way, he is also undermining it, for he himself finally becomes the object of faith for her, a god and not a human being.
But here I must try to prevent a misunderstanding. It might seem that I am making Faust into a base hypocrite. That is not at all the case. Margarete herself is the one who has brought up the whole matter; with half an eye he appraises the glory she believes is hers and sees that it cannot withstand his doubt, but he does not have the heart to destroy it and even behaves with { 185 210 Either/Or, I a certain amiability toward her. Her love gives her significance for him, and yet she becomes practically a child; he conde- scends to her childlikeness and has his joy in seeing how she appropriates everything. This, however, has the most regret- able consequences for Margarete’s future. If it had become ap- parent to her that Faust was a doubter, she perhaps could have saved her faith later. In all humility, then, she would have rec- ognized that his high-flying, bold thoughts were not for her; she would have clung fast to what she had. But now she is in- debted to him for the content of faith, and yet when he has for- saken her she perceives that he himself has not believed in it. As long as he was with her, she did not discover the doubt; now when he is gone, everything is changed for her, and she sees doubt in everything, a doubt she cannot control since she always includes in her thinking the fact that Faust himself was unable to master it.
That whereby Faust, also according to Goethe’s interpreta- tion, captivates Margarete is not Don Juan’s seductive talent but his prodigious superiority. Therefore, as she herself en- dearingly expresses it, she really cannot comprehend at all what Faust can see in her that is favorable.** Her first impres- sion of him, then, is completely overwhelming; in relation to him, she feels her nothingness. Hence, she does not belong to him the way Elvira belongs to Don Giovanni, for that is still the expression of independent existence in relation to him, but Margarete completely disappears in Faust; neither does she break with heaven in order to belong to him, for that would imply a justification in relation to him; imperceptibly, without the slightest reflection, he becomes everything to her. But just as from the beginning she is nothing, so she becomes, if I dare say so, less and less the more she is convinced of his almost di- vine superiority; she is nothing, and at the same time she exists only through him. What Goethe said somewhere about Ham- let,°*? that his soul in relation to his body was an acorn planted in a flower pot, with the result, therefore, that it bursts the container, is true of Margarete’s love. Faust is far too great for her, and her love must end by shattering her soul. And the mo- ment for this cannot be far distant, for Faust is well aware that Silhouettes 211 Silhouettes 211 she cannot remain in this immediacy; he does not take her into the higher regions of the spirit, for it is that, after all, from which he is fleeing; he desires her sensually—and forsakes her.
So Faust has forsaken Margarete. Her loss is so terrible that, because of it, even those around her momentarily forget what they otherwise find difficult to forget—that she is dishonored. She collapses completely and is not even able to think about her loss; even the energy to comprehend her misfortune has been drained out of her. If this condition could continue, it would be impossible for reflective sorrow to commence. But little by little the consolation of those around her brings her to herself, nudges her thought into motion again; but as soon as it is in motion again, it is apparent that she is unable to hold fast to a single one of their observations. She listens to it as if it were not speaking to her, and nothing it says arrests or accel- erates the unrest in her thought process. The problem for her is the same as for Elvira—to think that Faust was a deceiver— but it is still more difficult, for she is far more deeply influ- enced by Faust. He was not merely a deceiver, but he was in fact a hypocrite; she has not sacrificed anything for him, but she owes him everything, and to a certain degree she still has this everything, except that now it proves to be a deception. But is what he said less true because he himself did not believe it? By no means, and yet for her it is, because she believed in it through him.
It might seem that reflection would have a more difficult time starting in Margarete; that which frustrates it is the feel- ing that she was nothing at all. Nevertheless there is a prodi- gious dialectical elasticity here. If she could sustain the thought that in the strictest sense she was nothing, then reflection would be precluded, and then she would not have been de- ceived, either, for if one is nothing, there is no relationship, and where there is no relationship, there cannot be a decep- tion, either. To that extent she is at rest. This thought, how- ever, cannot be sustained but suddenly turns into its opposite. The thought that she was nothing expresses only that all the finite differences of love are negated, and therefore it is pre- cisely the expression for the absolute validity of her love, on 186 I 187 212 Either/Or, I which, in turn, her absolute justification is based. His conduct, therefore, is not only a deception but an absolute deception, because her love was absolute. And in this she will again be un- able to rest, because, since he has been everything to her, she will not even be able to sustain this thought except through him, but she cannot think it through him, because he was a de- ceiver.
