Agathe

by Robert Musil

  But as much could also be said in passing, against the bane of ephemeral self-assertion that under the slogan of body culture has taken possession of the intrinsically healthy idea of sports, and still more could be said against the particular feminine form of this evil, beauty culture. Lindner flattered himself that here, too, he was one of the few who knew how to properly allot light and shadow, and just as he was always prepared to detect an unspoiled core in the spirit of the times, he also recognized the moral obligation of appearing as healthy and agreeable as he possibly could. He himself carefully groomed his beard and hair every morning, kept his nails short and meticulously clean, sprinkled some brilliantine on his head and put protective lotion on his feet, to offset the stress they endured on his daily rounds: but who, on the other hand, would wish to deny that the amount of attention lavished on the body in the course of a worldly woman’s day is exorbitant? But if there really was no other way—he gladly made gentle concessions to women, not least because there might be wives of important men among them—than having baths and facials, ointments and wraps, manicures and pedicures, masseurs and coiffeurs succeed one another in almost unbroken sequence, he advocated as a counterweight to such one-sided care of the body the concept of inner beauty culture, inner beauty for short, which he had formulated in a public speech. Let the cleansing of the body, for instance, remind us of inner purity; its anointing, of our obligations to the soul; the masseur’s manipulations, of the hand of fate; and let the filing of toenails remind us that even in our lowlier aspects, we should be a beautiful sight. Thus he transferred his image to women, but left it to them to adapt the details to the needs of their sex.

  Of course it might have happened that someone unprepared for the sight Lindner presented with his ministrations to health and beauty, and even more while he was washing and drying himself, would be moved to laughter: for seen merely in their physical aspect, his movements conjured the image of a multifariously turning and twisting swan’s neck, which moreover did not consist of curves but of the sharp element of knees and elbows; his shortsighted eyes, freed from their glasses, looked into the distance with a martyred expression, as if their gaze had been cut off close to the eye, and beneath the beard his soft lips pouted with the pain of exertion. But an observer gifted with spiritual perception might well experience the spectacle of inner and outer forces engaged in a carefully choreographed dance of mutual begetting; and when, while performing that ritual, Lindner thought of those poor women who spend hours in their bathrooms and dressing rooms heating up their imagination with a one-sided cult of the body, he could rarely refrain from considering how much good it would do them if just once they could watch him. Harmless and pure, they welcome modern body culture and go along with it, because in their ignorance they do not suspect that such great attention devoted to the animal part all too easily awakens expectations in it that could destroy life if not strictly held in subservience to higher purposes!

  Indeed, Lindner turned everything he came into contact with into a moral imperative; and whether he was in clothes or not, every hour of the day until he entered dreamless sleep was filled with some important content for which that hour had been permanently reserved. He slept seven hours; his teaching obligations, which the ministry had limited in consideration of his well-regarded literary activity, claimed three to five hours a day, which already included the lecture on pedagogy he held twice a week at the university; five consecutive hours—that amounts to almost twenty thousand in a decade!—were devoted to reading; two and a half hours served for the penning of his own works, which flowed like a clear spring from the rocky terrain of his inner being; mealtimes claimed an hour of each day; one hour was dedicated to a walk and simultaneously to edifying reflection on professional matters and important questions of life, while another was dedicated to a work-related change of location and simultaneously to what Lindner called “little cogitations,” focusing the mind on the contents of the activity that had just transpired and the one that was about to begin; other units of time were designated, some permanently, others alternating in the framework of the week, for dressing and undressing, gymnastics, letters, household matters, official business, and useful socializing. And it is only natural that this life plan was not only carried out in conformity with its large and rigorous overall design but also entailed all sorts of unique particulars, such as Sunday with its unworkaday obligations, the longer cross-country walk that took place every fourteen days, or the full bath, and additionally entailed daily double-tasking activities that we have not yet had the opportunity to mention, including, for example, Lindner’s association with his son during the four meals, or the character training involved in patiently overcoming unforeseen difficulties while getting dressed quickly.

  Such exercises for building character are not only possible but also exceedingly useful, and Lindner was instinctively drawn to them. “In the small things I do right I see an image of all the great things that are done right in the world” was something Goethe had already said, and in this sense a mealtime can serve as well as any task set by fate to cultivate self-control and gain victory over desire; indeed, in the resistance of a collar button, inaccessible to all reflection, a more deeply probing mind may even learn how to deal with children. Lindner did not by any means regard Goethe as a model in everything; but what exquisite humility had he not gained just by attempting to drive a nail into a wall with a hammer, undertaking to mend a torn glove himself, or repairing a doorbell that was out of order: if in doing so he banged his fingers or pricked himself, the resultant pain was vanquished, if not right away then after a few horrible seconds, by joy at humanity’s industrious spirit, evident even in such trifling skills and their acquisition, which the educated person of our time, much to his general disadvantage, considers beneath him! Then he had felt the Goethean spirit resurrected within himself, a pleasure that was further enhanced when, thanks to the methods of a more advanced age, he felt himself raised above the classic poet’s practical dilettantism and occasional delight in prudently exercised manual dexterity. Lindner was in fact free of idolatry toward the old writer, who lived in a world that was only halfway enlightened and therefore overestimated the Enlightenment, and he took Goethe as a model more in charming small things than in his grandeur and gravity, to say nothing of the seductive state minister’s notorious sensuality.

