by Hermann Hesse, David Horrocks, Hermann Hesse, David Horrocks
Her wish was now fulfilled. I had killed the woman I loved even before she had fully become mine. I had done this unimaginable deed and now I was kneeling there and staring into space, not knowing what it meant, unsure even as to whether it had been the right and proper thing to do, or the opposite. What would that shrewd chess player, what would Pablo have to say about it? I knew nothing. I was incapable of thinking. As the colour drained from Hermione’s face the red glow of her lipstick became more and more intense. My whole life had been just like that. What little happiness and love I had experienced was like this rigid mouth of hers – a touch of red on the face of a corpse.
And the dead face, the dead white shoulders, the dead white arms exuded a breath of cold air that slowly crept up on me, making me shudder. In this atmosphere of wintry desolation and isolation, this slowly, very slowly increasing chill, my hands and lips started to freeze. Had I extinguished the sun? Had I killed the heart of all life? Was this the deathly cold of outer space I could feel invading?
Shuddering, I stared at Hermione’s petrified forehead, at her stiff curl of hair, at her coolly shimmering, pale, shell-shaped ear. The chilling cold they exuded was lethal, but beautiful nevertheless. It had a wonderful ring to it, splendid vibrations. It was music!
Had I not already shuddered with cold like this once before, much earlier, and at the same time experienced something akin to happiness? Had I not heard this music once before? Yes, in Mozart’s presence, in the presence of the Immortals.
Some lines of poetry came into my head. I had found them somewhere or other once long ago:
Unlike you we’ve found ourselves a home
Up in the starry ether, bright and cold.
Oblivious to the passing hours and days,
We’re neither male nor female, young nor old …
Our life is eternal, cool and unchanging;
Cool and star-bright, our laughter knows no end …
Then the door to the box opened and in came Mozart. I had to look twice before recognizing him because he was in modern dress, without his knee breeches and buckled shoes, and without his pigtail. He sat down by me, so close that I almost tried to hold him back, lest the blood from Hermione’s breast that had run on to the floor should dirty his clothes. He sat down and started working in a really detailed fashion on some gadgets and bits of apparatus that lay to hand on the floor. He was taking it very seriously, adjusting this and that and screwing parts together with those admirably skilful and agile fingers of his which I would have dearly loved to have seen playing the piano. I watched him deep in thought, or rather I was not so much thinking as dreaming, absorbed by the sight of his fine, clever hands, heartened but also somewhat unnerved to feel him so close. I paid no attention at all to whatever it was he was actually up to with the screwdriver and the gadgetry he was fiddling around with.
However, it turned out that what he had been assembling and getting to work was a wireless set. Switching on the loudspeaker, he now said: ‘It’s a broadcast from Munich: Handel’s Concerto Grosso in F Major.’
And in fact, to my indescribable astonishment and horror, what the satanic metal horn of a loudspeaker now immediately spewed out was just that mixture of bronchial slime and chewed-up rubber which owners of gramophones and wireless subscribers have agreed to call music. Yet, just as a thick crust of dirt can conceal an exquisite old-master painting, behind all the murky slime and crackling noise you could indeed recognize the noble structure of this divine music, its princely composition, the cool, ample air it breathed, the full, rich sonority produced by the strings.
‘My God,’ I cried in disgust. ‘What do you think you are doing, Mozart? Do you seriously want to subject yourself and me to such filth, to let this abominable gadget loose on the two of us, this triumphal invention of our times, the latest successful weapon in their campaign to destroy art? Is this really necessary?’
Oh, how he laughed now, this uncanny man! His laughter was cold, ghostly, noiseless, yet it was devastating, destructive of everything. Taking intense pleasure in tormenting me, he went on adjusting the damned screws of his wireless set and repositioning the metal horn speaker, thus ensuring that the distorted, lifeless, adulterated music went on seeping into the room. And he laughed as he did so, just as he laughed when answering me.
