By withdrawing inward in this way, it finally finds an inclo- sure, an innermost retreat, where it thinks it can remain, and now it begins its uniform movement. Like the pendulum in a clock, it swings back and forth and cannot find rest. It contin- ually begins from the beginning and deliberates anew, inter- rogates the witnesses, checks and examines the various state- ments, something it has already done hundreds of times, but it is never finished. In the course of time, the uniformity has something anesthetizing about it. Just as the uniform dripping of rain from the roof, the uniform whirring of a spinning Silhouettes 171 wheel, and the monotonous sound of a man pacing back and forth with measured steps on the floor above have an anesthe- tizing effect, so reflective grief eventually finds solace in this motion, which as an illusory motion becomes a necessity for it. At last there is a kind of balance; the need to give vent to the grief, insofar as it may ever have asserted itself at all, ceases; the exterior is calm and quiet; and deep within, in its little nook, grief lives like a well-guarded prisoner in an underground prison, who lives on year after year in his uniform movement, walking to and fro in his cubbyhole, never weary of traveling the long or short road of sorrow.
Reflective sorrow can be occasioned in part by the individ- ual’s subjective quality, in part by the objective sorrow or the occasion of the sorrow. A morbidly reflective individual will transform every sorrow into a reflective sorrow; his individual make-up and structure render it impossible for him to assimi- late the sorrow right away. But this is a morbidity that cannot be of particular interest to us, because in that way every acci- dentality can undergo a metamorphosis by which it becomes a reflective sorrow. It is another matter when the objective sor- row or the occasion of the sorrow in the individual himself fosters the reflection that makes the sorrow into a reflective sorrow. This is everywhere the case when the objective sor- row in itself is not finished, when it leaves a doubt, whatever its nature is. Here at once a great multiplicity appears for thought, greater according to the richness of one’s life and ex- perience or one’s inclination to engage one’s keenness in such imaginary constructions.
But it is by no means my intention to go through the whole multiplicity; I want to single out only one aspect as it has ap- peared for my observation. If the occasion for sorrow is a de- ception, then the objective sorrow itself is of such a quality that it engenders reflective sorrow in the individual. That a de- ception is actually a deception is often very difficult to deter- mine clearly, and yet everything depends upon that. As long as this is debatable, the sorrow will find no repose but must continue to ramble back and forth in reflection. Furthermore, if this deception does not involve anything external but a per- 150 172 Either/Or, I son’s whole inner life, his life’s innermost core, the probability of the continuance of the objective sorrow becomes greater and greater. But what can more truthfully be called a woman’s life than her love? Consequently, if the sorrow of an unhappy love is due to a deception, we have unconditionally a reflective sorrow, whether it continues for a lifetime or the individual conquers it. Unhappy love is in itself undoubtedly the deepest sorrow for 2 woman, but it does not follow from this that every unhappy love engenders a reflective sorrow. If, for ex- ample, the beloved dies, or she perhaps does not find her love returned at all, or her life situation makes the fulfillment of her wish impossible, this certainly is an occasion for sorrow, but not a reflective sorrow, except to the extent that the person concerned was morbid before, and then she thereby lies out- side our interest. But if she is not morbid, then her sorrow be- comes an immediate sorrow and as such can also become the subject of artistic portrayal, whereas on the other hand it is im- possible for art to express and portray the reflective sorrow or the point of it. In other words, immediate sorrow is the im- mediate imprint and expression of the sorrow’s impression, which, just like the picture Veronica® preserved on her linen cloth, is perfectly congruous, and sorrow’s sacred lettering is stamped on the exterior, beautiful and clear and legible to all.
Reflective sorrow, then, cannot become a subject for artistic portrayal. For one thing, it is never really present but is contin- ually in the process of becoming; for another, the exterior, the visible, is a matter of unimportance and indifference. So if art will not limit itself to the naiveté (examples are found in old books) in which a figure is portrayed that can represent almost anything, but one discovers on its breast a plaque, a heart or something similar, on which one may read everything, espe- cially when the figure’s posture draws a person’s attention to it, even points to it, an effect that could just as well be achieved by writing above it “Please note!’’—if art will not do this, it will be obliged to reject pictures of that kind and leave reflec- tive grief to poetic or psychological treatment.
