The twenty-second Today I saw her for the first time at Mrs. Jansen’s. I was in- troduced to her. She did not seem to make anything of it or pay any attention to me. I kept myself as unobtrusive as pos- sible in order to observe her all the better. She stayed only a moment; she had come only to fetch the daughters, who were to go to the royal kitchen. While the two Jansen girls were put- ting on their coats, we two were alone in the room, and I, with a cold, almost supercilious apathy, said a few casual words to her, to which she replied with undeserved politeness. Then they went. I could have offered to accompany them, but that already would have sufficed to indicate the gallant suitor, and I have convinced myself that she is not to be won that way. — On the contrary, I chose to leave right after they had gone and to walk faster than they, but along other streets, yet likewise heading toward the royal kitchen so that when they turned onto Store Kongensgade I passed them in the greatest haste without greeting them or anything—to their great astonish- ment.
The twenty-third The twenty-third It is necessary for me to gain entrance to the house, and for that, as they say in military language, I am prepared. It looks, however, as if that will be a fairly protracted and difficult mat- ter. I have never known any family that lived so much apart. It is only she and her aunt—no brothers, no cousins, not a thread to grab onto, no far-removed connection to contact. I walk around continually with one arm available. Not for any- thing in the world would I walk with someone on each arm at The Seducer’s Diary 339 this time. My arm is a grappling hook that must always be kept in readiness; my arm is intended for the potential yield— if far off in the distance a very distant relative or friend should appear whom I from afar could catch hold of, then I make a grab. Moreover, it is not right for a family to live so isolated; the poor girl is being deprived of the opportunity to learn to know the world, to say nothing of the other possible danger- ous consequences it may have.® That always has its revenge. It is the same with proposing. To be sure, such isolation does protect one from petty thievery. In a very sociable house, op- portunity makes the thief. But that does not matter greatly, for there is not much to steal from such girls; when they are sixteen years old, their hearts are already a filled autograph al- bum, and I never care to write my name where many have al- ready written. It never occurs to me to scratch my name ona window pane or in a tavern, or on a tree or a bench in Freder- iksberg gardens.© The twenty-seventh The twenty-seventh The more I see of her, the more convinced I am that she is an isolated person. This a man ought never to be, not even a young man, because, since his development depends essen- tially upon reflection, he must have contact with others. Therefore, a young girl should not be interesting either, for the interesting always involves a reflecting on oneself, just as for the same reason the interesting in art always includes an impression of the artist. A young girl who wants to please by being interesting will, if anything, please herself. From the es- thetic side, this is the objection to all kinds of coquetry. It is quite different with what is inappropriately called coquetry, which is nature’s own gesture—for example, feminine mod- esty, which is always the most beautiful coquetry. An inter- esting girl may very well be successful in pleasing, but just as she herself has surrendered her womanliness, so also the men whom she pleases are usually just as unmasculine. Such a young girl first becomes interesting in her relation with men. The woman is the weaker sex, and yet it is much more impor- tant for her to stand alone in her youth than for the man; she 310 311 340 Either/Or, I must be sufficient unto herself, but that by which and in which she is sufficient unto herself is an illusion; it is this dowry with which nature has endowed her like a king’s daughter. But it is precisely this resting in illusion that isolates her.