‘Spare me your pomposities, if you please, neighbour! Incidentally, did you notice that ritardando just now? What a brilliant idea, don’t you think? You impatient soul, why not let the thinking behind that ritardando influence you for once? Can you hear the basses? They are striding along like gods, another wonderful idea that old man Handel hit on. Just open up your restless heart to it, and it will bring you peace. I realize that this ridiculous apparatus casts a hopelessly idiotic veil over the distant form of the divine music, but just listen to it striding by, little man, and let us have no pathos or scorn. Pay attention, you can learn something from it. Notice how, thanks to this crazy sound system, the most idiotic, useless and forbidden feat on earth is made possible. It takes some random piece of music that is being played somewhere or other and hurls it in a stupid, crude and terribly distorted form into a room where it doesn’t belong. Yet it cannot destroy the music’s original spirit. Inevitably, all it can do is use the music as a vehicle to demonstrate its own tireless technology and mindless creation of commotion. Listen closely, little man, you need to. Come on, prick up your ears! That’s right. What you are hearing now, you see, is not just Handel as violated by the radio, a Handel who even in this most abysmal of guises remains divine – no, what you are hearing and seeing, Sir, is at one and the same time an excellent metaphor of all life. When listening to the radio you are hearing and seeing the age-old conflict between ideas and appearances, between eternity and time, between things divine and things human. For you see, my dear friend, just as the radio randomly flings ten minutes’ worth of the most magnificent music on earth into totally inappropriate spaces like middle-class drawing rooms and the garrets of the poor, filling the ears of its subscribers with it as they chatter, feed, yawn and sleep; just as it robs this music of all its sensuous beauty, ruins it, reducing it to mere mucus and crackling sounds, yet still failing to kill its entire spirit, so does life or so-called reality send the world’s splendid repertoire of images hurling all over the place. It will follow Handel up with a talk on the techniques medium-sized firms use to doctor their balance sheets. It will transform magical orchestral harmonies into an unpalatable porridge of notes. With its technology, its frantic activity, its unrestrained expediency and vanity it will intrude everywhere between idea and reality, between the orchestra and the ear. The whole of life is like that, young man, and we have no choice but to accept the fact and – if we have any sense – laugh about it. People like you have absolutely no right to go criticizing either the radio or life. You ought rather to learn how to listen first, to take seriously what is worth taking seriously, and to laugh about the rest. Or have you yourself by any chance found a better, nobler, more intelligent and tasteful way of living? No, you have not, Monsieur Harry! You have managed to make your life one long appalling story of sickness. You have turned your talents into one great disaster. And it is clear that here you could think of nothing better to do with a girl as good-looking and charming as this than to destroy her by sticking a knife in her body. Surely you don’t think that was right?’
‘Right? Oh no!’ I cried in despair. ‘My God, Mozart, it’s all so wrong, of course, so diabolically stupid and bad! I’m a beast, Mozart, a stupid, evil beast. I’m sick and depraved, you’re right about that, a thousand times right. – But as far as this girl is concerned, I can only say that she herself wanted it that way. I merely fulfilled her own wish.’
Mozart laughed that silent laugh of his, but this time did at least do me the great favour of switching off the wireless.
Suddenly my defence sounded really foolish to me, even though I had still sincerely believed wh
at I was saying only a moment ago. Now, all at once, I recalled that occasion when Hermione had been speaking of time and eternity. Then, I had immediately been willing to regard her thoughts as a reflection of my own. Yet I had taken for granted that getting me to kill her was entirely her own idea and wish, uninfluenced by me in the least. But if so, why had I not only accepted and believed a notion as horrific and strange as that at the time, but even guessed it in advance? Perhaps because it was my own idea after all? And why, of all times, had I killed Hermione when I found her naked in the arms of someone else? Mozart’s silent laughter seemed all-knowing and full of scorn.
