by Robert Musil
“I’ve got to go home,” Ulrich said.
“Your sister is having a fine time; don’t disturb her,” Stumm said. “Arnheim’s outdoing himself to pay court to her. But what I was going to say: the joy seems to have gone out of mankind’s great ideas. You ought to put some life back into them. I mean, there’s a new spirit in the air, and you’re the man to take charge!”
“What gives you that idea?” Ulrich asked guardedly.
“That’s how it strikes me.” Stumm passed over it and went on intently: “You’re for order too; everything you say shows it. And so then I ask myself: which is more to the point—that man is good, or that he needs a firm hand? It’s all tied in with our present-day need to take a stand. I’ve already told you it would put my mind at rest if you would take charge of the campaign again. With all this talk, there’s simply no knowing what may happen otherwise!”
Ulrich laughed. “Do you know what I’m going to do now? I’m not coming here anymore!” he said happily.
“But why?” Stumm protested hotly. “All those people will be right who’ve been saying that you’ve never been a real power!”
“If I told them what I really think, they would really say so.” Ulrich answered, laughing, and disengaged himself from his friend.
Stumm was vexed, but then his good humor prevailed, and he said in parting: “These things are so damned complicated. Sometimes I’ve actually thought it would be best if a real idiot came along to tackle all these insoluble problems—I mean some sort of Joan of Arc. A person like that might be able to help!”
Ulrich’s eyes searched for his sister but did not find her. While he was asking Diotima about her, Leinsdorf and Tuzzi returned from the salon and announced that everyone was leaving.
“I said all along,” His Grace remarked cheerfully to the lady of the house, “that what those people were saying was not what they really meant. And Frau Drangsal has come up with a really saving idea; we’ve decided to continue this evening’s meeting another time. Feuermaul, or whatever his name is, will read us some long poem he has written, so things will be much quieter. I of course took it upon myself, on account of the urgency, to say I was sure you’d agree!”
It was only then that Ulrich learned that Agathe had suddenly said good-bye and left the house without him. She had left word that she had not wanted to disturb him.
‘I would recommend Sophie Wilkins’ translation as a conscientious attempt to give to the English reader a novel which is compared to The Remembrance of Things Past and Ulysses’
The Times
‘There is scarcely a page that does not provoke new thoughts or offer new insights, not a chapter that, even read on its own, does not prove stimulating’
Scotsman
‘At last, at last – the fully fleshed arrival in English of the third member of the trinity in twentieth-century fiction, complementing Ulysses and The Remembrance of Things Past . . . This last-waltz novel is amazingly contemporary’
Wall Street Journal
‘Immensely rich and therapeutic, bristling with wit and a sly humour’
Sunday Telegraph
‘The Man Without Qualities is one of the towering achievements of the European novel’
Observer
‘A great novel’
Times Literary Supplement
THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
ROBERT MUSIL was born in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1880. Trained in science and philosophy, he left a career in the military to turn to writing. The publication of his novel Young Törless in 1906 brought him international recognition and remains a classic parable on the misuse of power. After serving in the First World War, Musil lived alternately in Vienna and Berlin, with much of his time being dedicated to the slow writing of his masterwork, The Man Without Qualities. In 1938, when Hitler’s rise to power threatened Musil’s work with being banned in both Austria and Germany, he emigrated to Switzerland, where he and his wife lived until his death in 1942. The first complete German edition of The Man Without Qualities finally appeared in 1978.
First published 1995 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
First published in Great Britain 1995 by Picador
First published in paperback 1997 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2017 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5098-1819-8
Copyright © Alfred A. Knopf Inc. 1995
Introduction copyright © Jonathan Lethem 2017
Originally published in German as Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Neu-Edition, edited by Prof. Adolf Frisé
Copyright © 1978 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg.
Cover Design: Matthew Garrett, Picador Art Department.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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