Look over there, what a beautiful union! The one generation offers a hand to the other! Is it an invitation to blessing, to faithful solidarity, to a happy dance? It is the outcast [forstodte] family of Oedipus,'? and the blow [sted] is transmitted and it crushes the last one—it is Antigone. But she is provided for; the grief of a family is enough for a human life. She has turned her back on hope; she has exchanged its fickleness for the faith- fulness of recollection. Stay happy, then, dear Antigone! We wish you a long life, as meaningful as a deep sigh. May no for- getfulness rob you of anything! May the daily bitterness of sorrow be offered to you abundantly!
A powerful figure appears, but he is not alone. He has friends—how, then, does he come to be here? It is the patriarch of sorrow; it is Job*°—and his friends. He lost everything, but not in one blow, for the Lord took away, and the Lord took away, and the Lord took away. The friends taught him to per- ceive the bitterness of loss; for the Lord gave, and the Lord 201 202 228 Either/Or, I gave, and the Lord gave, and a foolish wife! into the bargain. He lost everything, for what he kept is of no interest to us. Honor is due him, dear Zupnagavexedpevor, for his gray hair and his unhappiness. He lost everything, but he had possessed it.
His hair is gray, his head is bowed down, his visage with- ered, his soul troubled. It is the prodigal son’s father. Like Job, he lost what to him was dearest in the world, but it was the enemy who took it, not the Lord; he did not lose it, but he is losing it; it is not being taken away from him, but it is vanish- ing. He is not sitting at home by the hearth in sackcloth and ashes; he has gone from his home, has left everything to seek the lost; he grasps for him, but his arm does not reach him; he calls to him, but his voice does not catch up with him. Yet he hopes, even if through tears; he glimpses him, even if through mists; he catches up with him, even if in death. His hope ages him, and nothing binds him to the world except the hope for which he lives. His feet are tired, his eyes dim, his body craves rest, his hope lives. His hair is white, his body decrepit, his feet pause, his heart breaks, his hope lives. Lift him up, dear Zup- magavexompevor; he was unhappy.
Who is that pallid figure, feeble as a ghost of one dead! His name is forgotten; many centuries have gone by since his day. He was a young man; he was ardent.?? He sought martyrdom. In his mind, he saw himself nailed to the cross and saw heaven open, but actuality was too heavy for him; his ardor vanished; he denied his Lord and himself. He wanted to carry a world, but he overstrained himself on it; his soul was not crushed or destroyed; it was broken, his spirit paralyzed, his soul crip- pled. Congratulate him, dear Zuunagavexedmpevor, he was un- happy. And yet he did indeed become happy; he did indeed be- come what he wished to be. He became a martyr, even though his martyrdom was not what he wanted, being nailed to the cross or cast to the wild animals, but was being burned alive, slowly being consumed by a low fire.
A young girl sits yonder, so very pensive. Her lover was un- faithful to her—this does not lend itself to reflection. Young girl, look at the serious faces of this assemblage; it has heard The Unhappiest One 229 more terrible calamities; its audacious soul demands some- thing even greater. Yes, but in the whole world I loved only him; I loved him with all my soul, all my heart, all my mind.” —We have already heard all that once before; do not weary our impatient longing. After all, you can recollect and grieve. —No, I cannot grieve, for he perhaps was not unfaithful to me; he may not have been a deceiver. —Why can you not grieve? Come closer, chosen one among maidens; forgive this rigorous interrogator for wanting to thrust you back for a mo- ment. You cannot grieve, but then you can hope. —No, I can- not hope, for he was an enigma. —All right, my girl, I do un- derstand you; you stand high on the ladder of unhappiness. Look at her, dear Zupnagavexedpevor; she is poised almost at the summit of unhappiness. But you must divide yourself; you must hope during the day, grieve during the night, or grieve during the day and hope during the night. Be proud, for one is to be proud not of happiness but of unhappiness. Certainly you are not the unhappiest one, but do you not think, dear Luunagavexodpevot, that we can award her an honorable acces- sit [second place]? We cannot award her the grave, but the place closest to it.
