? What am I that I dare to be so bold? Can the clay pot be presumptuous toward the potter? What was I? Nothing! Clay in his hands, a rib from which he formed me! What was I? A poor insignificant plant, and he stooped down to me; he lovingly raised me [opelskede]; he was my all, my god, the origin of my thoughts, the food of my soul. "Can I grieve? No, no! Sorrow broods like nocturnal fog over my soul.  come back, I will give you up, never claim to belong to you. Just sit with me; look at me so that I can gain enough strength to sigh; speak to me, tell about yourself as if you were a stranger, and I will forget that it is you; speak, so the tears may burst forth. Am I nothing at all, then, not even able to weep except through him! "Where shall I find peace and rest? Thoughts rise up in my soul; the one rises against the other; the one confuses the other. When you were with me, they obeyed your suggestions; then I played with them as a child; I braided a wreath of them and put them on my head; I let them flow like my hair, ruffled in the wind. Now they twine themselves terrifyingly around me, twist themselves around me like snakes and crush my anguished soul. "And I am a mother! A living being demands nourishment from me. Can the hungry satisfy the hungry, the feeble from thirst refresh the thirsty? Shall I become a murderer, then?  Faust, come back; save the child in the womb even if you do not want to save the mother!" -Thus she is agitated, not by mood but in mood, but the particular mood is no mitigation for her, because it dissolves in the total mood she cannot banish. Indeed, if Faust had been taken away from her, Margarete would not seek any calming, her fate would indeed have been enviable in her eyes-but she is deceived. She lacks what could be called the situation of grief, for she is incapable of sorrowing alone. Indeed, if, like poor Florine in the fairy tale, she could find entry into a cave of echoes, from which she knew that every sigh, every lament, would be heard by her lover, then she would not, like Florine, spend only three nights there, but she would stay there day and night; but in Faust's palace there is no cave of echoes, and he has no ear in her heart.   Perhaps, dear ~JIlJtaQavExQwIlEVOL, I have already held your attention too long on these pictures, all the more so because, however much I have said, nothing visible has appeared to you. But this, of course, is due not to fraudulence in my presentation but to the subject itself and to the subtlety of sorrow. When the favorable opportunity is offered, then what is hidden discloses itself. This we have in our power. And now in parting we shall unite these three women betrothed to sorrow; we shall have them embrace one another in the harmony of sorrow; we shall have them form a group before us, a tabernacle, where the voice of sorrow is never silent, where sighs do not cease, because more carefully and faithfully than vestal virgins they keep watch over the observance of the sacred ceremonies. Should we interrupt them in this; should we wish for them the return of what was lost; would that be an advantage for them? Have they not already received a higher initiation? And this initiation will unite them and envelop their union in beauty and provide mitigation in union, for only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.   THE UNHAPPIEST ONE AN INSPIRED ADDRESS TO THE SYMPARANEKROMENOI Peroration at the Meeting on Fridays As is well known, there is said to be a grave somewhere in England that is distinguished not by a magnificent monument or a mournful setting but by a short inscription-"The Unhappiest One." It is said that the grave was opened, but no trace of a corpse was found. Which is the more amazing-that no corpse was found or that the grave was opened? It is indeed strange that someone took the time to see whether anyone was in it. When one reads a name in an epitaph, one is easily tempted to wonder how he passed his life on earth; one might wish to climb down into the grave for a conversation with him. But this inscription-it is so freighted with meaning! A book can have a title that prompts a desire to read the book, but a title in itself can be so thought-laden, so personally appealing, that one will never read the book.  This inscription is in truth very freighted with meaning-shocking or gratifying according to one's mood-for anyone who perhaps secretly in his heart pledged his troth to the thought that he was the most unhappy one. But I can imagine a person whose soul has never been preoccupied in that way and for whose curiosity there was the task of finding out whether anyone was in that grave. And look, the grave was empty! Has he perhaps risen from the dead; does he perhaps want to mock the poet's words: -In the grave there is peace, Its silent occupant does not know sorrow.  Did he find no rest, not even in the grave; is he perhaps still fitfully wandering over the earth; has he left his house, his home, leaving behind only his address! Or has he still not been found-he, the unhappiest one, whom not even the Furies are pursuing until he finds the door of the temple and the humble petitioner's bench, but whom sorrows keep alive and sorrows follow to the grave! Ifhe has not been found, then let us like crusaders, dear ~Ull naQaVEXQWfJ,EVOL, commence a pilgrimage-not to that sacred sepulchre in the happy East, but to that mournful grave in the unhappy West. At that empty grave, we shall seek him, the unhappiest one, certain of finding him, for just as the longing of the believers yearns for the sacred sepulchre, so the unhappy ones are drawn toward the West to that empty grave, and each one is absorbed in the thought that it is destined for him. Or may it be that such deliberation is not a worthy subject for consideration by us, whose activity, in compliance with our society's sacred custom, is a venture in aphoristic, occasional devotion-we who do not think and talk aphoristically but live aphoristically; we who live UOQtafJ,EvOL and segregati, as aphorisms in life, without association with men, having no share in their griefs and their joys; we who are not consonants in the clamor of life but are solitary birds in the stillness of night, assembled together on only one occasion to be edified by representations of the wretchedness oflife, of the length of the day, and of the endless duration of time; we, dear ~ufJ,naâ­ QavExQWfJ,EVOL, who do not believe in the game of gladness or the happiness of fools; we who believe in nothing but unhappiness. See how they press forward in countless numbers, all the unhappy ones. Yet many are they who think themselves called; few are the chosen.  A separation must be made between them-one word, and the crowd vanishes; specifically excluded are the uninvited guests, all those who think that death is the greatest calamity, who became unhappy because they feared death; for we, dear ~ufJ,naQavExQWfJ,EVOL, we, like the Roman soldiers, do not fear death; we know a worse calamity, and first and last, above all-it is to live. Indeed, if there were a human being who could not die, if what the legend tells of the Wandering Jew is true, why should we have scruples about pronouncing him the unhappiest one? Then why the grave was empty could be explained-namely, to indicate that the unhappiest one was the person who could not die, who could not slip down into a grave. That would settle the matter, the answer would be easy, for the unhappiest one of all would be the person who could not die, the happy onethe person who could. Happy is the one who died in old age; happier is the one who died in youth; happiest is the one who died at birth; happiest of all the one who was never born. But this is not the way it is; death is the common fate of all human beings, and inasmuch as the unhappiest one has not been found, he must be sought within these confines. See, the crowd vanished; the number is reduced. I do not say: Give me your attention, for I know that I have it; I do not say: Lend me your ears, for I know that they belong to me. Your eyes are sparkling; you lean forward in your seats. It is a contest well worth your participation, a struggle even more terrible than if it were a matter oflife and death, for we do not fear death. But the reward-yes, it is more magnificent than any other in the world, and more certain, for the person who is sure that he is the unhappiest one does not need to fear fortune; he will not taste the humiliation of having to shout in his final hour: Solon, Solon, Solon! So, then, we are inaugurating an open competition, from which no one will be excluded, neither because of rank nor because of age. No one will be excluded except the happy ones and the person who fears death-every worthy member of the community of the unhappy is welcome; a seat of honor is designated for every really unhappy person, the grave for the unhappiest one. My voice rings out in the world; listen to it, all you who call yourselves unhappy in the world but who do not fear death. My voice rings back into the past, for we do not want to be so sophistical as to exclude the dead and departed because they are dead, for they have in fact lived. Forgive me, I beseech you, for disturbing your repose momentarily; let us meet here by this empty grave. Three times I shout it loudly to the world: Hear this, you unhappy ones, for it is not our intention to decide this matter among ourselves here in a nook of the world. The place has been found where it must be decided before the whole world! But before we commence interrogating them one by one, let us make ourselves qualified to sit here as worthy judges and fellow contestants. Let us strengthen our minds, arm them against the inveiglement of the ear, for what voice is so ingratiating as that of the unhappy one, what voice so bewitching as that of the unhappy one when he is speaking about his own unhappiness. Let us make ourselves worthy to sit as judges and fellow contestants so that we do not lose the overall view, are not confused by the particulars, for the eloquence of grief is infinite and infinitely inventive. We shall divide the unhappy into specific groups, and only one from each will be heard. We shall not deny that no particular individual is the unhappiest one; it is rather a class, but we shall not therefore have scruples about awarding the representative of this class the title of the unhappiest one, shall not have scruples about awarding him the grave. In all of Hegel's systematic works there is one section that discusses the unhappy consciousness.  