  His veneration was therefore carefully weighed and balanced. Nevertheless, a peculiar displeasure had entered into it for some time, and this frequently moved Lindner to reflection. He had always believed that he had a more correct understanding of the heroic than Goethe. He did not think highly of Scaevolas who hold their hands in the fire, Lucretias who run themselves through with a dagger, or Judiths who chop the heads off those who attack their honor—“motifs” Goethe would have found meaningful at any time, though he did not treat them in his own works; indeed Lindner was convinced, despite the authority of the classics, that these men and women, who had committed crimes for their personal convictions, would nowadays belong not on a pedestal but rather in the courtroom. Against their inclination to inflict severe bodily harm he set an “internalized and social” conception of courage. In discourse and in thought, he even went so far as to place a carefully considered entry on the subject into his classbook, or a judiciously pondered reflection on how his housekeeper needed to be chided for being a bit too forward in her zeal, because in pursuit of one’s duty one ought not only to follow one’s own passions but must take the other person’s motives into account. And when he uttered such things, he had the impression of looking back in the well-fitting everyday clothes of a later century on the bombastic moral costume of an earlier one.

  The touch of the ridiculous that attended such examples did not escape him, but he called it the laughter of the intellectual rabble; and for this he had two solid reasons. First, he not only maintained that all situations were equally suited to strengthen or weaken human nature, but also that ordinary circumstances were better
suited to this than more exalted occasions, since the human inclination to arrogance and vanity is unwittingly encouraged by the shining exercise of virtue, while its inconspicuous everyday exercise consists of pure unseasoned virtue itself. But second, the planned cultivation of a people’s moral heritage (Lindner loved this expression, along with the soldierly concept of Zucht—discipline and breeding—because of the way it evokes both the rustic and the factory-fresh) must not despise “small occasions” for an additional reason, namely that the godless belief advanced by “liberals and freemasons” that great human accomplishments arise as it were from a void, even if that void is called genius, was already at that time falling out of fashion. The sharpened focus of public attention had already caused the “hero,” whom earlier times had portrayed as an arrogant figure, to be recognized as a tireless toiler over details who, if he is to become an explorer, must prepare himself through unremittent diligence in learning; if an athlete, treat his body with the same anxious care as an opera singer training his voice; and as a political rejuvenator of the people, always reiterate the same thing at countless meetings. And of this, Goethe—who all his life had remained a comfortable citizen-aristocrat—had had no idea, but Lindner saw it coming! It was understandable, therefore, that he thought he was protecting Goethe’s better part against his ephemeral aspects when he preferred the considerate and cordial Goethe—qualities the poet possessed in such gratifying measure—to his tragic persona; it could also be argued that it did not happen without reflection when, for no other reason than that he was a pedant, the professor considered himself to be a man threatened by dangerous passions.

  Indeed, not long afterward it became one of the most popular human possibilities to subject oneself to a “regimen,” which may be applied with the same success to obesity as to politics and intellectual life. In a regimen, patience, obedience, regularity, equanimity, and other very tidy qualities become major components of a human being in his private condition, while everything that is unbridled, violent, intemperate, and dangerous, all qualities that he, as a wild romantic, cannot dispense with either, has its own excellent place in the regimen. Probably this strange inclination to subject oneself to a regimen, or to lead a strenuous, unpleasant, and paltry life according to the prescription of a doctor, athletic coach, or some other tyrant (even though one could ignore their dictates with equally unsuccessful results) is a by-product of the worker, warrior, and anthill state toward which the world is moving: but there lay the boundary Lindner was unable to cross, nor could he envisage it in his mind’s eye, because his Goethean heritage forbade it. To be sure, his piety was not of a sort that could not have been reconciled to this development; after all, he left the divine to God and undiluted saintliness to the saints; but he could not conceive of renouncing his personality, and the ideal he yearned for was a community of fully responsible moral personalities that, as God’s civil army, would of course struggle against the inconstancy of the lower nature and make a sanctum of everyday life, but would also decorate this sanctum with the great works of art and science. If someone had tallied the schedule of his days, he would have noticed that in every instance it added up to only twenty-three hours, so that sixty minutes of a full day were missing, and of these sixty minutes forty were invariably earmarked for conversation and kindly engagement with the aspirations and nature of other human beings, an endeavor that comprised visits to art exhibitions, concerts, and entertainments. He hated these events. Almost every time, their content offended his sensibility, and in his opinion these chaotic and overrated diversions were occasions for the notorious nervous disorder of the age, with its superfluous stimulants and genuine suffering, its insatiable appetite and its inconstancy, its curiosity and its unavoidable moral decay, to let off steam. He would even smile into his thin beard with dismay at the sight of flush-cheeked couples paying homage to the idols of culture. They did not know that the life force is enhanced by restriction and not by fragmentation. They all suffered from the fear of not having time for everything, and did not know that having time means precisely not having time for everything. Lindner had realized that the poor condition of people’s nerves is not due to the excessive pace of work, which in this age is presumed to be the culprit, but on the contrary to culture and humanitarianism, to breaks in routine, to interruptions in the day’s work, to the minutes of respite during which the individual wants to live his own life, looking for something he might regard as beautiful, or fun, or important: it is from these minutes that the miasmas of impatience, unhappiness, and meaninglessness arise. That was what he felt, and if he—or, more precisely, the visions that rose in his mind at such moments—had held sway, he would have swept all these temples of culture with an iron broom, and festivals of labor and edification, tightly bound to daily activities, would have taken the place of those supposed celebrations of mind and spirit; it really would have required no more than eliminating from an entire age a few minutes a day that owe their sick existence to a falsely understood liberality. But aside from making a few allusions, he had never summoned up the determination to advocate this seriously and in public.

