161 184 Either/Or, I ing remarkable about it, and yet her inner being is not the in- corruptible essence of a quiet spirit?® but the barren busyness of a restless spirit. She seeks solitude or its opposite. In soli- tude, she relaxes from the strain always required in forcing her exterior into a particular form. Just as someone who has been standing or sitting for a long time in a forced position pleas- urably stretches his body, just as a branch that has long been bent by force and then, when the bond is broken, joyfully takes its natural position again, so also does she find refresh- ment. Or she seeks the opposite, noise and diversion, in order to be safely preoccupied with herself while everyone else’s at- tention is led to other things, and what is going on around her, the sounds of music, the noisy conversation, sounds so distant that it seems as if she were sitting in a little room by herself, remote from the whole world. And if she perhaps cannot force back the tears, then she is sure to be misunderstood; then per- haps she cries herself out, for when one lives in an ecclesia pressa [persecuted church], it is truly a joy that one’s divine service harmonizes in its mode of expression with the public mode. She fears only the quieter sociality, for here she is less un- guarded; here it is so easy to make a blunder, so difficult to pre- vent its being noticed.
Outwardly, then, there is nothing to be detected, but in- wardly there is bustling activity. Here an interrogation is tak- ing place that with perfect right and special emphasis may be called the third degree; everything is brought out and scrupu- lously examined—his figure, his facial expression, his voice, his words. It is said that it has sometimes happened that an in- terrogator, during a third degree such as this, has been capti- vated by the beauty of the accused, has halted the interroga- tion, and has been unable to continue it. The court expectantly awaits the result of his interrogation, but it fails to come, and yet it is not at all because the interrogator is neglecting his duty. The jailer can testify that he reports every night, that the accused is brought in, that the interrogation lasts several hours, that during his term there has never been an interroga- tor as persevering as this official. The court draws the conclu- sion from all this that it must be a very complicated case. So it Silhouettes 185 goes with her—not just once, but again and again. Everything is presented just as it happened, trustworthily; it demands jus- tice—and love.
The accused is summoned: ‘‘There he comes, he is turning the corner, he is opening the wicket. See how he hurries; he has longed for me; it is as if he threw everything aside in order to come to me as soon as possible. I hear his quick footsteps, faster than my heartbeats; he is coming, there he is’ —and the interrogation: it is postponed.
“Good Lord, that little phrase—I have repeated it so often to myself, recalled it amid many other things, but I have never paid attention to what is really concealed in it. Yes, it explains everything. He is not in earnest about leaving me; he is coming back. What is the whole world compared with this little phrase. People became tired of me. I did not have a friend, but now I have a friend, a confidant, a little phrase that explains everything. —He returns; he does not look down; he looks at me half reproachfully and says: O you of little faith,?' and this little phrase is poised like an olive leaf? on his lips—he is there’”’—and the interrogation is postponed.
Under such circumstances, it is quite in order that there are enormous difficulties involved in passing judgment. A young girl, of course, is not a jurist, but it by no means follows that she cannot pass judgment, and yet this young girl’s judgment will always be such that although at first glance it is a judg- ment, it also contains something more that shows that it is no judgment, and also shows that the very next moment a com- pletely opposite judgment may be passed. “‘He was no de- ceiver, because in order to be that, he would have had to be conscious of it himself from the beginning, but that he was not; my heart tells me that he loved me.” If the concept of a deceiver is advanced in this way, then perhaps, when all is said and done, a deceiver has never lived. To acquit him for this reason shows an interest in the accused that is incompatible with strict justice and cannot stand up against a single objec- tion. “He was a deceiver, an abominable person, who coldly and heartlessly has made me inordinately unhappy. Before I knew him, I was satisfied. Yes, it is true that I had no idea that 162 163 186 Either/Or, I I could be so happy or that there was such a wealth in joy as he taught me, but neither did I have any idea that I could become as unhappy as he has taught me to be. Therefore I will hate him, abominate him, curse him. Yes, I curse you, Clavigo; in the secrecy of my soul I curse you. No one must know it; I cannot allow anyone else to do it, for no one but me has the right to do it. I have loved you as no one else has, but I also hate you, for no one knows your cunning as I do. You good gods, to whom revenge belongs, entrust it to me for a little while; I will not misuse it, I will not be cruel. Then I will steal into his soul when he wants to love another—not in order to kill this love; that would be no punishment, for I know that he loves her just as little as he loved me. He does not love people at all; he loves only ideas, thoughts, his powerful influence at court, his intellectual power—I cannot imagine how he can love all these things. I will take it all away from him; then he will learn to know my pain. When he is on the verge of de- spair, I will give it all back to him again, but he will have me to thank for it—and then I shall be avenged.
