Stages on Life’s Way
Page 61
From draft; see 28:36-31:15:
. . . One rarely hears about this these days when people of [V B 187.13 326] course understand the matter better, for they are festive when the host wants them to be and solemn when the pastor tells them to be.
They took their places at the table, and when V. E. noticed a centerpiece to which there was attached a piece of paper on which was written: This is a fountain, he nodded to Constantin and declared that now he was perfectly able to eat a hundred courses and drink cape wine, moreover, that the only way this could be done was beside a fountain.
The orchestra paused a moment, then Constantin proposed [V B 187.13 372] that they recall that jolly time with which they certainly had not been quite contemporary but which nevertheless had the charm of a fancied recollection for them: the period of the drinking song. Thereupon they sang: My brimming glass and the lusty sound of song. Nor did this proposal fail in its effect, for the contradiction that such a company sang that drinking song, in which men and women sat together, produced an altogether fantastic effect, which put an end to whatever remained of that almost solemn festivity. The Fashion Designer became so excited that he rose from the table, glass in hand, and began a speech thus: When one day I climb into the bridal bed. He was interrupted, for Constantin declared that in order to prevent the speeches from fluttering vaguely about no one was to speak before they had agreed to a limitation. In his opinion, they should eat and drink first and then give speeches. His first condition was that no one was to speak before he had drunk so much that he could detect in himself that he was in the power of wine.[*] Therefore before speaking each one was to declare solemnly on his honor that he was in this condition. A quantity could not be prescribed since the saturation capacity could vary, no one was to be intoxicated but was to be in that state of conflict. As for the content of the speech, he proposed to carry out what they had quite often talked about, that each one give a speech on Eros. Yet no one was to tell a love story but presumably in his view of the erotic suggest it. . . .
[V B 187.13 328] . . . These speeches I have now recorded, and I do not conceal that they were not delivered thus. If they had been delivered as drawn up, they certainly would have failed in their effect, but this is their content.
. . . He [the Young Man] was not as beautiful as before the meal, not as noble, but when he began to speak his words were more impetuous and precipitous than usual.
[*] In margin: not to be intoxicated but only be in the condition in which one says what one otherwise is not inclined to say, except that the coherence of thought needs to be interrupted continually by the hiccup of whimsical impulse.—Pap. V B 187:13 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 30:4-11:
Before they began to eat, Constantin proposed that they should sing a drinking song.
Constantin knew very well what he was doing, for this idea brought a wildness into the company, as if they were already intoxicated. With tremendous passion they sang: My brimming glass and the lusty sound of song. Nor is it easy to imagine a crazier idea on the part of such a company than to want to revive the memory of the period of the drinking song; its conviviality and sober-mindedness created an utterly fantastic background—especially when the Young Man proposed to sing: When one day I climb into the bridal bed, falderi, faldera.—Pap. V B 172:12 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 30:16-24:
The second condition was that no one would be allowed to speak before he had drunk so much that he could detect in himself that he was intoxicated, and before he had permission to speak he must declare it on his honor. The conditions could not be made more detailed, for the necessary quantum could of course vary, and everyone could choose the wine he wanted. For that purpose, a list of wines lay at every place setting—Pap. V B 172:11 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 30:36-31:3:
Thereupon Constantin announced that they were to speak for or against Eros and in such a way that each one had a love story in mind, yet did not tell it, but in his view of woman intimated it—Pap. V B 172:10 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 33:16-19:
. . . . . they do not go back to the first question. They assume that to fall in love belongs to being human as bleating belongs to being a sheep, and they are now thinking about finding someone with whom to bleat; but this, of course, is not thinking about erotic love but is assuming it, and at most is being intent on acquiring a beloved for oneself.—Pap. V B 175:2 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 33:29:
That means, more I do not say, erotic love always becomes ludicrous to a third party.—Pap. V B 175:3 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 34:2-13:
This perhaps seems strange to many, but it is not, not for the person who actually has understood what it is to doubt, not to speak of the person who has doubted everything. If reflection is to make something out of it, nothing immediate must be left standing anywhere.—Pap. V B 175:4 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 35:21-36:37:
[V B 175 6 298] And the person who listens to the lovers’ talk in order to hear what it is they are actually talking about is bound to lose his mind, for finally, after they have said something he is fairly able to understand, all their talk ends up with their saying that they nevertheless do not actually love for this reason, but that there is something inexplicable, something they cannot say. Yet this is not so strange, for when one observes people, there is something very strange. There would be something alarming about it if time and again people dropped dead all around and no one knew from what. But this is exactly what happens with erotic love. Today one talks with a person [V B 175 6 299] and can understand him fairly well, tomorrow he begins to look strange—he has fallen in love. But in a large city there is, of course, an overabundance of women; consequently the erotic cannot ordinarily be explained by the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. Sometimes a man can go on for many years before he finally one day begins to display all the symptoms of having fallen in love. Is it not comic that what is supposed to enhance and explain everything ends up in perfect confusion.