It is this reflective sorrow that I aim to single out and, as far as possible, have emerge in a few pictures. I call them silhou- Silhouettes 173 ettes [Skyggerids],° partly to suggest at once by the name that I draw them from the dark side of life and partly because, like silhouettes, they are not immediately visible. If I pick up a sil- houette, I have no impression of it, cannot arrive at an actual conception of it; only when [ hold it up toward the wall and do not look at it directly but at what appears on the wall, only then do I see it. So it is also with the picture I want to show here, an interior picture that does not become perceptible until I see through the exterior. Perhaps there is nothing striking about the exterior, but when I look through it, only then do I discover the interior picture, which is what I want to show, an interior picture that is too delicate to be externally perceptible, since it is woven from the soul’s faintest moods. If I look at a sheet of paper, it perhaps has nothing remarkable about it for immediate inspection, but as soon as I hold it up to the light of day and look through it, I discover the subtle interior picture, ° too psychical, as it were, to be seen immediately.
So fasten your gaze, dear Zupnagavexedmpevot, on this inte- rior picture; do not let yourselves be distracted by the exterior, or, more correctly, do not produce it yourselves, for I shall continually draw it aside in order to penetrate better into the interior. But presumably I do not need to encourage this soci- ety, of which I have the honor to be a member, to do this, for although we are young, we nevertheless are all old enough not to let ourselves be deceived by the exterior or to stop with that. Would I be indulging in a vain hope if I believed that you will do these pictures the honor of your attention, or would my ef- forts be foreign and of no consequence to you, not in harmony with the interest of our society, a society that knows but one passion, namely, sympathy with sorrow’s secret.
As a matter of fact, we, too, form an order; we, too, now and then go out into the world like knights-errant, each his own way, not to fight monsters or come to the aid of inno- cence or be tried in amorous adventures. All this is of no con- cern to us, not even the last, for the arrow in a woman’s eye does not wound our hardened breasts, and the cheery smiles of happy maidens do not move us, but rather the secret hint of grief. Let others be proud that no gir] anywhere can resist their 151 152 174 Either/Or, I erotic power; we envy them not. We shall be proud that no se- cret sorrow escapes our attention, that no solitary sorrow is so prudish and so proud that we do not succeed in penetrating its innermost hideout! Which contest is the most dangerous, which requires the most skill and provides the greatest pleas- ure, we shall not investigate. Our choice is made: we love only sorrow. We are in quest only of sorrow, and wherever we find its trail, we follow it, fearlessly, unwaveringly, until it dis- closes itself. For this fight we equip ourselves; we practice fighting daily.
It is true that sorrow sneaks about in the world so very se- cretively that only the person who has sympathy for it gains an intimation of it. One walks down the street; one house looks like the other. Only the experienced observer suspects that in this particular house things are quite otherwise at the midnight hour; then an unhappy person paces about, one who found no rest; he goes up the stairs, and his footsteps echo in the stillness of the night. People pass one another in the street; one person looks just like the next, and the next one is like al- most everyone else. Only the experienced observer suspects that deep within that one’s head resides a lodger who has noth- ing to do with the world but lives out his solitary life in quiet home-industry work.
The exterior, then, is indeed the object of our scrutiny but not of our interest. In the same way, the fisherman sits and looks fixedly at the float; the float, however, does not interest him at all, but rather the movements down at the bottom. Therefore the exterior does indeed have significance for us, but not as a manifestation of the interior, but rather as a tele- graphic report that there is something hidden deep within.