As those around her steadily become more and more alien to her, the inner motion begins. Not only has she loved Faust with her whole soul, but he was her life force; through him she came into existence [blev til]. As a result, her soul certainly does not become less agitated in mood than Elvira’s, but her particular moods are less agitated. She is on the way to having a basic mood, and the particular mood is like a bubble that rises from the depths and does not have the power to endure; nei- ther is it displaced by a new bubble but is dissolved in the gen- eral mood that she is nothing. This basic mood, moreover, is a condition that is felt and does not find expression in any spe- cific outburst; it is unutterable, and the attempt the particular mood makes to lift it, to raise it, is futile. Thus the total mood always resonates in the particular mood; as weakness and powerlessness, it constitutes the resonance for it. The partic- ular mood expresses itself, but it does not mitigate, does not relieve. It is, to borrow a saying from my Swedish Elvira that is definitely very expressive, even if a man does not com- pletely understand it, it is a false sigh, which deceives, and not a genuine sigh, which is a strengthening and beneficial mo- tion. The particular mood is not even full-toned or energetic; her expression is too burdened for that.
“Can I forget him? Can the brook, however long it keeps on running, forget the spring, forget its source, sever itself from it? If so, it would just have to stop flowing! Can the arrow, however swiftly it flies, forget the bowstring? If so, its flight would just have to come to an end! Can the raindrop, however far it falls, forget the heaven from which it fell? If so, then it would just have to disintegrate! Can I become someone else, can I be born again of a mother who is not my mother? Can I forget him? Then I would just have to cease to be!
Silhouettes 213 “Can I bring him to mind? Can my recollection call him forth now that he has vanished, I who myself am only my rec- ollection of him? This pale, hazy image—is this the Faust I worshipped? I recollect his words, but I do not possess the res- onance in his voice! I remember his talks, but my breath is too faint to give them expression. Meaningless, they fall on deaf ears!
“Faust, O Faust! Come back, satisfy the hungry, clothe the naked, revive the languishing, visit the lonely one!*° I certainly know that my love had no meaning for you, but, after all, nei- ther did I demand that. My love lay down humbly at your feet; my sigh was a prayer, my kiss a thank offering, my embrace adoring worship. Will you forsake me for this? Did you not know it beforehand? Or is it not, then, a reason to love me— that [need you, that my soul languishes when you are not with me?
“God in heaven, forgive me for loving a human being more than I loved you, and yet I still do it; I know that it is a new sin that I speak this way to you. O Eternal Love, let your mercy hold me, do not thrust me away; give him back to me, incline his heart to me*! again; have mercy on me, God of mercy, that I pray this way again!
“Can I curse him, then? What am I that I dare to be so bold? Can the clay pot be presumptuous toward the potter?4? What was I? Nothing! Clay in his hands, a rib from which he formed me!* What was I? A poor insignificant plant, and he stooped down to me; he lovingly raised me [opelskede];*4 he was my all, my god, the origin of my thoughts, the food of my soul.
“Can I grieve? No, no! Sorrow broods like nocturnal fog over my soul. O come back, I will give you up, never claim to belong to you. Just sit with me; look at me so that I can gain enough strength to sigh; speak to me, tell about yourself as if you were a stranger, and I will forget that it is you; speak, so the tears may burst forth. Am I nothing at all, then, not even able to weep except through him!
““Where shall I find peace and rest? Thoughts rise up in my soul; the one rises against the other; the one confuses the other. When you were with me, they obeyed your suggestions; then [ 188 189 214 Either/Or, I I played with them as a child; I braided a wreath of them and put them on my head; I let them flow like my hair, ruffled in the wind. Now they twine themselves terrifyingly around me, twist themselves around me like snakes and crush my an- guished soul.
“And Iam a mother! A living being demands nourishment from me. Can the hungry satisfy the hungry, the feeble from thirst refresh the thirsty? Shall I become a murderer, then? O Faust, come back; save the child in the womb even if you do not want to save the mother!”’