‘Harry,’ he said, ‘you must be joking. Do you really expect me to believe that this beautiful girl wanted nothing from you other than to be stabbed in the breast with a knife? Pull the other one! Well, you did at least make a thorough job of it. The poor child is as dead as a doornail. Perhaps now would be a good time for you to accept the consequences of your gallantry towards this fair lady. Or could it be that you want to escape the consequences?’
‘No,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you understand a thing? Escape the consequences, me! There is nothing I desire more than to pay for what I’ve done, pay for it, pay for it, put my head under the executioner’s axe, take my punishment and be exterminated.’
The look of scorn Mozart gave me was unbearable.
‘Always the same pompous verbiage! But don’t worry, Harry, you’ll learn what humour is one of these days. Humour is always gallows humour, and if need be the gallows is just the place for you to learn about it. Are you ready to do it? Yes? Right, then go to the public prosecutor’s office and subject yourself to the whole humourless paraphernalia of the Law, right down to the last stage in the prison yard when they coolly chop off your head at the break of day. You are ready to do it, then?’
Suddenly an inscription flashed up before my eyes:
HARRY’S EXECUTION
and I nodded to show willing. An austere courtyard enclosed by four walls with small barred windows, a guillotine prepared to perfection, a dozen gentlemen clad in black robes and frock coats – and there was I, standing in their midst, shivering in the chill, grey, early-morning air, so pitifully afraid that my blood ran cold, but ready and willing. I stepped forward when ordered to, kneeled down when ordered to. Taking off his cap, the public prosecutor cleared his throat, as did all the other gentlemen. Unfolding an official document and holding it up to his eyes, he then read aloud:
‘Gentlemen, before you stands one Harry Haller, charged with wilfully abusing our Magic Theatre and found guilty as charged. Not only did Haller cause offence to fine art by confusing our beautiful picture gallery with so-called reality and stabbing to death the mirror image of a girl with the mirror image of a knife, but in addition he showed that he was intent upon using our theatre quite humourlessly as a mechanism for committing suicide. We therefore sentence Haller to eternal life while also withdrawing his entry permit to our theatre for a period of twelve hours. Nor can we spare the accused the further penalty of being laughed out of court. So let me hear it from you, gentlemen, after me: One – two – three!’
And every single one present came in precisely on the call of three, producing a chorus of high-pitched laughter, a terrible laughter from the beyond that human ears could scarcely bear.
When I came to again, Mozart was sitting by me as before. Tapping me on the shoulder, he said: ‘You have heard your sentence. So you see, you’ll have to get used to going on listening to the radio music of life. It will do you good. You are uncommonly lacking in talent, my dear stupid chap, but by now I suppose even you have gradually realized what is being asked of you. You are to learn to laugh, that’s what is being asked of you. You are to understand life’s humour, the gallows humour of this life. But of course you are prepared to do anything on earth other than what is asked of you. You are prepared to stab girls to death; you are prepared to have yourself solemnly executed; you would no doubt also be prepared to spend a hundred years mortifying your flesh and scourging yourself. Or am I wrong?’
‘No! With all my heart I’d be prepared to do so,’ I cried in my despair.
‘Naturally! There isn’t a single stupid and humourless activity, anything pompous, serious and devoid of wit, that doesn’t appeal to you! But, you see, nothing of that sort appeals to me. I don’t give a fig for all your romantic desire to do penance. You must be berserk, wanting to be executed and have your head chopped off! You’d commit another ten murders to achieve this stupid ideal of yours. You want to die, you coward, but not to live. But to go on living, damn it, is precisely what you will have to do. It would serve you right if you were sentenced to the severest penalty there is.’
‘Oh, and what sort of penalty might that be?’
‘We could, for instance, bring the girl back to life and marry you to her.’
‘No, I wouldn’t be prepared to go along with that. It would end in misfortune.’
‘As if what you did hasn’t already caused misfortune enough! But it’s now time to put a stop to all your posturing and killing. Can’t you finally see sense? You are to live, and you are to learn to laugh. You must learn to listen to life’s damned radio music, to respect the spirit that lies behind it while laughing at all the dross it contains. That’s all. Nothing more is being asked of you.’
