Your JOHANNES Just vanish, my little fisherman’s daughter; just hide among the trees; just pick up your load, for bending over is so becom- ing to you—yes, this very minute you are bending over with a natural grace under the bundle of brushwood you have gath- ered. How is it that such a creature should have to carry such loads! Like a dancer, you betray the beauty of your form— small of waist, full of bosom, burgeoning in development— any recruiting officer must admit that. You perhaps think these are trifles; you believe that society women are far more beautiful. Alas, my child, you do not know how much false- ness there is in the world! Just set out upon your walk with your bundle into the enormous woods that presumably stretch many, many miles into the country to the border of the blue mountains. Perhaps you are not actually a fisherman’s daugh- ter but an enchanted princess; you are a troll’s domestic ser- vant, and he is cruel enough to make you pick up firewood in the woods. So it always goes in the fairy tale. Otherwise, why do you walk deeper into the forest? If you are really a fisher- man’s daughter, you will walk past me with your firewood down to the fishing village that lies on the other side of the road.
Just take the footpath that winds easily among the trees; my eyes will find you. Just turn around and look at me; my eyes The Seducer’s Diary 403 will follow you. You cannot make me move; longing does not carry me away; I am sitting calmly on the railing and smoking my cigar. —Some other time, perhaps. —Yes, when you turn back your head halfway in that manner, the expression in your eyes is roguish; your light step is beckoning. Yes, I know, I un- derstand where this path leads—to the solitude of the forest, to the whispering of the trees, to the abundant stillness. Look, the sky itself favors you. It hides itself in the clouds; it darkens the background of the forest, as if drawing the curtains for us. —Farewell, my beautiful fisherman’s daughter, take care of yourself! Thanks for your favor. It was a beautiful moment, a mood, not strong enough to move me from my firm seat on the railing but still abundant in inner motion.
When Jacob had bargained with Laban about the payment for his service, when they agreed that Jacob should tend the white sheep and as reward for his work have all the motley- colored lambs born in his flock, he set rods in the watering troughs and had the sheep look at them'**—in the same way I place myself before Cordelia everywhere; her eyes see me con- tinually. To her it seems like sheer attentiveness from my part, but on my side I know that her soul thereby loses interest for everything else, that there is being developed within her a mental concupiscence that sees me everywhere.
My Cordelia, As if I could forget you! Is my love, then, a work of mem- ory [Hukommelse]? Even if time erased everything from its blackboards, even if it erased memory itself, my relationship with you would remain just as alive, you would still not be forgotten. As if I could forget you! What, then, should I rec- ollect [erindre]? After all, I have forgotten myself in order to recollect you, so if I forgot you, I would then recollect myself, but the moment I remembered myself I would have to recol- lect you again. As if I could forget you! What would happen then? There is a painting from ancient times that shows Ar- iadne leaping up from her couch and anxiously watching a ship speeding away under full sail.!? At her side stands Cupid 371 372 404 Either/Or, I with an unstrung bow and dries his eyes. Behind her stands a winged female figure with a helmet on her head. The figure is usually assumed to be Nemesis.'>4 Imagine this picture; imag- ine it slightly changed. Cupid is not weeping and his bow is not unstrung, or would you then have become less beautiful, less triumphant, because I had gone out of my mind. Cupid smiles and draws the bow. Nemesis does not stand idle at your side; she, too, draws her bow. In that old painting, we see on the ship a manly figure busy at his work. Presumably it is The- seus. Not so in my picture. He is standing in the stern; he is looking back longingly. He is stretching out his arms; he has repented of it or, more correctly, his madness has left him, but the ship is carrying him away. Cupid and Nemesis both aim, an arrow flies from each bow, they accurately hit the mark; we see and we understand that both have hit one spot in his heart to symbolize that his love was the Nemesis that avenged.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, I am in love with myself, people say of me. That does not surprise me, for how would it be possible for them to see that I can love, since I love only you? How could anyone else sus- pect it, since I love only you? I am in love with myself. And why? Because I am in love with you; for you I love and you alone and everything that truly belongs to you, and thus [ love myself because this self of mine belongs to you, so that if I stopped loving you, I would stop loving myself. Therefore, what is an expression of the utmost egotism in the world’s profane eyes is in your initiated eyes an expression of the pur- est sympathy; what is an expression of the most prosaic self- preservation in the world’s profane eyes is in your sanctified sight an expression of most inspired self-annihilation.
Your JOHANNES What I feared most was that the whole process would take me too long a time. I see, however, that Cordelia is making great progress, yes, that it will be necessary, in order to keep The Seducer’s Diary 405 her inspired, to set everything in motion. She must not for all the world become listless ahead of time, that is, before that time when her time is up.
