The Death of Virgil

by Hermann Broch

  "Since I could not consecrate my whole life to sacrifice, as you have done yours, I must designate my work for this purpose ... It must sink out of memory, and I with it."

  "That is not reasoning, that is utter lunacy."

  "The unchastity of remembering ... I want to forget . . . to forget everything . . . and I want to be forgotten . . ."

  "What a charming message for your friends . . . truly, Virgil, your memories would be more chaste if you clung to something friendlier instead of to empty and malicious wishes, which in fact are only empty and malicious evasions."

  "The redemptive deed of perception is imminent; I must sacrifice in order to fulfill the pledge . . . salvation lies only in fulfilling the pledge . . . for everyone . . . for me . . ."

  "Oh, your salvation, always your salvation . . . well, your savior will not arrive a day sooner because of your sacrifice, but you are robbing the people, your people, and this is what you call your salvation. Lunacy, just lunacy, that's what it is!"

  "Only truth without perception is lunacy, this has to do with the truth of perception ... in such reality there is no lunacy."

  "So—there are two kinds of truth, are there, one full of perception for you and another without perception for me, who in your opinion talks like a lunatic, eh? Is that what you mean to say? Well then, say it bluntly!"

  "I must destroy what is without perception ... it constitutes the evil ... it is imprisonment . . . unliberated . . . redemption will come through the sacrifice ... it is the highest duty . . . the imperceptive must yield to perception . . . only by doing this can I serve the people's truth and further their salvation . . . this is the law of truth . . . this the awakening from the encircling twilight."

  A sharp and hasty step—, Augustus stood close to his bed: "Virgil . . ."

  "Yes, Augustus?"

  "You hate me."

  "Octavian!"

  "Call me not Octavian since you hate me."

  "I ... I hate you?"

  "And how you hate me." Caesar's voice was shrill with bitterness.

  "Oh, Octavian . . ."

  "Keep still . . . you hate me more than every other person on earth, and more than all other men because you envy no one so much as me."

  "That is not true . . . that is not true."

  "Do not lie; it is true . . ."

  "Oh, it is not."

  "It is true . . ."—furiously the hand of the scornful man tore the laurel leaves from the wreaths of the chandelier—, "indeed, it is true . . . indeed, it is true, for you have filled yourself with thoughts of being a king but you were too weak to make the slighest effort to become one; you hate me because you had no other choice than to put your cravings into your poem, by which you could show yourself, here at least, as mightier than your kings; you hate me because I was able to work for all that you desired for yourself and which, nevertheless, I have so despised that I could allow myself to refuse the crown of empire; you hate me because you hold me responsible for your own impotence . . . this is the source of your hatred, your envy . . ."

  "Octavian, listen to me . .."

  "I do not want to listen to you . .."

  The Caesar was shouting, and strange, ah, most strange; the louder he shouted the richer became the world; the visible with its many layers of existence appeared once more, and the leaden apathy came back to life, and again there was something like hope.

  "Octavian, listen while I speak ..."

  "To what end, tell me, to what end? . . . first, with false modesty you hypocritically slander your own work so as to be able to disparage mine more easily, and then you want to reduce it to a windy semblance of a sham-image, and a blind one at that, thus abusing the Roman people and the faith of their fathers, which, as the expression of my work, does not please you and which, for that reason, you find necessary to have reformed, knowing quite well that all this is futile, knowing quite well it must continue to be futile for you, knowing quite well that I remain more powerful than you and must continue to remain so, knowing quite well that you cannot get the better of me, you now take refuge at last in the supernatural, yonder where no one, not even I, is able to pass, and you want to saddle me with a savior who doesn't exist and never will exist, but who is to subdue me in your stead ... I know you, Virgil; you seem to be gentle, and you love to be worshipped by the people for your purity and your virtue, but in reality your allegedly pure soul trembles constantly with hatred and malice, yes, I repeat it, it trembles with a most abject malice . . ."