When one looks long and attentively at a face, sometimes another face, as it were, is discovered within the face one sees. Ordinarily this is an unmistakable sign that the soul is hiding an emigrant who has withdrawn from the exterior face in or- der to watch over a buried treasure, and the route for the op- eration of observation is suggested by the fact that the one face seems to be within the other, which indicates that one must try to penetrate inward if one wants to discover anything. The Silhouettes 175 Silhouettes 175 face, which usually is the mirror of the soul, here takes on an ambiguity that cannot be artistically portrayed and that usu- ally lasts only for a fleeting moment. It takes a special eye to see it, a special vision to pursue this unerring indication of se- cret sorrow. This vision is avid and yet so scrupulous, alarm- ing, and compelling, and yet so sympathetic, persevering, and cunning, and yet so honest and well disposed; it lulls the indi- vidual into a sort of pleasant lassitude in which he finds a sen- sual pleasure in pouring out his sorrow, similar to the sensual pleasure in bleeding to death. The present is forgotten, the ex- terior is penetrated; the past is resurrected, sorrow’s breathing is eased. The person who is grieving finds relief, and the sym- pathetic knight of grief rejoices over having found what he sought, for we seek not the present but the past, not joy, for it is always present, but sorrow, for its nature is to pass by, and in the present moment we see it just as we see a person when we catch sight of him for just a moment and then he turns down another street and disappears.
But sometimes the sorrow conceals itself even better, and the exterior allows us to suspect nothing, not the slightest. It can elude our attention for a long time, but when by chance a look, a word, a sigh, a tone in the voice, a hint in the eyes, a trembling of the lips, or a blunder in the handshake treacher- ously betrays what has been carefully concealed—then passion is aroused, then the struggle begins. Then it is a matter of hav- ing vigilance and perseverance and sagacity, for who is as in- ventive as secret sorrow, but a solitary lifetime prisoner has adequate time to think up many things, and who 1s as swift to find concealment as secret sorrow, for no young girl can cover in greater anxiety and haste a bosom she has exposed than hid- den sorrow when it is surprised. Then unshakable dauntless- ness is required, for the struggle is with a Proteus,’ but he must give up if one only holds out. Even if like that sea god he assumed every shape in order to escape, such as a snake twist- ing in our hands, a lion terrifying us with its roaring, changed into a tree that whispers with its leaves or into roaring water or a crackling fire—at last he must nevertheless prophesy, and sorrow must disclose itself at last. See, these adventures are 153 154 176 Either/Or, I our delight, our diversion; to try ourselves in them is our knighthood. For that purpose, we arise in the middle of the night like robbers; this is why we risk everything, for no pas- sion is as wild as the passion of sympathy. And we need not fear that there will be a lack of adventures for us but rather fear collision with opposition that is too hard and impregnable, for just as natural scientists report that in blasting boulders that have defied the centuries they have found deep within a living creature that, undiscovered, has maintained life, so also it is in- deed possible that there are human beings whose exterior is a firm-as-rock hill that guards their forever hidden life of sor- row. This, however, will not temper our passion or cool our zeal; on the contrary, it will inflame it, because our passion, after all, is not curiosity that satisfies itself with the exterior and the superficial but is a sympathetic anxiety that searches the minds?” and hidden thoughts, conjures forth what is hid- den by means of witchcraft and invocations, even that which death has withheld from our gaze. It is said that Saul, before the battle, came in disguise to a fortune teller and demanded that she show him Samuel’s image." It surely was not only cu- riosity that impelled him, not a desire to see Samuel’s visible image, but he wanted to know his thoughts, and he undoubt- edly waited uneasily until he heard the rigorous judge’s censorious voice. Likewise it surely will not simply be curiosity that moves one or another of you, my dear Zupmagavexew- wEVOL, to contemplate the pictures ] am going to show you. Although I designate them with specific poetic names, by no means is it suggested thereby that it is only these poetic figures who appear before you, but the names must be regarded as nomina appellativa [common nouns], and from my side there is nothing to hinder any one of you, if you feel inclined, from giving a particular picture another name, a more appealing name, or a name that perhaps comes more naturally to you.
1. Marie Beaumarchais The girl taken as our subject is known to us in Goethe’s Cla- vigo,'* except that we shall follow her a little further in time, when she has lost dramatic interest, when the accompani- Silhouettes 177 ments of sorrow have gradually abated. We shall continue to follow her, for we, knights of sympathy, have just as much in- nate gift as acquired skill in being able to keep step in proces- sion with sorrow.