—Thus she is agitated, not by mood but in mood, but the particular mood is no mitigation for her, because it dissolves in the total mood she cannot banish. Indeed, if Faust had been taken away from her, Margarete would not seek any calming, her fate would indeed have been enviable in her eyes—but she is deceived. She lacks what could be called the situation of grief, for she is incapable of sorrowing alone. Indeed, if, like poor Florine in the fairy tale,*> she could find entry into a cave of echoes, from which she knew that every sigh, every lament, would be heard by her lover, then she would not, like Florine, spend only three nights there, but she would stay there day and night; but in Faust’s palace there is no cave of echoes, and he has no ear in her heart.
Perhaps, dear Zuunagavexempevon, I have already held your attention too long on these pictures, all the more so because, however much I have said, nothing visible has appeared to you. But this, of course, is due not to fraudulence in my pre- sentation but to the subject itself and to the subtlety of sorrow. When the favorable opportunity is offered, then what is hid- den discloses itself. This we have in our power. And now in parting we shall unite these three women betrothed to sorrow; we shall have them embrace one another in the harmony of sorrow; we shall have them form a group before us, a taber- nacle, where the voice of sorrow is never silent, where sighs do not cease, because more carefully and faithfully than vestal virgins they keep watch over the observance of the sacred cer- emonies. Should we interrupt them in this; should we wish for Silhouettes 215 them the return of what was lost; would that be an advantage for them? Have they not already received a higher initiation? And this initiation will unite them and envelop their union in beauty and provide mitigation in union, for only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.”
1 THE UNHAPPIEST ONE AN INSPIRED ADDRESS TO THE ZYMITAPANEKPQMENOI Peroration at the Meeting on Fridays As is well known, there is said to be a grave somewhere in England that is distinguished not by a magnificent monument or a mournful setting but by a short inscription—‘‘The Un- happiest One.””! It is said that the grave was opened, but no trace of a corpse was found. Which is the more amazing—that no corpse was found or that the grave was opened? It is indeed strange that someone took the time to see whether anyone was in it. When one reads a name in an epitaph, one is easily tempted to wonder how he passed his life on earth; one might wish to climb down into the grave for a conversation with him. But this inscription—it is so freighted with meaning! A book can have a title that prompts a desire to read the book, but a title in itself can be so thought-laden, so personally ap- pealing, that one will never read the book.? This inscription is in truth very freighted with meaning—shocking or gratifying according to one’s mood—for anyone who perhaps secretly in his heart pledged his troth to the thought that he was the most unhappy one. But I can imagine a person whose soul has never been preoccupied in that way and for whose curiosity there was the task of finding out whether anyone was in that grave. And look, the grave was empty! Has he perhaps risen from the dead; does he perhaps want to mock the poet’s words: —In the grave there is peace, Its silent occupant does not know sorrow.?
Did he find no rest, not even in the grave; is he perhaps still fitfully wandering over the earth; has he left his house, his home, leaving behind only his address! Or has he still not been found—he, the unhappiest one, whom not even the Furies are pursuing until he finds the door of the temple* and the humble petitioner’s bench, but whom sorrows keep alive and sorrows follow to the grave!
Ifhe has not been found, then let us like crusaders, dear Zup- 193 194 195 220 Either/Or, I agavexedwpevot, commence a pilgrimage—n pt to that sacred sepulchre in the happy East, but to that mournful grave in the unhappy West. At that empty grave, we shall seek him, the unhappiest one, certain of finding him, for just as the longing of the believers yearns for the sacred sepulchre, so the unhappy ones are drawn toward the West to that empty grave, and each one is absorbed in the thought that it is destined for him.
Or may it be that such deliberation is not a worthy subject for consideration by us, whose activity, in compliance with our society’s sacred custom, is a venture in aphoristic, occa- sional devotion—we who do not think and talk aphoristically but live aphoristically; we who live &pogtopévor and segregati,5 as aphorisms in life, without association with men, having no share in their griefs and their joys; we who are not consonants in the clamor of life but are solitary birds in the stillness of night, assembled together on only one occasion to be edified by representations of the wretchedness of life, of the length of the day, and of the endless duration of time; we, dear Xuuna- eavexeapevotr, who do not believe in the game of gladness or the happiness of fools; we who believe in nothing but unhappi- ness.
