by Thomas Mann
It was now, it was even a little before this, when he was uttering his taunts and mockage about the theological existence of the Devil and being the guardian of the religious life, speaking in flowing language like a lectour, that I noticed the merchaunte before me on the sofa had changed again; he seemed no longer to be the spectacled intellectual and amateur of music who had awhile been speaking. And he was no lenger just sitting in his corner, he was riding legerement, half-sitting, on the curved arm of the sofa, his fingertips crossed in his lap and both thumbs spread out. A little parted beard on his chin wagged up and down as he talked, and above his open lips with the sharp teeth behind them was the little moustache with stiff twisted points. I had to laugh, in all my frozenness, at his metamorphosis into the old familiar.
“Obedient servant,” I say. “I ought to know you; and I find it most civil of you to give me a privatissimum here in our hall. As ye now are, my Protean friend, I look to find you ready to quench my thirst for knowledge and conclusively demonstrate your independent presence by telling me not only things I know but also of some I would like to know. You have lectured me a good deal about the houre-glasse time you purvey; also about the payment in pains to be made now and again for the higher life; but not about the end, about what comes afterwards, the eternal obliteration. That is what excites curiosity, and you have not, long as you have been squatting there, given space to the question in all your talk. Shall I not know the price in cross and kreuzer? Answer me: what is life like in the Dragon’s Den? What have they to expect, who have listened to you, in the spelunca?”
He (laughs a falsetto laugh): “Of the pernicies, the confutatio you want to have knowledge? Call that prying, I do, the exuberance of the youthful scholar. There is time enough, so much that you can’t see to the end of it, and so much excitement coming first—you will have a plenty to do besides taking heed to the end, or even noticing the moment when it might be time to take heed to the ending. But I’ll not deny you the information and do not need to palliate, for what can seriously trouble you, that is so far off? Only it is not easy actually to speak thereof—that is, one can really not speak of it at all, because the actual is beyond what by word can be declared; many words may be used and fashioned, but all together they are but tokens, standing for names which do not and cannot make claim to describe what is never to be described and denounced in words. That is the secret delight and security of hell, that it is not to be informed on, that it is protected from speech, that it just is, but cannot be public in the newspaper, be brought by any word to critical knowledge, wherefor precisely the words ‘subterranean,’ ‘cellar,’ ‘thick walls,’ ‘soundlessness,’ ‘forgottenness,’ ‘hopelessness,’ are the poor, weak symbols. One must just be satisfied with symbolism, my good man, when one is speaking of hell, for there everything ends—not only the word that describes, but everything altogether. This is indeed the chiefest characteristic and what in most general terms is to be uttered about it: both that which the newcomer thither first experiences, and what at first with his as it were sound senses he cannot grasp, and will not understand, because his reason or what limitation soever of his understanding prevents him, in short because it is quite unbelievable enough to make him turn white as a sheet, although it is opened to him at once on greeting, in the most emphatic and concise words, that ‘here everything leaves off.’ Every compassion, every grace, every sparing, every last trace of consideration for the incredulous, imploring objection ‘that you verily cannot do so unto a soul’: it is done, it happens, and indeed without being called to any reckoning in words; in soundless cellar, far down beneath God’s hearing, and happens to all eternity. No, it is bad to speak of it, it lies aside from and outside of speech, language has naught to do with and no connection with it, wherefore she knows not rightly what time-form to apply to it and helps herself perforce with the future tense, even as it is written: ‘There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ Good; these are a few word-sounds, chosen out of a rather extreme sphere of language, yet but weak symbols and without proper reference to what ‘shall be’ there, unrecorded, un-reckoned, between thick walls. True it is that inside these echo-less walls it gets right loud, measureless loud, and by much overfilling the ear with screeching and beseeching, gurgling and groaning, with yauling and bauling and caterwauling, with horrid winding and grinding and racking ecstasies of anguish no man can hear his own tune, for that it smothers in the general, in the thick-clotted diapason of trills and chirps lured from this everlasting dispensation of the unbelievable combined with the irresponsible. Nothing forgetting the dismal groans of lust mixted therewith; since endless torment, with no possible collapse, no swoon to put a period thereto, degenerates into shameful pleasure, wherefore such as have some intuitive knowledge speak indeed of the ‘lusts of hell.’ And therewith mockage and the extreme of ignominy such as belongs with martyrdom; for this bliss of hell is like a deep-voiced pitifull jeering and scorne of all the immeasureable anguish; it is accompanied by whinnying laughter and the pointing finger; whence the doctrine that the damned have not only torment but also mockery and shame to bear; yea, that hell is to be defined as a monstrous combination of suffering and derision, unendurable yet to be endured world without end. There will they devour their proper tongues for greatness of the agony, yet make no common cause on that account, for rather they are full of hatred and scorn against each other, and in the midst of their trills and quavers hurl at one another the foulest oaths. Yea, the finest and proudest, who never let a lewd word pass their lips, are forced to use the filthiest of all. A part of their torment and lust of shame standeth therein that they must cogitate the extremity of filthiness.”
