Notice is hereby given to the owner of the box found in Søborg Lake in the summer of 1844 to communicate with me through Reitzel’s bookstore8 by means of a sealed note marked with the initials F. T. May I, however, in order to reduce any possibility of unnecessary delay, remark that the handwriting will immediately betray the owner, and furthermore, that anyone who might honor me with any communication and receives no reply may safely conclude that the handwriting did not match, and only that one can lay claim to a reply. On the other hand, for the comfort of the owner may it be said that even if I have taken the liberty of publishing his manuscript, which by its nature, unlike the handwriting, will not betray anyone, may it be said that I have not taken the liberty of showing anyone, not one single person, either the handwriting or the diamond cross and the other things.
9Mr. Bonfils, M. A., has published a table by which the year can be determined with given dates. I, too, benefit from his services; I have calculated and calculated and finally worked out that the year that fits the given dates is the year 1751, or that remarkable year when Gregor Rothfischer joined the Lutheran Church, a year which for anyone who with one deeply profound eye cyclopeanly contemplates the marvels in the course of history is also noteworthy in that precisely five years later the Seven Years’ War10 broke out. Thus one is compelled to go rather far back in time if one does not assume that an error crept into the information or into my calculations. If one is under no such constraint, then one could perhaps assume mir nichts and Dir nichts [without further ado]11 that a poor wretch of a psychologist who dares to count on but little sympathy for imaginary psychological constructions [Experimenter]12 and unreal fabrications has made an attempt to invite sympathy by giving it the aspect of a novel. A psychologically accurate sketch that does not ask whether such a person ever lived is perhaps not very interesting in our day, when even poetry has snatched at the expedient of wanting to have the effect of actuality. 13People certainly want to have a little psychology, a little observation of so-called actual people, but when this science or art goes its own way, when it ignores the many inadequate manifestations of the psychical states that actuality [VI 181] offers, when it slips away by itself to create an individuality out of its own knowledge and to make this individuality the object of its observations, then many people get weary. That is, in actual life the case is that passions, psychical states, etc. are found only to a certain degree. This, too, delights the psychology, but it also has another kind of delight in seeing passion carried to its extreme limit.
As far as reviewers are concerned, I would ask that my request be understood simply and altogether literally as my honest intention and that the result might be according to the petition of the request: that the book would not be subjected to any critical mention, be it in the form of acknowledgment or approval or disapproval. If one is able to acquire a claim to a person’s gratitude in such an easy manner, one could very well indulge him.
F. T.
In Norway the rich farmer places a new copper kettle over his door for every thousand dollars he acquires, and the innkeeper makes a mark on the beam for every time the debtor becomes more indebted—in the same way I add a new word for every time I consider my wealth and my poverty.14
Periissem nisi periissem
[I would have perished had I not perished].15
January 3. Morning.16 [VI 185]
So it is a year ago today since I saw her for the first time, that is, for the first time with a resolute soul. I was no fantasizer, was not in the habit of becoming intoxicated on fine words and brief dreams; therefore my resolution certainly did not mean that I would die if she did not become mine. Neither did I think that my soul would be scattered and my life become completely empty for me if she did not become mine—I had too many religious presuppositions for that. For me my resolution meant: Marry her or do not marry at all. That is what was at stake. In my soul there was no doubt that I loved her, but I also knew that in connection with such a step there were so many anomalies that for me it became a most difficult task. An individuality like me is not nimble; I cannot say: If I do not have this one, I’ll take another. I do not dare to allow myself the presupposition, which comes easily to many, that a person is himself always all right, if only the other one is also worthy of him. As far as I am concerned, the emphasis must be placed elsewhere—whether I was actually capable of giving my life the kind of expression that a marriage requires. I was as much in love as anyone, even though not many would understand that I, if my deliberation had not allowed me this step, would have kept my falling in love to myself. I marry her or I do not marry at all.