See how they press forward in countless numbers, all the unhappy ones. Yet many are they who think themselves called; few are the chosen.® A separation must be made be- tween them—one word, and the crowd vanishes; specifically excluded are the uninvited guests, all those who think that death is the greatest calamity, who became unhappy because they feared death; for we, dear Zuunagavexe@pevor, we, like the Roman soldiers, do not fear death;? we know a worse calamity, and first and last, above all—it is to live. Indeed, if there were a human being who could not die, if what the leg- end tells of the Wandering Jew is true, why should we have scruples about pronouncing him the unhappiest one? Then why the grave was empty could be explained—namely, to in- dicate that the unhappiest one was the person who could not die, who could not slip down into a grave. That would settle the matter, the answer would be easy, for the unhappiest one of all would be the person who could not die, the happy one The Unhappiest One 221 the person who could. Happy is the one who died in old age; happier is the one who died in youth; happiest is the one who died at birth; happiest of all the one who was never born. But this is not the way it is; death is the common fate of all human beings, and inasmuch as the unhappiést one has not been found, he must be sought within these confines.
See, the crowd vanished; the number is reduced. I do not say: Give me your attention, for I know that I have it; I do not say: Lend me your ears, for I know that they belong to me. Your eyes are sparkling; you lean forward in your seats. It is a contest well worth your participation, a struggle even more terrible than if it were a matter of life and death, for we do not fear death. But the reward—yes, it is more magnificent than any other in the world, and more certain, for the person who is sure that he is the unhappiest one does not need to fear for- tune; he will not taste the humiliation of having to shout in his final hour: Solon, Solon, Solon!® So, then, we are inaugurating an open competition, from which no one will be excluded, neither because of rank nor be- cause of age. No one will be excluded except the happy ones and the person who fears death—every worthy member of the community of the unhappy is welcome; a seat of honor is des- ignated for every really unhappy person, the grave for the un- happiest one. My voice rings out in the world; listen to it, all you who call yourselves unhappy in the world but who do not fear death. My voice rings back into the past, for we do not want to be so sophistical as to exclude the dead and departed because they are dead, for they have in fact lived. Forgive me, I beseech you, for disturbing your repose momentarily; let us meet here by this empty grave. Three times I shout it loudly to the world: Hear this, you unhappy ones, for it is not our in- tention to decide this matter among ourselves here in a nook of the world. The place has been found where it must be de- cided before the whole world!
But before we commence interrogating them one by one, let us make ourselves qualified to sit here as worthy judges and fellow contestants. Let us strengthen our minds, arm them against the inveiglement of the ear, for what voice is so ingra- 196 222 Either/Or, I tiating as that of the unhappy one, what voice so bewitching as that of the unhappy one when he is speaking about his own unhappiness. Let us make ourselves worthy to sit as judges and fellow contestants so that we do not lose the overall view, are not confused by the particulars, for the eloquence of grief is infinite and infinitely inventive. We shall divide the unhappy into specific groups, and only one from each will be heard. We shall not deny that no particular individual is the unhappiest one; it is rather a class, but we shall not therefore have scruples about awarding the representative of this class the title of the unhappiest one, shall not have scruples about awarding him the grave.
In all of Hegel’s systematic works there is one section that discusses the unhappy consciousness.? One always comes to the reading of such investigations with an inner uneasiness and palpitation of the heart, with a fear that one will learn too much or too little. “The unhappy consciousness” is a phrase that can almost make the blood run cold, the nerves shiver, if itis merely introduced casually into the course of a discussion, and then, uttered deliberately, it can, like that cryptic sentence in a story by Clemens Brentano: tertia nux mors est [the third nut is death], © make a person tremble like a sinner. Ah, happy is the one who has nothing more to do with the subject than to write a paragraph about it; even happier the one who can write the next. The unhappy one is the person who in one way or another has his ideal, the substance of his life, the plenitude of his consciousness, his essential nature, outside himself. The unhappy one is the person who is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But in being absent, one obviously can be in either past or future time. The whole territory of the unhappy consciousness is thereby adequately circumscribed. For this firm limitation, we thank Hegel, and now, since we are not only philosophers who view this kingdom at a dis- tance, we shall as natives consider more closely the various stages contained therein.
