Agathe

by Robert Musil

  He saw a substantial distinction here. People of one kind, as already mentioned, reach vigorously for everything and take on every challenge; they dash over obstacles like a rushing stream or surge around them into a new course; their passions are strong and changeable, and the result is a strongly segmented career that leaves nothing behind but an echo of its tumultuous passage. This was the sort of person to whom the concept of the appetitive was meant to apply when Ulrich wanted to establish it as one principal notion of the passionate life; for the other kind is in all essential respects the opposite of the first: such people are shy, pensive, vague; slow to decide, full of dreams and longing, and internalized in their passion. At times—in thoughts that were not part of their current conversation—Ulrich also called the second kind of person “contemplative,” a word that is commonly used with a different meaning, and sometimes merely in the lukewarm sense of “reflective,” but that for him had more than this ordinary significance, and indeed was equivalent to the previously mentioned un-Faustian, Oriental way. Maybe a key distinction in life was reflected in this contemplative mode, especially in conjunction with the appetitive as its opposite: That appealed to Ulrich more strongly than an axiom. But that all such highly composite and exacting conceptions of life could be reduced to a twofold layering already present in every emotion—this elementary possibility of explanation held deep satisfaction for him as well.

  Of course it was clear to him that the two kinds of human being that were at issue could not signify anything other than a man “without qualities” in contrast to the one with all the qualities a man is capable of showing. The first could also be called a nihilist who dreams of God’s dreams, as distinct from the activist, who, however, in his impatient mode of conduct, is also a kind of God-dreamer and anything but a realist who bestirs himself in the world with worldly clarity. “Why aren’t we realists, then?” Ulrich asked himself. Neither of them was, neither he nor she; their ideas and their actions had long since left no doubt about that; but they were nihilists and activists, and sometimes one, sometimes the other, whichever happened to come up.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I AM EXTREMELY thankful to Nicholas Berwin for conceiving this project and for reading and commenting on the translation at all stages of its development. His acute sensibility for nuances of meaning, both in English and in German, contributed to the refinement of many details.

  I also want to express my gratitude to Edwin Frank for telling me about the “very interesting Musil proposal” that had come across his desk at New York Review Books, and asking me if I would like to do the translation, and for his astute and clarifying editorial scrutiny.

  I am indebted to Walter Fanta of the Robert Musil Institut at the University of Klagenfurt for lending me the benefit of his scholarly expertise to help resolve several difficult problems of translation.

  Thomas Frick read the manuscript in its first draft, chapter by chapter, with a writer’s and editor’s eye as it progressed. His always insightful comments and queries were wonderfully supportive and helpful.

  I was fortunate in having a mathematician friend, Philipp Rothmaler (who is a logician to boot, like Ulrich), willing to hash out with me, in extended email exchanges and telephone sessions, several passages and formulations written in a scientific vein that were obscure to me.

  I am grateful to Randy Cashmere for reading the book at a near-final stage and helping me to clear up needless obscurities by letting me know where a phrase or an image left him puzzled.

  For full appreciation, Musil’s language needs to be heard or at least silently intoned while being read off the page. My wife, Susan, listened to me read the book aloud as the translation developed; her critical discernment and sensitive appreciation were the first proof of each sentence’s performative quality. For these gifts (and for her patience) I cannot thank her enough.

  I gratefully acknowledge the financial support I received from the Literature Section of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

  And I owe very special thanks to Parabola, which was funded by the Nicholas Berwin Charitable Trust, for supporting this translation with a generous grant.

  —J.A.

  NOTES

  like a heap of stones spilled out from a mosaic: This phrase, interpolated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser in their translation, elucidates the image to both Musil’s and the reader’s advantage.

  act of imagination and illusion: This was Eithne Wilkins’s and Ernst Kaiser’s solution to the implications of the word Einbildung in this sentence. I don’t think it can be improved on—or dispensed with.

  Sister Human: The German Schwester Mensch is less peculiar and more evocative than it appears in English. It sounds Franciscan, or like something Adam might have said to Eve.

  The austere fervor that had lit up his face . . . : I am adopting Eithne Wilkins’s and Ernst Kaiser’s lucid solution of a difficult problem posed by Musil’s phrasing.

  something would have happened which, soon after, she was unable to name, as it was already gone: One wants to rephrase this odd sentence to: “something would have happened which, soon after, she would have been unable to name, as it would have been already gone.” But that is not what Musil wrote. The possibility that did not happen is as unknown to the reader as it is to Agathe—unknown even as a possibility—and that, I believe, is what Musil intended to express with this breach of grammatical convention.”

  balletically disguised leap: This is Burton Pike’s ingenious solution to the challenge posed by Musil’s phrase tänzerisch bemäntelt.

  will-o’-the-wisps of outings never taken: The will-o’-the-wisps, suggested but not named in Musil’s sentence, were invisible to me until I spotted them thanks to Burton Pike’s rendition.

  Strolls Among the Crowd: The chapter title in German, “Wandel unter Menschen,” connotes a range of meanings that cannot be contained in a single English phrase. Musil’s French translator Philippe Jaccotet rendered it as “Promenades dans la foule,” which strikes me as a sensible solution.

  the world of ‘the like of it happens’: “The Like of It Happens” is the title of volume 2 of The Man Without Qualities. For an explanation of that concept and a description of the role it plays in Ulrich’s thinking, see the introduction.