I: “Allow me, this is the first word you have said to me about what manner of suffering the damned have to bear. Pray note that you have only lectured to me on the affects of hell, but not about what objectively and in fact must await the damned.”
He: “Your curiosity is childish and indiscreet. I put that in the foreground; but I am very well aware indeed, my good soul, what hides behind it. You assaye to question me in order to be feared, to be afraid of the pangs of hell. For the thought of backward turning and rescue, of your so-called soul-heal, of withdrawing from the promise lurks in the back of your mind and you are acting to summon up the attritio cordis, the heartfelt anguish and dread of what is to come, of which you may well have heard, that by it man can arrive at the so-called blessedness. Let me tell you, that is an entirely exploded theology. The attrition-theory has been scientifically superseded. It is shown that contritio is necessary, the real and true protestant remorse for sin, which means not merely fear repentance by churchly regulation but inner, religious conversion; ask yourself whether you are capable of that; ask yourself, your pride will not fail of an answer. The longer the less will you be able and willing to let yourself in for contritio, sithence the extravagant life you will lead is a great indulgence, out of the which a man does not so simply find the way back into the good safe average. Therefore, to your reassurance be it said, even hell will not afford you aught essentially new, only the more or less accustomed, and proudly so. It is at bottom only a continuation of the extravagant existence. To knit up in two words its quintessence, or if you like its chief matter, is that it leaves its denizens only the choice between extreme cold and an extreme heat which can melt granite. Between these two states they flee roaring to and fro, for in the one the other always seems heavenly refreshment but is at once and in the most hellish meaning of the word intolerable. The extreme in this must please you.”
I: “It liketh me. Meanwhile I would warn you lest you feel all too certain of me. A certain shallowness in your theology might tempt you thereto. You rely on my pride preventing me from the contritio necessary to salvacion, and do not bethink yourself that there is a prideful contritio. The remorse of Cain, for instance, who was of the firm persuasion that his sin was greater than could ever be forgiven him. The contritio without hope, as complete disbelief in the possibility
of mercy and forgiveness, the rocklike firm conviction of the sinner that he has done too grossly for even the Everlasting Goodness to be able to forgive his sin—only that is the true contritio. I call your attention to the fact that it is the nighest to redemption, for Goodness the most irresistible of all. You will admit that the everyday sinner can be but very moderately interesting to Mercy. In his case the act of grace has but little impetus, it is but a feeble motion. Mediocrity, in fact, has no theological status. A capacity for sin so healless that it makes its man despair from his heart of redemption—that is the true theological way to salvation.”
He: “You are a sly dog! And where will the likes of you get the single-mindedness, the naive recklessness of despair, which would be the premise for this sinfull waye to salvacion? Is it not playne to you that the conscious speculation on the charm which great guilt exercises on Goodness makes the act of mercy to the uttermost unpossible to it?”