For there he stands, the envoy from the kingdom of sighs, the chosen favorite of suffering, the apostle of grief, the silent friend of pain, the unhappy lover of recollection, confused in his recollection by the light of hope, frustrated in his hope by the ghosts of recollection. His brow is troubled, his knees are slack, and yet he leans on himself alone. He is exhausted, and yet how full of energy; his eyes do not seem to have shed, but to have drunk, many tears, and yet they flame with a fire that could consume the whole world, but not a splinter of sorrow in his own breast; he is bowed down, and yet his youth por- tends a long life; his lips smile at the world, which does not un- derstand him. Arise, dear Zupnagavexedpevor; bow down, you witnesses of sorrow, in this solemn hour. I hail you, great unknown, whose name I do not know; I hail you with your title of honor: the unhappiest one. Greetings and salutations from the community of the unhappy to you here in your home; greetings and salutations to you at the entrance to this I 203 230 Either/Or, I humble, low dwelling, which nevertheless is prouder than all the palaces of the world. See, the stone is rolled away; the shade of the grave awaits you with its delicious coolness. But perhaps the time has not yet come, perhaps the way is long, but we promise you that we will assemble here often to envy you your fortune. So accept our wish, a good wish: May no one understand you but all envy you; may no friend attach himself to you; may no girl fall in love with you; may no secret sympathy suspect your solitary pain; may no eye fathom your remote sorrow; may no ear ferret out your secret sigh! Or if your proud soul disdains such compassionate wishes, scorns this mitigation—then may the girls fall in love with you; may those who are pregnant turn to you in their anxiety; may the mothers trust you; may the dying seek consolation in you; may the young people attach themselves to you; may the men rely upon you; may the aged reach for you as for a cane—may the whole world believe that you are able to make it happy. Farewell, then, you the unhappiest one! **But what am I say- ing—‘‘the unhappiest’’? I ought to say “‘the happiest,” for this is indeed precisely a gift of fortune that no one can give him- self. See, language breaks down, and thought is confused, for who indeed is the happiest but the unhappiest and who the un- happiest but the happiest, and what is life but madness, and faith but foolishness, and hope but a staving off of the evil day, and love but vinegar in the wound.
He disappeared, and we stand again by the empty grave. So we wish him peace and rest and healing, and all possible good fortune, and a quick death, and an eternal oblivion, and no re- membrance, lest the memory of him make another unhappy.
Arise, dear Zupxagavexompevot, The night is over; the day is beginning its unflagging activity again, never, so it seems, tired of repeating itself forever and ever.”
THE FIRST LOVE A COMEDY IN ONE ACT BY SCRIBE Translated by J. L. Heiberg!
I This article was planned for publication in a journal Fred- 2° erik Unsmann had planned to issue at specific times. Ah, what are all human plans!
Anyone who has ever had leanings toward productivity has certainly also noticed that it is a little accidental external cir- cumstance that becomes the occasion for the actual producing. Only the authors who in one way or another have made a final purpose into their inspiration will perhaps deny this. This, however, is to their own injury, for they are thereby deprived of the extreme poles of all true and all sound productivity. The one is what is traditionally called “invocation of the muse’”’; the other is the occasion. —The expression “invocation of the muse”’ can occasion a misunderstanding. To invoke the muse may signify, for one thing, that I invoke the muse; for another, that the muse invokes me. Any author who is either so naive as to believe that everything depends on an honest will, on in- dustry and effort, or so shameless as to offer for sale the prod- ucts of the spirit will not be wanting in ardent invocation or brash forwardness. But not much is achieved thereby, for what Wessel once said still holds concerning the god of taste “whom all invoke,” that he “‘so rarely comes.”? But if we in- terpret this expression to mean that it is the muse who in- vokes—I shall not say us, but those concerned—then the mat- ter acquires a different meaning. Whereas the authors who invoke the muse also embark without her coming, those last described, on the other hand, are in another dilemma, in that they need an extra element for an inner decision to become an outer decision; this element is what one must call the occasion.
In other words, by invoking them, the muse has beckoned them away from the world, and now they listen only to her voice, and the wealth of thought is opened to them, but so overwhelmingly that, although every word is clear and vivid, it seems to them as if it were not their possession. When con- sciousness has come to itself again to the extent that it pos- sesses the whole content, then the moment is reached that con- tains the possibility of actual coming into existence, and yet 207 208 209 234 Either/Or, I something is lacking, namely, the occasion—which is just as necessary, if you please, although in another sense most insig- nificant. It has pleased the gods to link together the greatest contradictions in this way.‘ This is a secret implicit in actual- ity—an offense to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.> The occasion is always the accidental, and the prodigious paradox is that the accidental is absolutely just as necessary as the nec- essary. In the ideal sense, the occasion is not the accidental as, for example, when I think the accidental in the logical sense, but the occasion is the accidental in the sense of fetishism, and yet in this accidentality it is the necessary.
