The Confusions of Young Master Törless (Alma Classics)

by Robert Musil

  “But from a strictly scientific viewpoint, I would first have to go over certain basic assumptions that you might find hard to understand, and in any case we don’t have time.

  “Please don’t misunderstand me, I appreciate that concepts such as imaginary numerical values for example, which don’t actually exist, are a hard nut for younger minds to crack, ha ha. You must content yourself with the fact that such concepts necessarily belong to the domain of pure mathematics. Think of it like this: at the elementary level where you are at present, we can only touch on many questions that would be difficult to explain in sufficient detail. Fortunately, very few pupils realize this, but when one of them comes along, as you have today – and as I said, I’m delighted that you did – then all one can say is this: you simply have to believe it, my friend, simply believe. When you know ten times more about mathematics than you do now, then you will understand – but in the meantime, believe!

  “There’s nothing else one can do, my dear Törless. Mathematics is a world unto itself, and one has to have lived in it for a very long time to acquire the necessary knowledge.”

  Törless was glad when the master stopped talking. Ever since he heard the fateful door closing it had seemed as if the words were drifting farther and farther away… towards that other shore, the one where nothing mattered, where all the correct but unimportant explanations were kept.

  He was so dazed by the torrent of words and the sense of having failed that at first he didn’t realize that it was time for him to go.

  So in order to settle the matter, the maths tutor decided to try one last conclusive argument.

  On a small side table, somewhat ostentatiously, as if it were a showpiece, was a volume of Kant. The master picked it up and showed it to Törless. “See this book? This is philosophy: it deals with the factors that determine our behaviour. If you were to succeed in sounding its depths you would be confronted with even more of these necessary axioms that determine everything – although without further study they remain incomprehensible. It’s much the same with mathematics. And yet we continually act according to these axioms – which proves just how important they are. But” – and he smiled as he saw Törless open the book and immediately start flicking through it – “leave that for now. I just wanted to give you an example that you would remember and come back to later: for the time being it would probably be too difficult for you.”

  Törless spent the rest of the day in a state of turmoil.

  The fact of having laid hands on a volume of Kant – a chance event that he paid scant attention to at the time – had a profound effect on him. He had certainly heard Kant’s name and, as a result of mixing with people who were only vaguely concerned with intellectual matters, he was aware of his standing as the last word in philosophy. This aura of authority was one of the reasons he tended to avoid works of a serious nature. Once they have outgrown the phase when they want to be a coachman, a gardener or run a sweetshop, young people generally begin to harbour ambitions of carving out a career in those areas where they imagine they will have the greatest opportunities to distinguish themselves. So when they say they want to be a doctor, one can be sure that somewhere they have seen a delightful waiting room full of patients, or a showcase of mysterious surgical instruments or something similar; if they talk of entering the diplomatic service, what they have in mind is the glamour and elegance of international receptions: in a nutshell, they choose their occupation according to the milieu where they prefer to see themselves, the pose they find most appealing.

  Törless had only ever heard Kant’s name mentioned in passing, by people whose expression suggested they were referring to a fearsome deity. So it was inevitable that he should believe that Kant had solved philosophy’s problems once and for all, and that it was now a futile occupation, in the same way as he thought that after Goethe and Schiller there was little point in writing verse.

  At home these books were kept in Papa’s study, in a bookcase with green glass doors, and he knew it was only ever opened to show visitors. It was like the shrine of some divine being whom we are loath to approach, and whom we only worship because its existence relieves us of the need to worry about such things.

  Later on, this distorted relationship with philosophy and literature had a regrettable influence on Törless’s intellectual development, and caused him a deal of unhappiness. At the very moment when his ambition, diverted from its proper objectives, was in search of a new aim to replace the one it had been deprived of, it came under the brutal and determined influence of his classmates. His true inclinations only reappeared occasionally and with diffidence, and always left him with the feeling of having done something pointless and absurd. Yet so powerful were they that he could never quite succeed in freeing himself from them, and it was this endless struggle that prevented his character from taking shape and developing along solid lines.

  Today, however, this relationship seemed to have entered a new phase. The ideas for which he had vainly sought an explanation were no longer just random, unconnected games played by his imagination, they now churned him over and over and refused to let go, and he sensed with his whole being that behind them another part of his life was pounding with its fists to be released. All this was new to him. Deep down inside him there was a firmness that he had never known before. It was mysterious, almost dream-like. It had probably grown in silent seclusion under the influence of recent events, and was now drumming its fingers imperiously. He was like a mother who feels the tyrannical stirrings of her unborn child inside her for the first time.

  It was a wonderfully elating afternoon.

  He went to his locker and took out all the attempts at poetry that he kept there. Then he sat by himself beside the stove, hidden behind the tall, heavy screen. One by one he flicked through the exercise books, then slowly tore them to pieces and threw them into the fire, savouring the delicate sensation of parting every time.

  His motive for doing this was to rid himself of his old, unwanted baggage, as if from now on – unencumbered – he would concentrate his attention on the steps that would carry him forward.