One always comes to the reading of such investigations with an inner uneasiness and palpitation of the heart, with a fear that one will learn too much or too little. "The unhappy consciousness" is a phrase that can almost make the blood run cold, the nerves shiver, if it is merely introduced casually into the course of a discussion, and then, uttered deliberately, it can, like that cryptic sentence in a story by Clemens Brentano: tertia nux mars est [the third nut is death],  make a person tremble like a sinner. Ah, happy is the one who has nothing more to do with the subject than to write a paragraph about it; even happier the one who can write the next. The unhappy one is the person who in one way or another has his ideal, the substance of his life, the plenitude of his consciousness, his essential nature, outside himself. The unhappy one is the person who is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But in being absent, one obviously can be in either past or future time. The whole territory of the unhappy consciousness is thereby adequately circumscribed. For this firm limitation, we thank Hegel, and now, since we are not only philosophers who view this kingdom at a distance, we shall as natives consider more closely the various stages contained therein. So, then, the unhappy one is absent. But one is absent when one is in either past or future time. This expression must be insisted upon, for it is obvious, as philology also teaches us, that there is a tempus [tense] that is present in a past time and a tempus that is present in a future time, but this same science also teaches us that there is a tempus that is plus quam perfectum [more than perfect: pluperfect, past perfect], in which there is no present, and a foturum exactum [future perfect] with the same feature. There are the hoping and the recollecting!! individualities. If, generally, only the person who is present to himself is happy, then these people, insofar as they are only hoping or only recollecting, are in a sense certainly unhappy individualities. But, strictly speaking, one cannot call an individuality unhappy who is present in hope or in recollection. The point to stress here is that he is present in it. We also see from this that one blow, be it ever so hard, cannot possibly make a person into the unhappiest one. That is, one blow can only either rob him of hope and thereby make him present in recollection or rob him of recollection and thereby make him present in hope. We shall now proceed and see how the unhappy individuality may be defined more precisely. First we shall consider the hoping individuality. When, as one who hopes (and consequently to that extent is unhappy), he is not present to himself, he becomes unhappy in the stricter sense of the word. A person who hopes for eternal life is certainly in a sense an unhappy individuality, insofar as he renounces the present; but strictly speaking he is nevertheless not unhappy, because he is present to himself in this hope and does not come into conflict with the particular elements of finiteness. If, however, he cannot become present to himself in hope but loses his hope, then hopes again, etc., then he is absent from himself, not merely in present but also in future time, and thus we have a form of unhappiness. If we consider the recollecting individuality, we find the same thing. Ifhe can become present to himself in past time, then, strictly speaking, he is not unhappy; but if he cannot do this but is continually absent from himself in past time, then we have a form of unhappiness. Recollection is above all the distinctive element of the unhappy ones, which is natural, because past time has the notable characteristic that it is past; future time, that it is to come. In a sense, therefore, one can say that future time is closer to the present than is the past. In order for the hoping individuality to become present in future time, it must have reality [Realitet]' or, more correctly, it must acquire reality for him; in order for the recollecting individuality to become present in past time, it must have had reality for him. But when the hoping individuality wants to hope for a future time that nevertheless can acquire no reality for him, or the recollecting individuality wants to recollect a time that has had no reality, then we have essentially unhappy individualities. The former might not be thought possible or might be regarded as sheer madness; but that is not so, because the hoping individuality certainly does not hope for something that does not have reality for him, but he hopes for something that he himself knows cannot be realized. That is, if a person, in losing hope, continues to hope instead of becoming a recollecting individuality, then we have this form. If an individuality in losing recollection or in having nothing to recollect will not become a hoping individuality but continues to be one who recollects, then we have a form of unhappiness. If, for example, an individual became absorbed in antiquity or in the Middle Ages or in any other time, but in such a way that it had a decisive reality for him, or he became absorbed in his own childhood or youth in the way that this had had decisive reality for him, then, strictly speaking, he would not be an unhappy individuality. But if! were to imagine a person who had had no childhood himself, since this age had passed him by without real meaning, but who now, for example, by becoming a teacher of children, discovered all the beauty in childhood and now wanted to recollect his own childhood, always stared back at it, he would certainly be a very appropriate example. He would discover backwards the meaning of that which was past for him and which he nevertheless wanted to recollect in all its meaning. If! were to imagine a person who had lived without grasping the joy of life or the enjoyment of it and who now at the point of death had his eyes opened to it, if I were to imagine that he did not die, which would be the best that could happen, but revived without therefore living his life over again, this person surely could be considered when the question arises about who is the unhappiest one. Hope's unhappy individualities never have the pain of recollection's. The hoping individualities always have a more pleasant disappointment. Therefore, the unhappiest one will always have to be sought among recollection's unhappy individualities. But we shall go on. We shall imagine a combination of the two forms described, unhappy forms in the stricter sense. The unhappy hoping individuality could not become present to himself in his hope; likewise the unhappy recollecting individuality. The only combination possible is one in which it is recollection that prevents him from becoming present in his hope and it is hope that prevents him from becoming present in his recollection. This is due, on the one hand, to his continually hoping for that which should be recollected; his hope is continually being disappointed, but he discovers that this disappointment occurs not because his objective is pushed further ahead but because he is past his goal, because it has already been experienced or should have been experienced and thus has passed over into recollection. On the other hand, he is continually recollecting that for which he should hope, because he has already encompassed the future in thought, has already experienced it in thought, and he recollects what he has experienced instead of hoping for it. Thus, what he is hoping for lies behind him; what he recollects lies ahead of him. His life is not backwards butis turned the wrong way in two directions. He will soon perceive his trouble even though he does not comprehend the reason for it. In order, however, that he will really have the opportunity to feel it, misunderstanding intervenes and in an odd way ridicules him at every moment. Ordinarily, he enjoys the honor of being regarded as being in his right mind, and yet he knows that if he were to explain to a single person how it really is with him, he would be declared insane. This is enough to drive one mad, and yet this does not happen, and this is precisely his trouble. His calamity is that he came into the world too early and therefore continually comes too late. He is continually   very close to the goal, and at the same moment he is far from it; he then discovers that what is making him unhappy now, because he has it or because he is this way, is precisely what would have made him happy a few years ago ifhe had had it, whereas he became unhappy because he did not have it. His life is as meaningless as Ancaeus's, of whom it is customary to say that nothing is known except that he gave rise to the proverb :rWf..f..U [tE"ta;u:TtEf..EL XUf..LXO~ xat XE(f..EO~ ilxQoJ [There is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip], as if this were not more than enough. His life knows no repose and has no content. He is not present to himself in the moment, nor is he present to himself in the future, for the future has been experienced, nor in past time, for the past has not yet come. Thus, like Latona,  he is chased around in the darkness of the Hyperboreans, to the bright islands of the equator, is unable to give birth, and is always like a woman in labor. Abandoned to himself, he stands alone in the wide world; he has no contemporaries to whom he can attach himself, no past he can long for, because his past has not yet come, no future he can hope for, because his future is already past. All alone, he faces the whole world as the "you" with whom he is in conflict, for all the rest of the world is for him only one person, and this person, this inseparable bothersome friend, is misunderstanding. He cannot grow old, for he has never been young; he cannot become young, for he has already grown old; in a sense he cannot die, for indeed he has not lived; in a sense he cannot live, for indeed he is already dead. He cannot love, for love is always present tense, and he has no present time, no future, no past, and yet he has a sympathetic nature, and he hates the world only because he loves it; he has no passion, not because he lacks it, but because at the same moment he has the opposite passion; he does not have time for anything, not because his time is filled with something else, but because he has no time at all; he is powerless, not because he lacks energy, but because his own energy makes him powerless. But very soon our hearts are sufficiently hardened, our ears stopped up, though not closed. We have heard the levelheaded voice of deliberation; let us be attentive to the eloquence of passion-brief, pithy, as all passion is.  There stands a young girl. She complains that her lover has been unfaithful to her. This does not lend itself to reflection. But in the whole world she loved only him; she loved him with all her soul, all her heart, all her mind l-then let her recollect and grieve. Is this an actual person or is it an image; is it a living person who is dying or a dead person who is living-it is Niobe. ls She lost everything all at once; she lost that to which she gave life; she lost that which gave life to her! Look up at her, dear ~lJl-tâ­ J"WQUVEXQWl-tEVOL; she is standing only a little higher than the world, like a monument on a burial mound. But no hope beckons her, no future motivates her, no prospect tempts her, no hope perturbs her-hopeless she stands, turned to stone in recollection. She was unhappy for a moment; in the same moment she became happy, and nothing can take her happiness from her; the world changes, but she knows no change, and time comes, but for her there is no future time. Look over there, what a beautiful union! The one generation offers a hand to the other! Is it an invitation to blessing, to faithful solidarity, to a happy dance? It is the outcast [forsttldte] family of Oedipus,  and the blow [sttld] is transmitted and it crushes the last one-it is Antigone. But she is provided for; the grief of a family is enough for a human life. She has turned her back on hope; she has exchanged its fickleness for the faithfulness of recollection. Stay happy, then, dear Antigone! We wish you a long life, as meaningful as a deep sigh. May no forgetfulness rob you of anything! May the daily bitterness of sorrow be offered to you abundantly! A powerful figure appears, but he is not alone. He has friends-how, then, does he come to be here? It is the patriarch of sorrow; it is Job â°-and his friends. He lost everything, but not in one blow, for the Lord took away, and the Lord took away, and the Lord took away. The friends taught him to perceive the bitterness of loss; for the Lord gave, and the Lord gave, and the Lord gave, and a foolish wife  into the bargain. He lost everything, for what he kept is of no interest to us. Honor is due him, dear ~'\J!l:taQavExQW!lEVOL, for his gray hair and his unhappiness. He lost everything, but he had possessed it. His hair is gray, his head is bowed down, his visage withered, his soul troubled. It is the prodigal son's father. LikeJob, he lost what to him was dearest in the world, but it was the enemy who took it, not the Lord; he did not lose it, but he is losing it; it is not being taken away from him, but it is vanishing. He is not sitting at home by the hearth in sackcloth and ashes; he has gone from his home, has left everything to seek the lost; he grasps for him, but his arm does not reach him; he calls to him, but his voice does not catch up with him. Yet he hopes, even if through tears; he glimpses him, even if through mists; he catches up with him, even if in death. His hope ages him, and nothing binds him to the world except the hope for which he lives. His feet are tired, his eyes dim, his body craves rest, his hope lives. His hair is white, his body decrepit, his feet pause, his heart breaks, his hope lives. Lift him up, dear ~'\J!lâ­ n:aQavExQW!lEVOL; he was unhappy. Who is that pallid figure, feeble as a ghost of one dead! His name is forgotten; many centuries have gone by since his day. He was a young man; he was ardent.  