“No, he was no deceiver. He did not love me anymore; that is why he left me, but that, after all, was no deception. If he had stayed with me without loving me, then he would have been a deceiver; then like a pensioner I would have lived on the love he once had had, lived on his pity, on the mite he perhaps even generously had thrown to me, lived as a burden to him and a torture to myself. Shame on you, wretched, cowardly heart; hold yourself in contempt; learn to be great, learn it from him; he has loved me better than I have understood how to love myself. And I should be angry with him? No, I will go on loving him because his love was stronger, his thoughts prouder, than my weakness and my cowardliness. And per- haps he even still loves me—yes, it was for love of me that he left me.
“Yes, now I see it; now I no longer doubt—he was a de- ceiver. I saw him: he looked proud and exultant; he surveyed me with a mocking glance. At his side was a Spanish girl, lux- uriant in beauty. Why was she so beautiful—I could murder her—why am I not just as beautiful? And was I not? —I did not Silhouettes 187 Silhouettes 187 know it, but he taught it to me—and why am [no longer beau- tiful? Who is to blame for it? Curse you, Clavigo! If you had stayed with me, I would have become even more beautiful, for my love and, along with it, my beauty increased through your words and your assurances. Now | am faded; now I thrive no longer. Compared with a word from you, what power does the tenderness of the whole world have? Oh, would that I were beautiful once again; would that I could please him once again, because only for that reason do I want to be beautiful. Oh, would that he were no longer able to love youth and beauty; then I shall lament more than before, and who can la- ment as I do!
“Yes, he was a deceiver. Otherwise, how could he stop lov- ing me? Have I, then, stopped loving him? Is there not the same law for a man’s love as for a woman’s? Or is a man sup- posed to be weaker than the weak? Or did he perhaps make a mistake; was it perhaps an illusion that he loved me, an illusion that disappeared like a dream—is this befitting in a man? Or was it fickleness; is it befitting for a man to be fickle? Why, then, did he assure me in the beginning that he loved me so much? If love cannot last, what, then, can last? Yes, Clavigo, you have robbed me of everything, my faith, my faith in love, not just in your love!
““He was no deceiver. What snatched him away, I do not know; I do not know that dark power, but it pained him per- sonally, pained him deeply. He did not want to initiate me into his pain; therefore he pretended to be a deceiver. Indeed, if he had taken up with another girl, then I would say he was a de- ceiver, then no power on earth would bring me to believe any- thing else, but that he has not done. He thinks perhaps that making himself appear to be a deceiver will diminish the pain for me, will arm me against him. Therefore he appears now and then with young girls, therefore he looked at me so mock- ingly the other day—to make me furious and thereby to lib- erate me. No, surely he was no deceiver, and how could that voice deceive? It was so calm and yet so agitated; it sounded from an inwardness, the depth of which I could scarcely sus- pect, as ifit were breaking a path through masses of rock. Can 164 165 188 Either/Or, I that voice deceive? What is the voice, then—is it a stroke of the tongue, a noise that one can produce as one wishes? But it must have a home somewhere in the soul; it must have a birth- place. And that it did, in the innermost recess of his heart it had its home; there he loved me, there he loves me. To be sure, he had another voice also; it was cold, chilling; it could murder every joy in my soul, squelch every joyous thought, make even my kiss cold:and abhorrent to me. Which was the true voice? He could deceive in every way, but this I feel—that tremulous voice in which his whole passion throbbed—that was no deceit; it is impossible. The other was a deception. Or there were evil forces that gained control of him. No, he was no deceiver; that voice that has shackled me to him forever— that is no deception. A deceiver he was not, even though I never understood him.”