  Without doubt the consecrated one was hollering his complaints; and yet it was so strangely good that it should be so, it was so strangely good, oh, so good, that this could still be possible, and it seemed as if there were an invisible firm ground showing within the invisible realm, that firm invisible ground from which invisible bridges could be flung again, human bridges to humanity, chaining one word to another, one glance to another, so that word, like glance, should again become full of meaning, human bridges of meeting; oh, that he would speak on!

  Well, the Augustus did speak on, and not only did he speak, nay, rather he shouted, laying no restraint on himself: "Pure and virtuous and modest are you in manner, but just a little too pure, too virtuous, and too modest not to arouse suspicion . . . never would your so-called modesty have permitted you to accept an office that I could have tendered you, never would I have dared offer you one, because in reality none could be thought of that appeared good enough for you, you would have found objections to each one of them had it been that of senator, of pro-consul or any other of high rank, and the last thing that would have been possible for you would have been to accept any office from my hands, because you hate me too deeply and too thoroughly for that! Yes, sheer hatred of me compelled you to write poetry and build up your independence as a poet, for what you really wanted of me was to stand back and let you have my place, and in this I was, and still am, unable to oblige you, not to mention that you would decline my office also, because, being unable to hold it and conscious of your inability, you would have been forced to despise it . . . all of this proceeds from hatred and because of it your hatred is being repeatedly enkindled . . ."

  "Never have I esteemed my poetry above any office you could have offered me."

  "Keep still, and do not continue to steal my time by your hypocrisy ... all that concerned you was that I resign my office, perhaps only that you might be able to spurn it, and this gave rise to your fuss about perception, your sophistries concerning sacrifice, and now to your proposed destruction of the Aeneid, so that I might learn from it how to give up and destroy one's own work . . . yes, you would rather have the Aeneid vanish from the earth than have to go on enduring or suffering the sight of my work any more . . ."

  Layer on layer of existence piled up under these scoldings, and the room which Caesar was furiously pacing was an ordinary earthly room once more, part of an earthly house and furnished with earthly furniture, an earthly thing in the light of late noon.

  And now one could even feel one's way across the invisible bridge: "Octavian,, you do me wrong, a bitter wrong . . ."

  "So, I do you wrong, do I? but you want to destroy the Aeneid so that you will not have to dedicate it to me! You dedicated the Georgics to Maecenas and the Eclogues to Asinius Pollio right gladly! On me, to the contrary, on me whom you hate, you wanted to foist the Culex, for me the Culex was good enough and still is, according to you, seemingly to prove that it was good enough for me twenty-five years ago, that I could claim nothing better at that time, nor can I today, . . . but that in these twenty-five years I have accomplished my work, and that this work fully entitles me to the Aeneid, well-grounded as it is in my achievement, in the reality of Rome and its spirit, and without which it could never have come into being, that is too much for you, you cannot bear it, and you would rather destroy the poem than dedicate it to me . . ."

  "Octavian .. . !"

  "It is immaterial to you whether a work, be it yours or mine, is greater than life or death, imm
aterial because of your hatred . . ."

  "Octavian, accept the poem!" All the paperish pulp, the dull paper-like whiteness had disappeared from the atmosphere outside; the light shimmered over the landscape, almost ivory in color.

  "I do not want to hear anything more of your bungling work ... do what you please with it; I do not want it."

  "It is not a bungling work."

  Caesar remained standing and looked askance at the chest: "It has become a bungling work to me; you have reduced it to that yourself."

  "You know that it was meant for you when I wrote it, that you were constantly in my thoughts, that you entered into the work and that you are, as you were, in the poem which is yours . . ."

  "That is what you made believe to yourself and by the same token to me. Truly, you are right to call me blind, blind as a new-born kitten, for it was flagrantly blind to believe in you, flagrant for me to have had confidence so long in you and your trickery!"

  "There was no trickery."

  "If there was not, you hate your own work now just because it bears traces of me."

  "I will finish it for your sake."

  "And I am still supposed to believe that?" Again the Caesar looked askance at the box and this was unpleasant; but now there was nothing else to be done.