He sought martyrdom. In his mind, he saw himself nailed to the cross and saw heaven open, but actuality was too heavy for him; his ardor vanished; he denied his Lord and himself. He wanted to carry a world, but he overstrained himself on it; his soul was not crushed or destroyed; it was broken, his spirit paralyzed, his soul crippled. Congratulate him, dear ~'\J!lTI:aQavExQW!lEVOL; he was unhappy. And yet he did indeed become happy; he did indeed become what he wished to be. He became a martyr, even though his martyrdom was not what he wanted, being nailed to the cross or cast to the wild animals, but was being burned alive, slowly being consumed by a low fire. A young girl sits yonder, so very pensive. Her lover was unfaithful to her-this does not lend itself to reflection. Young girl, look at the serious faces of this assemblage; it has heard more terrible calamities; its audacious soul demands something even greater. Yes, but in the whole world I loved only him; I loved him with all my soul, all my heart, all my mind.  -We have already heard all that once before; do not weary our impatient longing. After all, you can recollect and grieve. -No, I cannot grieve, for he perhaps was not unfaithful to me; he may not have been a deceiver. -Why can you not grieve? Come closer, chosen one among maidens; forgive this rigorous interrogator for wanting to thrust you back for a moment. You cannot grieve, but then you can hope. -No, I cannot hope, for he was an enigma. -All right, my girl, I do understand you; you stand high on the ladder of unhappiness. Look at her, dear ~u,.tJtaQ(l.V€xQW!-l€VOL; she is poised almost at the summit of unhappiness. But you must divide yourself; you must hope during the day, grieve during the night, or grieve during the day and hope during the night. Be proud, for one is to be proud not of happiness but of unhappiness. Certainly you are not the unhappiest one, but do you not think, dear ~U!-ltaQ(l.V€XQW!-l€VOL, that we can award her an honorable accessit [second place]? We cannot award her the grave, but the place closest to it. For there he stands, the envoy from the kingdom of sighs, the chosen favorite of suffering, the apostle of grief, the silent friend of pain, the unhappy lover of recollection, confused in his recollection by the light of hope, frustrated in his hope by the ghosts of recollection. His brow is troubled, his knees are slack, and yet he leans on himself alone. He is exhausted, and yet how full of energy; his eyes do not seem to have shed, but to have drunk, many tears, and yet they flame with a fire that could consume the whole world, but not a splinter of sorrow in his own breast; he is bowed down, and yet his youth portends a long life; his lips smile at the world, which does not understand him. Arise, dear ~U!-l:rc(l.Q(l.V€XQW!-l€VOL; bow down, you witnesses of sorrow, in this solemn hour. I hail you, great unknown, whose name I do not know; I hail you with your title of honor: the unhappiest one. Greetings and salutations from the community of the unhappy to you here in your home; greetings and salutations to you at the entrance to this humble, low dwelling, which nevertheless is prouder than all the palaces of the world. See, the stone is rolled away; the shade of the grave awaits you with its delicious coolness. But perhaps the time has not yet come, perhaps the way is long, but we promise you that we will assemble here often to envy you your fortune. So accept our wish, a good wish: May no one understand you but all envy you; may no friend attach himself to you; may no girl fall in love with you; may no secret sympathy suspect your solitary pain; may no eye fathom your remote sorrow; may no ear ferret out your secret sigh! Or if your proud soul disdains such compassionate wishes, scorns this mitigation-then may the girls fall in love with you; may those who are pregnant turn to you in their anxiety; may the mothers trust you; may the dying seek consolation in you; may the young people attach themselves to you; may the men rely upon you; may the aged reach for you as for a cane-may the whole world believe that you are able to make it happy. Farewell, then, you the unhappiest one! But what am I saying-"the unhappiest"? I ought to say "the happiest," for this is indeed precisely a gift of fortune that no one can give himself. See, language breaks down, and thought is confused, for who indeed is the happiest but the unhappiest and who the unhappiest but the happiest, and what is life but madness, and faith but foolishness, and hope but a staving off of the evil day, and love but vinegar in the wound. He disappeared, and we stand again by the empty grave. So we wish him peace and rest and healing, and all possible good fortune, and a quick death, and an eternal oblivion, and no remembrance, lest the memory of him make another unhappy. Arise, dear ~uIlJtaQaVE%QwIlEVOL, The night is over; the day is beginning its unflagging activity again, never, so it seems, tired of repeating itself forever and ever. THE ROTATION OF CROPS A Venture in a Theory of Social Prudence People with experience maintain that proceeding from a basic principle is supposed to be very reasonable; I yield to them and proceed from the basic principle that all people are boring. Or is there anyone who would be boring enough to contradict me in this regard? This basic principle has to the highest degree the repelling force always required in the negative, which is actually the principle of motion. It is not merely repelling but infinitely repulsive, and whoever has the basic principle behind him must necessarily have infinite momentum for making discoveries. If, then, my thesis is true, a person needs only to ponder how corrupting boredom is for people, tempering his reflections more or less according to his desire to diminish or increase his impetus, and if he wants to press the speed of the motion to the highest point, almost with danger to the locomotive, he needs only to say to himself: Boredom is the root of all evil. It is very curious that boredom, which itself has such a calm and sedate nature, can have such a capacity to initiate motion. The effect that boredom brings about is absolutely magical, but this effect is one not of attraction but of repulsion.   How corrupting boredom is, everyone recognizes also with regard to children. As long as children are having a good time, they are always good. This can be said in the strictest sense, for if they at times become unmanageable even while playing, it is really because they are beginning to be bored; boredom is already coming on, but in a different way.   Therefore, when selecting a nursemaid, one always considers essentially not only that she is sober, trustworthy, and good-natured but also takes into esthetic consideration whether she knows how to entertain children. Even if she had all other excellent virtues, one would not hesitate to give her the sack if she lacked this qualification. Here, indeed, the principle is clearly acknowledged, but things go on so curiously in the world, habit and boredom have gained the upper hand to such a degree, that justice is done to esthetics only in the conduct of the nursemaid. It would be quite impossible to prevail if one wanted to demand a divorce because one's wife is boring, or demand that a king be dethroned because he is boring to behold, or that a clergyman be exiled because he is boring to listen to, or that a cabinet minister be dismissed or a journalist be executed because he is frightfully boring.   Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings. Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse. To amuse themselves, they hit upon the notion of building a tower so high that it would reach the sky. This notion is just as boring as the tower was high and is a terrible demonstration of how boredom had gained the upper hand. Then they were dispersed around the world, just as people now travel abroad, but they continued to be bored. And what consequences this boredom had: humankind stood tall and fell far, first through Eve, then from the Babylonian tower.   On the other hand, what was it that delayed the fall of Rome? It was bread and games.   What is being done in our day? Is consideration being given to any means of amusement? On the contrary, our doom is being expedited. There is the idea of convening a consultative assembly. Can anything more boring be imagined, both for the honorable delegates as well as for one who will read and hear about them? The country's financial situation is to be improved by economizing. Can anything more boring be imagined? . . . . .   Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended. But it is just as easy to see from the dreaded occasion as from the recommended remedy that this whole view is of very plebian extraction. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored.   To be sure, idleness may be the occasion of losing one's property etc., but the noble nature does not fear such things but does indeed fear being bored. The Olympian gods were not bored; happy they lived in happy idleness. A female beauty who neither sews nor spins nor irons nor reads nor plays an instrument is happy in idleness, for she is not bored. Idleness, then, is so far from being the root of evil that it is rather the true good.   Boredom is the root of evil; it is that which must be held off. Idleness is not the evil; indeed, it may be said that everyone who lacks a sense for it thereby shows that he has not raised himself to the human level. There is an indefatigable activity that shuts a person out of the world of spirit and places him in a class with the animals, which instinctively must always be in motion. There are people who have an extraordinary talent for transforming everything into a business operation, whose whole life is a business operation, who fall in love and are married, hear a joke, and admire a work of art with the same businesslike zeal with which they work at the office. The Latin proverb otium est pulvinar diaboli [idleness is the devil's pillow] is quite correct, but the devil does not find time to lay his head on this pillow if one is not bored. But since people believe that it is man's destiny to work, the antithesis idleness/work is correct. I assume that it is man's destiny to amuse himself, and therefore my antithesis is no less correct .   . . .   Now, if boredom, as discussed above, is the root of all evil, what then is more natural than to seek to conquer it? But here, as everywhere, it is primarily a matter of calm deliberation, lest, demonically possessed by boredom in an attempt to escape it, one works one's way into it. All who are bored cry out for change. In this, I totally agree with them, except that it is a question of acting according to principle.   My deviation from popular opinion is adequately expressed by the phrase "rotation of crops." There might seem to be an ambiguity in this phrase, and if I were to find room in this phrase for a designation of the ordinary method I would have to say that rotation of crops consists in continually changing the soil. But the farmer does not use the expression in this way. For the moment, however, I will use it in this way to discuss the rotation of crops that depends upon the boundless infinity of change, its extensive dimension.   This rotation of crops is the vulgar, inartistic rotation and is based on an illusion. One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one's native land and goes abroad; one is weary of Europe and goes to America etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star. Or there is another direction, but still extensive. One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold; one burns down half of Rome in order to visualize the Trojan conflagration. This method cancels itself and is the spurious infinity. What, after all, did Nero achieve? No, then the emperor Antoninus was wiser; he says: "You can begin a new life. Only see things afresh as you used to see them. In this consists the new life" The method I propose does not consist in changing the soil but, like proper crop rotation, consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops. Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes. A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement. Think of our school days; we were at an age when there was no esthetic consideration in the choosing of our teachers, and therefore they were often very boring--how resourceful we were then! What fun we had catching a fly, keeping it prisoner under a nutshell, and watching it run around with it! What delight in cutting a hole in the desk, confining a fly in it, and peeking at it through a piece of paper! How entertaining it can be to listen to the monotonous dripping from the roof! What a meticulous observer one becomes, detecting every little sound or movement. Here is the extreme boundary of that principle that seeks relief not through extensity but through intensity.   The more resourceful one can be in changing the method of cultivation, the better, but every particular change still falls under the universal rule of the relation between recollecting and forgetting. It is in these two currents that all life moves, and therefore it is a matter of having them properly under one's control. Not until hope has been thrown overboard does one begin to live artistically; as long as a person hopes, he cannot limit himself. It is indeed beautiful to see a person put out to sea with the fair wind of hope; one may utilize the chance to let oneself to towed along, but one ought never have it on board one's craft, least of all as pilot, for it is an untrustworthy shipmaster. For this reason, too, hope was one of Prometheus's dubious gifts; instead of giving human beings the foreknowledge of the immortals, he gave them hope.   To forget--this is the desire of all people, and when they encounter something unpleasant, they always say: If only I could forget! But to forget is an art that must be practiced in advance. To be able to forget always depends upon how one experiences actuality. The person who runs aground with the speed of hope will recollect in such a way that he will be unable to forget. Thus nil admirari [marvel at nothing] is the proper wisdom of life. No part of life ought to have so much meaning for a person that he cannot forget it any moment he wants to; on the other hand, every single part of life ought to have so much meaning for a person that he can remember it at any moment.   The age that remembers best is also the most forgetful: namely, childhood. The more poetically one remembers, the more easily one forgets, for to remember poetically is actually only an expression for forgetting. When I remember poetically, my experience has already undergone the change of having lost everything painful. In order to be able to recollect in this way, one must be very much aware of how one lives, especially of how one enjoys. If one enjoys indiscriminately to the very end, if one continually takes the utmost that enjoyment can give, one will be unable either to recollect or to forget. That is, one has nothing else to recollect than a satiation that one only wishes to forget but that now torments with an involuntary recollection. Therefore, if a person notices that enjoyment or a part of life is carrying him away too forcefully, he stops for a moment and recollects. There is no better way to give a distaste for going on too long. From the beginning, one curbs the enjoyment and does not hoist full sail for any decision; one indulges with a certain mistrust. Only then is it possible to give the lie to the proverb that says that one cannot eat one's cake and have it, too. It is true that the police forbid carrying secret weapons, and yet there is no weapon as dangerous as the art of being able to recollect. It is a singular feeling when in the midst of enjoyment one looks at it in order to recollect it.   When an individual has perfected himself in the art of forgetting and the art of recollecting in this way, he is then able to play shuttlecock with all existence . . . . .   The art of recollecting and forgetting will also prevent a person from foundering in any particular relationship in life--and assures him complete suspension.   Guard, then, against friendship. How is a friend defined? A friend is not what philosophy calls the necessary other but the superfluous third. What are the rituals of friendship? One drinks dus; one opens an artery, mingles one's blood with the friend's. Just when this moment arrives is difficult to determine, but it proclaims itself in a mysterious way; one feels it and can no longer say De to the other. Once this feeling is present, it can never turn out that one has made a mistake such as Gert Westphaler made when he drank dus with the executioner. --What are the sure signs of friendship? Antiquity answers: "agreement in likes and dislikes, this and this only is what constitutes true friendship"--and is also extremely boring. What is the meaning of friendship? Mutual assistance with counsel and action. Two friends form a close alliance in order to be everything to each other, even though no human being can be anything for another human being except to be in his way. Well, we can help each other with money, help each other into and out of our coats, be each other's humble servants, gather for a sincere New Year's congratulation, also for weddings, births, and funerals.   But just because one stays clear of friendship, one will not for that reason live without contact with people. On the contrary, these relationships can take a deeper turn now and then, provided that one always--even though keeping the same pace for a time--has enough reserve speed to run away from them. It may be thought that such conduct leaves unpleasant recollections, that the unpleasantness consists in the diminishing of a relationship from having been something to being nothing. This, however, is a misunderstanding. The unpleasantness is indeed a piquant ingredient in the perverseness of life. Moreover, the same relationship can regain significance in another way. One should be careful never to run aground and to that end always to have forgetting in mind. The experienced farmer lets his land lie fallow now and then; the theory of social prudence recommends the same thing. Everything will surely come again but in a different way; what has once been taken into the rotation process remains there but is varied by the method of cultivation. Therefore, one quite consistently hopes to meet one's old friends and acquaintances in a better world but does not share the crowd's fear that they may have changed so much that one could not recognize them again. One fears, instead, that they may be altogether unchanged. It is unbelievable what even the most insignificant person can gain by such sensible cultivation.   Never become involved in marriage. Married people pledge love for each other throughout eternity. Well, now, that is easy enough but does not mean very much, for if one is finished with time one is probably finished with eternity. If, instead of saying "throughout eternity," the couple would say "until Easter, until next May Day," then what they say would make some sense, for then they would be saying something and also something they perhaps could carry out. What happens in marriage? First, one of them detects after a short time that something is wrong, and then the other one complains and screams: Faithlessness! Faithlessness! After a while, the other one comes to the same conclusion and a state of neutrality is inaugurated through a balancing of accounts by mutual faithlessness, to their common satisfaction and gratification. But it is too late now, anyway, because a divorce involves all kinds of huge problems.   Since marriage is like that, it is not strange that attempts are made in many ways to shore it up with moral props. If a man wants to be separated from his wife, the cry goes up: He is a mean fellow, a scoundrel, etc. How ridiculous, and what an indirect assault upon marriage! Either marriage has intrinsic reality, and then he is adequately punished by losing it, or it has no reality, and then it is unreasonable to vilify him because he is wiser than others. If someone became weary of his money and threw it out the window, no one would say he is a mean fellow, for either money has reality, and then he is adequately punished by not having it anymore, or it has no reality, and then, of course, he is indeed wise.   One must always guard against contracting a life relationship by which one can become many. That is why even friendship is dangerous, marriage even more so. They do say that marriage partners become one, but this is very obscure and mysterious talk. If an individual is many, he has lost his freedom and cannot order his riding boots when he wishes, cannot knock about according to whim. If he has a wife, it is difficult; if he has a wife and perhaps children, it is formidable; if he has a wife and children, it is impossible.   Admittedly, there is the example of a gypsy woman who carried her husband on her back throughout life, but for one thing this is a great rarity and, for another, it is very tiring in the long run--for the husband. Moreover, through marriage one falls into a very deadly continuity with custom, and custom is like the wind and weather, something completely indeterminable. To the best of my knowledge, it is the custom in Japan for the husbands also to be confined during childbirth. Perhaps the time is coming when Europe will import the customs of foreign lands.   Even friendship is dangerous; marriage is still more dangerous, for the woman is and will be the man's ruination as soon as he contracts a continuing relationship with her. Take a young man, spirited as an Arabian horse; let him marry and he is lost. At the outset, the woman is proud, then she is weak, then she swoons, then he swoons, then the whole family swoons. A woman's love is only pretense and weakness.   Just because one does not become involved in marriage, one's life need not for that reason be devoid of the erotic. The erotic, too, ought to have infinity--but a poetic infinity that can just as well be limited to one hour as to a month. When two people fall in love with each other and sense that they are destined for each other, it is a question of having the courage to break it off, for by continuing there is only everything to lose, nothing to gain. It seems to be a paradox, and indeed it is, for the feelings, not for the understanding. In this domain it is primarily a matter of being able to use moods; if a person can do that, an inexhaustible variation of combinations can be achieved.   Never take any official post. If one does that, one becomes just a plain John Anyman, a tiny little cog in the machine of the body politic. The individual ceases to be himself the manager of the operation, and then theories can be of little help. One acquires a title, and implicit in that are all the consequences of sin and evil. The law under which one slaves is equally boring no matter whether advancement is swift or slow. A title can never be disposed of, it would take a criminal act for that, which would incur a public whipping, and even then one cannot be sure of not being pardoned by royal decree and acquiring the title again.   Even though one stays clear of official posts, one should nevertheless not be inactive but attach great importance to all the pursuits that are compatible with aimlessness; all kinds of unprofitable pursuits may be carried on. Yet in this regard one ought to develop not so much extensively as intensively and, although mature in years, demonstrate the validity of the old saying: It doesn't take much to amuse a child.   