  When he had finished he went back and joined the rest of the class. He now felt free of all the anxious sidelong glances. Yet what he had done was purely instinctive: the only thing that could reassure him that from now on he would be a new person was the mere fact of this impulse. “Tomorrow,” he told himself, “tomorrow I’ll reassess everything carefully, and then I’ll definitely find some clarity.”

  He strolled round the classroom, between the desks, glancing at the open exercise books across whose dazzling-white pages fingers were busily writing, each casting its small brown shadow behind it; he watched them like someone who has suddenly woken up, and to whom everything seems to have taken on much greater significance.

  11

  BUT THE NEXT DAY brought bitter disappointment. In the morning he bought himself a popular edition of the great volume that he had seen in the maths master’s study, and set about reading it during the first break. But what with all the brackets and footnotes he didn’t understand a word, and as his eyes dutifully followed the phrases it felt as if an old, bony hand was gradually unscrewing his brain from inside his head.

  When after half an hour he stopped, exhausted, he had got no further than the second page, and his forehead was covered in sweat.

  Gritting his teeth he managed to read another page before the end of break.

  That evening, however, he couldn’t bring himself even to touch the book. Was it fear or revulsion? He wasn’t sure. There was only one question that consumed him – that the maths master, pitiful little man that he was, had this book lying around open in his study as if it were an everyday pastime for him.

  It was in this frame of mind that he bumped into Beineberg.

  “So how did it go with the maths tutor yesterday, Törless?” They sat in a window alcove and pulled a coat rack full of overcoats in front of them, so that all that reached them from the c
lassroom was an intermittent humming noise and the reflection of the lamps on the ceiling. Törless fiddled absent-mindedly with the coats.

  “Are you still asleep or something? He must have given you some kind of answer, didn’t he? Mind you, I can imagine that he was ever so slightly flustered!”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wasn’t expecting such a stupid question – that’s why.”

  “It wasn’t a stupid question: in fact, I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that – just that it must have seemed stupid to him. They all learn their subject off by heart like a priest does the catechism, but as soon as someone asks them something slightly off-script they get flustered.”

  “Well he certainly wasn’t flustered when it came to an answer. He had one ready and waiting, he didn’t even let me finish what I was saying.”

  “And so how did he explain everything?”

  “He didn’t, actually. He just told me I wasn’t in a position to understand it yet, that they were axioms that only become clearer to those who have studied them in depth.”

  “That’s just the same old con! They’re incapable of explaining this stuff to people whose minds aren’t fully trained. It only works when someone’s had it hammered into him for ten years. By then he’s done thousands of calculations based on those principles, and constructed vast great edifices that will hold until the end of time; by that point he believes in his subject like a Catholic believes in the Revelation, it has always amply proved its worth… so it doesn’t take much skill to talk someone like that into believing the evidence, does it? Quite the reverse: no one would be able to convince him that even if this edifice of his were still standing, if someone wanted to take away any of the bricks it’s built with then it would just vanish into thin air!”

  Törless didn’t much like Beineberg’s exaggerations.

  “I don’t think you need to go quite as far as that. I’ve never doubted that what mathematics claims is true – after all, its results are living proof – although one thing I do find odd is how it sometimes seems to go against all reason – but on the other hand that might only be the way it seems.”

  “You’ll just have to wait for ten years, and then perhaps your mind will be properly trained… But since the last time we discussed this I’ve been thinking about it too, and I’m absolutely convinced there’s a catch somewhere. In any case, you were talking quite differently the other day.”

  “No, I wasn’t. It’s true that I still have doubts, but I don’t want to immediately start exaggerating like you do. I find the whole thing bizarre as well. Whenever I try to imagine the irrational, the imaginary, parallel lines that intersect at the point of infinity – or somewhere else – it makes me nervous. Just thinking about it leaves me in a daze, as if I’ve had a blow to the head.” Törless leant forward in the shadows, and his voice became slightly husky. “Everything used to be so clear, so neat and tidy in my mind; but now my thoughts are like clouds, and there are places between them like gaps through which I can see a sort of limitless, indeterminate expanse. There’s no doubt that mathematics is correct – but what about inside my head, other people’s heads? Can’t they feel anything? How do they picture it? Don’t they imagine anything at all?”

  “I think you can see the answer to that in your maths tutor. But whenever you come up against something like this, your immediate reaction is to look round and wonder how it fits with everything else within you. Whereas they have bored a long, spiralling tunnel deep into their brains, and just keep glancing back to make sure that the thread they have spun behind them hasn’t snapped at the last bend. Which is why the sort of question you asked always leaves them nonplussed. It makes them lose their way. And how can you say I’m exaggerating, by the way? All these grown men, these great thinkers, have spun a web around themselves in which each link supports the next one, so the whole miraculous construction looks perfectly natural; yet where the original link is hidden, the one that holds all the rest together, no one knows.