The interrogation she will never finish, nor the judgment, either—the interrogation, because there are always interrup- tions; the judgment, because it is only a feeling. Once this movement begins, it can go on as long as it pleases, and there is no end in sight. Only by a break can it be brought to a halt— that is, by her cutting short this whole movement of thought; but this cannot happen, for the will is continually in the service of reflection, which energizes the momentary passion.
When at times she wants to tear herself away from all this, wants to reduce it to nothing, this is again only a mood, a mo- mentary passion, and reflection continually goes on being the victor. Mediation is impossible; if she wants to begin so that this beginning in one way or another is a result of the opera- tions of reflection, then at the same moment she is swept away. The will must be altogether impartial, must begin in the power of its own willing; only then can there be any question of a beginning. If this happens, then she certainly can begin, but then she falls outside our concern entirely, then we gladly turn her over to the moralists or to whoever else wants to take an interest in her. We wish her an honorable marriage and promise to dance on her wedding day, when fortunately the changed name will bring us to forget that it was the Marie Beaumarchais of whom we have spoken.
Silhouettes 189 But we return to Marie Beaumarchais. As stated above, her sorrow is characterized by the restlessness that prevents her from finding the object of her sorrow. Her pain cannot find quiet; she lacks the peace that is necessary for any life if it is to be able to assimilate its nourishment and be refreshed by it; no illusion overshadows her with its quiet coolness as she absorbs the pain. She lost childhood’s illusion when she acquired that of erotic love; she lost erotic love’s illusion when Clavigo de- ceived her; if it were possible for her to acquire sorrow’s illu- sion, she would be helped. Then her grief would attain mas- culine maturity, and she would be compensated for her loss. But her sorrow does not thrive, for she has not lost Clavigo— he has deceived her. Her sorrow always remains a tiny wailing infant, a fatherless and motherless child, for if Clavigo had been taken from her, then the child would have had a father in the recollection of his faithfulness and love and a mother in Marie’s ardor. She has nothing on which she can bring it up, because what she experienced was beautiful, to be sure, but it had no significance in and by itself but only as a foretaste of the future. And she cannot hope that this child of pain will be transformed into a son of joy; she cannot hope that Clavigo will return, for she will not have the strength to endure a fu- ture. She has lost the happy trust with which she would have accompanied him dauntlessly into the abyss, and she has ac- quired instead a hundred misgivings; at most she would only be able to live through the past with him once again. At the time Clavigo left her, a future lay before her, a future so beau- tiful, so enchanting, that it almost confused her thoughts; it obscurely exerted its power over her. Her metamorphosis had already begun; then the process was interrupted, her transfor- mation stopped. She had had intimations of a new life, had sensed its powers stir within her; then it was broken off and she was repulsed, and there is no recompense for her, neither in this nor in the future world. That which was to come smiled upon her very generously and mirrored itself in the illusion of her erotic love, and yet everything was so natural and direct. Perhaps a weak reflection has sometimes painted for her a weak illusion that does not affect her temptingly but probably 166 167 190 Either/Or, I is soothing for a moment. Time will go on for her in this way—until she has consumed the very object of her sorrow, which was not identical with her sorrow but the occasion for her continually seeking an object of her sorrow.
If a person possessed a letter that he knew or believed con- tained information about what he had to consider his life’s happiness, but the characters were thin and faint and the hand- writing almost illegible, then, presumably with anxiety and agitation, he would read it most passionately again and again and at one moment derive one meaning, at the next moment another, according to how he would explain everything by a word he believed that he had deciphered with certainty, but he would never progress beyond the same uncertainty with which he had begun. He would stare, more and more anx- iously, but the more he stared, the less he would see. His eyes would sometimes be filled with tears, but the more frequently this happened to him, the less he would see. In the course of time, the writing would become fainter and less legible; finally the paper itself would crumble away, and he would have noth- ing left but tear-filled eyes.