Just as one varies the soil somewhat, in accordance with the theory of social prudence (for if one were to live in relation to only one person, rotation of crops would turn out badly, as would be the case if a farmer had only one acre of land and therefore could never let it lie fallow, something that is extremely important), so also must one continually vary oneself, and this is the real secret. To the end, it is essential to have control over one's moods. To have them under control in the sense that one can produce them at will is an impossibility, but prudence teaches us to utilize the moment. Just as an experienced sailor always scans the sea and detects a squall far in advance, so one should always detect a mood a little in advance. Before entering into a mood, one should know its effect on oneself and its probable effect on others. The first strokes are for the purpose of evoking pure tones and seeing what is inside a person; later come the intermediate tones. The more practice one has, the more one is convinced that there is often much in a person that was never imagined. When sentimental people, who as such are very boring, become peevish, they are often amusing. Teasing in particular is an excellent means of exploration.   Arbitrariness is the whole secret. It is popularly believed that there is no art to being arbitrary, and yet it takes profound study to be arbitrary in such a way that a person does not himself run wild in it but himself has pleasure from it. One does not enjoy the immediate object but something else that one arbitrarily introduces. One sees the middle of a play; one reads the third section of a book. One thereby has enjoyment quite different from what the author so kindly intended. One enjoys something totally accidental; one considers the whole of existence from this standpoint; one lets its reality run aground on this. I shall give an example. There was a man whose chatter I was obliged to listen to because of the circumstances. On every occasion, he was ready with a little philosophical lecture that was extremely boring. On the verge of despair, I suddenly discovered that the man perspired exceptionally much when he spoke. This perspiration now absorbed my attention. I watched how the pearls of perspiration collected on his forehead, then united in a rivulet, slid down his nose, and ended in a quivering globule that remained suspended at the end of his nose. From that moment on, everything was changed; I could even have the delight of encouraging him to commence his philosophical instruction just in order to watch the perspiration on his brow and on his nose.   Baggesen tells somewhere that a certain man is no doubt a very honest fellow but that he has one thing against him: nothing rhymes with his name. It is very advantageous to let the realities of life be undifferentiated in an arbitrary interest like that. Something accidental is made into the absolute and as such into an object of absolute admiration.   This is especially effective when the feelings are in motion. For many people, this method is an excellent means of stimulation. Everything in life is regarded as a wager etc. The more consistently a person knows how to sustain his arbitrariness, the more amusing the combinations become. The degree of consistency always makes manifest whether a person is an artist or a bungler, for up to a point everyone does the same. The eye with which one sees actuality must be changed continually. The Neoplatonists assumed that people who fell short of perfection on earth became after death more or less perfect animals according to their merits; those who, for example, had practiced social virtues on a minor scale (punctilious people) turned into social creatures--for example, bees. Such a view of life, which here in this world sees all human beings transformed into animals or plants (Plotinus also believed this--that some were changed into plants) offers a rich multiplicity of variation. The artist Tischbein has attempted to idealize every human being as an animal. His method has the defect that it is too serious and tries to discover an actual resemblance.   The accidental outside a person corresponds to the arbitrariness within him. Therefore he always ought to have his eyes open for the accidental, always ought to be ready if something should come up. The so-called social pleasures for which we prepare ourselves a week or a fortnight in advance are of little significance, whereas even the most insignificant thing can accidentally become a rich material for amusement. To go into detail here is not feasible--no theory can reach that far. Even the most elaborate theory is merely poverty compared with what genius in its ubiquity easily discovers. THE SEDUCER'S DIARY PART II THE AESTHETIC VALIDITY OF MARRIAGE   ... This might seem a superfluous investigation, something which everyone is willing to concede, since it has been pointed out often enough. For through many centuries have not knights and adventurers undergone incredible pains and trouble in order to come to harbor in the quiet peace of a happy marriage? Have not novelists and novel readers worked their way through one volume after another in order to stop with a happy marriage? And has not one generation after another endured the troubles and complications of four acts if only there was some likelihood of a happy marriage in the fifth? However, by these prodigious efforts very little has been accomplished for the glorification of marriage, and I doubt very much if by the reading of such works any man has been made capable of performing the task he set himself, or has felt oriented in life. For this precisely is the pernicious, the unwholesome feature of such works, that they end where they ought to begin., After the many fates they have overcome the lovers finally sink into one another's arms. The curtain falls, the book ends; but the reader is none the wiser. For truly (assuming that the first flame of love is present) it requires no great art to have courage and shrewdness enough to fight with all one's might for the good which one regards as the only good; but on the other hand it surely requires discretion, wisdom, and patience to overcome the lassitude which often is wont to follow upon a wish fulfilled. It is natural that to love in its first outflaming it seems as if it could not suffer enough hardships in acquiring possession of the beloved object, yea, that in case there are no dangers present it is disposed to provide them in order to overcome them. Upon this the whole attention is directed in plays of this sort, and as soon as the dangers are overcome the scenery shifter knows well what he has to do. Hence it is rather rare to see a wedding on the stage or to read of one, except in case the opera or the ballet holds in reserve this factor, which may well furnish an occasion for some sort of dramatic galimatias, for a gorgeous procession, for the significant gesticulations and the heavenly glance of a ballet dancer, for the exchange of rings, etc.   The truth in this whole exposition, the real aesthetic element, consists in the fact that love is represented as a striving, that this feeling is seen fighting its way through opposition. The fault is that this struggle, this dialectic, is entirely external, and that love comes out of this fight quite as abstract as when it entered into it. When once there awakens an apprehension of love's proper dialectic, an apprehension of its pathological struggle, of its relation to the ethical, to the religious, verily one will not have need of hard-hearted fathers or ladies' bowers, or enchanted princesses or ogres and monsters in order to give love plenty to do. In our age one rarely encounters such cruel fathers or such frightful monsters, and insofar as modern literature has fashioned itself in conformity with the antique, money has become essentially the opposition medium through which love moves, and again we sit patiently through the four acts if there is a reasonable prospect of a rich uncle dying in the fifth. However, it is rather seldom one sees such productions and, generally speaking, modern literature is fully occupied with making fun of the abstract conception of immediate love which was the subject of the romantic novelists. . . . Taking it all in all, it is remarkable how voracious modern poetry is, and for a long time it has been living on nothing else but love. Our age reminds one vividly of the dissolution of the Greek city-state: everything goes on as usual, and yet there- is no longer any one who believes in it. The invisible spiritual bond which gives it validity no longer exists, and so the whole age is at once comic and tragic-tragic because it is perishing, comic because it goes on. For it is always the imperishable which sustains the perishable, the spiritual which sustains the corporal; and if it might be conceived that an exanimate body could for a little while continue to perform its customary functions, it would in the same way be comic and tragic. But only let our age go on consuming-and the more it manages to consume of the substantial value contained in romantic love with all the more consternation will it some day, when this annihilation no longer gives pleasure, awaken to the consciousness of what it has lost and despairingly feel its misfortune.   We will now see whether the age which demolished romantic love has succeeded in putting anything better in its place. First, however, I will indicate the mark by which romantic love may be known. One might say in one word that it is immediate: to see her was to love her; or, though she saw him only once through a slit in the shuttered window of her chamber, nevertheless from this instant she loved him, him alone in the whole world. Here I ought properly, according to agreement, leave place for a few polemical outbursts in order to promote in you I the secretion of bile which is an indispensable condition for the wholesome and profitable appropriation of what I have to say. But for all that I cannot make up my mind to do so., and for two reasons: partly because this is a rather hackneyed theme in our time (and honestly it is incomprehensible to me that in this instance you want to go with the current, whereas ordinarily you go against it); and partly because I really have conserved a certain faith in the reality of romantic love, a sort of reverence for it, accompanied by some feeling of sadness. . . . After all, is it not beautiful to imagine that two beings are meant for one another? How often one has felt the need of reaching out beyond the historical consciousness, a longing, a nostalgia for the primeval forest which lies behind us. And does not this longing acquire a double significance when with it there is associated the conception of another being which also has its home in these regions? Hence every marriage, even one which was entered upon on after reflective deliberation, feels the need, at least in certain moments, of such a foreground. And how beautiful it is that the God who is spirit loves also the love which is earthly. The fact that among married people there is great deal of lying in this respect I am very, ready to concede to you, and also that your observations in this field have amused me; but one ought never to forget the truth that is in it. Perhaps one or another man may think that it is better to exercise his own sovereign discretion in the choice of "his life's companion," but such an opinion discloses a high degree of narrow-mindedness and a foolish self-importance on the part of the understanding, with no inkling of the fact that romantic love is by its very nature free, and that its greatness consists precisely in this quality.   