So, then, the unhappy one is absent. But one is absent when one is in either past or future time. This expression must be in- sisted upon, for it is obvious, as philology also teaches us, that The Unhappiest One 223 there is a tempus [tense] that is present in a past time and a tem- pus that is present in a future time, but this same science also teaches us that there is a tempus that is plus quam perfectum [more than perfect: pluperfect, past perfect], in which there is no present, and a futurum exactum [future perfect] with the same feature. There are the hoping and the recollecting!! individu- alities. If, generally, only the person who is present to himself is happy, then these people, insofar as they are only hoping or only recollecting, are in a sense certainly unhappy individual- ities. But, strictly speaking, one cannot call an individuality unhappy who is present in hope or in recollection. The point to stress here is that he is present in it. We also see from this that one blow, be it ever so hard, cannot possibly make a per- son into the unhappiest one. That is, one blow can only either rob him of hope and thereby make him present in recollection or rob him of recollection and thereby make him present in hope. We shall now proceed and see how the unhappy individ- uality may be defined more precisely.
First we shall consider the hoping individuality. When, as one who hopes (and consequently to that extent is unhappy), he is not present to himself, he becomes unhappy in the stricter sense of the word. A person who hopes for eternal life is cer- tainly in a sense an unhappy individuality, insofar as he re- nounces the present; but strictly speaking he is nevertheless not unhappy, because he is present to himself in this hope and does not come into conflict with the particular elements of fi- niteness. If, however, he cannot become present to himself in hope but loses his hope, then hopes again, etc., then he is ab- sent from himself, not merely in present but also in future time, and thus we have a form of unhappiness. If we consider the recollecting individuality, we find the same thing. Ifhe can become present to himself in past time, then, strictly speaking, he is not unhappy; but if he cannot do this but is continually absent from himself in past time, then we have a form of un- happiness.
Recollection is above all the distinctive element of the un- happy ones, which is natural, because past time has the notable characteristic that it is past; future time, that it is to come. Ina 197 198 224 Either/Or, I sense, therefore, one can say that future time is closer to the present than is the past. In order for the hoping individuality to become present in future time, it must have reality [Reali- tet|'? or, more correctly, it must acquire reality for him; in or- der for the recollecting individuality to become present in past time, it must have had reality for him. But when the hoping individuality wants to hope for a future time that nevertheless can acquire no reality for him, or the recollecting individuality wants to recollect a time that has had no reality, then we have essentially unhappy individualities. The former might not be thought possible or might be regarded as sheer madness; but that is not so, because the hoping individuality certainly does not hope for something that does not have reality for him, but he hopes for something that he himself knows cannot be real- ized. That is, if a person, in losing hope, continues to hope in- stead of becoming a recollecting individuality, then we have this form. Ifan individuality in losing recollection or in having nothing to recollect will not become a hoping individuality but continues to be one who recollects, then we have a form of unhappiness. If, for example, an individual became absorbed in antiquity or in the Middle Ages or in any other time, but in such a way that it had a decisive reality for him, or he became absorbed in his own childhood or youth in the way that this had had decisive reality for him, then, strictly speaking, he would not be an unhappy individuality. But if! were to imag- ine a person who had had no childhood himself, since this age had passed him by without real meaning, but who now, for example, by becoming a teacher of children, discovered all the beauty in childhood and now wanted to recollect his own childhood, always stared back at it, he would certainly be a very appropriate example. He would discover backwards the meaning of that which was past for him and which he never- theless wanted to recollect in all its meaning. If] were to imag- ine a person who had lived without grasping the joy of life or the enjoyment of it and who now at the point of death had his eyes opened to it, if I were to imagine that he did not die, which would be the best that could happen, but revived with- out therefore living his life over again, this person surely could Tie Unhappiest One 225 be considered when the question arises about who is the un- happiest one.
Hope’s unhappy individualities never have the pain of rec- ollection’s. The hoping individualities always have a more pleasant disappointment. Therefore, the unhappiest one will always have to be sought among recollection’s unhappy indi- vidualities.
