Adepts in Self-Portraiture

by Stefan Zweig

  In order to isolate himself more effectually from his compeers, he deliberately enters into opposition with his generation and lives like his own Julien, “en guerre avec toute la société.” As a writer he mocks at style, and proclaims the bourgeois code of laws to be the genuine ars poetica; as a soldier he despises war; as a politician he disdains history; as a Frenchman he gibes at the French. He sets up a barbed-wire fence between himself and his fellow mortals, in order that they may not come near him. Need we wonder that, in the circumstances, he fails to achieve distinction in any career? He is delighted to find that he fits in nowhere, belongs to no class, or race, or rank, or fatherland; is a two-legged paradox, treading its chosen road upon its own pair of feet, instead of one of a servile flock, following the broad road of success. Better by far to remain behind, to slip aside, to stand alone: free!

  With the insight of genius, Stendhal knew how to cultivate freedom, to liberate himself from every coercive influence. When, from time to time, forced by dire necessity, he adopted a profession and donned a uniform, he gave only just so much of his time and energy to his duties as would keep him in his post. No matter the official position he accepted, the profession he practiced, the job he undertook — he was a master of tricks and devices to secure unqualified independence. Though his cousin Daru may drape him in a military cloak, he never feels himself to be a soldier; though he may write novels, he never feels he has become a professional man of letters; though he may endue the consular uniform, he is careful to arrange that a substitute shall sit in the consular office and do Henri Beyle’s work. But whether he be soldier or civilian, artist or man of science, Stendhal never reveals his true self to his associates, so that none of those who come in contact with him suspect that they are in the company of one of the greatest French writers of the day. With the solitary exception of Balzac, his contemporaries in the world of literature saw nothing more in him than an amusing “causeur,” an ex-cavalry officer who occasionally took a ride in their domains. Schopenhauer is possibly the only other example of a great thinker living in similar isolation, sundered from his fellows, equally unsuccessful, hedged around by his pride and his unusualness, as was Stendhal, his brother in matters psychological.

  Thus a part of Stendhal always eluded those who encountered him, and the preservation of this elusive element was his main business in life. He never denied that his introverted attitude was selfish, was autocratic; on the contrary, he vaunted his preoccupation with himself, christening it “egotism.” Yes, “egotism,” not on any account to be confounded with its plebeian, horny-handed, bastard brother, egoism. For egoism would like to clutch at everything which belongs to others; it has covetous fingers, and is eaten up with envy. It is jealous, petty, insatiable. Even when it possesses a measure of spiritual power, this is not capable of freeing it from its unimaginative brutality in the world of feeling. Stendhal’s egotism, on the contrary, has no desire to filch others’ possessions. With an aristocratic and haughty gesture, he leaves the money-grubbers to enjoy their hoarded wealth, the ambitious to preen themselves on their successful careers, the opportunists to display their orders and ribbons, the men of letters to relish the bubble of fame. A lot of good may these things do them! He looks down on them all with a superior smile, ironical, quite devoid of envy or greed. Stendhal’s egotism is passionately on the defensive; he never poaches on others’ preserves; at the same time he will not allow any to trespass in his sanctum. He builds a Chinese wall around his personality in order to exclude all alien influences, all possibility of the infiltration of others’ thoughts, opinions, judgments; his privacy is not to be encroached upon by the common herd. His sole ambition is to keep Henri Beyle in a room apart, in a forcing-house where the rare plant of individuality may grow and blossom undisturbed. For Stendhal wishes his opinions, his inclinations, his delights, his ambitions, and his follies, to flourish for his own gratifications, for himself alone; it seems to him quite indifferent and immaterial to what extent a book or an event can be compared with another; he scornfully ignores how a thing may affect his contemporaries, or universal history, or, even, eternity. He describes as beautiful that only which appeals to him personally; he regards as right that only which at the moment he happens to deem suitable; he looks upon those things only as despicable which he himself despises. Nor is he in the least distressed to find himself alone in those opinions; on the contrary, solitude enheartens him, strengthens his self-esteem. “Que m’importent les autres!” Julien’s motto will serve his turn equally well in matters of taste.

  “But why,” breaks in someone in unconscious reproof, “why use such a pompous word as egotism to describe this most readily understood of all readily understood things? Surely it is the most natural thing in the world to look upon that which we ourselves consider beautiful as beautiful, and to order one’s life in accordance with what one deems the best?” Certainly matters ought to be like that. But who ever succeeds in keeping genuinely independent in feeling and in thought? Who, having ventured to express an opinion upon a book, a picture, an event, will have the courage to maintain it against the judgment of a whole epoch or a whole world in arms? We are all of us far more influenced by adverse opinion than we admit. We have to breathe the air of our own day into our lungs; our judgments and outlooks come into contact with countless other judgments and outlooks, acting and reacting upon us, blunting a point here, sharpening one there; the invisible waves of mass suggestion circulate through the ether. Man’s natural reflex to all these outside influences is by no means self-assertion, but, rather, adaptation of his personal preferences to the spirit of the time; he capitulates to the feeling of the majority. The whole mighty machine of human society would long ago have come to a standstill if the majority of men had not instinctively, or out of indolence, renounced personal and private opinions. It needs extraordinary energy, and a rebellious, austere, and aspiring courage (how few can boast of the gift!) to be able to withstand this overwhelming spiritual pressure. Rare qualities are needed if a man is to preserve his individuality intact. He must have a profound knowledge of the world, a quick and penetrating mind, a sovereign contempt for the crowd, a bold and amoral unscrupulousness, and, above all, courage, threefold courage, imperturbable courage to uphold his own convictions.