In margin: The one believes that it is the beloved’s teretes sures [shapely legs],74 the other that it is her husband’s handlebar mustache, and a third speaks grandiloquently about her whole lovable nature, and then when he has brought his discourse to the highest peak he suddenly slips in the word “inexplicable,” and this is supposed to please the beloved more than everything else. Me it does not please, for I do not understand one word, and understand only that the person who is supposed to explain something does not explain it and makes the whole thing dubious by not saying straightway that it is the inexplicable, for what, indeed, was everything else he said if it was not an explanation.—Pap. V B 175:6 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 40:18-22:
It lacked only that there be a complete carrying through of what in part can be carried through, that the one lover continually finds the other ludicrous. But that the one laughs at the other when they both are in love is to me disgusting and is a pride I cannot endure, for why should the one person by virtue of his difference qua human being delude himself in this way into thinking himself to be more than human. I do not approve of this.—Pap. V B 175:9 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 42:3-10:
. . . . . fencing positions and those strange modes of expression. I assume that I can understand that two souls want to belong to each other for all eternity; I can comprehend that when it is brought to the point of certainty he vents his feelings in words or that in his joy he goes and hangs himself because he is certain that they belong to each other for all eternity, but I do not comprehend why it occurs to them to express it in a kiss or occurs to them that a kiss is supposed to prove something. It is comic that erotic love in its highest flight ends, just like Saft, in the pantry, or in an even more dubious place—Pap. V B 175:11 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 42:11-43:5:
[Penciled: 1]
(c) the comic in the lovers’ enjoying themselves in love’s desire, since they a
re merely serving life and the race by propagation, for propagation, after all, is precisely the triumph of species over the individuals that annihilates the individuals, and yet the news travels around the country that our mother has had a child.—Pap. V B 174:13 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 43:30-44:4:
[Penciled: 2]
(b) the comic in the enormous consequence erotic love engenders: to have children, which has no analogies whatsoever in the consequences of other pleasures (drinking oneself to intoxication one evening or eating too much). But such an enormous consequence—one does not know where it comes from or even know with certainty whether it does come—is, after all, neither one thing nor another.—Pap. V B 174:12 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 44:4-13:
(f) omne animal post coitum triste [every animal is sad after coitus], but that implies that there must have been something comic in the movement beforehand, for they always succeed each other this way.
In margin: that tristitia [sloth, dejection] which the initiates place next when the lovers diversi abeunt [depart their separate ways], coeuntes [coming together] no more.
—Pap. V B 174:18 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 44:5:
that a stagnant state sets in.*
In margin: *or that a tristitia sets in, which suggests that desire is comic, even if for a reason other than erotic love, because that tristitia which sets in also in relation to erotic love is most compounded, for the initiates say this: neque diversi abeunt amantes vero [nor do they depart their separate ways, loving truly].—Pap. V B 175:12 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 44:14-22:
(d) The comic in the fact that erotic love’s desire is an exertion, consequently what follows presumably must be the essential desire, that is, to have children (the highest desire of that love is so significant to the lovers that accordingly they assume new names, and the man is called father and the woman mother).—Pap. V B 174:14 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 44:26-45:33, 45:30:
(e) To be a father is the strangest thing of all, and if a man does not according to custom want to be a father and a noble father,* he would then see the ridiculousness in his position; either it has eternal significance** that he is the child’s father, which is nonsense, or it has only an animal significance. Therefore, one can in truth say what Magdelone somewhere in Holberg says in a somewhat different sense to Jeronymus when he refers to being the child’s father: It is delusion.75—Pap. V B 174:15 n.d., 1844
Addition to Pap. V B 174:15:
. . . . . * it is said that the greatest benefaction a man can do [V B 174.16 296] for another is to be his father—and yet the father gratified his own desire.
I do not wish to abolish piety, far from it. I can understand [V B 174 16 297] it, it contains no contradiction, but I want to think myself into this instance and have clarity.—Pap. V B 174:16 n.d., 1844
In margin of Pap. V B 174:15:
. . . . . ** but if it has this, then placing a child into the world and giving him life is the most terrible thing, far more terrible than killing a person.—Pap. V B 174:17 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 45:34-47:2:
For these reasons I have kept myself out of erotic love. Suppose that in the decisive moment the erotic appeared to me as the comic and I started to laugh; then I would certainly have offended the girl, which I do not wish to do at all if she did not understand that the erotic is the comic. If she understood this, the erotic understanding would be rendered impossible, and moreover it would displease me that the beloved had acquired foreknowledge to this degree. With regard to the erotic, it is preferable to take them without foreknowledge.—Pap. V B 174:19 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 47:26:
No. 2
Constantin Constantius’s [changed from: Victor Eremita’s] speech.