Romantic love shows that it is immediate by the fact that it follows a natural necessity. It is based upon beauty, in part upon sensuous beauty, in part upon the beauty which can be conceived through and with and in the sensuous.... In spite of the fact that this love is essentially based upon the sensuous, it is ennobled by reason of the consciousness of eternity which it embodies; for what distinguishes all love from lust is the fact that it bears an impress of eternity. The lovers are sincerely convinced that their relationship is in itself a complete whole which never can be altered. But since this assurance is founded only upon a natural determinant, the eternal is thus based upon the temporal and thereby cancels itself. Since this assurance has undergone no test, has found no higher attestation, it shows itself to be an illusion, and for this reason it is easy to make it ridiculous. People should not, however, be so ready to do this, and it is truly disgusting to see in modern comedy these experienced, intriguing, dissolute women who know that love is an illusion. I know of no creature so abominable as such a woman. No debauchery is so loathsome to me and nothing is so revolting as to see a lovable young girl in the hands of such a woman. Truly this is more terrible than to imagine her in the hands of a club of seducers. It is sad to see a man who has learned to discount every substantial value of life, but to see a woman on this false path is horrible. Romantic love, however, as I have said, presents an analogy to morality by reason of the presumptive eternity which ennobles it and saves it from being mere sensuality. For the sensual is the momentary. The. sensual seeks instant satisfaction, and the more refined it is, the better it knows how to make the instant of enjoyment a little eternity.' The true eternity in love, as in true morality, delivers it, therefore, first of all from the sensual. But in order to produce this true eternity a determination of the will is called for. Of this I shall say more later.   Our age has perceived very clearly the weak points of romantic love, and its ironical polemic against it has sometimes been thoroughly amusing; whether it has remedied its defects and what it has put in its place, we shall now see. One may say that it has taken two paths, one of which is seen at the first glance to be a false one, that is, an immoral path; the other is more respectable, but to my mind it misses the deeper values of love, for if love is in fact founded upon the sensuous, every one can easily see that this "immediate" faithfulness of theirs is foolishness. What wonder then that women want emancipation-one of the many ugly phenomena of our age for which men are responsible. The eternal element in love becomes an object of derision, the temporal element alone is left, but this temporal again is refined into the sensuous eternity, into the eternal instant of the embrace. What I say here applies not only to a seducer here and there who sneaks about in the world like a beast of prey; no, it is appropriate to a numerous chorus of highly gifted men, for it is not only Byron who declares that love is heaven, marriage is hell. It is very evident that there is in this a reflection, something which romantic love does not have. For romantic love is quite willing to accept marriage too, willing to accept the blessing of the Church as a pretty adjunct to the festivity, without attaching to it any real significance on its own account. By reason of its disposition to reflection the love here in question has with a terrible firmness and induration of mind made up a new definition of what unhappy love is, namely, to be loved when one no longer loves-the opposite of loving without requital. And verily, if this tendency were aware what profundity is implied in these few words, it would itself shrink from it. For apart from all the experience, shrewdness and cunning this definition reveals, it contains also a presentiment that conscience exists. So then the moment remains the principal thing, and how often one has I heard these shameless words addressed by such a lover to a poor girl who could love only once: "I do not demand so much, I am content with less; far be it from me to require that you shall continue to love me to all eternity, if only you love me at the instant when I wish it." Such lovers know very well that the sensuous is transient, they know also what is the most beautiful instant and therewith they are content.   Such a tendency is, of course, absolutely immoral; yet on the path of thought it brings us in a way nearer our goal, forasmuch as it lodges a formal protest against marriage. Insofar as the same tendency seeks to assume a more decent appearance it does not confine itself merely to the single instant, but extends this to a longer period, yet in such a way that instead of receiving the eternal into its consciousness it receives the temporal, or it entangles itself in this opposition between the temporal and the eternal by -supposing a possible alteration in the course of time.   It thinks that for a time one can well enough endure living together, but it would keep open a way of escape so as to be able to choose if a happier choice might offer itself. This reduces marriage to a civil arrangement; one need only report to the proper magistrate that this marriage is ended and another contracted, just as one reports a change of domicile. Whether this is an advantage to the State I leave undecided for the individual in question it must truly be a strange relationship. Hence one does not always see it realized, but the age is continually threatening us with it. And verily it would require a high degree of impudence to carry it out-I do not think this word is too strong to apply to it-just as on the part of the female participant in this association it would betray a frivolity bordering on depravity.   There is, however, an entirely different disposition of mind which might get this notion into its head, and that is a disposition which I would deal with here more especially, since it is very characteristic of our age. For in fact such a plan may originate either in an egoistic or in a sympathetic melancholy.... The egoistic sort fears, of course, for its own sake, and like all melancholy it is self-indulgent. It has a certain extravagant deference for the thought of an alliance for the whole life, and a secret horror of it. "What assurance has a man that he will not change? Perhaps this being whom I now adore may change; perhaps fate may subsequently bring me into association with another being who for the first time would be truly the ideal I had dreamt of." Like all melancholy it is defiant and knows that it is, thinking "perhaps precisely the fact that I tie myself to one person by an irrevocable bond may make this being whom otherwise I should love with my whole soul intolerable to me; perhaps, perhaps, etc." The sympathetic melancholy is more painful and at the same time rather nobler: it is fearful of itself for the sake of the other. "Who knows so surely that I may not change? Perhaps what I now regard as good in me may vanish; perhaps that by which I now captivate the loved one, and which only for her sake I wish to retain, may be taken from me, and there she stands then, deluded, deceived; perhaps a brilliant prospect opens for her, she is tempted, she does not withstand the temptation. Great God! I should have that upon my conscience! I have nothing to reproach her for, it is I who have changed, I forgive her everything if only she can forgive me for being so imprudent as to let her take a step so decisive. I know indeed in my heart that so far from talking her into it I rather warned her against me;  I know that it was her free resolution, but perhaps it was precisely this warning which tempted her, which let her see in me a better being than I am, etc., etc." It is easy to see that such a way of thinking is no better served by an alliance for five years than by one of ten, or even by an alliance such as Saladin formed with the Christians., for ten years, ten months, ten weeks, ten days, and ten minutes; indeed, is no better served by such an alliance than by one for the whole life. One sees very well that such a way of thinking feels only too deeply the significance of the saying, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It is an attempt to live every day as though that day were the decisive one, an attempt to live as though every day were a day of examination. Hence, when one finds in our times a strong disposition to abolish marriage, this is not as in the Middle Ages because the unmarried life is regarded as more perfect, but the reason of it is cowardice and self indulgence. It is also evident that such marriages as are contracted for a definite time are of no avail, since they involve the same difficulties as those which are contracted for a whole life, and at the same time are so far from bestowing the required strength for living that on the contrary they enervate the inner power of married life, relax the energy of the will, and diminish the blessing of confidence which marriage possesses. It is also clear at this point, and will subsequently become more so, that such associations are not marriages, inasmuch as, though contracted in the sphere of reflection, they have not yet attained the consciousness of the eternal which morality has and without which such an association is not marriage. There is also something upon which You will agree with me entirely, for how often and how surely have your mockery and your irony hit the mark when you were denouncing what you call "fortuitous love affairs" and the "bad infinity" of love-when one is looking with his sweetheart out of the window, and that instant a young girl turns the corner into another street, and it occurs to him, "It is with her I am really in love," but when he would follow her trace he is again unsettled, etc.   The other expedient,' the respectable way, would be the marriage of convenience. The mere mention of it shows that reason intervenes, and that we have entered the sphere of reflection. One person land another, and you among them, have always made a dubious face at the union here implied between immediate love and the calculating understanding; for really, if one were to show respect for linguistic usage, it ought to be called a marriage of common sense. Especially are you accustomed, with an ambiguous use of words, to recommend "respect" as a solid foundation for the marriage relation. It shows how thoroughly reflective this age is, that it must help itself out with such a compromise as a marriage of convenience. Insofar as such an association waives all claim to real love it is at least consistent, but at the same time it thereby shows that it is not a solution of the problem. A marriage of convenience is therefore to be regarded as a sort of capitulation, necessitated by the complications of life. But how pitiful it is that this should be the only comfort that is left to the poetry of our age, the comfort of despairing; for it is evidently despair which makes such an alliance acceptable. It is contracted, therefore, more likely by persons who no longer are chickens, and who also have learned that love is an illusion and its realization at the most a plum desiderium. What it therefore has to do with is life's prose, subsistence, and social standing.   Insofar as it has neutralized the sensuous factor in marriage it appears to be moral, but it nevertheless remains a question whether this neutralization is not just as immoral as it is unaesthetic. Even when the erotic is not entirely neutralized, it is nevertheless disheartened by a -cool common-sense consideration that one must be prudent, not be too quick in sorting and rejecting, that life after all never presents the ideal, that it is quite a respectable match, etc. The eternal, which (as has been shown above) is properly a part of every marriage is not really present here; for a common-sense calculation is always temporal. Such an alliance is therefore at once immoral and fragile. Such a marriage of convenience may assume a prettier form when the motive is somewhat higher. In such a case it is a motive foreign to the marriage which decides the matter-as, e.g. when a young girl, out of love for her family, marries a man who is in a position to rescue it. But precisely this outward teleology shows clearly that we cannot seek here a solution of the problem. At this point I might perhaps aptly deal with the manifold motives to marriage about which there is a great deal of talk . However, I prefer to reserve this subject for another place,' where also, if possible, I may be able to make this talk hold its tongue.   