2. Donna Elvira 2. Donna Elvira We come to know this girl through the opera Don Giovanni, and it will not be unimportant to our subsequent exploration to note in the piece the clues to her earlier life. She was a nun; it is from the peacefulness of a convent that Don Giovanni has snatched her.** This suggests the staggering intensity of her passion. This was no silly molly from a finishing school who has learned to love at school, to flirt at parties; whether such a one is seduced is not very important. Elvira, on the other hand, has been brought up under the discipline of the convent, which has not succeeded in rooting out her passion but pre- sumably has taught her to suppress it and thereby to make it even more violent as soon as it is allowed to burst forth. She is sure prey for a Don Giovanni; he will know how to coax out the passion—wild, ungovernable, insatiable, to be satisfied only in his love. In him she has all, and the past is nothing; if she leaves him, she loses all, the past also. She had renounced Silhouettes 191 Silhouettes 191 the world; then there appeared a figure she cannot renounce, and that is Don Giovanni. From now on, she renounces every- thing in order to live with him. The more meaningful that was which she leaves, the more firmly must she cling to him; the more firmly she has embraced him, the more terrible becomes her despair when he leaves her. From the very outset, her love is a despair; nothing has meaning for her, neither in heaven nor on earth, except Don Giovanni.
Elvira is of interest to us in the opera only insofar as her re- lation to Don Giovanni is of significance to him. If I were to suggest her significance in a few words, I would say that she is Don Giovanni's epic fate, and the Commendatore is his dra- matic fate. There is in her a hatred that will seek out Giovanni in every nook, a flame of fire that will illuminate the darkest hiding place, and if she should still not discover him, then there is in her a love that will find him. She joins the others in pursuing Don Giovanni, but if I imagined that all the forces were neutralized, that his pursuers’ endeavors canceled one an- other so that Elvira was alone with Don Giovanni and he was in her power, the hate would arm her to murder him. But her love would forbid it, not out of compassion, because to her he is too great for that, and thus she would continually keep him alive, for if she killed him she would kill herself. Conse- quently, if there were in the piece no forces in motion against Don Giovanni except Elvira, it would never end, for Elvira herself would prevent, if possible, even the lightning from striking him, in order to take revenge herself, and yet again she would be unable to take revenge. Such is her interest for us in the piece, but here we are concerned only with her relation to Don Giovanni insofar as it has meaning for her. She is the ob- ject of interest to many, but in very different ways. Don Giovanni is interested in her before the opera begins; the spectator bestows on her his dramatic interest; but we friends of grief, we accompany her not only to the nearest cross street, not only in the moment when she walks across the stage—no, we accompany her on her solitary way.
So, then, Don Giovanni has seduced Elvira and has forsaken her; this is speedily done, as quickly “as the tiger breaks a 168 169 192 Either/Or, I lily.”5 If there are 1,003 in Spain alone, one is able to see that Don Giovanni is in a hurry and can more or less reckon the speed of the operation. Don Giovanni has forsaken her, but there is no circle of friends into whose arms she can collapse in a swoon. She need not fear that they will surround her too closely—indeed, they know very well how to open ranks in order to expedite her departure. She need not fear that anyone will argue her out of her loss—instead someone may take it upon himself to demonstrate it. She stands alone and forsaken, and no doubt tempts her; it is clear that he was a deceiver who has divested her of everything and abandoned her to infamy and disgrace. Esthetically speaking, however, this is not the worst for her; for a brief time, it rescues her from reflective sorrow, which is surely more painful than immediate grief. Here the fact is indubitable, and reflection cannot come along and change it now to this and now to that. A Marie Beaumar- chais may have loved a Clavigo just as ardently, just as wildly and passionately; in relation to her passion, it may be an alto- gether accidental circumstance that the worst has not hap- pened; she can almost wish that it had, for then there would be an end to the story, then she would be far better armed against him, but that did not happen. The fact she has before her is far more doubtful; its real nature always remains a secret between her and Clavigo. When she thinks of the cold cunning, the shabby commonsensicality it took to deceive her in such a way that it does not look so bad in the eyes of the world, so that she becomes prey to the sympathy that says, ““Well, good Lord, it isn’t so terrible,’ she is shocked, she can almost go insane at the thought of the proud superiority for which she has meant nothing at all, which has set a limit for her and said, “Up to here and no further.”’ And yet the whole thing can also be ex- plained in another, a more beautiful, way. But as the explana- tion changes, the fact itself also changes. Thus, reflection im- mediately has plenty to do, and reflective sorrow is inescapable.
