Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

  'Quite right,' I said, chilled to the core by the ministerial look in his eye. 'We youngsters are indeed unable to agree with you, ageing Sir. You are much too solemn for our liking; too vain and pompous; not honest enough, Your Excellency. Not honest enough, that is probably the nub of the matter.'

  The little old man thrust his stern face slightly towards me. Suddenly his harsh, tight-lipped official mien gave way to a little smile and he came charmingly alive. All at once my heart beat faster as I remembered the poem 'Dusk descended from above',6 realizing that the words of this poem had come from this man and these lips. At that moment, in fact, I was totally disarmed and unnerved, within an ace of kneeling down in front of him. But I held myself erect as his smiling lips uttered the words: 'Aha, so you're accusing me of being dishonest, are you? A fine thing to say, I don't think! Would you mind going into more detail?'

  I was pleased to do so, only too pleased.

  'Just how problematic and desperate a thing human life is, you, Herr von Goethe, like all great minds, clearly recognized and felt: how the splendour of the moment fades miserably; how it is only possible to experience the heights of emotion at the expense of an everyday life lived in a prison house; how this prison-house routine is the mortal enemy of our equally ardent and equally sacred passion for the lost innocence of nature; all the terrible sense of being left hanging in a void, uncertain about everything and condemned to experience things fleetingly, never to the full but always in an experimental, dilettantish fashion; in short, human existence in all its hopelessness, absurdity and heartfelt despair. You recognized all this, from time to time you even confessed to believing that it was so. Yet you spent your whole life preaching the opposite, expressing faith and optimism, and deluding yourself and others into believing that our intellectual and spiritual endeavours are meaningful and of lasting value. You dismissed those who believed in penetrating to the depths, suppressed those voices speaking the desperate truth, your own voice as well as those of Kleist and Beethoven.7 For decades you acted as if accumulating knowledge and collections of things, writing and hoarding letters, as if the whole life you led in Weimar in your old age really was a way of preserving momentary experiences for all eternity and lending spiritual meaning to things natural. Yet you only succeeded in mummifying the moment and turning nature into a stylized masquerade. That is what we mean when accusing you of dishonesty.'

  Deep in thought, the old privy counsellor looked me in the eyes, a smile still playing on his lips.

  Then, to my amazement, he said: 'In that case you must, I suppose, find Mozart's Magic Flute utterly abhorrent.'

  And, even before I had time to protest, he went on: 'The Magic Flute pictures life as an exquisite song; it extols our feelings, which are after all transient, as something eternal and divine. Far from agreeing with Messrs von Kleist or Beethoven, it preaches optimism and faith.'

  'I know, I know!' I cried in a rage. 'Lord only knows what made you hit on the Magic Flute of all things. It is dearer to me than anything on earth! But Mozart didn't live to be eighty-two. And in his personal life he never aspired to lasting significance or to the well-ordered existence of a stuck-up dignitary like you. He wasn't so full of his own importance. He sang his divine melodies, was poor, died an early death, impoverished and unappreciated ...'

  I had run out of breath. Ideally I would have needed to say a thousand things in ten words. Sweat was starting to appear on my brow.

  However, Goethe replied amiably: 'It may well be unforgivable of me to have lived to the age of eighty-two, but I derived less pleasure from doing so than you may think. You are correct in saying that I was always filled with a great desire for lasting significance, and I did constantly fear and battle against death. It is my belief that the struggle against death, the stubborn, unconditional desire for life is what has driven all outstanding human beings to act and live their lives as they did. On the other hand, my young friend, the fact that one must nevertheless ultimately die is something that I proved at the age of eighty-two just as conclusively as if I had died as a schoolboy. And by way of self-justification, if it helps, I'd like to add that there was a great deal in my make-up that was childlike, a lot of curiosity and playfulness, much delight taken in wasting time. There, and the fact is it took me a fair amount of time to realize that one day the playing had to stop.'