When in love, one does not take the highway. It is only mar- riage that is right in the middle of the king’s highway. If one is in love and walks from Neddebo, one does not go along Es- rom Lake, even though the path is really only a hunting path, but it is a beaten path, and love prefers to beat its own path. One proceeds deeper into Gribs forest.55 And when a couple wanders arm in arm in this way, each understands the other; that which obscurely delighted and pained before becomes clear now. There is no hint of anyone’s presence. —So this lovely beech tree becomes a witness to your love; under its crown you two confessed it for the first time. You recollected everything so clearly—the first time you saw each other, the first time you took each other’s hands in the dance, when you parted toward morning, when you would not admit anything to yourselves, let alone to each other. —It really is beautiful to listen to these love rehearsals. —They fell on their knees under the tree; they swore unbreakable love to each other; they sealed the pact with the first kiss. —These are productive moods that must be squandered on Cordelia. —So this beech tree became a witness. Oh, well, a tree is a quite suitable wit- ness, but nevertheless it is too little. Presumably you two are thinking that heaven, too, was a witness, but heaven as such is a very abstract idea. Therefore, you see, there was still another witness. —Should I stand up and let them see that I am here? No, they may know me, and then the game is over. When they are some distance away, should I stand up and let them know someone was present? No, that is pointless. Silence must rest over their secret—as long as I want it to. They are in my power; I can separate them when I want to. I know their secret; only from him or from her can I have found it out— from her personally, that is impossible; consequently from him, it is detestable—bravo! And yet it is indeed almost mal- ice. Well, I shall see. If I can gain a definite impression of her 373 374 406 Either/Or, I that I otherwise cannot obtain in the ordinary way, which | prefer, then there is nothing else to do.
My Cordelia, Poor am I—you are my wealth; dark—you are my light; I own nothing, need nothing. Indeed, how should I be able to own anything; it is indeed a contradiction that a person who does not own himself can own something. I am happy like a child who cannot and must not own anything. I own nothing, for I belong only to you. Iam not; I have ceased to be, in order to be yours.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, “My’’—what does the word designate? Not what belongs to me, but what I belong to, what contains my whole being, which is mine insofar as I belong to it. After all, my God is not the God who belongs to me, but the God to whom I belong, and the same when I say my native land, my home, my call- ing, my longing, my hope. If there had been no immortality before, then the thought that I am yours would break through nature’s usual course.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, What am I? The humble narrator who follows your triumphs, the dancer who bows under you as you soar in lovely buoyancy, the branch upon which you momentarily rest when you are tired of flying, the bass voice!* that inter- jects itself under the soprano’s ebullience to make it ascend even higher—what am I? I am the earthly force of gravity that keeps you captive to the earth. What am I, then? Body, sub- stance, earth, dust, and ashes. —You, my Cordelia, you are soul and spirit.
Your JOHANNES The Seducer’s Diary 407 My Cordelia, Love is everything; therefore, for one who loves everything ceases to have intrinsic meaning and has meaning only through the interpretation love gives to it. Thus, ifsome other engaged man became convinced that there was another girl he cared for, he probably would stand there like a criminal, and she would be outraged. But you, I know, you would see es- teem in such a confession, for you know that it is impossible for me to love another—it is my love for you that casts a luster over all of life. So ifI care for another, it is not to convince my- self that I do not love her but only you—that would be pre- sumptuous—but since my whole soul is full of you, life ac- quires another meaning for me—it becomes a myth about you.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, My love consumes me; only my voice remains,'5’ a voice that has fallen in love with you, that whispers everywhere to you that I love you. Oh! Does it weary you to hear this voice? It surrounds you everywhere; I wrap my thoroughly reflective soul, like a manifold mobile frame, around your pure, deep being.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, We read in old stories that a river fell in love with a maiden. 5° Just so is my soul like a river that loves you. It is still at times and reflects your image deeply and calmly. At times it fancies that it has taken your image captive and tosses up its waves to prevent you from escaping again; then it rip- ples its surface gently and plays with your image. At times it has lost it, and then its waves become dark and despairing. — Just so is my soul—like a river that has fallen in love with you.
Your JOHANNES!>?