I: “And yet only through this non plus ultra can the high prick of the dramatic-theological existence be arrived at; I mean the most abandoned guilt and the last and most irresistible challenge to the Everlasting Goodness.”
He: “Not bad. Of a truth ingenious. And now I will tell you that precisely heads of your sort comprise the population of hell. It is not so easy to get into hell, we should long have been suffering for lack of space if we let Philip and Cheyney in. But your theologian in grain, your arrant wily-pie who speculates on speculation because he has speculation in his blood already from the father’s side—there must be foul work an he did not belong to the divel.”
As he said that, or even somewhat afore, the fellow changed again, the way clouds do, without knowing it, apparently; is no longer sitting on the arm of the couch before me in the room; there back in the sofa-corner is the unspeakable losel, the cheesy rapscallion in the cap, with the red eyes. And says to me in his slow, nasal, actor’s voice: “To make an end and a conclusion will be agreeable to you. I have devoted much time and tarried long to entreat of this matter with you—I hope and trust you realize. But also you are an attractive case, that I freely admit. From early on we had an eye on you, on your quick, arrogant head, your mighty ingenium and memoriam. They have made you study theology, as your conceit devised it, but you would soon name yourself no lenger of theologians, but put the Good Boke under the bench and from then on stuck to the figures, characters, and incantations of music, which pleased us not a little. For your vaine glory aspired to the elemental, and you thought to gain it in the form most mete for you, where algebraic magic is married with corresponding cleverness and calculation and yet at the same time it always boldly warres against reason and sobriety. But did we then not know that you were too clever and cold and chaste for the element; and did we not know that you were sore vexed thereat and piteously bored with your shamefast cleverness? Thus it was our busily prepensed plan that you should run into our arms, that is, of my little one, Esmeralda, and that you got it, the illumination, the aphrodisiacum of the brain, after which with body and soul and mind you so desperately longed. To be short, between us there needs no crosse way in the Spesser’s Wood and no cercles. We are in league and business—with your blood you have affirmed it and promised “yourself to us, and are baptized ours. This my visit concerns only the confirmation thereof. Time you have taken from us, a genius’s time, high-flying time, full XXIV years ab dato recessi, which we set to you as the limit. When they are finished and fully expired, which is not to be foreseen, and such a time is also an eternity—then you shalbe fetched. Against this meanwhile shall we be in all things subject and obedient, and hell shall profit you, if you renay all living creature, all the Heavenly Host and all men, for that must be.”
I (in an exceeding cold draught): “What? That is new. What signifies the clausula?”
He: “Renounce, it means. What otherwise? Do you think that jealousy dwells in the height and not also, in the depths? To us you are, fine, well-create creature, promised and espoused. Thou maist not love.”
I (really have to laugh): “Not love! Poor divel! Will you substantiate the report of your stupidity and wear a bell even as a cat, that you will base business and promise on so elastic, so ensnaring a concept as love? Will the Deyil prohibit lust? If it be not so, then he must endure sympathy, yea, even caritas, else he is betrayed just as it is written in the books. What I have invited, and wherefore you allege that I have promised you—what is then the source of it, prithee, but love, even if that poisoned by you with God’s sanction? The bond in which you assert we stand has itself to do with love, you doating fool. You allege that I wanted it and repaired to the wood, the crosse-waye, for the sake of the work. But they say that work itself has to do with love.”