Her story is brief: Clavigo became engaged to her; Clavigo left her. This information is enough for the person who is in the habit of observing the phenomena of life as one observes rarities in a curio cabinet; the shorter the better, the more one can manage to see. In the same way, it could be told very briefly that Tantalus thirsts and that Sisyphus rolls a stone up the mountain.'5 If someone is in a hurry, it would indeed be a delay to dwell on it any further, since one cannot learn any more than one already knows, which is the whole thing. Whatever is to claim more attention must be of another kind. A group of intimates is gathered around the tea table. The samovar is singing its last verse, and the hostess asks the mys- terious stranger to unburden his heart. With that in mind, she has sugar-water and jam brought in, and now he begins. It is a long, prolix story. So it goes in novels, and it is also something quite different: a prolix story and such a brief little announce- ment. Whether it is a brief story for Marie Beaumarchais is an- other question. One thing is sure; it is not prolix, for a prolix story nevertheless has a measurable length, but a short story sometimes has the mysterious quality that despite all its brev- ity it is longer than the most prolix.
In what has been stated in the foregoing discussion, I have already pointed out that reflective grief does not become visi- ble in the exterior, that is, it does not find its beautiful, com- posed expression therein. The interior unrest does not permit this transparency, and the exterior is more likely to be con- sumed thereby; insofar as the interior would declare itself in the exterior, it would likely be a kind of morbidity, which can never become a subject for artistic portrayal, since it does not have the interest of the beautiful. Goethe has suggested this by a few particular hints.'® But even if there is agreement on the correctness of this observation, there could be a temptation to regard it as something incidental, and not until one is assured, by deliberating purely poetically and esthetically, that what [ 156 178 Either/Or, I the observation states has esthetic truth, not until then will one gain a deeper consciousness. Now, if I were to imagine a re- flective sorrow and asked if it could not be portrayed artisti- cally, it would immediately be apparent that the exterior is al- together incidental to it; but if this is true, then artistic beauty is abandoned. Whether she is large or small, significant or in- significant, beautiful or not so beautiful, this is of no conse- quence; to deliberate on whether it would be more proper to have her incline her head to this side or to that or toward the ground, to have her gaze gloomily or sadly fix her eyes on the ground—all this is utterly inconsequential; the one expresses the reflective sorrow no more adequately than the other. In comparison with the interior, the exterior has become insig- nificant and inconsequential. The point in reflective sorrow is that the sorrow is continually seeking its object; this seeking is the sorrow’s restlessness and its life. But this seeking is a con- tinual fluctuation, and if at every moment the exterior were a perfect expression of the interior, then there would have to be a whole series of pictures in order to portray reflective sorrow; but no particular picture would express the sorrow, and no particular picture would have real artistic value, since it would be not beautiful, but true. These pictures must be looked at in the way one looks at the second hand of a watch; one does not see the works, but the interior movement expresses itself con- tinually in the continually changing exterior. But this change- ableness cannot be portrayed artistically, and yet this is the point of the whole thing.
If, for example, unhappy love is due to a deception, then its pain and suffering are that the grief cannot find its object. If the deception is proved and the person concerned has perceived that it is a deception, the sorrow certainly does not cease, but then it is an immediate sorrow, not a reflective sorrow. Here the dialectical difficulty is obvious, for what is she sorrowing over? If he was a deceiver, then it was indeed good that he left her, the earlier the better; she should rejoice over it instead and sorrow because she had loved him, and yet it is a deep sorrow that he was a deceiver. But whether it is a deception is the rest- lessness in sorrow’s perpetuum mobile. To establish certainty for Silhouettes 179 the external fact that a deception is a deception is always very difficult, and yet that by no means ends the matter or stops the movement. For love [Kjerlighed], a deception is indeed an ab- solute paradox, and therein lies the necessity of a reflective grief. The different factors in love may be amalgamated in the individual in very different ways, and thus love in one person may not be the same as in another; the egotistical may be dom- inant, or the sympathetic. But whatever the love is in its sep- arate elements and also in its totality, a deception is a paradox that it cannot think, and yet one that it eventually wants to think. Indeed, if the egotistic or the sympathetic element is present absolutely, the paradox is canceled; that is, in the power of the absolute, the individual is beyond reflection. To be sure, he does not think the paradox in the sense that he can- cels it by a reflective ‘‘how,” but he is saved precisely