I have often pondered why it is that there is nothing more corrupting for a young girl than associating a great deal with other young girls. Obviously the reason is that this association is neither one thing nor another; it unsettles the illusion but does not clarify it. The woman’s fundamental qualification is to be company for the man,’ but through association with her own sex she is led to reflection upon it, which makes her a so- ciety lady instead of company. The language itself is very suggestive in this respect; the man is called “‘master,”’ but the woman is not called ‘“‘maidservant” or anything like that—no, a definition of essence is used: she is company, not company- maid. If] were to imagine an ideal girl, she would always stand alone in the world and thereby be assigned to herself, but mainly she would not have friends among the girls. It is cer- tainly true that the Graces were three, but it certainly never oc- curred to anyone to think of them as talking together; in their silent trinity they form a beautiful feminine unity. In this re- spect, I could almost be tempted to recommend the virgins’ bower [Jomfrubuur]® again, if this constraint were not in turn damaging in its effects. It is always best that a young girl be allowed her freedom, but that the opportunity not be pro- vided. She thereby becomes beautiful and is rescued from be- coming interesting. To give a virgin’s veil or a bridal veil to a young girl who spends much time in the company of other girls is futile, but he who has sufficient esthetic sensitivity will always find that an innocent girl in the deeper and best sense of the word is brought to him veiled, even if it is not the custom to use a bridal veil.
She has been brought up strictly; I honor her parents in their graves for that; she leads a very reserved life, and in thanks I could hug her aunt for that. She has not become acquainted with worldly delights, has not become jaded through indul- gence. She is proud; she spurns what delights other girls, and this is as it should be. It is a falseness that I shall know how to The Seducer’s Diary 341 turn to my advantage. Frills and finery do not appeal to her as they do to other girls; she is somewhat polemic, but this is nec- essary for a girl with her romanticism. She lives in a world of fantasy. If she fell into the wrong hands, it might bring out something very unwomanly in her precisely because there is so much womanliness in her.
The thirtieth Everywhere our paths cross. Today I met her three times. I know about her every little outing, when and where I shall come across her, but I do not use this knowledge to contrive an encounter with her—on the contrary, I am prodigal on a frightful scale. A meeting that often has cost me several hours of waiting is wasted as if it were a bagatelle. I do not approach her, I merely skirt the periphery of her existence. If] know that she is going to Mrs. Jansen’s, I prefer not to encounter her un- less it is important for me to make a particular observation. I prefer to come to Mrs. Jansen’s a little early and, if possible, to pass her at the door as she is coming and I am going, or on the steps, where [ nonchalantly pass by her. This is the first web into which she must be spun. On the street, I do not stop her, or I exchange a greeting with her but never come close, but al- ways Strive for distance. Presumably our repeated encounters are clearly noticeable to her; presumably she does perceive that on her horizon a new planet has loomed, which in its course has encroached disturbingly upon hers in a curiously undis- turbing way, but she has no inkling of the law underlying this movement. She is tempted instead to look around to the right and to the left to see whether she can discover the point that is the goal; she is just as unaware that it is she as her antipode is. Just as those around me are inclined to do, she believes that J have a host of business affairs; I am constantly on the go and say, like Figaro: One, two, three, four schemes at a time — that is my pleasure. Before I begin my attack, I must first be- come acquainted with her and her whole mental state. The majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, at one effervescent moment—oh, yes, that is really beautiful, and with many a young girl that is undoubt- 312 313 342 Either/Or, I edly the most one can attain, but here there is more. If an in- dividual is too fragile to stand clarity and transparency, well, then one enjoys what is unclear, but apparently she can stand it. The more devotedness one can bring to erotic love, the more interesting. This momentary enjoyment is a rape, even if not outwardly but nevertheless mentally, and in a rape there is only imagined enjoyment; it is like a stolen kiss, something nondescript. No, if one can bring it to a point where a girl has but one task for her freedom, to give herself, so that she feels her whole happiness in this, so that she practically begs for this devotedness and yet is free—only then is there enjoyment, but this always takes a discerning touch.
Cordelia! It is indeed a glorious name! I sit at home and prac- tice saying it to myself like a parrot. I say: Cordelia, Cordelia, my Cordelia, you my Cordelia. I cannot help smiling at the thought of the plan according to which sometime at the crucial moment I shall pronounce these words. One should always make preparatory studies; everything must be properly ar- ranged. No wonder poets are always describing this dus-mo- ment,”° that most beautiful moment when the lovers, not by sprinkling (to be sure, there are many who go no further) but by immersion in the sea of love, strip themselves of the old man and rise up from this baptism and only then really rec- ognize each other as old acquaintances, although they are only one moment old. For a young girl, this is always the most beautiful moment, and to enjoy it properly one ought to be on a somewhat higher level—not just as someone being baptized but also as the priest. A little irony makes the moment follow- ing this moment one of the most interesting—it is a spiritual disrobing. One must be poetic enough not to interfere with the ceremony, and yet the rogue in oneself must always be on the watch.