  “You and I have never talked about this quite so seriously before, but then people don’t like getting involved in discussions about things of this kind, and you can see now how content they are to have these pitiful opinions about the world. It’s nothing but a delusion, a con, feeble-mindedness! Anaemia! Their brains stretch just far enough for them to work out their learned little theory, but the moment it gets beyond the scope of their thinking it freezes to death, do you see what I mean? Oh yes! All these soaring peaks, these fine points that the masters say are too lofty for us to reach, they’re all dead – frozen – do you understand? All around us are icy peaks that we gaze at admiringly, but no one even begins to know what to do with them, they’re so utterly lifeless!”

  For some time Törless had been sitting back against the window. Beineberg’s warm breath was trapped among the coats, heating up the little corner where they were sitting. As always when he got excited he had an unpleasant effect on Törless; especially now he was leaning forward, so close that his staring eyes were right in front of Törless like a pair of greenish-coloured stones, while his hands twitched about in the shadows in a particularly repulsive, agitated way.

  “None of their claims are proven. Everything happens according to nature’s laws, or so they say. When a stone falls it’s due to gravity, so why shouldn’t it be God’s will, and why shouldn’t someone who is pleasing to God be spared the same fate as the stone? But what’s the point of talking to you about these things? You’ll never get any further than halfway! You’ll uncover one or two oddities, you’ll shake your head for a moment, be vaguely horrified – that’s the way you are. You daren’t go any further. But it’s no loss to me.”

  “And so is it my loss? Your own claims aren’t exactly proven either.”

  “How can you say that? They’re the only ones that are proven, actually. But there’s no reason to quarrel! You’ll understand eventually, my dear Törless; I’d even be prepared to wager that one day you’ll develop a hell of an interest in this question. For example, if everything goes according to plan with Basini, like I—”

  “Just drop it, will you?” Törless interrupted. “I’d rather not get involved with that at the moment.”

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “Because. I just don’t want to, that’s why. I find it unpleasant. As far as I’m concerned, Basini and this are two completely separate matters, and I’m not in the habit of lumping everything in the same basket.”

  Confronted with this uncharacteristic assurance, even rudeness from the younger boy, Beineberg pulled an angry face. Yet Törless had the feeling that the very mention of Basini’s name would undermine his self-confidence, and so to conceal this he too responded angrily: “And anyway, you make these claims with a certainty that’s completely insane. Has it never occurred to you that your own theories might be just as much built on sand as all the rest? They’re an even more tortuous labyrinth, and demand even more good faith in order to believe them.”

  Curiously enough, Beineberg wasn’t annoyed: he just smiled – albeit a somewhat strained smile, while his eyes glinted even more feverishly than before – and repeated: “You’ll see, you’ll definitely see…”

  “What will I see? Fine, if you say so then I’ll see – but I don’t give a fig, Beineberg! You don’t understand. You haven’t the faintest idea what interests me. If I’m struggling with mathematics and if I…” – but he quickly changed his mind and decided not to mention Basini – “if I’m struggling with mathematics it’s because I’m looking for something completely different from you, nothing remotely supernatural; on the contrary, what I’m searching for is perfectly natural – don’t you understand? It’s not anything outside me, but inside me, inside! Something natural! Although it’s something I don’t understand! But you have no more feeling for it than you do for mathematics… oh, do stop bothering me with all your speculation, will you!”

  When he stood up, Törless was quiveri
ng with agitation.

  But Beineberg just kept repeating: “We’ll see, oh yes, we’ll see…”

  12

  TÖRLESS COULDN’T GET TO SLEEP that night. As he lay there, the quarter-hours came round like a constant relay of nurses hovering at his bedside. His feet were like blocks of ice, and instead of keeping him warm the blankets seemed to be smothering him.

  All that could be heard in the dormitory was the soft, regular breathing of the other boys who, after a day of lessons, gymnastics and running around in the fresh air had fallen into a deep, animal sleep.

  He listened to the sound of sleeping. It might be Beineberg’s breathing, or Reiting’s, or Basini’s. Whose was it? He couldn’t tell; he just knew they were all part of this calm, confident, regular sound which rose and fell like the workings of a well-oiled machine.

  One of the canvas window blinds had only been pulled halfway down; through the gap beneath it the bright, clear moonlight threw a pale, motionless rectangle onto the floor. The cord must have got caught at the top or had come off its pulley, and hung down in hideous coils, its shadow slithering across the rectangle of light on the floor like a worm.

  All these details were horrifyingly, monstrously ugly.

  He tried to think of something pleasant. Beineberg came to mind. Hadn’t he outmanoeuvred him? Dented his sense of superiority? Hadn’t he managed to protect his individuality from the others for once? To emphasize how infinitely superior his delicate sensitivities were, how they set him apart from their concept of the world? So had he had the last word? Yes or no?…

  But this “yes or no” swelled up in his head like so many bubbles which then burst, and – yes or no, yes or no – kept growing and growing like the pounding rhythm of an express train, like flowers nodding their heads at the top of tall stems, like the banging of a hammer that can be heard through the thin walls of a silent house… This overpowering, self-satisfied “yes or no” turned his stomach. It was absurd how his delight was hopping and skipping around in this way; it couldn’t be genuine.