  Stendhal was endowed with such courage, he, the egotist of egotists, the adept juggler, the master of the foil, wise with the wisdom of the serpent, “chevalier sans peur et sans reproche” in the defense of his own ego. It does one good to see how doughtily he attacks his own epoch, one against all; how with adroit feints and brusque sallies, with no other armor than his radiant pride, he fences with contemporary society for half a century, often pricked it is true, bleeding from many hidden wounds, but holding himself erect to the end, and never yielding an inch of his own individuality and his own headstrong will. Opposition is the very breath of life to him; independence his delight. There are a hundred examples to show how dauntlessly and impudently this fearless malcontent throws down the gauntlet, challenging public opinion to the fight. In an epoch when everyone is belauding war, when in France “the idea of heroism is inseparably connected with that of a drum-major,” he describes Waterloo as an immense medley of chaotic forces; he unblushingly acknowledges that he is bored to death during the Russian campaign, though historians in general are wont to extol this adventure as an epic of universal history; he is not ashamed to say that a journey to Italy where he hopes to see his beloved is more important than the fate of his country, and an aria by Mozart more interesting than a political crisis. “Il se fiche d’être conquis,” he does not care a snap of the fingers if France is occupied by foreign armies; for, being by choice a European and a cosmopolitan, he does not bother about the mad breaks of fortune in war, about opinions which happen to be fashionable at the moment, about patriotism “le ridicule le plus sot,” about nationalism et hoc genus omne. All he is interested in is the safeguarding and the realization of his own spiritual nature. The personal note
is delicately predominant over the uproar of the cataclysm taking place around him, so that one often doubts when reading his diary whether he could really have lived during this eventful time. In a sense, Stendhal did not take part in any of these happenings, even when he was present on the battlefield or actually sitting in his official chair; he took part only in his own development. He is, therefore, as untrustworthy a witness to the world outside himself as he is a trustworthy witness to the world of his own personality. Rarely, indeed, has an artist lived more unflinchingly, more fundamentally, more fanatically for his own ego, rarely has he evolved a more perfect individual ego, than this heroic and confessed egotist.

  Because of his jealously guarded seclusion, the essential Stendhal has come down to us undiminished and fragrant with his own peculiar aroma. Isolation preserves. Just as a fly is preserved in amber or a fern-frond is preserved as a fossil in a rock, so has Stendhal’s essence (thanks to the relentless aloofness of his egotism, which saved him from contact with the disturbing, promiscuous, and disintegrating forces of the epoch in which he lived) been preserved and handed down to us in all its pristine singularity. We recognize in him, “man” par excellence, the eternal individual, the rare and subtle exemplar psychologically complete — precisely because he did not allow himself to be colored with the dyestuffs of his epoch. No other author’s work in the French literature of his century, no other man of letters, has remained so fresh, so new, so intact. His books seem to be for all time, to be full of vitality, because, irrespective of what was going on around him, he lived his own life. A man may serve his fellows quite as effectively by safeguarding his personality from the world, as by sacrificing himself to the world. In so far as he safeguards his ego, he preserves a fragment of earthly truth from the destructive stream of change, a fragment which comes once only and is otherwise doomed to disappear. The more a man lives the life of his generation, the more likely is he to die when his generation passes away. The more a man lives within himself, is sufficient unto himself, so much the more likely is his memory to remain green.

  THE ARTIST

  A vrai dire, je ne suis moins que sûr d’avoir quelque talent pour me faire lire. Je trouve quelquefois beaucoup de plaisir à écrire. Voilà tout.

  STENDHAL TO BALZAC

  Stendhal, the most jealous guardian of his ego yet known to literature, never gives himself up wholly to anything, neither to the world of men, nor to a profession, nor to an official post. When he writes books, be they novels or psychological studies, he either incorporates himself into these books or else the books go all awry. Even his passion for writing serves merely to gratify his own desires. Stendhal, who prides himself on never having done anything that did not please him personally, is an artist only so long as he can draw enjoyment from the occupation; he serves art only so long as art serves his ultimate purpose: his delight, his own specific pleasure. One would be tempted to call him dilettante, were it not that a disparaging sense now attaches to the word which once upon a time was used to denote a grand seigneur of the arts, one who from sheer joy, from genuine love, from delight, “diletto,” and not from a desire for gain, chose art as his companion. They err, therefore, who imagine that because Stendhal has at length achieved a worldwide reputation, he himself ascribed an important place to his art. How indignant this fanatical devotee of independence would have been to find himself placed in the ranks of the authors, to be counted among the professional men of letters! It is quite inconsonant with Stendhal’s own wishes that so much bother should be made about his literary achievements. In his will he left special directions for having his tombstone engraved with the words: visse, scrisse, amò. But the order of the inscription has been arbitrarily reversed, so that we now read: scrisse, visse, amò. Stendhal was true to his own device: for him living was the primary, the most important thing; writing came after, was secondary merely. Enjoyment was more important than creation, his Self more important than his actions; the whole scribbling business was nothing more than an amusing complementary function of his development, one of the many means for avoiding boredom. He is grossly misjudged if other motives are ascribed to him: literature was for this enjoyer of life merely an incidental means for the objectifying of his personality, it was not in any way a fundamental method of self-expression.