June 2 She is proud—that I saw long ago. When she is together with the three Jansens, she speaks very little. Their chatter ob- viously bores her; a certain smile on her lips seems to indicate The Seducer’s Diary 343 that. [ am building upon that smile. —At other times, to the amazement of the Jansens, she can abandon herself to an al- most boyish wildness. When I consider her life as a child, it is not unaccountable to me. She had only one brother, a year older than she. She knew only the father and brother, wit- nessed some earnest episodes that make ordinary silly chatter disgusting. Her father and mother did not live together hap- pily; that which generally more or less clearly or obscurely beckons to a young girl does not beckon to her. It might well be that she is puzzled about what a young girl is. Maybe at par- ticular moments she wishes that she were not a girl but a man.
She has imagination, spirit, passion—in short, all the essen- tials, but not subjectively reflected. An incident today con- vinced me of this. I knew from the Jansen house that she does not play an instrument—it goes against her aunt’s principles. I have always regretted this, for music is always a good means of communication with a young girl if one, please note, is careful not to appear to be a connoisseur. Today I went over to Mrs. Jansen’s. I had partially opened the door without knock- ing, a rudeness that frequently works to my advantage and that I remedy, when necessary, by the foolishness of knocking on the open door. She was sitting there alone at the piano—she seemed to be playing furtively. It was a little Swedish melody. She did not play well; she became impatient, but then the strains came again, more softly. I shut the door and remained outside, listening to the change in her moods. At times there was a passion in her playing that reminded me of the maid Mettelil,”! who struck the golden harp so that milk spouted from her breasts. —There was something sad but also some- thing dithyrambic in her playing. —I could have rushed for- ward, seized this moment: that would have been foolish. — Recollection is a means not only of conserving but also of aug- menting; something that is permeated by recollection has a double effect. —Frequently in books, especially hymnbooks, one finds a little flower—the occasion for its being placed there was a beautiful moment; the recollection is even more beauti- ful. Obviously she conceals the fact that she plays, or perhaps 314 315 344 Either/Or, I she plays only this little Swedish melody—does it perhaps have a special interest for her? I know nothing about this, but for that reason this event is of great importance to me. Some- time when I can speak more confidentially with her, I shall very covertly lead her to this point and let her fall down through this trapdoor.
June 3 Still I cannot make up my mind how to understand her; this is why I keep so quiet, so much in the background—indeed, like a soldier on vedette duty who throws himself on the ground and listens to the faintest reverberation of an advanc- ing enemy. I do not actually exist for her, not in the sense of a negative relationship but in the sense of no relationship at all. As yet I have risked no venture. —To see her was to love her, as the novels say—yes, that would be true enough if love did not have a dialectic, but what, indeed, does one come to know about love from novels? Sheer lies—which helps to shorten the task.
According to everything I have now learned about her, when I think back on the impression that first meeting made on me, my conception of her is certainly modified, but to her advantage as well as to mine. It is not exactly the order of the day for a young girl to walk all alone this way, or for a young girl to sink into herself this way. She was tested according to my rigorous critique: lovely. But loveliness is a very volatile element that vanishes like yesterday when it is over.” Thad not thought of her in the setting in which she lives, least of all so unreflectively acquainted with the storms of life.