  As he said this he smiled slyly, looking positively like a rogue. His figure had grown larger, his stiff posture and his forced expression of dignity had disappeared. And now the air around us was full of nothing but melodies, all of them settings of Goethe poems. Among others I clearly detected Mozart's 'The Violet' and Schubert's 'To the Moon'. And Goethe's face was now young and rosy. He was laughing, now looking so like Mozart, now so like Schubert that he could have been their brother. And the star on his breast was made up entirely of wild flowers, a cowslip bursting forth joyfully and juicily from its centre.

  Since the old man's attempts to evade my questions and accusations in such a jocular manner were not quite to my liking, I gave him a disapproving look. At this point he bent forward, placing his mouth, now completely transformed into the mouth of a child, close to my ear, and whispered softly into it: 'You are taking old Goethe far too seriously, my lad. Old people who have already died shouldn't be taken seriously, it's unfair on them. We Immortals don't like taking things seriously, we like to have fun. Seriousness, my lad, is a function of time. It arises - this much I'll divulge to you - when the value of time is overestimated. I too once overestimated the value of time; that's why I wanted to live to be a hundred. But, you see, there is no time in eternity. Eternity is an instant, just long enough for a prank.'

  From now on, in fact, it was quite impossible to talk seriously to the man. He was taking great pleasure in prancing lithely up and down, making the cowslip in the centre of his star shoot out one moment like a rocket, the next shrink to nothing and disappear. Watching him execute such brilliant steps and figures, I couldn't help thinking that here at any rate was a man who had not neglected to take dancing lessons. He could dance wonderfully well. Then, suddenly thinking of the scorpion again, or rather of Molly, I called out to Goethe: 'I say, is Molly not here?'

  Goethe laughed out loud. Walking to his desk, he opened a drawer, took out a valuable case made of leather or velvet and, opening it, held it up to my eyes. There, small, immaculate and sparkling on a bed of dark-coloured velvet, lay a tiny woman's leg, an enchanting leg, slightly bent at the knee, the stretched foot pointing downwards and culminating in the daintiest of toes.

  Utterly enamoured, I held out my hand, intending to take hold of the little leg, but just as I was about to seize it with two fingers, the toy limb seemed to make a tiny jerking movement and at once I suspected that it might be the scorpion. Goethe appeared to understand my reaction, seemed indeed deliberately to have placed me in a deep quandary, making me wince, as desire fought inside me against fear. Dangling the charming little scorpion really close to my face, he saw me both yearn for and shrink back from it, and this seemed to give him the greatest of pleasure. While taunting me with this charming, dangerous object he had aged again. He was really ancient now, a thousand years old, his hair white as snow, his withered old man's face silently laughing. Without making a sound, he was chortling away to himself with the dark, inscrutable kind of humour typical of the very old.

  When I woke I had forgotten the dream. Only later did I recall it. I suppose I had slept for about an hour at the pub table. I would never have thought that possible, what with the noise of the music and the hustle and bustle all around. The dear girl was standing in front of me, one hand on my shoulder.

  'Give me two or three marks,' she said. 'I've had a bite to eat over there.'

  I gave her my purse. She went off with it, returning again soon.

  'There, now I can sit with you a little while longer. Then I'll have to go. I've arranged to meet someone.'

  I was startled. 'Who?' I quickly asked.

  '
A gentleman, Harry my boy. He's invited me to the Odeon Bar.'

  'I see. I was thinking you wouldn't leave me on my own.'

  'In that case you ought to have invited me yourself. Someone else has beaten you to it. Never mind, this way you're saving a fair amount of money. Do you know the Odeon? Nothing but champagne on offer after midnight, leather armchairs, a Negro band, the finest of the fine.'

  All this had been far from my thoughts.

  'Oh, why don't you let me take you out somewhere!' I begged. 'I thought it went without saying. After all, we've become friends, haven't we? Let me take you out, anywhere you like, please.'

  'That's very sweet of you, but don't you see, a promise is a promise. I've agreed to go and I'm going. Don't you go to any more trouble. Come on, have a bit more to drink, there's still some wine left in the bottle. Drink it up, then go home like a good boy and get some sleep. Promise me you will.'