—Pap. V B 176:1 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 49:1-21:
A girl’s being can be disintegrated in silly chatter within a half hour; therefore a person must never become entirely involved with her, lest he become disgusting to himself by seeing his own being, which one has of course surrendered in love when it is total, go the same way. To catch oneself in silliness, that the substance of one’s whole life was silliness, must be the most disgusting of all, enough to lose one’s mind over, much more than to be a robber and murderer (of which one can repent).—Pap. V B 176:5 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 49:31-51:14:
[V B 176.6 301] Nor can one fight with a girl. One does not have the heart to use all one’s strength (compassion), and what triumph [is there] in being victorious over a woman. On the other side, if she sees her opportunity, she runs off with the victory—always [V B 176 6 302] compassion, one cannot hate, cannot rage, cannot set passions in motion—and yet one is made much more of a fool by talking with her.—Pap. V B 176:6 n.d., 1844
Deleted from sketch; see 51:15-53:10:
[V B 178 6 306] What follows now from this, that man is indebted not to woman for anything but only to his own ideality. Therefore marry, but in a particular way. Every woman by nature has a born genius for all nonsense; one develops this to the point of virtuosity, and then the joke is priceless. Just as others practice balancing a cane on the nose or handling a glass or dancing among eggs, so one has one’s amusement from being married. [V B 178 6 307] One continually believes one’s wife, does what she wants, but since a woman is never transparent to herself, sheer confusion results, which is not attained by saying anything contrary to her, for that helps her. This marriage, that is, this amusement, this game, produces conversations no other game produces.—Pap. V B 178:6 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 52:28-53:28:
In the erotic sense, one believes her absolutely; in the intellectual sense, one credits her with everything. Socrates should have done that with Xanthippe instead of squabbling with her, for what benefit did he have from, as he himself says, practicing on her like a riding master, in comparison with this himmelhoch jauschende [shouting-to-the-skies-with-delight] amusement.
So much is being said and written about feminine faithfulness, and about her unfaithfulness. Yet why has there never been willingness to see it in the right light? What new and daring discoveries are not owed to a woman in this respect. Only one must not regard her [deleted: ethically].[*] That is incorrect and thus the amusement is left out. No, just make token gestures continually in this direction, and then see what comes of it. Great and incomprehensible is feminine faithfulness, but especially when it is declined. This I have expressed and it is the law.
[*] Penciled in margin: esthetically.
—Pap. V B 177:3 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 53:23-26:
“Great is feminine faithfulness, especially when it is declined.”—Pap. V B 176:4 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 53:30-55:27:
Response to the Young Man. One sees that it is a young man who has spoken; inexperienced, he mentions such an unfaithfulness, that a girl who had pledged her troth to a man deceived him. Alas, I know something much stranger, a girl who had begged a man to remain faithful to her. He did so, although with much sacrifice on his part, and when he came home after being abroad for a year, she was already far gone, if not by another then with another. On this occasion, he resolved to celebrate a festival day in her honor every month, on which day he sang this verse:
Cheers for me and you, I say
The day will never be forgotten
No, cheers for me and you, I say
The day will never be forgotten.
—Pap. V B 176:3 n.d., 1844
In margin of sketch; see 53:32-55:27:
see the Young Man’s speech as it is in the sketch; some of this on the first page [Pap. V B 174:4] is suitable* for him.—Pap. V B 176:2 n.d., 1844
Addition to Pap. V B 176:2:
*my explanation of the contradiction in life that our Young Man has discovered is that to place [essentially the same as Pap. V B 174:4]. . . .
It is good for the girls th
at they are not to be buried every time they die; it would be very expensive.—Pap. V B 176:7 n.d., 1844
From sketch; see 53:32-55:9:
[V B 174.4 293] [*] My only explanation is this, to place the first love in connection with that idea that unhappy love is certain death—and then it is all right. As soon as the erotic relation ceases, one dies of unhappy love; fourteen days later one falls in love again, and the second love is not some defective reprint but is the first, as is natural, since by having died one awakens to a new life. Therefore, if the lovers expressed themselves correctly, with their help everything would be confused. For example, I knew a man who once made a casual remark about his departed first love. I was moved by the idea, but see, the man was speaking correctly. Some time later, in his company, I meet on the street a gentleman and a lady with whom I had become acquainted just the day before. I greet them, and since I seem to detect on his face that he also knew them, I ask him about it, and he answers: Oh, yes, very well, indeed, intimately, for it was my late departed. What late departed one, I ask. My late departed first love. Alas, it was indeed a sad story; she took her death of grief and unhappy love, and thereupon she took a husband and now compels me to speak like [V B 174 4 294] Bollingbrocke: When my wife was living, it was then that I lived with my wife.76
[*]Penciled in margin: Constantin Const.
—Pap. V B 174:4 n.d., 1844
From draft; see 56:10:
. . . . . from which one in fairness dares to conclude that they are worth thanking God for. Yet other times, other customs—gratitude to the gods does not seem to be in fashion.—Pap. V B 179:1 n.d., 1844