375 376 408 Either/Or, I To be honest, it does not take unusually vivid imaginative power to conceive of a conveyance that is more convenient, comfortable, and, above all, more consistent with one’s sta- tion in life. To ride with a peat cutter—that attracts attention but not in the desirable sense. But in an emergency, one ac- cepts it with thanks. You walk some distance out in the coun- try. You climb up, ride a mile, and encounter nothing; two miles, and everything goes well. You begin to feel safe and se- cure; the scenery actually is better than usual from this level. Almost three miles have gone by—who would ever have ex- pected to meet a Copenhagener way out on a country road? And he is a Copenhagener, that you can see well enough. He is not from the country; he has an altogether singular way of looking at things—so definite, so observant, so appraising, and so little given to derision. Well, my dear girl, your posi- tion is by no means comfortable; you look as if you were sit- ting on atray. The cart is so flat that it has no recess for the feet. —But it is, of course, your own fault. My carriage is entirely at your service; I take the liberty of offering you a much more comfortable seat, if it will not be too uncomfortable for you to sit beside me. In that case, I shall place the whole carriage at your disposal and sit in the driver’s box myself, happy to be allowed to drive you to your destination. —The straw hat does not even shield you sufficiently from a sidelong glance. It is futile for you to bow your head; I still admire your beautiful profile. —Is it not annoying that the peasant bows to me? But, after all, it is proper for a peasant to bow to a distinguished man. —You are not getting off so lightly. Well, here is a tav- ern, a post house, and a peat cutter is much too pious in his way to neglect his devotions. Now I shall take care of him. I have an extraordinary talent for fascinating peat cutters. Oh, would that I might also succeed in pleasing you! He cannot re- sist my invitation, and once he has accepted it, he cannot resist the effects of it. If] cannot, then my servant can. —He is going into the barroom now; you are alone in the wagon in the shed. —God knows what kind of girl this is! Could this be a little middle-class miss, perhaps the daughter of parish clerk? If so, she is unusually pretty and unusually well dressed for a parish The Seducer’s Diary 409 clerk’s daughter. The parish clerk must have a good salary. It occurs to me: Could she perhaps be a little blueblood miss who is tired of driving in a fine carriage, who perhaps is taking a little hike out to the country house and now also wants to try her hand at a little adventure? Quite possibly, such things are not unheard of. —The peasant does not know anything; he is a clod who only knows how to drink. Yes, yes, go on drink- ing, my good man; you are welcome to it.
But what do I see—it is none other than Miss Jespersen, Hansine Jespersen, daughter of the wholesaler. Good heavens, we two know each other. It was she I once met on Bredgade. 160She was riding backwards; she could not raise the window. I put on my glasses and had the enjoyment of following her with my eyes. It was a very awkward situation; there were so many in the carriage that she could not move and presumably did not dare to make any outcry. The present situation is even more awkward. We two are destined for each other; that is ob- vious. She must be a romantic little miss; she is definitely out on her own initiative. —There comes my servant with the peat cutter. He is dead drunk. It is disgusting. They are a depraved lot, these peat cutters. Alas, yes! And yet there are even worse people than peat cutters. —See, now you are in a pretty mess. Now you yourself will have to drive the horses—how roman- tic! —You refuse my offer; you insist that you are a good driver. You do not deceive me; I perceive very well how crafty you are. When you have gone a little way you are going to jump out; in the woods one can easily find a hiding place. — My horse will be saddled; I shall follow on horseback. —You see, now I am ready, now you can be safe against any attack. —Please do not be so terribly afraid; then I shall turn back at once. I merely wanted to make you a little uneasy and give you an occasion for the heightening of your natural beauty. After all, you do not know that it is I who caused the peasant to get drunk, and I certainly have not taken the liberty of one offen- sive word to you. Everything can still be all right; I daresay that I shall give the affair such a turn that you can laugh at the whole episode. I just want a little unsettled account with you. Never think that I take any girl by surprise. I am a friend of 377 378 410 Either/Or, I freedom, and I do not care for anything I do not receive freely. —“You will certainly see for yourself that it will not do to con- tinue the journey this way. I myself am going hunting; there- fore I am on horseback. But my carriage is harnessed at the tavern. If you give the order, it will catch up with you at once and take you wherever you wish. I myself, I regret, cannot have the pleasure of escorting you; [am committed to a hunt- ing engagement, and they are sacred.” —But you accept. — Everything will promptly be in order. —See, you have no need at all to be embarrassed by seeing me again, or in any case no more embarrassed than is very becoming to you. You can be amused by the whole affair, laugh a little, and think about me a little. I ask no more. It might seem to be very little, but for me that is enough. It is a beginning, and I am especially good at the principles of beginnings.