Don Giovanni has forsaken Elvira; everything is clear to her at once. No doubt coaxes sorrow into reflection’s parlor; she falls silent in her despair. With a single pulsebeat it streams Silhouettes 193 through her, and its streaming is outward; in a blaze the pas- sion shines through her and becomes visible externally. Hate, despair, revenge, love—all burst forth to manifest themselves visibly. At this moment she is pictorial. We immediately see a picture of her in our imagination, and here the exterior is not without significance, reflection over it is not without sub- stance, and its activity is not without meaning as it sorts and chooses.
Whether she herself at this moment is a subject for artistic portrayal is another matter, but this much is certain: at this moment she is visible and can be seen—not, of course, in the sense that this or that actual Elvira can actually be seen, which frequently is tantamount to not being seen, but the Elvira we imagine is visible in her essentiality. Whether art is capable of depicting the nuances of expression in her face to such a degree as to make visible the substance of her despair, I shall not de- cide; but she can be described, and the picture that emerges be- comes not merely a burden for memory, which does not mat- ter one way or another, but has its validity.
And who has not seen Elvira! It was early one morning that I started a walking tour in one of Spain’s romantic regions. Nature was waking up. The trees in the forest shook their heads, and the leaves rubbed, so to speak, the sleep out of their eyes; one tree leaned toward the other to see whether it was out of bed yet, and the whole forest undulated in the cool, fresh breeze. A light fog rose from the earth; the sun snatched it away as if it were a blanket under which the earth had rested at night and now like a fond mother gazed down on the flowers and every living thing and said: Get up, dear children; the sun is already shining. As | wound my way through a deep moun- tain pass, my eyes fell on a cloister high up on the top of the mountain, to which a footpath led with many bends. My mind lingered on it—there it lies, I thought, like a house of God firmly grounded on the rock. My guide told me it was a convent known for its strict discipline. My pace slackened and my thoughts also, and what indeed is there to hurry after when one is so near the cloister? I probably would have come to a complete stop if I had not been aroused by a rapid movement 170 171 194 Etther/Or, I nearby. Involuntarily I turned around; it was a knight who hastened past me. How handsome he was, his step so light and yet so vigorous, so royal and yet so fugitive; he turned his head to look back, his face so captivating and yet his glance so rest- less. It was Don Giovanni. Is he hurrying to a rendezvous, or is he coming from one!
But soon he disappeared from my eyes and was gone from my thoughts; my gaze concentrated upon the cloister. Once again I was absorbed in contemplation of the lust of life and the serene peace of the cloister, when high up on the mountain I saw a female figure. In great haste she came running down the footpath, but the way was steep, and she continually seemed about to plunge down the mountain. She came closer. Her face was pallid, but her eyes were frightfully ablaze. Her body was exhausted; her bosom rose and fell violently, and yet she hur- ried faster and faster. Her ruffled hair flew loosely in the wind, but even the brisk morning air and her hurried pace were not able to bring color to her cheeks. Her nun’s veil was torn and fluttered behind her; her thin white dress would have betrayed much to a profane gaze if the passion in her face had not drawn to itself the attention of even the most corrupt of men. She rushed past me; I did not dare speak to her—her brow was too majestic, her glance too royal, her passion too highborn for that. Where did this girl belong? In the cloister? Do these pas- sions belong there—in the world? This dress—why is she run- ning? Is it to hide her shame and disgrace, or to catch up with Don Giovanni? She runs into the forest, and it closes around her and hides her, and I see her no more but hear only the sigh- ing of the forest. Poor Elvira! Have the trees found out—and yet the trees are better than people, for trees sigh and are silent: people whisper.