  And suddenly Lindner looked up, for while dreaming his thoughts he was still riding in the streetcar; he felt irritable and vaguely anxious, as one does from being irresolute and inhibited, and for a moment he had the confused impression that all along he had been thinking of Agathe. She was accorded the additional honor that a vexation that had innocently begun with pleasure in Goethe now fused with her, even though no reason for this could be discerned. From habit, Lindner admonished himself, whispering with mute lips: “Dedicate part of your solitude to quiet reflection on your fellow man, especially if you are not in accord with him; perhaps then you will learn to better understand and utilize what repels you, and will know how to be forbearing toward his weaknesses and encourage his virtue, which may simply be intimidated!” It was one of the key statements he had coined against the dubious activities of so-called culture and in which he usually found the composure to bear them; but the words failed to achieve their purpose, and righteousness was apparently not what he lacked this time. He pulled out his watch. It confirmed that he had granted Agathe more time than he had been allotted. But he would not have been able to do so if his daily schedule had not allowed twenty minutes for unavoidable slippage; and it turned out that this deficit account, this emergency supply of time, whose precious drops were the oil that lubricated his daily work, would even on this unusual day still hold a reserve of ten minutes when he stepped into his house. Did this cause his courage to grow? He remembered another of his life maxims, for the second time today: “The more unshakable your patience becomes,” Lindner said to Lindner, “the more surely you will strike to the other’s heart!” And to strike to the heart, this gave him a pleasure that corresponded to the heroic in his nature; the fact that people struck in this manner never strike back was immaterial.

  25

  THE SIBLINGS THE NEXT MORNING

  Ulrich and his sister came to speak of this man again when they saw each other after Agathe’s sudden disappearance from the party at their cousin’s house they had attended together the night before. Ulrich had left the excited and quarrelsome gathering soon after she had, but had not been able to ask her why she had left him so abruptly; for she had locked her room and was either already sleeping or purposely ignoring the listener at her door with his hushed question as to whether she was still awake. Thus the day she had met with the curious stranger had closed as capriciously as it had begun. Nor was any information to be had from her in the morning. She herself did not know her true feelings. She had not been able to bring herself to read her husband’s letter again, even though now and then she saw it lying beside her. Thinking back to the morning when it had intruded into her life, it seemed incredible to her that hardly a day had passed since she had received it; so often had her condition changed in the meantime. Sometimes she thought the cliché “ghosts of the past” fit it perfectly; nevertheless, it rea
lly frightened her, too. And at times it merely aroused a small unease in her, such as one might feel at the unexpected sight of a stopped clock; but at other times she was plunged into fruitless brooding that the world from which this letter had come was claiming to be the real world for her. Something that did not even slightly touch her inside surrounded her outside as an invisible force, and it still held as firm as ever. Inadvertently, she compared this with the events that had transpired between her brother and herself since the arrival of this letter. These had been mainly conversations, and though one of them had even brought her to think of suicide, she had forgotten its subject, though likely enough it lay within her, waiting to come back to life. So it really did not matter what they had talked about, and when she weighed her heart-stirring present life against the letter, she had the impression of a deep, steady, incomparable, but powerless movement. From all this she felt partly faint and sobered, partly tender and restless, like a fever patient after his temperature has gone down.

  In this state of animated helplessness, she suddenly said: “To empathize with another person to the point where one actually experiences how he feels must be incredibly hard!” To her surprise, Ulrich replied immediately: “There are people who imagine they can do that.” He said it in a tone that was both insinuating and ill-humored, and he had only half taken in what she had said. Her words had caused something to move aside and give way to an anger that had been left behind the day before. And so, notwithstanding that he really ought to find such resentment contemptible, that debate was over for the time being.