Should a soldier stationed at the frontier be married? Does a soldier stationed at the frontier, spiritually understood, dare to marry—an outpost who battles night and day, not exactly with Tartars and Scythians but with the robber bands of a primordial depression, an outpost who, even though he does not fight day and night, even though he has peace for some time, [VI 186] still can never know at what moment the battle will begin again, since he never even dares to call this tranquillity a truce?
Depression is my nature, that is true, but thanks be to the power who, even if it bound me in this way, nevertheless also gave me a consolation. There are animals that are only poorly armed against their enemies, but nature has provided them with a cunning by which they nevertheless are saved. I, too, was given a cunning such as this, a capacity for cunning that makes me just as strong as everyone against whom I have tested my strength. My cunning is that I am able to hide my depression; my deception is just as cunning as my depression is deep.
This is no groundless opinion. I have trained myself in deception and train myself every day. I often think of a child I once saw on the Esplanade.17 He used crutches, but with his crutches he could hop, jump, and run a race with all but the healthiest of boys. I have trained myself from earliest childhood; ever since I saw her and fell in love, I have carried on the most rigorous exercises before there could be any question of making a resolution. I am able at any time of the day to divest myself of my depression or, more correctly, put on my disguise, because depression simply waits for me until I am alone. If there is anyone present, no matter who it is, I am never entirely who I am. If I am taken by surprise in an unguarded moment, by talking for less than a half hour I am able to wrest this impression from anyone I have encountered in my practice. My deception is not hilarity. When it comes to depression, this is nature’s own deception and therefore at once should make one suspect in the eyes of even a second-rate observer. The safest deception is good common sense, dispassionate reflection, and above all a candid face and an openhearted nature. Behind this deceptive self-confidence and security in life there is a sleepless and thousand-tongued reflection that, if the first pose becomes unsure, throws everything into confusion until the opponent does not know whether he is coming or going, and once again one attains one’s security. And so deep within—depression. This is true; it stays on and continues to be my misery. But I do not want to throw this misery upon any other person. That is certainly not my real reason for wanting to marry.
Am I perhaps being somewhat sophistical toward myself? I am in love—is it the delight of falling in love that fooled me into thinking that I was capable of this? But I have indeed been exercising myself so many years and until now it has never failed. In fact, my father was married, and he was the most depressed person I have known. But he was calm and happy [VI 187] all day long; and, like Loki’s wife, used an evening hour to drain the bowl of bitterness,18 and thus he was healed again. I do not need even that much time. I need only a moment according to the time and the occasion; then everything goes properly. From the bitterness of depression there is distilled a joy of life, a sympathy, an inwardness, that certainly cannot embitter life for anyone. 19My joy, such as sometimes overflows in my heart, belongs entirely to her; for everyday use I work honestly to earn a livelihood of joy for her; only the occasional dark moments do I have for myself—she must not come to suffer unde
r them.
That is how things stand. With all the heroes who hover in my imagination, it is indeed more or less the case that they carry a deep and secret sorrow that they are unable or unwilling to confide to anyone. I do not marry to have another person slave under my depression. It is my pride, my honor, my inspiration to keep in inclosing reserve what must be locked up, to reduce it to the scantiest rations possible; my joy, my bliss, my first and my only wish is to belong to her whom I would purchase at any price with my life and blood, but whom I still refuse to weaken and destroy by initiating her into my sufferings.
Her, or I shall never marry. A person does not more than once go through all the strain to which only falling in love can give all the glory of magic. For I am well aware that for me a marriage can become the most difficult task, a matter of concern, even though it is my supreme wish.
January 3. Midnight.