But I would like to know the state of her feelings. Surely she has never been in love; her spirit is too free-ranging for that. Least of all is she one of those theoretically experienced maidens who, long in advance, are so facile in imagining themselves in the arms of a lover. The real-life people she has met have simply not been able to confuse her about the rela- tion between dream and actuality. Her soul is still nourished by the divine ambrosia of ideals. But the ideal hovering before The Seducer’s Diary 345 her is certainly not a shepherdess or a heroine in a novel, a mis- tress, but a Joan of Arc or something like that.
The question always remains whether her womanliness is sufficiently strong to reflect itself, or whether it will be en- joyed only as beauty and loveliness; the question is whether one dares to bend the bow to greater tension. It is in itself something great to find a purely immediate womanliness, but if one dares to risk altering it, one has the interesting. In that case, it is best to saddle her with a plain and simple suitor. That this would harm a young girl is a superstition people have. — Indeed, if she is a very choice and delicate plant who has only one crowning feature in her life—loveliness—then it is always best that she has never heard love mentioned. But if that is not the case, then it is an advantage, and I would never hesitate to produce a suitor if there was none. This suitor must not be a caricature either, for nothing is gained thereby; he must be a respectable young man, even charming if possible, but still in- adequate for her passion. She looks down on such a person; she acquires a distaste for love; she becomes almost diffident about her own reality [Realitet] when she senses her destiny and sees what actuality [ Virkelighed] offers. If to love, she says, is nothing else, then it does not amount to much. She becomes proud in her love. This pride makes her interesting; it illumi- nates her being with heightened color, but it also brings her closer to her downfall—but all this makes her ever more interesting. It is nevertheless best to make sure of her acquaintances first, in order to see if there might be such a suitor. There is no opportunity at home, for practically no one ever visits there, but she does go out, and probably such a person could be found there. It is always precarious to provide such a person before knowing this. Two suitors, each inconsequential in himself, could have a harmful effect because of their relativity. I shall now find out whether there is such a lover in secret who does not have the courage to storm the house, a chicken thief who sees no chance in such a cloister-like house.
Consequently, the strategic principle, the law for every move in this campaign, is always to have tangential contact 316 317 346 Either/Or, I with her in an interesting situation. Consequently, the inter- esting is the territory in which the struggle is to be carried on; the potency of the interesting must be exhausted. If I am not much mistaken, her whole nature is designed for this, so that what I ask for is precisely what she gives—indeed, what she asks for. What it all depends on is to keep watch on what the individual can give and what she requires as a consequence of that. My love affairs, therefore, always have a reality [Realitet| for me personally; they amount to a life factor, an educational period that { definitely know all about, and I often even link with it some skill or other. For the sake of the first girl, I learned to dance; for the sake of the little dancer, I learned to speak French. At that time, like all fools, I went to the market and was often cheated. Now I buy before the market opens. Perhaps she has exhausted one aspect of the interesting; her in- closed life seems to indicate that. The point, then, is to find an- other aspect that at first glance may not seem so to her but that precisely because of this impediment becomes interesting to her. To that end, I choose not the poetic but the prosaic. So this is the beginning. First of all, her womanliness is neutralized by prosaic common sense and ridicule, not directly but indirectly, at the same time by the absolutely neutral, namely, intellect. She almost loses the feeling of being a woman, but in this state she is not able to stand out alone; she throws herself into my arms, not as if I were a lover—no, still completely neutrally. Now her womanliness is aroused; one coaxes it forth to its ex- treme point of elasticity, allows her to offend against some ac- tual validity or other. She goes beyond it; her womanliness reaches almost supranatural heights; she belongs to me with a world of passion. The fifth Well, I did not need to go far. She visits at the home of Mr. Baxter the wholesaler. Here I found not only her but also a person who for me appeared just as opportunely. Edward,” the son of the house, is head over heels in love with her—it takes but half an eye to see it when one looks into his eyes. He is in the business, in his father’s office, a good-looking fellow, The Seducer’s Diary 347 very pleasant, a bit shy, and I believe this last trait does not damage him in her eyes.