But there is much confusion with respect to what in use and wont is called the occasion. Both too much and too little are seen in it. Any literary productivity in the category of trivial- ity—and, worse luck, this kind of productivity is most of all the order of the day—overlooks the occasion just as much as it overlooks inspiration. For this reason, such literary productiv- ity believes that it is appropriate to any age—something that can be conceded to it. Therefore, it completely overlooks the significance of the occasion—that is, it sees an occasion in everything. It is like a talkative person who in the most op- posite things sees an occasion to bring in himself and his story, whether one has heard it before or not. But thereby the punc- tum saliens [salient point] is lost. On the other side is the literary productivity that falls in love with the occasion. The first kind can be said to see an occasion in everything, the second to see everything in the occasion. This describes the great company of occasional authors, from the occasional poets in the deeper sense to those who in the stricter sense see everything in the occasion and therefore use the same verse, the same formulas, and yet hope that for those concerned the occasion will be a sufficient occasion for an appropriate honorarium.
In our day, the occasion, which as such is the unessential and accidental, may sometimes venture into the revolutionary. The occasion often plays the absolute master; it determines the outcome; it makes the product and the producer into some- thing or nothing, whatever it wishes. The poct expects the oc- casion to inspire, and with amazement he sees that nothing The First Love 235 The First Love 235 happens, or he produces something that he himself secretly re- gards as insignificant and then sees the occasion make every- thing of it, sees himself honored and singled out in every pos- sible way, and privately knows that he has the occasion alone to thank for it. So these writers fall in love with the occasion; the ones we described previously overlook it and therefore in every sense are always uncalled. They can actually be divided into two classes: those who still suggest that an occasion is nec- essary and those who do not even pay attention to it. Both classes are based, of course, on an exorbitant overrating of their own worth. When someone continually bandies about such locutions as ‘‘On this occasion it occurs to me,” “The oc- casion prompts me to think,” etc., one can always be sure that such a person is on the wrong track as far as he himself is con- cerned. He often sees in even the most trifling matter an occa- sion to put in his bit of comment. Those who do not even sug- gest the necessity of an occasion may be regarded as less conceited but more demented. Without looking to the right or the left, they spin out indefatigably the thin thread of their babbling, and they produce the same effect on life with their chatter and their writing as the mill in a fairy tale, of which it says: And while all this was happening, the mill went klip klap, klip klap.® And yet even the most consummate, the most profound, and the most meaningful work has an occasion. The occasion is the tenuous, almost invisible web in which the fruit is sus- pended. Therefore, insofar as it sometimes seems that some- thing essential is the occasion, this is usually a mistake, since in such a case it is likely to be only a particular edge of it. If some- one will not concede that I am correct in this, it is due to a con- fusion of occasion with ground and cause.’ If, for example, someone would ask me, ‘‘What is the occasion for all these comments?” and he would be satisfied if] answered, “The fol- lowing,” he would make himself and allow me to make my- self guilty of such a confusion. But if he used the word “‘occa- sion” in his question very scrupulously, it would be very proper for me to reply, “It has no occasion.”’ With respect to the particular parts of the whole, it would be absurd to de 210 236 Either/Or, I mand that which one may properly demand with respect to the whole. That is, if these comments were to claim to be an occasion, they in themselves would have to be a small rounded-off whole, which would be an egotistic attempt on their part.
The occasion, therefore, is of the greatest significance for every literary work—yes, that is what really determines its true esthetic value. Literary works without any occasion al- ways lack something—not outside themselves, for although the occasion belongs to it, yet in another sense it does not—but they lack something within themselves. A literary work in which the occasion is everything also lacks something. That is, the occasion is generative in the negative sense, not the posi- tive. A creation is a production out of nothing, but the occa- sion is the nothing that lets everything come forth. The whole wealth of thought, the fullness of the idea, can be present, and still the occasion is lacking. Nothing new, then, comes through the occasion, but through the occasion everything comes forth. The modest meaning of occasion is, in fact, ex- pressed in the word itself.® This is something that so many people are unable to grasp, but that is due to their having no intimation of what an esthetic work really is. A lawyer can write his plea, a merchant his let- ter, etc., without suspecting the secret that lies in the word “occasion,” despite the fact that he begins with “On the oc- casion of your esteemed.”