  'No, dear. I can't go home, I just can't.'

  'Oh you and your stories! Have you still not got that man Goethe out of your system?' (It was at this juncture that I remembered my Goethe dream.) 'But if you really can't go home, stay the night here, they have rooms to let. Shall I ask about one for you?'

  Happy with this arrangement, I asked her where we could meet each other again. Where did she live? She didn't tell me. I only needed to search a little, she said, and I would find her all right.

  'Can't I invite you out somewhere?'

  'Where?'

  'Anywhere you like, anytime you like.'

  'All right. Tuesday, for dinner in the Old Franciscan, first floor. Goodbye.'

  She held out her hand. Only now did I notice it. It was a hand that matched her voice perfectly, beautiful and fully rounded, shrewd and kind. When I kissed it she gave a mocking laugh.

  And at the last moment, turning round to me again, she said: 'To go back to that Goethe story of yours, there's one more thing you ought to know. You see, what you felt, not being able to stand that picture of him, is exactly what I sometimes feel about the saints.'

  'The saints? Are you so religious?'

  'No, I'm not religious, sadly, but I was once and will be again one day. Being religious takes time, and of course that's something nobody has enough of nowadays.'

  'Enough time? Does it really require time?'

  'Yes, of course. To be religious you need time. You even need something more. You need to be independent of time. You can't be seriously religious while living in the real world and, what's more, taking the things of the real world seriously - time, money, the Odeon Bar and all that.'

  'I see. But what is it that you feel about the saints?'

  'Well, there are quite a few saints that I'm particularly fond of: St Stephen, St Francis and some others. Occasionally I see pictures of them or of Our Saviour and the Virgin Mary, such fake, dishonest travesties that I can't stand them any more than you could stand that picture of Goethe. Whenever I notice some such stupid sentimental Saviour or St Francis and see that other people find pictures of this sort beautiful and uplifting it strikes me as an insult to the real Saviour and I ask myself why, oh why did he live and suffer so terribly if all it takes to satisfy people is a stupid picture like that! Yet, in spite of this, I know that my own image of Our Saviour or of St Francis is merely a human image too, one that falls short of the original. If he could see the image I have of him in my mind, Our Saviour would find it just as stupid and inadequate as I do those sickly, sentimental portrayals. That's not to say that you are right to be so depressed and furious about the Goethe picture, not at all: you are wrong. All I'm saying is that I can understand you. You scholars and artists may well have your minds full of outlandish things, but you are just as human as the rest of us. We others have our dreams and fancies too. You see, learned Sir, I couldn't help notice that you were slightly embarrassed when it came to telling me your Goethe story. To explain your grand ideas to a simple lass like me, you had to make a great effort, didn't you? Well now, I'd just like you to know that you needn't go to such lengths. I do understand, believe me. There, and now we must stop. Bed's the place for you.'

  She left, and an aged servant took me up two flights of stairs, or rather, having first asked about my luggage, on hearing that I hadn't any, made me pay in advance what he called 'bed money'. Then he led me up an old dark staircase into a bedroom and left me there alone. There was a plain wooden bed, very short and hard. On the wall hung a sabre, a coloured portrait of Garibaldi and also a withered wreath, left over from the festive gathering of some club or other. I would have given anything for a nightshirt. At least there was water and a small towel, so I was able to wash. Then, leaving the light on, I lay down fully clothed on the bed with ample time to think. Well, I had now set the record straight with Goethe. How marvellous it had been, his appearance in my dream! And this wonderful girl - if only I'd known her name! All at once a human being, a live human being, shattering the clouded glass cloche that covered my corpse-like existence and holding out her hand to me, her beautiful, kind, warm hand! All at once things that mattered to me again, things I could take joy in, worry about, eagerly anticipate! All at once an open door through which life could get in to me. Perhaps I could start to live again, perhaps I could again become a human being. My soul, having almost frozen to death in hibernation, was breathing again, drowsily flapping its small, frail wings. Goethe had been in my presence. A girl had ordered me to eat, drink and sleep, had been kind to me, had made fun of me, calling me a silly little boy. She had also, this wonderful girlfriend, told me about the saints, shown me that even with regard to my most eccentric and outlandish preoccupations I was by no means alone and misunderstood. I was not a pathologically exceptional case, but had brothers and sisters. People could understand me. Would I see her again, I wondered? Yes, certainly, she could be relied on. 'A promise is a promise.'