When a despairing person dashes through a side street of life in order to find peace in a monastery, he does well to consider first of all whether there is something in the circumstances of his life that for the time being binds him and makes it his first duty to work at getting another person afloat if that other one can be rescued. If he has given his all to this, then, even if he was not knighted in his lifetime, he places his hope on the [VI 188] honor that the Middle Ages granted the scholastic when he died—to be buried as a knight. So be calm. The point is to remain as apathetic and undecided as possible. After all, I am a murderer; I do indeed have a person’s life on my conscience! But then can one justifiably take refuge in a monastery? No! Ordinarily the only thing a murderer has to wait for is his verdict; I am waiting for a verdict that will decide whether I was a murderer, for she is indeed still living. Oh, how dreadful if it was an exaggeration, a momentary mood, if it was the defiance of powerlessness that drew this word from her lips and the lips of those around her! Oh, what profound sneering at life if there was no one in the whole world except me alone who took that word seriously! My mind comes up with one suspicion after another;20 the demon of laughter is continually knocking; I know what it wants—it wants to whirl her off like an abracadabra.21 Depart from me, you unclean spirit! My honor, my pride order me to believe her; my depression is on the lookout for the most secret idea therein lest I be allowed to sneak away from something. She and the others who spoke have the responsibility for having said something terrible; it is my responsibility if I do not scrupulously stick to the word. After all, I am not an observer, not a counselor for the conscience, but one acting—that is, the guilty one. Consequently, my imagination is permitted to picture her in all her misery; my depression is permitted to lecture on the application: You are the murderer. If the first thing I said to myself at the time of the separation ever comes true: She chooses the scream; I choose the pain—if it ever comes true, I do not want to know it now and cannot know if it ever comes true.
Oh, that she might not die; oh, that she might not be blighted! If it is possible, God in heaven, you indeed know; it was indeed and it is my one and only desire—if it ever should be possible and it is not too late!
I saw her on the street yesterday afternoon. 22How pale, how suffering, 23how utterly like the figure of someone who summons one to appear in eternity. This almost glazed look, this trembling in my soul because death is walking over my grave. And yet I do not wish to forget any of it, not any; only to the faithfulness of an alarmed imagination that returns to me what has been confided more terrible than it was, only to the memory of a troubled conscience that sets a high interest rate on guilt, only to an honesty such as that will I and dare I entrust myself!—She is dying. How loathsome that I could believe for a moment the craftiness of the understanding or almost heed the demon of laughter—abominable!
And yet perhaps she was so pale only because she saw me. Perhaps! What a mean tormentor resides in this word! Is it not as when a child has tortured a butterfly long enough and when [VI 189] in the next moment it is about to die the child pokes at it, and the butterfly for one second again snatches at life, snatches at freedom with its wings.
But if she does die, I cannot survive her; that I cannot do. But not a moment before, lest my death give her an explanation that I would certainly sacrifice my life to keep from her.
So be cold, calm, composed, unchanged. Strangely enough, when I was courting her I was anxious lest I be too intriguing; now I am compelled to be that.
January 5. Midnight.
Quiet Despair24
When Swift became an old man, he was committed to the insane asylum he himself had established when he was young. Here, it is related, he often stood in front of a mirror with the perseverance of a vain and lascivious woman, if not exactly with her thoughts. He looked at himself and said: Poor old man!25
Once upon a time there were a father and a son. A son is like a mirror in which the father sees himself, and for the son in turn the father is like a mirror in which he sees himself in the time to come. Yet they seldom looked at each other in that way, for the cheerfulness of high-spirited, lively conversation was their daily round. Only a few times did it happen that the father stopped, faced the son with a sorrowful countenance, looked at him and said: Poor child, you are in a quiet despair. Nothing more was ever said about it, how it was to be understood, how true it was. And the father believed that he was responsible for his son’s depression, and the son believed that it was he who caused the father sorrow—but never a word was exchanged about this.
Then the father died. And the son saw much, heard much, experienced much, and was tried in various temptations, but he longed for only one thing, only one thing moved him—it was that word and it was the voice of the father when he said it.
Then the son also became an old man; but just as love devises everything, so longing and loss taught him—not, of course, to wrest any communication from the silence of eternity—but it taught him to imitate his father’s voice until the [VI 190] likeness satisfied him. Then he did not look at himself in the mirror, as did the aged Swift, for the mirror was no more, but in loneliness he comforted himself by listening to his father’s voice: Poor child, you are in a quiet despair. For the father was the only one who had understood him, and yet he did not know whether he had understood him; and the father was the only intimate he had had, but the intimacy was of such a nature that it remained the same whether the father was alive or dead.