Now, some may agree with what I have developed here and concede its significance for poetic works but would be very surprised if I were to bring something similar to bear on re- viewers and critics. And yet I believe that it is most important precisely here and that the disregard of the significance of oc- casion has had the result that reviews have generally been so bungled, have been such downright hackwork. In the world of criticism, the occasion acquires heightened significance. Al- though this accounts for our all too frequently finding the oc- casion mentioned in critical reviews, it is as plain as day that little is known about how it all hangs together. The critic does not seem to need an invocation of the muse, for, after all, he is The First Love 237 not producing a literary work; but if he does not need an in- vocation of the muse, then he does not need the occasion, either. We should not forget, however, the importance of the old saying: Like is understood only by like.?
Surely the object of the esthetician’s consideration is already complete, and he is not, like the poet himself, supposed to pro- duce. Nevertheless, the occasion has absolutely the same sig- nificance. The esthetician who regards esthetics as his profes- sion and in turn sees in his profession the legitimate occasion is eo ipso lost. This in no way means that he cannot perform var- ious kinds of competent work, but he has not comprehended the secret of all production. He is too much a Pelagian’® auto- crat to be able to rejoice in childlike amazement over the curi- ous fact that strange forces seem to produce what a person believes belongs to himself: namely, inspiration and the occa- sion.
Inspiration and the occasion belong inseparably together; it is a combination frequently seen in the world: the great one, the exalted, always has in his company an agile little person. Such a person is the occasion, a person to whom one generally would not tip one’s hat, who does not dare to open his mouth when he is in high society but sits silent with a mischievous smile and inwardly regales himself without divulging what he is smiling about or that he knows how important, how indis- pensable, he is; still less would he become involved in an ar- gument about it, for he knows very well that it does not help and that every occasion is used only to humiliate him. The oc- casion always has this equivocal character, and it is of no more use to want to deny this, to want to free oneself from this thorn in the flesh,'! than to want to place the occasion on the throne, for it looks very foolish in purple and with scepter in hand, and it is immediately obvious that it was not born to rule. It is very easy, however, to go astray in this manner, and frequently it is the best minds that do so. In other words, when a person has enough of an eye for life to see how the eternal being flouts mankind by having something so insignificant and inferior, something people are almost ashamed to talk about in polite society, be absolutely part of it all, he is readily 211 212 238 Either/Or, I tempted to want to meddle with the affair, indeed, to want to return the taunt. Just as God mocks the greatness of men by forging them into the law of the occasion, so a person in turn mocks by making the occasion into everything and the next moment into foolishness, whereby God then becomes super- fluous, the concept of a wise Governance becomes a piece of folly, and the occasion becomes a wag who pokes fun at God just as much as at man, so that all existence ends in a jest, a joke, a charade.
So the occasion is simultaneously the most significant and the most insignificant, the highest and the lowest, the most important and the most unimportant. Without the occasion, nothing at all actually occurs, and yet the occasion has no part at all in what occurs. The occasion is the final category, the es- sential category of transition from the sphere of the idea to ac- tuality. Logic should bear this in mind. It can immerse itself as much as it wishes in immanental thinking, plunge from noth- ing down into the most concrete form;!? it never reaches the occasion and therefore never reaches actuality, either. In the idea, all actuality can be in readiness—without the occasion, it never becomes actual. The occasion is a finite category, and it is impossible for immanental thinking to grasp it; it is too much a paradox for that. We see this because that which comes out of the occasion is something quite different from the oc- casion itself, which is an absurdity to any immanental think- ing. But for that reason the occasion is also the most amusing, the most interesting, the wittiest of all categories. Like a wren, it is everywhere and nowhere. Like the elves, it walks around in life invisible to all the schoolmasters,!? whose gestures therefore become an inexhaustible material for laughter to the person who believes in the occasion. The occasion, then, is nothing in and by itself and is something only in relation to that which it occasions, and in relation to that it is actually nothing. That is, if the occasion were something else than nothing, it would immediately have a relative, immanental connection with what it produces and would then be either ground! or cause. If this is not held fast, everything is con- fused again.