  And before I knew it I was asleep again, went on sleeping for four or five hours. It was gone ten o'clock when I woke, feeling battered and weary. My clothes were all crumpled; and the memory of something horrible from the previous day was going around in my head. Yet I was alive, full of hope, full of good thoughts. On returning to my flat I felt none of the terrible dread that such a homecoming had held for me the day before.

  On the staircase, above the araucaria plant, I bumped into the 'aunt', my landlady. Although I seldom set eyes on her, I was very fond of the kind soul. I was not best pleased to encounter her now, though. After all, I was bleary-eyed and a bit dishevelled; my hair was unkempt and I hadn't shaved. I wished her good morning and was on the point of going by. As a rule, she always respected my desire to remain alone and unnoticed, but today it really did seem that between me and the people around me a veil had been torn apart, or a barrier had fallen, for she stopped and laughed.

  'You've been gadding about, Herr Haller. I don't suppose you got to bed at all last night. You must be feeling pretty weary!'

  'Yes,' I said, and couldn't help laughing myself. 'Things got a bit lively last night and since I didn't want to lower the tone of your home I slept the night in a hotel. I hold the tranquillity and respectability of this place you inhabit in such high esteem that I sometimes feel very much like a foreign body in it.'

  'Don't mock, Herr Haller.'

  'Oh, I was only mocking myself.'

  'That's just the thing you oughtn't to do. I won't have you feeling like a "foreign body" in my home. I want you to live as you please, get up to anything you like. I've had any number of very, very respectable lodgers in my time, gems of respectability, but none was quieter or less of a disturbance to us than you are. Now then, how about a cup of tea?'

  I didn't say no. I was served tea in her lounge with its beautiful pictures and furniture, venerable objects of a past age. As we chatted a little, the kind woman, without actually asking, got to know this and that about my life and my ideas. She listened to me with that mixture of respect and motherly reluctance to take one wholly seriously that intelligent women reserve
for the eccentricities of men. There was also talk of her nephew. In one of the adjoining rooms she showed me the latest thing he had been constructing in his spare time, a wireless set. The industrious young man, utterly fascinated by the idea of wireless communication, sat there of an evening, painstakingly assembling a machine of that sort; going down on his knees to worship the god of technology, the deity who after thousands of years has finally managed to discover and - in a highly imperfect manner - portray things that every serious thinker has always known about and put to more intelligent use. We talked about this since the aunt, who was a little bit religiously inclined, was not averse to discussing such matters. I told her that the ancient Indians had been fully cognisant of the omnipresence of all forces and actions. Technology had merely managed to make people in general aware of a fraction of this truth by constructing, as far as sound waves were concerned, an as yet terribly imperfect receiver and transmitter. However, the principal insight of that ancient body of knowledge, the fact that time was unreal, had so far escaped the notice of technicians. Of course, it too would eventually be 'discovered' and engineers would put their eager fingers to work on the problem. They would, perhaps very soon, discover that we are not only constantly surrounded by a flood of current, present-day images and happenings - in the way that now makes it possible to hear music from Paris or Berlin in Frankfurt or Zurich - but that everything that has ever happened is recorded and available in precisely the same way. With or without wires, with or without interfering noises off, we would one day no doubt be able to hear King Solomon or Walther von der Vogelweide speaking.8 And, just like the beginnings of radio today, all this would, I said, only serve to make human beings surround themselves with an ever-more dense network of distraction and pointlessly fevered activity, thus deserting their true selves and destiny. However, rather than holding forth on these familiar topics in my usual embittered tone of voice, full of scorn for modern times and technology, I spoke in a playful, joking manner. The aunt smiled, and we sat for what must have been an hour together, contentedly drinking tea.