We have now seen how romantic love was built upon an illusion, that the eternity it claims was built upon the temporal, and that although the knight of romantic love was sincerely convinced of its absolute durability, there nevertheless was no certainty of this, inasmuch as its trials and temptations have hitherto been in a medium which was entirely external. Such being the case, it was able with a pretty piety to accept marriage along with love, although, after all., this acquired no very deep significance. We have seen how this immediate and beautiful but also very naive love, being embodied in the consciousness of a reflective age, must become the object of its mockery and of its irony; and we have seen too what such an age was capable of substituting for it. Such an age embodied marriage in its consciousness and in part declared itself on the side of love in such a way as to exclude marriage, in part on the side of marriage in such a way as to exclude love. Hence, in a recent play a sensible little seamstress, speaking of the love of fine gentlemen, makes the shrewd observation, "You love us but you don't marry us; the fine ladies you don't love, but you marry them."   . . . However many painful confusions life may still have in store, I fight for two things: for the prodigious task of showing that marriage is the transfiguration of first love, that it is its friend, not its enemy; and for the task (which to others is very trivial but to me is all the more important) of showing that my, humble marriage has had such a meaning for me, so that from it I derive strength and courage to fulfill constantly this task....   Let us now glance at the relation between romantic and conjugal love. Romantic love remains constantly abstract in itself, and if it is able to acquire no external history, death already is lying in wait for it, because its eternity is illusory. Conjugal love begins with possession and acquires inward history. It is faithful. So is romantic love-but now note the difference. The faithful romantic lover waits, let us say, for fifteen years-then comes the instant which rewards him. Here poetry rightly sees that the fifteen years can very well be concentrated. It hastens on, then, to the moment. A married man is faithful for fifteen years, yet during those fifteen years he has had possession, so in the long succession of time he has acquired faithfulness. But such an ideal marriage cannot be represented, for the very point is time in its extension. At the end of the fifteen years he apparently got no further than he was at the beginning, yet he has lived in a high degree aesthetically. His possession has not been like dead property, but he has constantly been acquiring his possession. He has not fought with lions and ogres, but with the most dangerous enemy-with time. For him eternity does not come afterwards as in the case of the knight, but he has had eternity in time. He alone, therefore, has triumphed over time; for one can say of the knight that he has killed time, as indeed a man constantly wishes to kill time when it has no reality for him. But this is never the perfect victory. The married man, being a true conqueror, has not killed time but has saved it- and preserved it in eternity. The married man who does this truly lives poetically. He solves the great riddle of living in eternity and yet hearing the hall clock strike, and hearing it in such a way that the stroke of the hour does not shorten but prolong his eternity-a contradiction as profound but far more glorious than the situation described in a well known tale of the Middle Ages which tells of an unhappy man who awoke in hell and cried out, "What time is it?" and the devil answered, "An eternity." And now even if this is something which cannot be represented in art, let it be your comfort as it is mine that the highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, may be lived. When, then, I willingly admit that romantic love lends itself more aptly to artistic representation than does conjugal love, this is not by any means to say that the latter is less aesthetic than the former; on the contrary, it is more aesthetic. In one of the tales of the Romantic School which evinces the greatest genius, there is one character who has no desire to write poetry like the others among whom he lives, because it is a waste of time and deprives him of the true enjoyment; he prefers to live; Now if he had had the right conception of what it is to live, he would have been the man for me.   Conjugal love has its foe in time, its triumph in time, its eternity time, and so it would have its problems, even if I were to imagine it free from all the so-called external and internal trials. Generally, it has these too; but if one were to interpret them rightly, one must observe two things: that these trials are constantly inward determinants; and that they constantly have in -them the determinant of time. It is easy to see that for this reason, too, conjugal love cannot be represented. It constantly drags itself back inwardly, and (to use the expression in a good sense) it constantly drags along in time; but what is to be represented by reproduction must let itself be lured out, and its time must be capable of abbreviation. You may convince yourself of this more thoroughly by considering the predicates commonly applied to conjugal love. It is faithful, constant, humble, patient, long-suffering, indulgent, sincere, contented, vigilant, willing, joyful. All these virtues have the characteristic that they are inward qualifications of the individual. The individual is not fighting with external foes but fights with himself, fights out love from Within him. And they have reference to time, for their truth does not consist in being once for all, but in being constantly what they are. And by these virtues nothing else is acquired, only they themselves are acquired. Conjugal love does not come with any outward sign, like "the rich bird" with whizzing and bluster, but it is the imperishable nature of a quiet spirit.   Of this fact you and all natures born for conquest have no conception. You are never in yourselves, but constantly outside yourselves. Yea, so long as every nerve in you is aquiver, whether when you are stealing softly about, or when you step out boldly and Janizary music within you drowns out your consciousness-then you feel that you are living. But when the battle is won, when the last echo of the last shot has died away, when the swift thoughts, like a staff officer hurrying back to headquarters, report that the victory is yours-then, in fact, you know nothing more, you know not how to begin; for then, for the first time, you are at the true beginning. What you, therefore, under the name of custom abhor as unavoidable in marriage is merely the historical factor in it, which in your perverted eye acquires such a terrifying aspect.   But what is this thing you are accustomed to think of as not merely annihilated but profaned by the "custom" which is inseparable from conjugal love? Generally you think of what you call "the visible sacred symbol of the erotic," which, as you say, "like all signs or tokens, has in itself no importance but depends for its significance upon the energy, the artistic bravura and virtuosity, themselves proofs of inborn genius, with which it is executed." "How disgusting it is," you say, "to see the languor with which such things are performed in married life, how perfunctorily, how sluggishly it is done, almost at the stroke of the clock-pretty much as among the tribe the Jesuits discovered in Paraguay, which was so sluggish that the Jesuits found it necessary to ring a bell at midnight as a welcome notice to all husbands, to remind them thereby of their marital duties. So everything is done on time, as they are trained to do it." Let us at this point agree that in our meditation we shall not let ourselves be disturbed by the fact that there is a great deal to be seen in existence which is ludicrous and preposterous; let us simply see whether it is necessary and, if so, learn from you the way of salvation. In this respect I dare not expect much from you; for like the Spanish knight of the doleful countenance you are fighting, though in a different sense, for a vanished time. For as you are fighting for the moment against time, you actually are fighting for what has vanished. Let us take an idea, an expression, from your poetic world, or from the real world of first love: "the lovers look at one another." You know very well how to underscore this word "look" and to put into it an infinite reality, an eternity. In this sense a married couple who have lived together for ten years and have seen one another daily cannot "look" at one another. But might they not therefore be able- to look lovingly at one another? Now here we have again your old heresy. You have got to the point of limiting love to a certain age, and limiting love for one person to a very short period of time. Thereupon, like all conquering natures, you seek recruits in order to carry out your experiment-but this, indeed, is the very deepest profanation of the eternal power of love. This, indeed, is despair. However you turn and twist, you must admit that the gist of the matter is to preserve love in time. If this is impossible, then love is an impossibility. Your misfortune is that you recognize love simply and solely by these visible signs. If they are to be repeated again and again, and must be accompanied, you are to note, by a morbid reflection as to whether they continually possess the reality they once had by reason of the accidental circumstance that it was the first time, it is no wonder you are alarmed and that you associate these signs and "gesticulations" with things of which one dare not say decies repetita placebunt;  for if that which gives them value was the characteristic qualification "the first time," a repetition is indeed impossible. But healthy love has an entirely different worth: it is in time that it accomplishes its work, and therefore it will be capable of rejuvenating itself by means of these outward signs, and (what to me is -the principal thing) it has an entirely different conception of time and of the significance of repetition.   I have shown in the foregoing discussion that conjugal love has its conflict in time, its victory in time, its blessing in time. I then regarded time merely as simple progression; now I shall show that it is not merely a simple progression in which the original datum is preserved, but a growing progression in which the original datum increases. You who have made so many observations will certainly grant that I am right in making the general observation that men are divided into two great classes: those who predominantly live in hope, and those who predominantly live in recollection. Both have a wrong relation to time. The healthy individual lives at once both in hope and in recollection, and only thereby does his life acquire true and substantial continuity. So, then, he has hope and does not wish, like those who live off recollection, to return backward in time. What, then, does recollection do for him? For after all, some influence it surely must have. It sets a cross over the note of the instant-the further back recollection goes, and the more frequent the repetition, the more crosses there are. Thus, if in the present year the individual experiences an erotic moment, this is enhanced by the fact that he recollects it in the preceding year, etc. In a beautiful way this has also found expression in married life.  do not know what may now be the age of the world, but you know as well as I that people are accustomed to say that first comes the golden age, then the silver age, then the copper age, then the iron age. In marriage this is inverted: first comes the silver wedding, then the golden wedding. Is not recollection really the point of such a wedding? And yet the marriage terminology declares that this is still more beautiful than the first wedding. Now you must not misunderstand this-as you would do, for instance, if you might be pleased to say, "Then it would be best to get married in the cradle in order to begin promptly with one's silver wedding and have hope of being the first inventor of a brand-new term in the vocabulary of married life." You yourself presumably perceive the fallacy of your witticism, and I shall not dwell upon it any further. What I would remind you of, however, is that the individuals are in fact not merely living in hope; they constantly have in the present both the one and the other, both hope and recollection. At the first wedding hope has the same effect that recollection has at the last. Hope hovers over them as the hope of eternity which fills the moment to the brim. You also will perceive the correctness of this when you reflect that if one were to marry merely in the hope of a silver wedding, and then hoped and hoped again for twenty-five years, one would be in no state to celebrate the silver wedding when the twenty-fifth year came around, for indeed one would have nothing to recollect, since with all this hoping everything would have fallen apart. Moreover, it has often occurred to me to wonder why, according, to the universal usage and way of thinking, the state of single blessedness has no such brilliant prospects, that on the contrary, people rather turn it to ridicule when a bachelor celebrates a jubilee. The reason, doubtless, is that in general it is assumed that the single state never can rightly grasp the true present, which is a unity of hope and recollection, and that therefore, bachelors are for the most part addicted either to hope or to recollection. But this again suggests the correct relation to time which common estimation also attributes to conjugal love.   