Poor Edward! He does not have the slightest idea how to proceed with his love. When he knows she is going to be there in the evening, he dresses for her sake alone, puts on his new black suit for her sake alone, his fancy cuffs for her sake alone—and thus cuts an almost ludicrous figure among the other daily company in the drawing room. His bashfulness verges on the unbelievable. If it were a guise, then Edward would be a dangerous rival to me. It takes great art to use bash- fulness, but one does achieve a great deal with it. How often J have used bashfulness to trick a little miss! Ordinarily, young girls speak very harshly about bashful men, but secretly they like them. A little bashfulness flatters a teenage girl’s vanity, makes her feel superior; it is her earnest money. When they are lulled to sleep, then at the very time they believe you are about to perish from bashfulness, you show them that you are so far from it that you are quite self-reliant. Bashfulness makes a man lose his masculine significance, and therefore it is a rela- tively good means for neutralizing the sex relation. Therefore, when they perceive that it was only a guise, they become so abashed that they blush inwardly, feel very strongly that in a way they have overstepped their limits; it is just as if they con- tinued to treat a boy as a child too long.
The seventh So now we are friends, Edward and I. There is between us a true friendship, a beautiful relationship, such as has not existed since the most beautiful days of Greece. We were on intimate terms at once when, after having involved him in a multiplic- ity of observations about Cordelia, I managed to make him confess his secret. Of course, when all the secrets come out to- gether, then this one can come along. Poor fellow, he has been pining for a long time already. He spruces himself up every time she comes, then escorts her home in the evening; his heart pounds at the thought of her arm resting on his. They walk home, looking at the stars. He rings her doorbell; she disap- 318 348 Either/Or, I pears; he despairs—but has hopes for the next time. As yet he has not had the courage to step across her threshold, he who has such a superb opportunity. Although I cannot refrain from secretly deriding Edward, there is nevertheless something beautiful in his childlikeness. Although I ordinarily fancy my- self to be fairly conversant with the whole sum and substance of the erotic, I have never noticed this state in myself, this anx- iety and trembling of infatuation, that is, to the degree that it deprives me of my composure, for at other times I know it all right, but with me it is such that it makes me stronger instead. Perhaps someone would say that I have never really been in love—maybe so. I have taken Edward to task; I have encour- aged him to depend upon my friendship. Tomorrow he will take a decisive step, go in person to her and invite her. I man- aged to lead him to the preposterous idea of inviting me to go along; I promised him to do so. He takes it as an extraordinary show of friendship. The situation is just as I want it; it amounts to bursting unexpectedly through the door into the room. Should she have the remotest doubt about the significance of my appearance, my appearance will in turn confuse every- thing.
Previously it has never been my habit to prepare myself for my conversations; now it has become a necessity for me in or- der to entertain the aunt. In other words, I have now taken on the respectable commission of conversing with her and thereby covering Edward’s infatuated approaches to Cordelia. Earlier, the aunt lived out in the country, and I am making considerable progress in knowledge of and competence in the subject through the aunt’s communications based on her ex- perience as well as through my own careful study of works in agronomy.
I am scoring a big success with the aunt; she regards me as a stable and steady person, someone with whom it is really a pleasure to associate, not like some of our stylish young dan- dies. I do not seem to stand very well with Cordelia. To be sure, she is too purely and innocently womanly to require that The Seducer’s Diary 349 every man pay his respects to her, but she still feels far too much the rebelliousness in my character.
When I am sitting this way in the cozy drawing room, when she, like a good angel, is spreading loveliness everywhere, over all with whom she comes in touch, over good and evil, I at times lose patience inwardly and am tempted to rush out of my hiding place, for although I am sitting before the eyes of all in the drawing room, I am still on watch. am tempted to seize her hand, to enfold the girl in my arms, to hide her inside me for fear that someone might take her away from me. Or when Edward and I take our leave of them in the evening, when she extends her hand in farewell and I hold it in mine, I find it very difficult at times to let the bird slip out of my hand. Patience— quod antea fuit impetus, nunc ratio est [what was impulse then is science now]’”>—she must be spun into my web in a totally dif- ferent way, and then suddenly I shall let the full force of love burst forth. We have not spoiled that moment for ourselves by spooning, by premature anticipations—you can thank me for that, my Cordelia. 1am working to develop the contrast; Iam pulling the bow of love tighter in order to wound all the deeper. Like an archer, I slacken the string, pull it tight again, listen to its song; it is my martial music, but as yet I do not aim—as yet I do not place the arrow to the string.