In this first moment, Elvira can be portrayed, and even if art does not really deal with such things because it will be difficult to find a unity of expression that also has all the multiplicity of her passions, the soul nevertheless demands to see her. I have tried to suggest this by the little picture I outlined above; it was not that I thought she was thereby portrayed, but I wanted to Silhouettes 195 suggest that her being described was quite correct, that it was not a capricious whim on my part but a valid claim of the idea. But this is only one element, and therefore we must accom- pany Elvira further.
The movement nearest at hand is a movement in time. Through a series of moments in time, she keeps herself at the almost picture-like peak suggested above. She thereby ac- quires dramatic interest. With the speed whereby she rushed past me, she catches up with Don Giovanni. This, too, is quite appropriate, for he did forsake her, but he has swept her along into the momentum of his own life, and she must reach him. If she does reach him, all her attention is once again directed outward, and we still do not have reflective sorrow. She has lost all—heaven when she chose the world, the world when she lost Giovanni. Therefore she has nowhere to turn except to him; only by being in his presence can she hold off despair, either by stifling the inner voices with the uproar of hate and rage, which sound in full force only when Don Giovanni is personally present, or by hoping. The latter already hints that the elements of reflective sorrow are present, but as yet they are unable to find time to consolidate inwardly. ‘First she must be cruelly convinced,”’ so it says in Kruse’s adaptation,”’ but this requirement completely betrays the inner disposition. If what has happened has not convinced her that Giovanni was a deceiver, then she will never be convinced. But as long as she demands additional evidence, she will succeed in avoiding the inner turmoil of quiet despair by means ofa restless roving life perpetually engaged in a pursuit of Don Giovanni. The paradox is already there before her soul, but as long as she can keep her soul in a state of agitation by means of external evidence that is not supposed to explain the past but throw light on Don Giovanni’s present condition, she does not have reflective grief. Hate, bitterness, curses, entreaties, and beseeching alter- nate, but her soul has still not returned into itself in order to repose in the thought that she has been deceived. She is ex- pecting an explanation from the outside. When, therefore, Kruse has Don Giovanni say: 172 173 196 Either/Or, I are you now disposed to hear, To take my word—you who suspect me; Then I can almost say, almost improbable Appears the cause that compelled etc., we must guard against thinking that what sounds like mock- ery to the spectator’s ear has the same effect on Elvira. To her, these words are refreshing, for she demands the improbable, and she will believe it precisely because it is improbable.
If we now have Don Giovanni and Elvira collide, then we have the choice between having Don Giovanni be the stronger or Elvira. If he is the stronger, then her whole behavior means nothing. She demands “evidence in order to be cruelly con- vinced”’; he is sufficiently gallant not to let it fail to appear. But she naturally is not convinced and demands new evidence, be- cause demanding evidence is a relief, and the uncertainty is re- freshing. She then becomes just one more witness to Don Gio- vanni’s achievements. But we could also imagine Elvira as the stronger. That seldom happens, but out of gallantry toward the fair sex we shall do it. She is, then, still in her full beauty— it is true that she has wept, but the tears have not quenched the gleam in her eyes; and it is true that she has sorrowed, but sor- row has not ravaged her youthful luxuriance; and it is true that she has grieved, but her grief has not gnawed away at the vi- tality of her beauty; and it is true that her cheeks have become pallid, but the expression is therefore all the more soulful; and it is true she does not move with the lightness of childlike in- nocence, but she does step forth with the energetic firmness of feminine passion.