by not thinking it; he is not concerned with reflection’s busy reports or confusions—he reposes in himself. Because of its pride, the egotistically proud love regards a deception as impossible; it is not concerned with finding out what can be said for or against, how the person concerned can be defended or excused; it is ab- solutely sure, because it is too proud to believe that anyone would dare to deceive it. Sympathetic love possesses the faith that can move mountains; for it, any defense is nothing compared with its unshakable conviction that it was no deception. Every charge proves nothing to the advocate, who explains that it was no deception, explains it not this way or that—but absolutely. But a love like that is seldom seen in this life, or perhaps never. Usually both factors are present in love, and this brings it into relation to the paradox. In the two instances described, the paradox indeed exists for love but does not con- cern it; in the latter instance, the paradox exists for love. The paradox is unthinkable, and yet love wants to think it, and, in accordance with the momentary predominance of the various factors, it makes an approach in order to think it, often in con- tradictory ways, but it does not succeed. This path of thinking is infinite and does not end until the individual arbitrarily breaks it off by affirming something else, by a determination of the will; but the individual thereby enters into ethical qual- 157 158 180 Either/Or, I ifications and does not engage us esthetically. By a resolve, it attains what it cannot attain on the road of reflection: an end, repose.
This holds for every unhappy love that is due to a deception. What may evoke reflective grief even more in Maria Beaumar- chais is that it is only an engagement that has been broken. An engagement is a possibility, not an actuality; but precisely be- cause it is only a possibility, it may seem that the effects of being broken are not so great, that it is far easier for the indi- vidual to bear this blow. This may indeed be the case at times, but on the other hand the circumstance that it is only a possi- bility that is destroyed entices much more reflection. When an actuality is shattered, the break is usually far more radical; every nerve is cut, and the break as a break has an implicit completeness. When a possibility is shattered, the momentary pain may not be as great, but frequently it also leaves a little ligament or two whole and undamaged, which remains a con- stant occasion for continued pain. The destroyed possibility appears transfigured in a higher possibility, whereas the temp- tation to conjure up a new possibility such as this is not as great when it is an actuality that has been shattered, because the ac- tuality is higher than the possibility.
So Clavigo has left her, has perfidiously severed the connec- tion. Accustomed to leaning on him, she does not have the strength to stand when he thrusts her away, and she collapses weakly into the arms of those around her. This seems to be Marie’s situation. However, another beginning is also con- ceivable; it is conceivable that immediately at the outset she had sufficient strength to transform her sorrow into reflective sorrow, that she—either to avoid the humiliation of hearing others talk about her having been deceived or because she nevertheless still thought so highly of him that it would hurt her to hear him denounced again and again as a deceiver— promptly severed all connections with others in order to con- sume the sorrow in herself and to consume herself in the sor- row.
We follow Goethe. Those around her are not unsympa- thetic; they feel her pain with her, and in feeling it they say: Silhouettes 181 This will be the death of her. Esthetically speaking, this is al- together correct. An unhappy love may be of such a nature that suicide may be regarded as esthetically proper, but then it must not have been due to a deception. If that is the case, then the suicide would lose all loftiness and involve a concession that pride must refuse to give. If, however, it is the death of her, this is the same as saying that he has murdered her. This expression harmonizes entirely with her powerful inner agi- tation; she finds alleviation in it.
But life does not always follow precisely esthetic categories, does not always obey an esthetic norm, and she does not die. This places those around her in an awkward position. They sense that it is inappropriate to go on declaring that she is going to die when she continues to live; in addition, they do not feel able to do it with the same pathos-filled energy as at the beginning, and yet this was a prerequisite if there was to be any solace for her. So they change their method. He was a vil- lain, they say, a deceiver, an abominable person not worth dying for. Forget him; don’t give this thing another thought; it was only an engagement. Blot this incident out of your rec- ollection, and once again you are young, can hope again. This incites her, for this pathos of wrath harmonizes with her other moods; her pride finds satisfaction in the vengeful idea of changing the whole thing into a nothing. It was not because he was an extraordinary person that she loved him, far from it; she was very aware of his faults, but she believed he was a good man, a faithful man, and that was why she loved him. It was out of compassion, and therefore it will be easy to forget him, because she never really needed him.