When a small number of people often come together in the same room, a tradition readily develops as to where each in- dividual has his place, his station; it becomes a kind of picture a person can unroll for himself when he so desires, a map of the terrain. So it is also with us in the Wahl house—together we form a picture. We drink tea there evenings. The aunt, who until now has been sitting on the sofa, usually moves to the lit- tle sewing table, which place Cordelia in turn vacates. She then goes over to the tea table in front of the sofa; Edward fol- lows her, and I follow the aunt. Edward strives for an air of mystery. He wants to whisper and usually does it so well that he becomes entirely mute; I make no secret of my effusions to the aunt—market prices, an estimate of how many quarts of milk it takes for one pound of butter through the medium of 319 320 350 Either/Or, I cream and the dialectic of the butter churn. Indeed, it is not only something any young girl can listen to without harm, but, what is far more unusual, it is a solid and fundamental and edifying conversation that is equally ennobling to the head and the heart. I usually turn my back to the tea table and to Ed- ward’s and Cordelia’s romance; I romance with the aunt. And is not nature magnificent and wise in what she produces, what a precious gift is butter, what a glorious accomplishment of nature and art! The aunt would surely not be able to hear what was being said between Edward and Cordelia, assuming that something really was being said—this I had promised Ed- ward, and I always keep my word. I, however, can hear per- fectly every single word that is exchanged, hear every move- ment. It is very important to me, because what a person may venture in his despair cannot be known. The most circumspect and most timid people at times dare to do the most extreme things. Although I do not have the slightest to do with the two isolated people, I nevertheless can readily perceive in Cordelia that I am always invisibly present between her and Edward.
But it is a curious picture we four make together. I presum- ably could find an analogy if I were to think of well-known types, and then I might think of myself'as Mephistopheles, but the difficulty is that Edward is no Faust. If I make myself Faust, then the difficulty again is that Edward certainly is no Mephistopheles. Nor am I a Mephistopheles, least of all in Ed- ward’s eyes. He regards me as the good jinni of his love, and in that he is right; at least he can be sure that no one watches over his love more carefully than I do. I have promised him to engage the aunt in conversation, and I carry out this respect- able duty most earnestly. The aunt almost vanishes before our eyes in pure agronomy; we go into the kitchen and the cellars, up into the attic, look at the chickens and ducks, geese, etc. All this offends Cordelia. She, of course, cannot comprehend what I really want. I remain an enigma to her, but an enigma that does not tempt her to guess but that exasperates, indeed, makes her indignant. She senses very well that her aunt is be- coming almost ludicrous, and yet she is such a respectable lady The Seducer’s Diary 351 that she certainly does not deserve it. On the other hand, I do it so well that she is fully aware that it would be futile for her to try to sway me. Sometimes I carry it so far that I make Cor- delia very secretly smile at her aunt. These are exercises that must be done. It is not as if I were doing this in conjunction with Cordelia—far from it; then I would never bring her to smile at her aunt. I remain unchanged, earnest, thorough, but she cannot help smiling. This is the first false teaching: we must teach her to smile ironically, but this smile applies to me just as much as to the aunt; for she does not know at all what to think of me. But it could just be that I was the kind of young man who became old prematurely; it is possible; there could be a second possibility, a third, etc. Having smiled at her aunt, she is indignant with herself; I turn around and, while I con- tinue to speak with the aunt, I look very gravely at her, where- upon she smiles at me, at the situation.