Gritting my teeth, I asked in a soft voice: ‘And what if I refuse? What if I deny you, Herr Mozart, the right to intervene in Steppenwolf’s fate and tell him what to do?’
‘That being the case,’ Mozart said peacefully, ‘I would suggest you smoke another of my lovely cigarettes.’ And as he said this, producing a cigarette from his waistcoat pocket like a conjuror and offering it to me, he suddenly ceased to be Mozart. Instead, he was my friend Pablo, gazing warmly at me with his exotic dark eyes. He also looked like the twin brother of the man who had taught me to play chess with the tiny figures.
‘Pablo!’ I exclaimed with a start. ‘Pablo, where are we?’
Passing me the cigarette, Pablo gave me a light.
‘We’re in my Magic Theatre,’ he said with a smile. ‘And should you wish to learn the tango, become a general, or have a conversation with Alexander the Great, all of that can be arranged when you next visit. However, I’m bound to say I’m a little disappointed in you, Harry. Losing all control of yourself, you violated the humour of my little theatre by wielding a knife and committing a foul deed like that. You sullied the fine images of our magic realm with the stains of reality. That wasn’t nice of you. I hope at least you did it because you were jealous when you saw Hermione lying there with me. Unfortunately you didn’t know how to handle that figure. I thought you had learned to play the game better. Never mind, it can be put right.’
Taking hold of Hermione, who immediately shrank to the size of a chess piece, he put her in the very same pocket of his waistcoat that he had previously taken the cigarette from.
The sweet, heavy smoke from the cigarette had a pleasant smell. I felt as if hollowed out, fit to sleep for a year.
Oh, now I understood everything, understood Pablo, understood Mozart, whose terrible laughter I could hear somewhere or other behind me. I knew that the pieces of life’s game were there in my pocket, all hundred thousand of them. Though shocked to the core, I had a sense of what the game meant, and I was willing to start playing it again, to sample its torments once more, once more to shudder at the nonsense it entailed, again to journey through my personal hell, a journey I would often have to repeat.
One day I would play the game of many figures better. One day I would learn to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me. Mozart was waiting for me.
The End
Translator’s Note
Basil Creighton’s 1929 translation of Steppenwolf has seen long service but, despite being revised by Walter Sorell in 1963, is seriously flawed. In addition to lots of errors in vocabulary, syntax and tenses, it is marred by a number of significant omiss
ions. It is also a heavily gendered version, often opting for ‘man’ to render the frequently occurring German word ‘Mensch’ which, though grammatically masculine, is not a marker of sexual gender, simply meaning ‘human being’. I have tried to remedy these faults and also to adopt a style better suited to a novel of the 1920s, avoiding anachronisms like ‘poltroon’ and old-fashioned inversions after direct speech such as ‘said I’. Hesse’s German has not dated that much, especially when he is writing direct speech, and I have endeavoured to reflect this by introducing a more colloquial tone than that of the earlier translation when rendering the characters’ conversations. Any remaining errors and stylistic deficiencies are of course my own.
D. H.
Author’s Postscript (1941)
Works of literature may be understood and misunderstood in many a different way. In most cases the author of a work of literature is not the best-placed arbiter when it comes to deciding where the readers’ understanding comes to an end and their misunderstanding begins. Indeed many authors have found readers to whom their work was more transparent than it was to themselves. Besides, it is of course possible for misunderstandings to be fruitful.
That said, of all my works Steppenwolf seems to me to be the one that has been more frequently and more drastically misunderstood than any other. And of all people it was often the affirmative, indeed the enthusiastic readers, and not those rejecting the book, whose comments took me aback. In part, but only in part, the frequency of such cases can be explained by the fact that this book, written by a fifty-year-old man and dealing with the problems associated with that particular age, very often fell into the hands of quite young people.