He (laughing through his nose): “Do, re, mi! Be assured that thy psychological feints do not trap me, any better then do the theological. Psychology-God warrant us, do you still hold with it? That is bad, bourgeois nineteenth century. The epoch is heartily sick of it, it will soon be a red rag to her, and he will simply get a crack on the pate, who disturbs life by psychology. We are entering into times, my friend, which will not be hoodwinked by psychology… This en passant. My condition was clear and direct, determined by the legitimate jealousy of hell. Love is forbidden you, in so far as it warms. Thy life shall be cold, therefore thou shalt love no human being. What are you thinking, then? The illumination leaves your mental powers to the last unimpaired, yes, heightens them to an ecstatie of delirium—what shall it then go short of save the dear soul and the priceless life of feeling? A general chilling of your life and your relations to men lies in the nature of things—rather it lies already in your nature; in feith we lay upon you nothing new, the little ones make nothing new and strange out of you, they only ingeniously strengthen and exaggerate all that you already arc. The coldness in you is perhaps not prefigured, as well as the paternal head paynes out of which the pangs of the little seamaid are to come? Cold we want you to be, that the fires of creation shall be hot enough to warm yourself in. Into them you will flee out of the cold of your life… “
I: “And from the burning back to the ice. It seems to be hell in advance, which is already offered me on earth.”
He: “It is that extravagant living, the only one that suffices a proud soul. Your arrogance will probably never want to exchange with a lukewarm one. Do you strike with me? A work-filled eternity of human life shall you enjoy. When the houre-glasse runs out, then I shall have good power to deal and dole with, to move and manage the fine-created Creature after my way and my pleasure, be it in life, soul, flesh, blood or goods—to all eternity!”
There it was again, the uncontrollable disgust that had already seized me once before and shaken me, together with the glacial wave of cold which came over me again from the tight-trousered strizzi there. I forgot myself in a fury of disgust, it was like a fainting-fit. And then I heard Schildknapp’s easy, everyday voice, he sat there in the sofa-corner, saying to me: “Of course you didn’t miss anything. Newspapers and two games of billiards, a round of Marsala and the good souls calling the governo over the coals.”
I was sitting in my summer suit, by my lamp, the Christian’s book on my knee. Can’t be anything else: in my excitement I must have chased the losel out and carried my coat and rug back before Schildknapp returned.
CHAPTER XXVI
It consoles me to be able to tell myself that the reader cannot lay to my charge the extraordinary size of the last chapter, which considerably exceeds the disquieting number of pages in the one on Kretschmar’s lectures. The unreasonable demand made upon the reader does not lie at my door and need not trouble me. To mitigate Adrian’s account by subjecting it to any kind of editing; to dismiss the “dialogue” in a few numbered paragraphs (will the reader please note the protesting quotation-marks I have given the word, without concealing from myself that they can remove from it only part of its indwelling horror); to do this no regard for the possible failure of the reader’s capacity could possibly move me. With ru
eful loyalty I had to reproduce a given thing; to transfer it from Adrian’s music-paper to my manuscript; and that I have done, not only word for word, but also, I may say, letter for letter—often laying down the pen to recover myself, to measure my study floor with heavy, pensive tread or to throw myself on my sofa with my hands clasped upon my brow. So that, however strange it may seem, this chapter, which I had only to copy down, actually did not leave my sometimes trembling hand any faster than the earlier ones which I composed myself.
To copy, understandingly and critically, is in fact—at least for me, and Monsignor Hinterpfortner agrees with me—an occupation as intensive and time-consuming as putting down one’s own thoughts. It is likely that the reader may before now have underestimated the number of days and weeks that I had spent upon the life-story of my departed friend. It is even more probable that his imagination will have fallen behind the point of time at which I am composing the present lines. He may laugh at my pedantry, but I consider it right to let him know that since I began writing almost a year has passed; and that whilst I have been composing the last chapters, April 1944 has arrived.
That date, of course, is the point where I now stand in my actual writing and not the one up to which my narrative has progressed. That has only reached the autumn of 1912, twenty months before the outbreak of the last war, when Adrian and Rüdiger Schildknapp came back from Palestrina to Munich and he lodged at first in Pension Gisela in Schwabing. I do not know why this double time—reckoning arrests my attention or why I am at pains to point out both the personal and the objective, the time in which the narrator moves and that in which the narrative does so. This is a quite extraordinary interweaving of time-units, destined, moreover, to include even a third: namely, the time which one day the courteous reader will take for the reading of what has been written; at which point he will be dealing with a threefold ordering of time: his own, that of the chronicler, and historic time.