  "You must believe me, Octavian."

  Oh, even, the tiniest whirling second released from a human soul into the abyss of time, only to vanish there, is greater in its incomprehensibility than any work, and now from Caesar's soul such a second released itself, a second of friendship, a second of affection, a second of love, distinctly felt although he said only: "We will reconsider it."

  And now came the hardest part: "Take the manuscript with you to Rome, Octavian . . . with the help of the gods I shall find it there again."

  The Caesar nodded and for the length of this nod a vast peace reigned, the peace of an affinity that reached out like a breath from the human heart, passing through all invisibilities ever and again toward the human heart, the great power of quietude: the brown-timbered ceiling was again becoming the forest from which it had been taken, the laurel scent of the wreaths turned back into the most hidden shadows resting deep in the sun-covered leafy vales, misty with the trickle of the fountains, misty and soft like the tone of a mossy reed and yet firm-fast, yet oaken-heavy, and the breath of the inexplicable heart was that of mutual intuition. Was it still on this breath that the lamp, as though for the last time, started to swing on its silver-sounding chains? nothing stirred around them, the waters were smooth as though holding their breath; the voyage halted. And Augustus standing under the laurel-elm, his hand in the laurel-leafage, said: "Do you remember, Virgil?"—

  "Yes, I remember many things, but they are always too few."— "Do you remember the horses and dogs that we picked out together?"—"Of course, I remember: I predicted their speed and their fitness as you were buying them."—"They were Cro-tonian mares and stallions and Iberian dogs."—"I advised you against one of the stallions, but you bought him nevertheless, Octavian."—"Yes, you knew all about it, the stallion proved to be really no good."—"You paid dearly for him and you might have saved the money, for my advice was sound."—"Sometimes it is well not to follow your advice, Virgil."—"Why? but that was long ago."—"Very long ago. The stallion had a pleasing appearance, a black stallion with a small head. Too bad."—"Yes, too bad. A black stallion, he had white fetlocks and his hind-quarters were too weak, although that was scarcely noticeable."—"Quite so, his hind-quarters were too weak but he had no white marks whatsoever."—"But no, Augustus, the fetlocks were white."—"An animal that I have seen once stays in my memory, I assure you the horse was without markings."— "We raised so many horses in Andes that my memory for them is keen; here I feel sure of my ground and no one can talk me out of it, not even you, Octavian."—"And you are nothing but a pig-headed peasant."—"I am a peasant and the son of horse-breeders; as a child I galloped over the meadows clinging to the horse's mane."—"If the nags you mounted at that time were no better than your memory you need not be too proud of them."—"They were not nags."—"And your memory is no memory; mine is the better."—"It is all one whether or not you are the Augustus, you may be that a thousand times, the fetlocks were still white, white as snow."—"Fume as much as you like, it is useless, they were not white."—"I say white and that is final."—"No, say I."—"Really, Octavian, do not contradict me; I am ready to die on the spot should the fetlocks not have been white!" Augustus who until now had stood there with lowered brow, musing as if wishing to hold fast not only to memory but to peace as well, now lifted his head: "We won't gamble with such stakes, I forbid it, for that would be too high a price for me, in that case I should much rather the fetlocks had been white." And thereupon they both had to laugh, overcome by a wave of soundless laughter, by a soundless, fluttering laughter that was a little painful, probably also for Augustus, for his saddened features—or were there even tears shimmering in his distant eyes?—let one infer that he too was feeling the anguish in his throat and chest, painful, like dream-laughter, sore at heart and choking because, alas, no one laughs in the dream and, alas, because the bliss-giving stillness that had enthralled them was being painfully dispelled since Augustus had raised his head, wakened out of the stillness that now was gone.