The First Love 239 Thus, if I were to say that the occasion for the present little review of a play by Scribe was the superb performance it re- ceived, | would insult the dramatic art, for it is certainly true that I could also write a review of it without having seen it per- formed, without having seen it superbly performed, yes, even if I had seen it poorly performed. In the last case, | would be more correct in calling the bad performance the occasion. But now that I have seen it performed perfectly, the theatrical per- formance becomes more than an occasion to me; it is a very important factor in my interpretation, whether or not it served to correct or to strengthen and confirm my views. Therefore, my respect prevents me from calling the theatrical perform- ance the occasion; it binds me to see something more in it, to admit that without it I might not have quite understood the play. Iam, therefore, not in the usual position of reviewers who are shrewd enough or stupid enough to discuss first the play and later the performance by itself. For me, the perform- ance is itself the play, and I cannot delight enough in it in a purely esthetic sense, cannot as a patriot delight enough in it. If I were to show a stranger our stage in its full glory, I would say: Go and see The First Love [Den forste Kjerlighed].'> In Madame Heiberg, Frydendahl, Stage, and Phister,'® the Dan- ish theater has a four-leaf clover that is manifest here in all its beauty. I call this combination of artists a four-leaf clover, and yet I might seem to be saying too little, for a four-leaf clover is distinguished only by having four ordinary clover leaves set on one stem, but our four-leaf clover has the distinction that a single leaf all by itself is just as rare as a four-leaf clover, and yet in turn these four leaves together form a four-leaf clover.
Yet it was on the occasion of the occasion of this little review that I wanted to say something rather general about the occa- sion or about the occasion in general. Very fortunately, it so happens that I have already said what I wanted to say, for the more I deliberate on this matter, the more I am convinced that there is nothing in general to be said about it, because there is no occasion in general. If so, then [have come just about as far as I was when I began. The reader must not be angry with me—it is not my fault; it is the occasion’s. He might perhaps 213 I 214 240 Either/Or, I think that I ought to have thought the whole thing through be- fore I started to write, and then I ought not to have begun to say something that later turned out to be nothing. Neverthe- less, I do believe that he ought to give my method its due, in- sofar as he has convinced himself in a more satisfying manner that the occasion in general is something that is nothing. Later on, he perhaps will come to think about this again when he has convinced himself that there is something else in the world about which one can say much under the impression that it is something, and yet it is of such a character that, once it is said, it turns out to be nothing. What is said here, then, must be re- garded as a superfluity, like a superfluous title page that is not included when the work is bound. Therefore, I know no other way to conclude than in the incomparable laconic manner in which I see that Professor Poul Maller concludes the introduc- tion of his excellent review of Extremerne: With this the intro- duction is concluded.'”
As for the particular occasion for the present little review, it is related to my insignificant person and hence, with the ordi- nary quality of being insignificant, dares to commend itself to the reader. Scribe’s play The First Love has touched my life per- sonally in many ways and in so doing has prompted the pres- ent review, which then is the child of the occasion in the strict- est sense! I, too, was young once, was an enthusiast, was in love. The girl who was the object of my longings I had known from very early on, but the dissimilar conditions of our lives led to our seeing each other only infrequently. However, we did think about each other all the more. This mutual preoc- cupation with each other drew us closer and at the same time put distance between us. When we did see each other, we were so bashful, so modest, that we were much further apart than when we did not see each other. Then when we were apart again and the unpleasantness of this mutual uneasiness was forgotten, our having seen each other acquired its full signifi- cance; then in our dreams we began exactly where we had stopped. So it was at least with me, and later I learned that it had been the same with my beloved. Marriage was a long way off for me; on the other hand, our understanding met with no The First Love 241 The First Love 241 hindrances that could have incited us, and thus we were in love in the most innocent way in the world. Before there could be any question of a declaration of my feelings, a rich uncle, whose sole heir I was, had to die. This, too, seemed beautiful to me, because in all the novels and comedies I knew I found the hero in a similar situation, and I rejoiced in the thought that I was a poetic character.
And in this way my beautiful poetic life went on. Then one day I saw in the newspaper that a play titled The First Love was to be performed. I did not know that such a play existed, but the title delighted me and I decided to go to the theater. The first love—that, I thought, is precisely the expression for your feelings. Have I ever loved anyone else but her, does not my love go back to my earliest recollection, shall I ever be able to think of loving another or seeing her united with another? No, she will be my bride, or I will never marry. That is why the words ‘“‘the first’ are so beautiful. It suggests the original in love, for it is not in the numerical sense that we speak of the first love. The poet could just as well have said “‘the true love”’ or titled it ‘““The First Love is the True Love.” This play will now help me to understand myself; it will give me the occa- sion to take a deep look into myself. The reason poets are called priests is that they interpret life, but they do not want to be understood by the masses but only by those natures with sensitive hearts. For them the poet is an inspired singer who points to beauty everywhere but testifies, first and last, to the beauty of love. The poetic power of this play will prompt the love in my breast to spring forth, its flower to open with a snap as the passion-flower does. Ah, I was very young at the time! I scarcely understood what I said, and yet I found it stated well.