January 8. Morning.
A year ago today I saw her at her uncle’s, where I was together with her. How secretively I brood over my love, how clandestinely I absorb the nourishment of love. And why so secretively? It certainly is not as if love needed the incitement of any mystification; but it is partly due to my being accustomed to it from an earlier time and even more from the time of preparation for this tentamen rigorosum [rigorous examination], and it is partly due to my thinking that I owe it to her. It is indeed indefensible for a man to misuse the more free association with the opposite sex that our milieu permits, as they say, to make passes. It is entirely unpredictable to what extent and in what way this making passes can have a disturbing effect on a girl or have a disturbing effect on the one to whom she will some day belong. I know very well that falling in love can eliminate insignificant cares, and yet if I were in love with a girl it would always pain me, it would always upset me, to know that she had been the object of a philanderer’s attention. She might far better have been actually engaged or married, for every more earnest expression of the erotic does not disturb as does this indeterminate kind that for precisely this reason is a flirtation. This is the attitude I would want someone else to have toward me; this is the attitude I want to have toward him, for I am far from being so brazen as to take it for granted that she is going to belong to me. But whether she becomes mine or she does not become mine (what a short process language can make of it, and yet at other times language is in loving connivance with the prolixity of sorrow), my judgment remains unchanged. If she is to belong to another, then it is my wish that my thought, swiftly
slain, may flee back into my interior being and leave nothing, not a trace, in the outer world.26
Nor am I so reserved because I wish to take her by surprise by means of some mystification. Of what help would that be to me? Then, of course, I would have to presuppose that I was [VI 191] a first-rate fellow who could easily make her happy if only she were good enough. I do not know whether any such thought can arise in the brain of someone who is in love; in mine it has no lodging. I feel all too keenly the responsibility, and what it would mean to take by surprise with cunning and then—cunningly shift the weight of responsibility onto myself? If she ever did become mine and I were obliged to admit to myself that I had used scheming against her, 27I would be as if demolished in all my happiness, for the past could not be undone—indeed, not even fabricated for the imagination, since even her own interpretation would contain nothing about how everything would have been different if this had not happened. I do not know if cunning can ever be united with the erotic, but this I do know, that when one is struggling with God and with oneself whether to dare to follow the beckoning of love, whether to dare to reach for the desire that is the eye’s delight and the heart’s craving, then one is protected against this kind of going astray. But this is the reason I am so cautious, cautious to the very last moment—ah, what if there came to my interior being a counterorder that I should not have presumptuously intervened disturbingly there, and I should not only have the pain of an unhappy love affair 28but would also have to make the retreat of repentance. If there were a magic word, if there were a rune that could make her mine, I do not know whether I would have sufficient earnestness with respect to the erotic, sufficient sensitivity, to see how ugly any such expedient is, sufficient strength to reject it, but this I do know, when one is bound as I am, one is not tempted.
However, the fullness of time is approaching. For about a whole year now, ever since I realized I was in love with her (for prior to that time I had, of course, seen her), I have secretly and clandestinely been absorbed in this love. I have seen her at parties, seen her in her home; I have followed her path without being observed. In a way the last was my favorite, partly because it satisfied the secrecy of love, partly because it did not make me uneasy with the fear that someone would discover it, which could affront her and prematurely snatch me, irresolute, out of the school of experience. This year, my year of preparation, has its own fascination for me. Through everything else I undertook, the silken cord of erotic love [El-skov] was entwined as in the Americans’ anchor ropes,29 and everything in which I engaged was in exact proportion to it. Whereas an anchor rope can have no presentiment of the [VI 192] storms in which it will be tested, I imagined many a terror and drilled myself in it while the pleasure of love hummed along with the task. An enthusiastic student studies diligently for his examination; how much more, then, was I bound to be inspired to engage in such exercises that in a totally different sense were to me the conditio sine qua non [indispensable condition].
Stages on Life’s Way Page 23