There is also something else, however, in married life which you characterize by the word "custom": "its monotony," you say, "the total lack of events, its everlasting vacuity, which is death and worse than death." You know that there are neurasthenics who may be disturbed by the slightest noise, who are unable to think when someone is walking softly across the floor. Have you observed that there is also another sort of neurasthenia? There are people so weak that they need loud noise and a distracting environment in order to be able to work. Why is this, unless for the fact that they have no command over themselves, except in an inverse sense? When they are alone their thoughts disappear in the indefinite; on the other hand, when there is noise and hubbub around them, this compels them to pit their will against it. It is for this reason you are afraid of peace and quietness and repose. You are within yourself only when there is opposition, but therefore you are never within yourself. That is to say, the moment you assimilate opposition there is quiet again. Therefore you do not dare to do so. But then you and the opposition remain standing face to face, and so you are not within yourself.   The same thing, of course, applies here which we noted earlier in the case of time. You are outside yourself and therefore cannot dispense with "the other" as an opposition; you believe that only a restless spirit is alive, whereas all men of experience think that only a quiet spirit is truly alive; for you, an agitated sea is the image of life, for me it is still deep waters. Often I have sat by a bit of purling water. It is always the same, the same soft melody, the same green plants on its floor, swaying beneath its quiet waves, the same little creatures running about at the bottom, a little fish which glides under the protection of the overhanging flowers, spreading out its fins against the current, hiding under a stone. How monotonous, and yet how rich in change! Such is the home life of marriage: quiet, modest, purling-it has not many changements and et like that water it purls, yet like that water it has melody, dear to the man who knows it, dear to him above all other sounds because he knows it. It makes no pompous display, and yet sometimes there is shed over it a luster which does not interrupt its customary course, as when the moonbeams fall upon the water and reveal the instrument upon which it plays its melody. Such is the home life of marriage. But in order to be seen thus and to be lived thus it presupposes the one quality which I shall mention to you. I find it mentioned in a poem by Oehlenschlager upon which, at least in time gone by, I know you set great store. For the sake of completeness I shall transcribe the whole of it:   How much must come together in the world That love's enchantment may be brought to pass! First the two hearts which know each other well, Then charm which doth accompany them both, The moon then casting its bewitching beams Through the beech forests in the early spring, Then that these two can meet there all alone Then the first kiss-and then . . . their innocence.   You too are given to eulogizing love. I will not deprive you of that which is not indeed your property, for it is the property of the poet, but which, nevertheless, you have appropriated; but since I too have appropriated it, let us share it: you get the whole poem; I, the last words: "their innocence."   Finally, there is still another side to married life which has often given you occasion for attack. You say, "Conjugal love conceals in itself something quite different. It seems so mild and heartfelt and tender, but as soon as the door is closed behind the married pair, then before you can say Jack Robinson out comes the word duty. You may deck out this scepter as much as you will, you can make it into a Shrovetide rod, it still remains a rod." I deal with this objection here because it also is due essentially to a misunderstanding of the historical factor in conjugal love. You would have it that either obscure powers or caprice are the constituent factors of love. As soon as consciousness comes forward to join them this enchantment vanishes. But this, consciousness is conjugal love. To express it quite crudely-in place of the wand with which the director of the orchestra indicates the tempo for the graceful attitudes assumed in the dance of first love, you show us the unpleasant stick of the policeman. First of all you must concede to me that so long as there is no alteration in first love (and this, we have agreed, is contained in conjugal love) there can be no question of the strict necessity of duty? So the fact is, you do not believe in the eternity of first love. Here we are back again at your old heresy: it is you who so often assume to be the knight of first love, and yet you do not believe in it, yea, you profane it. So because you do not believe in it, you dare not enter into an alliance which, when you no longer are volens may compel you nolens to remain in it. For you, therefore, love is obviously not the highest thing, for otherwise you would be glad there was a power capable of compelling you to remain in it. You will, perhaps, make answer that this remedy is no remedy; but to that I will remark that it depends upon how one looks at the matter.   This is one of the points to which we constantly return-you, as it seems, against your will and without being quite clear what it involves, I with full consciousness of its significance: the point, namely, that the illusory or naive eternity of first or romantic love cancels itself out, in one way or another. Just because you try to retain love in this immediate form, try to make yourself believe that true freedom consists in being outside oneself, intoxicated by dreams, therefore you fear the metamorphosis, not regarding it as such but as something altogether heterogeneous which implies the death of first love, and hence your abhorrence of duty. For, of course, if duty has not already subsisted as a germ in first love, it is absolutely disturbing when it makes its appearance. But such is not the case with conjugal love. Already in the ethical and religious factors it has duty in it, and when this appears before it, it is not as a Stranger, a shameless intruder, who nevertheless has such authority that one dare not by virtue of the mysteriousness of love show him the door. No, duty comes as an old friend, an intimate, a confidant, whom the lovers mutually recognize in the deepest secret of their love. And when he speaks it is nothing new he has to say, and when he has spoken the individuals humble themselves under it., but at the same time are uplifted just because they are assured that what he enjoins is what they themselves wish, and that his commanding it is merely a more majestic, a more exalted, a divine   way of expressing the fact that their wish can be realized. It would not have been enough if he had encouraged them by saying, "It can be done, love can be preserved"; but when he says, "It shall be preserved," there is in that an authority which answers to the heartfelt desire of love. Love drives out fear; yet when love is for a moment fearful for itself., fearful of its own salvation, duty is the nutriment of all others love stands in need of; for it says, "Fear not, you shall conquer," speaking not futuristically, for that only suggests hope, but imperatively, and in this lies an assurance which nothing can shake. So then you regard duty as the enemy of love; I regard it as its friend. You will, perhaps, be content at hearing this declaration, and with your customary mockery will congratulate me on such an interesting and uncommon friend. I, on the other hand, will by no means be satisfied with this reply, but will take the liberty of carrying the war into your own territory. If duty, once it has appeared in consciousness, is an enemy of love, then love must do its best to conquer it; for you, after all, would not think of love as a being so impotent that it cannot vanquish every opposition. On the other hand, you think that when duty makes its appearance it is all over with love, and you think also that duty, early or late, must make its appearance, not merely in conjugal love but also in romantic love; and the truth is that you are afraid of conjugal love because it has in it duty to such a degree that when it makes its appearance you cannot run away from it. In romantic love, on the other hand, you think this is all right, for as soon as the instant arrives when duty is mentioned, love is over, and the arrival of duty is the signal for you, with a very courtly bow, to say farewell. Here you see again what your eulogies of love amount to. If duty is the enemy of love., and if love cannot vanquish this enemy, then love is not the true conqueror. The consequence is that you must leave love in the lurch. When once you have got the desperate idea that duty is the enemy of love, your defeat is certain, and you have done just as much to disparage love and deprive it of its majesty as you have done to show despite of duty, and yet it was only the latter you meant to do. You see, this again is despair, whether you feel the pain of it or seek in despair to forget it. If you cannot reach the point of seeing the aesthetical, the ethical, and the religious as three great allies, if you do not know how to conserve the unity of the diverse appearances which everything assumes in these diverse spheres, then life is devoid of meaning, then one must grant that you are justified in maintaining your pet theory that one can say of everything, "Do it or don't do it-you will regret both." . . . If you hold fast what I have set forth in the foregoing treatise, just as I have expounded it, you will easily perceive that in holding fast to the inwardness of duty in love I have not done so with the wild alarm which sometimes is displayed by men in whom prosaic common sense has first annihilated the feelings of immediacy and who then, in their old age, have betaken themselves to duty, men who in their blindness cannot express strongly enough their scorn of the purely natural, nor stupidly enough sing the praise of duty-as though with this it was different from what you call it. Of such a breach between love and duty, thank God, know nothing; I have not fled with my love into wild regions and deserts where in my loneliness I return to savagery, neither have I asked all my neighbors what I should do. Such isolation and such participation are equally mad.... But I have not been afraid of duty; it has not appeared before me as an enemy which would disturb the bit of happiness and joy I had hoped to preserve through life; rather it has appeared before me as a friend, the first and only confidant of our love. But this power of having constantly a free outlook is the blessing bestowed by duty, whereas romantic love goes astray or comes to an impasse because of its unhistorical character.

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