Marie and those around her are once again in tune, and the duet between them goes beautifully. Those around her do not find it difficult to believe that Clavigo was a deceiver, for they had never loved him, and therefore there is no paradox. Inso- far as they perhaps had liked him (something Goethe suggests with respect to the sister),!® this very interest arms them against him, and this kindly disposition, which perhaps was little more than kindness, becomes superb inflammable stuff to sustain the flames of hate. Nor do those around her find it I 159 182 Either/Or, I difficult to blot out the recollection of him, and therefore they demand that Marie do the same. Her pride breaks forth in hate; those around her add fuel to the flames. She finds relief in vi- olent words and vigorous, drastic intentions and becomes self- intoxicated with them. Those around her are pleased. They do not perceive—something she will scarcely admit to herself— that in the next moment she is weak and listless; they do not perceive that she is gripped by the anxious presentiment that the energy she has at a particular moment is an illusion. This she carefully hides and confesses to no one. Those around her continue their theoretical exercises successfully but neverthe- less begin to want to see tokens of practical effects. They fail to appear.
Those around her continue to incite her; her words manifest interior strength, and yet they have a suspicion that there is something wrong. They become impatient, risk the extreme; they drive the spurs of ridicule into her side in order to drive her from cover. It is too late. Misunderstanding has entered in. That he actually was a deceiver entails no humiliation for those around her, but it certainly does for Marie. The revenge of- fered her, to scorn him, does not really mean very much, be- cause in order for it to mean something he would have to love her, but that he certainly does not do, and her contempt be- comes a check that no one will cash. On the other hand, in Clavigo’s being a deceiver there is nothing painful for those around her, but there certainly is for Marie, and he still does not totally lack a defender in her inner being. She feels that she has gone too far; she has hinted at a strength she does not pos- sess; she will not admit it. And what consolation is there in scorning him? Then it is better to grieve. In addition, she has in her possession a secret note or two of great importance for clarification of the text but also of such a nature as to place him in a more favorable or more unfavorable light according to the circumstances. She has not, however, initiated anyone into this and does not wish to do so, for if he was not a deceiver, then it would still be conceivable that he would repent of this step and come back or, even more glorious, that he perhaps would not need to repent of it, that he could completely justify Silhouettes 183 himself or explain everything. In that case, it might become an offense if she had made use of it; then the old relationship could never be re-established, and it would be her own fault, for it was she who had shared with others his love’s most secret growth with others. And if she could really be convinced that he was a deceiver, well, then nothing mattered anyway, and in any case it would be most gracious of her not to make use of it.
In this way, those around her have been instrumental, against their will, in developing a new passion in her, jealousy for her own sorrow. Her decision is made; on every score those around her lack the energy to harmonize with her pas- sion—she takes the veil. She does not enter the convent, but she takes the veil of sorrow, which hides her from every alien glance. Outwardly she is quiet. The whole affair is forgotten; her words give no hint. She herself takes the vow of sorrow, and now she begins her lonely, hidden life. At the same mo- ment, everything is changed; previously it seemed to her as if she could speak with others, but now she is not only bound by the vow of silence that her pride extorted from her with the consent of her love, or that her love required and her pride sanctioned, but now she does not know at all where she is to begin, or how, and this is not because new factors have inter- vened but because reflection has triumphed. If anyone were now to ask her what she was sorrowing over, she would have nothing to reply, or she would reply in the same way as that sage!? who was asked what religion is, and he asked for time to think, and more time to think, and thus the reply was al- ways due. Now she is lost to the world, lost to those around her, immured alive; sadly she closes the last opening. She feels that even at this moment it was perhaps possible to become open; the next moment she is forever removed from them.
But it is decided, unshakably decided, and she does not need to fear—as is usual with one who is immured alive—that when the scanty ration of bread and water provided her is used up she will perish, for she has nourishment for a long time. She does not need to fear boredom; she indeed does have some- thing to occupy her. Her exterior is quiet and calm, has noth-