“What is honor?” says Falstaff. “Can it put on a leg? No. Can it put on an arm? No. Ergo, it is a fancy, a word, a painted escutcheon.”340 No, this “ergo” was foolish, for if honor can do none of these things if one wins it, it can do the opposite if it is lost, it can take off a leg and an arm—indeed, it can maltreat a person worse than is done in Russia and can send one to Siberia. When it can do that, it is not something we imagine. Go to the battlefield and look at the fallen, go to the disabled-soldiers’ hospital and look at the wounded—you will never find a dead or wounded man as maltreated as one with whom honor has finished.
Thus, understanding comes inside the iron bars. Where, then, is the field of honor? It is wherever a man falls with honor. But the person who, rather than sneaking through life with honor, preferred to lose his honor and give it to God, he, too, falls on the field of honor. If there is a new heaven and a new earth341 to expect, then there is also a new honor. Even if I fall where no one dreams that a field of honor can be, even if I am buried in the graveyard of the dishonorable, if there nevertheless is one single individual who, passing by my grave perhaps thinking other thoughts, suddenly stops and delivers this funeral oration to me, “How did this person come to lie here? Can one then lie without disgrace among the dishonored—and he certainly lies here with honor”—then I ask no more. I shall picture it more clearly and more decisively than the crisis of my life. Suppose that Mary Magdalene [VI 331] had had no witness to her shame342 and she could have sneaked through life with honor and in death sneaked out of the world with a myrtle wreath upon her brow—it seems to me that through her courage she won another honor; it seems to me that in death she lies more honored without the myrtle wreath than with it.
So it also seems to me that the person who admitted that he had begun what he could not finish still did not lose his honor but preserved it better than if he had obtained cheap what he would give everything to possess, better than if he had sneaked through life as a girl’s benefactor when he did not even dare admit to himself to being the more unassuming person that he merely wished to be, instead of holding her in high esteem while she youthfully had too high an opinion of herself, instead of holding her in high esteem when she despondently very much undervalued herself, and holding her in highest esteem as her deceiver when for the lowest price he could be her husband. It seems to me that the benedictions of the grateful pronounced over him would be like mockery, and the venerable designation of his relationship with her an abomination, but the severest judgment of language and of rage upon his conduct would be a restitution of honor.
May 30. Morning.
343A year ago today. Is it not possible that she could be victorious and carry through her wish? We shall see. What I am shipwrecked on is that my whole view of life, which was not snatched out of thin air but was indeed essential to my individuality, is rejected. I cannot become happy; she cannot become happy; our relationship cannot become a marriage. Can she not become happy? What does that mean when she herself so passionately desires it. But what is the use of passion when it is a question as to whether she understands herself? Her passion shows precisely that she does not even have freedom of thought in relation to another view. If we separate and I use force to break up, she becomes unhappy. But then there is nothing, either, that will make manifest that she is happy, and there is meaning in her unhappiness and in my guilt. But if she becomes unhappy by remaining with me, then this is nonsense, and if the passionateness is gone because there is no provocative opposition, what then? Our relationship cannot become a marriage. Why not? Because I am inclosed by my depression. I knew that from the beginning and believed that my task was to conceal it; so I have understood it, but a marriage [VI 332] is not like that. But if she would nevertheless put up with what would amount to a morganatic marriage? But I myself will not put up with that, for as I see it now it would be an insult to her. Indeed, should one merely ask if one can put up with something and not ask what this something is, whether it is true, whether it is beautiful, whether it is by virtue of the idea? She does not ask about this at all, she who once was proud. This shows that she is so passionate that she cannot have any judgment at all.
For a marriage, a wedding is required. What is a wedding? It is the making of a vow that is mutually binding. But a mutual commitment certainly requires mutual understanding. But she does not understand me at all. What does my vow become, then? It becomes nonsense. Is it a marriage? No, it is a profanation! If we were to be wedded ten times, I would not be married to her, but she would be to me. But if she is altogether unconcerned about this? Is one merely to ask about carrying through one’s passionate wish and ask nothing about the idea; is one merely to believe in one’s passionateness and have no faith or confidence that the person one loves can mean well, as they say, even though he does not have the same meaning? Does this not demonstrate her passionateness and its contradiction? Precisely in that which should bind us together most intimately, I see a divine protestation against the whole thing. At the time of the wedding, we are not united but I find out what I knew beforehand—that we are separated. Is this a marriage? Or am I married to her because she lives in my house, because I do not wish any other woman? Then I am essentially married to her, for she still remains with me, and I certainly will know how to honor myself and her by not looking for any new love, as if I had rejected her, something she no doubt imagines, and this again shows that she does not understand me and again shows that in her passionateness there smolders a secret pride.