But we shall go on. We shall imagine a combination of the two forms described, unhappy forms in the stricter sense. The unhappy hoping individuality could not become present to himself in his hope; likewise the unhappy recollecting individ- uality. The only combination possible is one in which it is rec- ollection that prevents him from becoming present in his hope and it is hope that prevents him from becoming present in his recollection. This is due, on the one hand, to his continually hoping for that which should be recollected; his hope is con- tinually being disappointed, but he discovers that this disap- pointment occurs not because his objective is pushed further ahead but because he is past his goal, because it has already been experienced or should have been experienced and thus has passed over into recollection. On the other hand, he is con- tinually recollecting that for which he should hope, because he has already encompassed the future in thought, has already ex- perienced it in thought, and he recollects what he has experi- enced instead of hoping for it. Thus, what he is hoping for lies behind him; what he recollects lies ahead of him. His life is not backwards but is turned the wrong way in two directions. He will soon perceive his trouble even though he does not com- prehend the reason for it.
In order, however, that he will really have the opportunity to feel it, misunderstanding intervenes and in an odd way rid- icules him at every moment. Ordinarily, he enjoys the honor of being regarded as being in his right mind, and yet he knows that if he were to explain to a single person how it really is with him, he would be declared insane. This is enough to drive one mad, and yet this does not happen, and this is precisely his trouble. His calamity is that he came into the world too early and therefore continually comes too late. He is continually 199 very close to the goal, and at the same moment he is far from it; he then discovers that what is making him unhappy now, because he has it or because he is this way, is precisely what would have made him happy a few years ago if he had had it, whereas he became unhappy because he did not have it. His life is as meaningless as Ancaeus’s, of whom it is customary to say that nothing is known except that he gave rise to the prov- erb TOAAG petaés médrer nbArKos xal yetAEeos &xoov [There is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip], as if this were not more than enough. His life knows no repose and has no content. He is not present to himself in the mo- ment, nor is he present to himself in the future, for the future has been experienced, nor in past time, for the past has not yet come. Thus, like Latona,'* he is chased around in the darkness of the Hyperboreans,'5 to the bright islands of the equator, is unable to give birth, and is always like a woman in labor. Abandoned to himself, he stands alone in the wide world; he has no contemporaries to whom he can attach himself, no past he can long for, because his past has not yet come, no future he can hope for, because his future is already past. All alone, he faces the whole world as the “‘you”’ with whom he is in con- flict, for all the rest of the world is for him only one person, and this person, this inseparable bothersome friend, is misun- derstanding. He cannot grow old, for he has never been young; he cannot become young, for he has already grown old; in a sense he cannot die, for indeed he has not lived; in a sense he cannot live, for indeed he is already dead. He cannot love, for love is always present tense, and he has no present time, no future, no past, and yet he has a sympathetic nature, and he hates the world only because he loves it; he has no pas- sion, not because he lacks it, but because at the same moment he has the opposite passion; he does not have time for anything, not because his time is filled with something else, but because he has no time at all; he is powerless, not because he lacks energy, but because his own energy makes him power- less.
The Unhappiest One 227 But very soon our hearts are sufficiently hardened, our ears stopped up, though not closed. We have heard the level- headed voice of deliberation; let us be attentive to the elo- quence of passion—brief, pithy, as all passion is.!
There stands a young girl. She complains that her lover has been unfaithful to her. This does not lend itself to reflection. But in the whole world she loved only him; she loved him with all her soul, all her heart, all her mind!7—then let her rec- ollect and grieve.
Is this an actual person or is it an image; is it a living person who is dying or a dead person who is living—it is Niobe. '8 She lost everything all at once; she lost that to which she gave life; she lost that which gave life to her! Look up at her, dear Zup- nagavexompevot; she is standing only a little higher than the world, like a monument on a burial mound. But no hope beckons her, no future motivates her, no prospect tempts her, no hope perturbs her—hopeless she stands, turned to stone in recollection. She was unhappy for a moment; in the same mo- ment she became happy, and nothing can take her happiness from her; the world changes, but she knows no change, and time comes, but for her there is no future time.