  As a stripling freshly arrived in Paris the idea had certainly crossed his mind that he would like to be a man of letters, and of course one who was to become celebrated. What youth of seventeen does not harbor such ambitions? He sharked up a few philosophical essays, began a play in verse which was never completed; but he put no ardor into his work, felt no real ambition. For fourteen years thereafter he completely forgot literature; he passed his days in the saddle or at the office, loafed on the boulevards, paid ineffectual court to the ladies, and was far more interested in painting and in music than in the penman’s craft. In 1814, suffering from a momentary lack of funds, furious at having to sell his horse, he hastily put together a volume entitled La vie de Haydn, large portions of the text being pilfered from the luckless Carpani. The Italian, when he discovered how arrantly he had been plundered, raised a great outcry against this “Monsieur Bombet.” Nothing deterred, Beyle set to work on a history of Italian painting, which likewise owed most of its pages to other authors, interspersed with a few anecdotes from our hero’s own pen. Partly because he was in urgent need of money, partly because it tickled his sense of humor to launch various pseudonyms for the world to puzzle its brains with, he continued the hoax, now appearing as a historian of art, now as a political economist (D’un nouveau complot contre les industriels), now as a literary critic (Racine et Shakespeare), and now as psychologist (De l’amour). These essays in the scrivener’s craft reveal to him the fact that “writing is by no means so difficult.” If one has a ready wit, if thoughts find quick expression through the lips, there is but a slight difference between writing and conversing; still slighter is the difference between speaking and dictating. Literary labors are not much more than a charming amusement. That he never troubles to place his real name on the title page of his books is sufficient indication of his complete lack of ambition as an author. Though this “ancien officier de cavalerie” does not find the profession of letters beneath his dignity (indeed, he never values bourgeois respectability) yet authorship is not for him a matter of which an intelligent gentleman will boast, or one into which he will put much ardor. In actual fact, so long as Henri Beyle has a post and regular supplies of cash, he troubles very little about the writer, Stendhal, and tucks the latter away into a corner of his life.

  When he is forty years of age he sets himself seriously to the task of authorship. Why? Because he has become more ambitious? More passionate? More in love with art? Nothing of the sort! He has become more corpulent, that’s all; he is more at ease sitting at a writing table than in the saddle; he is less attractive to women, alas, has less money, and considerably more time on his hands; in a word, he needs a derivative “pour se désennuyer.” Just as his sometime thick and bushy hair has been replaced by a wig, so the novel, the romance, must play the part of substitute for real life; he must compensate himself for the decrease in authentic adventures by the creation of fictitious ones. In the end, he comes to find writing an agreeable occupation, and to discover in himself a pleasanter and more intelligent conversational partner than all the frequenters of salons put together. Yes, the writing of novels is a very jolly, cleanly, noble form of enjoyment — so long, of course, as one does not take it too seriously and soil one’s fingers with sweat and ambition as those Parisian fellows are wont to do. Literature is a pursuit worthy of an egotist, is an elegant and unfettered outlet for the intelligence; and Stendhal takes increasing delight in it as he gets older. Besides it does not require much exertion; a novel can be dictated in three months or so. There is, of course, the added amusement of making fun of one’s enemies under cover of an assumed name, and of pillorying society for its vulgarity; one can reveal the most delicate sensations
of the soul, without having to stomach the inane smiles of fools, inasmuch as such feelings can always be fathered on to one of the characters in the novel. One can permit oneself to be passionate without compromising oneself; and, though old age is so near, one can allow oneself to dream like a boy without having to feel ashamed. Thus Stendhal begins to take pleasure in creation, and authorship gradually becomes his most private and intimate form of self-gratification. But it never occurs to him that he is making a great contribution to the world of art, is making a niche for himself in the history of literature. “Je parlais des choses que j’adore et je n’avais jamais pensé à l’art de faire un roman,” he confesses to Balzac. He gives no thought to form, or to the critics, the public, the newspapers, or eternity; all he is concerned with is his own pleasure. Quite late in life, when he is close upon fifty, he happens upon a strange discovery; there is money in books, not much, but enough to make a man independent, to safeguard him from having to rub shoulders with the herd, to rescue him from a subordinate position in which he is forced to give an account of his actions to a bureaucrat. This is enough to spur him forward, for the highest ideals of Henri Beyle’s life are solitude and independence.