What a strange and wonderful creature is woman, and what a strange power is love! I cannot stop loving her, and yet her fidelity is of a dubious kind. Is it love to love the way she loves at this time, is it an art? No, it is weakness. Is it beautiful? No, for it is unfree. Is it a power? No, it is a weakness. Is it fellow feeling? No, it is self-love. Is it faithfulness? No, it is a subtlety of nature. And yet when it is a woman who does it . . . . . . No, I do not believe I would like this in anyone else, but when she does it, she does it in such a way, or I look upon it in such a way, that she loses nothing at all in my eyes. She uses every [VI 333] means against me, and it never occurs to her to suggest by a single word that she could believe me and therefore would give in, that she would resign herself 344and thereby give me my freedom, that she will scorn me and on that condition give me up. In a way we have traded roles, for in a certain sense she is the strong one and I the weak, inasmuch as I am always fearful on her behalf. And truly, if it were one to one, I would be no match for her, but the trouble is that I am more than one since I have the category and the idea on my side. Therefore I am not qualified to be a hero, for it is not my victory I am seeking; it is the victory of the idea, and I am willing to be annihilated. Thus when I have won and it is settled, I will not say as did Pyrrhus: One more victory like this, and it is over—for this victory is enough.345
June 3. Midnight.
So once again I am sitting on watch. If I were to say that to a third party, it no doubt would need an explanation, for it is readily understood that the pilot along the coast, the sentinel at the top of the tower, the lookout at the bow of the ship, and the robber in his lair sit on watch because there is something to watch for. But someone sitting alone in his room—for what can he be watching? And someone who anticipates that everything—that is, the minor little affair that everyone else would perhaps disregard—will pass quietly, he, of course, is on watch for nothing. No wonder it is a strain for his soul and his head, because to look for something is good for the eyes, but to look for nothing strains them. And when the eyes look for nothing for a long time they finally see themselves or their own seeing: in the same way the emptiness surrounding me presses my thinking back into myself.
So I am beginning all over again to scrutinize the dialectical difficulties of my expectation. The culmination of my existence, that almost mad wish, my enthusiasm’s utmost exertion and ultimate delight, is that the whole thing could be undone. I have focused my whole being on this extreme
peak; admittedly, I feel that the weight of the finite has now dragged me down from it at times. So, then, more practice. From this wish, the paths branch off; the wish becomes one thing for her, something else for me. Autopathetically, I must wish that [VI 334] she would become another’s; for my personality in its egoity, this is the easiest solution of all. Sympathetically, I do not wish it, insofar as it does not happen in a way that is incomprehensible, such as returning to a first love, for otherwise it is a finite healing and not the highest. Otherwise, a religiously oriented infinitizing would be the highest and is the highest, thus something I must wish for her, even though, autopathetically understood, such an existence would become a heavy burden for me. For her it would not be difficult to find a religious solution. She has nothing for which to reproach herself; she can live in blessed friendship with the eternal, she can die gently and quietly in God “wie das Wiegenkind mit seiner Mutter Brust im Munde sterbend [like the cradle babe dying with its mother’s breast between its lips].”346 For me such an existence would become a sentence to penitence in perpetuum [in perpetuity]. Hard on the heels of a religious infinitizing, my next sympathetic wish for her would be that she might be intensified in her temporal existence, become something great and exceptional. If this were to happen, my life would once again be impounded. —I scarcely need to list the terrible crises; they may be considered a thing of the past.
Despite this long series of steps, there is still meaning in my existence. What I have done already, up to the last letters, is consistent. I have kept perfectly quiet, silent, as if nothing were happening. What a strain this has been on me is understood only by the person who understands my passions, not by others. How true it is, what Heiberg says in an excellent novella, Den farlige Taushed [The Perilous Silence], “No matter how strong our reasons for regarding a person as unhappy and inwardly shattered, if he appears collected, cheerful, and in good spirits, all our reasons are put to flight and we believe what we see instead of what we know.”347—We have laughed often enough at the bear that severely mauled its master as it tried to drive away a fly. Indeed, it is comic, but the situation can easily be made deeply tragic. Suppose the bear were aware of the consequences of using its strength as only the bear can use it. And suppose it saw its master being pestered and then had to sit there restraining itself lest it make everything more dangerous. This was bound to be very irksome and hard, for of course it knew that it could easily kill the fly.
[VI 335] It is the art of the actor to have to seem agitated while he is calm (if he is actually upset, it is a fault); it is the art of the inclosingly reserved person to seem calm although he is agitated. If he is not agitated and shaken, then his art = 0, and he is not inclosingly reserved.
June 5. Morning.