  Was the sun-eclipse once more threatening? or the heaving of earth and ocean, shaken by the steeds of Poseidon? was there now a new threat of these? was this why the stillness had passed? no, there was no fear of these; gentle and earthly and peaceful the cooing doves walked along the window-sill, the song remained gentle, the gentle light held to its ivory hue, and even the voyage was again progressing, there was nothing to fear as long as the barks glided on so slowly and steadily. Nevertheless the hoof-beats of a horse became audible and it did not take long for it to appear, galloping hither across the air, carrying a boy in high spirits who held onto the rippling mane, tearing at it gaily. It was not a black horse but one that was snow-white, with black fetlocks however, and after the boy had dismounted in mid-gallop before Caesar, the horse continued on its way and sped through the window. But the boy stepped up to Caesar like a herald of yore, his head wreathed like a gift-bearer, and as such he was received.

  "I greet you," said the Augustus, still leaning against the candelabrum with his hands among the laurel-leaves, "you want to present me with a poem and I accept it at your hands because you are Lysanias; I recognize you although I have never been in Andes, and you recognize me also."

  "You are Caesar Augustus, the holy one."

  "How did you find your way to me?"

  And the boy recited:

  "... Behold Caesar there and his issue,

  All of the Julian line that is destined to mount to the heavens,

  This is the man, this is he whom so often you heard the fates promise,

  Caesar Augustus, the son of a god who shall give back to Latium,

  Back to those fields where once Saturn was reigning a new age, a golden;

  His is an empire shall stretch past the Indian and Garamantian,

  On to a realm beyond stars where the sun and the year take their courses;

  Heav'n-bearing Atlas is there and revolves the bright orb on his shoulders;

  Aye, even now, the Caspian realms are aghast at his coming,

  Scythians cower there too in fear of the gods' divinations,

  Meanwhile the mouths of the sevenfold Nile are in tumult with terror . . ."

  Thus declaimed the boy, and the picture that, disquieting and almost breath-taking, arose along with the verses did not have its origin in memory, neither in that of the boy nor his own, but instead emerged from the strangeness of that which was ever at hand, livid and mute though indicated by scarcely a line, yet full of terror, thunderous as a brewing storm.

  But there was no time left to reconsider because Augustus who had listened to the verses with an assenting countenance now said: "Yes, that is how you wrote it, that is how you wrote it for me... or have y
ou changed your mind again, my Virgil?"

  "No, Octavian, my mind is unchanged, the poem is yours ..."

  NOW Augustus clapped his hands twice and almost at once the chamber began to fill with people, with very many people who no doubt had been waiting behind the door for this very signal. Plotius Tucca and Lucius Varius were among them, but so were the doctor and his assistants, the slave too was now visible in the flesh, standing in a row with the other slaves. Only Plotia was missing, although she had certainly not gone away. Possibly, she was only frightened by the mass of people, and remained in hiding.

  But it was Caesar who said: "Were I speaking before an assemblage of the people I should strike a higher and stronger note; but as I stand before friends whom I love and who are of one mind with me, I can only ask them to share in my joy that our poet has resolved to continue his work on the Aeneid as soon as he shall have recovered, that is to say, very soon..."

  Did Augustus really love these friends? He imagined that he spoke differently to them than to the people whom he guided but by no means loved, yet the address did not vary in any way from the beginning of a people's address and now he paused cannily to let his words ripen and take effect

  Lucius Varius promptly filled the gap: "We knew that you would succeed, oh, Augustus; you are blessed in everything."

  "I am only the mouthpiece of the Roman people of whom all of us are a part; in their service and that of the gods I have presented their claims to the Aeneid, and Virgil, who loves the people, has recognized their proprietory right, the irrevocable and eternal right of possession."

  But the slave standing there among the others with his stern unmoved lackey's face, unnoticed and certainly unheard, added: "The way toward true freedom has been opened, the people will take it; eternal alone is the way."

  "I am the people's advocate," continued the Augustus, in a voice of dissembling sweetness that vibrated with a warmth difficult to evade, "a mere advocate here as everywhere, and Virgil too has acknowledged this, making me proud by that acknowledgment, happy that, because of it, the poem has been entrusted to me for safe-keeping ..."