A year ago today. So I could, of course, do without the wedding and make an erotic arrangement, of which there are examples.348 She is willing to put up with everything. Put up with everything—but then must one not inquire about what one is willing to put up with? The situation is so preposterously inverted 349that I could easily elicit the seduction from her. But now if she also in her pain, alas, believes that I will easily be able to find a more exceptional girl, or if she believes in her mistaken belief, alas, that I can so easily forget her and find ever-new joy some other way in the world, ought she then also to believe that I value my honor so little that for the sake of a whim I will forfeit what can never be regained, for honor I certainly will not regain, or last of all; she will much sooner fall in love again. But from the point of view of the idea, to circumvent the wedding, whether she is willing to put up with that or not, whether she could depend on my fidelity or not, is an outrage. And she may die and she may place a murder on my conscience, and she may curse me, and she may loathe me, and she may write an epigram on my depression when she has calmed down in a new love affair and I am unchanged there where she fancied herself to be: but dishonored she shall not be, and least of all in such a way that I become a knight thereby.
If there were one person to whom I could turn, I would go to him and say: Bitte, bitte [Please, please], put a little meaning for me into my confusion. To me the most appalling meaning is not as appalling as meaninglessness, and this is all the more dreadful, the more thoughtlessly it smiles.
Laughter explores in all directions, and by its help and under its false flag I bring everything into the discussion350 in order that my reflection can scrutinize the thought paths in her soul and her strengths. This much I certainly do see—that she [VI 336] does not have the strictly ideal conception of what it is to sorrow. In the finite sense she is healthy and sound, and yet it is by finitude that she must be saved. She must be brought to the point of loathing the whole affair; then we separate. Then she lies down to sleep; then she sleeps it away—and thus she is saved again for time. It is not with the powers of ideality that she fights; it is a finite hope to which she clings, and my presence helps her. My being present and being forced to be a spectator give her a self-importance she will not have when I am gone.
If I were not convinced that I am suffering more than she does and more will come, for the worst awaits me when I have only myself to deal with, then I would not endure it. But so it goes, and one can inure oneself to all suffering. I am becoming inured to what I shrank from as from entering into a fiery furnace.351 I am succeeding so uncommonly well at jabbering and drooling that at home I have to make the opposite motions lest for me, too, it end with the whole thing disintegrating into nonsense. If she had infinity in her soul, 352it would be easy for her to be magnanimous toward me (oh, enviable condition), to give me my freedom, to accept the pain and have a religious transfer for it, and thus to make me her debtor, a debtor in proportion to nobleness of soul. This condition has been offered; I have not dared to deny her that; but it truly would have been a frightful punishment for me. What is all her anger and contempt in comparison with nobleness of soul?
June 5. Midnight.
Nebuchadnezzar353
(Daniel)354
3551. Recollections from my life when I was a beast of the field and ate grass,356 I, Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples and languages.
2. Was not Babylon the great city, the greatest of the cities of all the nations—I, I Nebuchadnezzar, have built it.
[VI 337] 3. In renown, no city was like Babylon, and no king like me, because of Babylon, the glory of my lordship.
4. My royal house was visible to the ends of the earth, and my wisdom was like an obscure saying that none of the wise men could explain.
5. Thus they could not interpret to me what I had dreamed.357
6. And word came to me that I would be changed to become like a beast that eats grass in the field, while seven times passed over me.
7. Then I gathered all my chieftains with their armies and sent out urgent messages so that I might be prepared when the enemy came, as the word intimated.
8. But no one dared approach proud Babylon, and I said: Is this not the proud Babylon that I, I Nebuchadnezzar, have built.
9. Now a voice was suddenly heard, and I was transformed as swiftly as a woman changes color.
10. Grass was my food; dew fell upon me; and no one knew me, knew who I was.
11. But I knew Babylon and cried out: Is not this Babylon? And no one discerned my words, for they sounded like the bellowing of an animal.
12. My thoughts terrified me, my thoughts in my mind, for my mouth was bound and no one could discern anything but a voice similar to an animal’s.
13. And I thought: Who is this Mighty One, the Lord, the Lord whose wisdom is like the darkness of the night and as unfathomable as the depths of the sea,
14. indeed, like a dream that he alone controls and whose interpretation he has not given into the power of any human being when it comes suddenly upon one and holds one with its strong arms.
15. No one knows where this Mighty One resides, so that one could point, saying, “See, here is his throne,” so that one could journey through countries until one hears,
“See, here is the boundary of his dominion.”
16. For he does not reside on the borders of my kingdom as my neighbor, nor from the farthest ocean to the boundaries of my kingdom as an entrenchment surrounding it.
17. Neither does he reside in his temple, for I, Nebuchadnezzar, have taken his gold and silver vessels and destroyed [VI 338] his temple.
18. And no one knows anything about him, who his father was, and how he gained power, or who taught him the secret of his might.
19. He has no advisers from whom his secret could be bought with gold, no one to whom he says: What shall I do?—and no one who says to him: What are you doing?
Stages on Life’s Way Page 41