Yesterday evening there was a little party at the aunt’s. I knew Cordelia would take out her knitting. I had hidden a lit- tle note in it. She dropped it, picked it up, was stirred, wistful. One should always make use of the situation in this way. It is unbelievable what advantage can be derived from it. An in- trinsically insignificant little note, read under such circum- stances, becomes enormously significant for her. She had no chance to talk to me, for I had arranged things so that I had to escort a lady home. She was obliged to wait, therefore, until today. This is always a good way to drill the impression all the deeper into her soul. It always seems as if I were the one who paid attention to her; the advantage I have is that I am placed in her thoughts everywhere, that I surprise her everywhere.
'6tErotic love does have its distinctive dialectic. There was a young girl with whom I was once in love. At the theater in Dresden! last summer, I saw an actress who bore a remarka- ble resemblance to her. Because of that, I wanted to make her acquaintance, and did succeed, and then realized that the dis- similarity was rather great. Today on the street I meet a lady who reminds me of that actress. This story can be continued as long as you wish.
The Seducer’s Diary 411 My thoughts surround Cordelia everywhere. 1 send them like angels around her. Just as Venus in her chariot is drawn by doves, so she sits in her triumphal chariot, and I harness my thoughts in front like winged creatures. She herself sits there happy, exuberant like a child, omnipotent like a goddess; I walk along at her side. Truly, a young girl is and remains the Venerabile [something worthy of veneration] of nature and of all existence! No one knows that better than I. But what a pity that this glory lasts such a short time. She smiles at me, she greets me, she beckons to me—as if she were my sister. A glance reminds her that she is my beloved.
Erotic love has many gradations. Cordelia is making good progress. She is sitting on my lap; her arm, soft and warm, winds around my neck. Light, without physical weight, she rests against my chest; her soft curves scarcely brush against me. Like a flower, this lovely creature entwines me, free as a bow. Her eyes hide behind her lashes; her bosom is as dazzling white as snow, so smooth that my eyes cannot rest; they would slide offifher bosom did not move. What does this stir- ring mean? Is it love? Perhaps. It is the presentiment of love, the dream of love. As yet it lacks energy. She embraces me en- compassingly, as the cloud embraces the transfigured one, lightly as a breeze, softly as one cups a flower; she kisses me as vaguely as the sky kisses the sea, as gently and quietly as the dew kisses the flower, as solemnly as the sea kisses the image of the moon.
At this moment, I would call her passion a naive passion. When the turn is made and I begin to pull back in earnest, then she will summon up everything in order really to take me cap- tive. She has no other means for that than the erotic itself, ex- cept that this will now manifest itself on an entirely different scale. Then it will be a weapon in her hand that she swings against me. Then I will have reflected passion. She will strug- gle for her own sake, because she knows I have the erotic in my possession; she will fight for her own sake in order to van- quish me. She herself needs a higher form of the erotic. What I taught her to sense by inciting her, my coldness will now i 379 380 412 Either/Or, I teach her to comprehend, but in such a way that she will be- lieve that she herself discovers it. She will take me by surprise with it; she will think that she has outdone me in boldness and thereby has taken me captive. Then her passion will be defi- nite, energetic, ‘determined, dialectical; her kissing will be consummate, her embrace not hiatic. —In me she is seeking her freedom, and the more firmly I encircle her, the better she will find it. The engagement will break. When this has hap- pened, she will need a little rest, lest something unlovely come out in this wild turmoil. Her passion will rally once again, and she will be mine.
Just as even in poor Edward’s time I indirectly looked after her reading, now I do so directly. What I am offering is what I regard as the best nourishment: mythology and fairy tales. Yet here as everywhere she has her freedom; I learn everything about her by listening to her. If it is not there already, then I put it there first. 1° 165When the servant girls go to Deer Park in the summer, it usually affords scant pleasure. They go there only once a year, and therefore they expect to have as much as possible from it. So they must wear a hat and shawl and disfigure themselves in every way. The merriment is wild, graceless, lascivious. No, then I prefer Frederiksberg Gardens. Sunday afternoons they go there, and I also. Here everything is seemly and decent; the merriment itself more quiet and refined. On the whole, the man who has no sense for servant girls loses more by it than they lose. The great host of servant girls is actually the most beautiful militia we have in Denmark. If I were king, I know what I would do—I would not review the regular troops. If] were one of the city’s thirty-two men, 'I would promptly pe- tition for the establishment of a committee of public safety that would try by every means—by insight, counsel, admonition, appropriate rewards—to encourage servant girls to dress with care and taste. Why should their beauty go to waste? Why should it go through life unnoticed? '6’Let it at least be seen once a week in the light under which it appears at its best! But The Seducer’s Diary 413 above all, good taste, restraint. A servant girl should not look like a lady—there Politivennen'® is right, but the reasons this respected newspaper gives are entirely fallacious. If we then may dare to anticipate such a desirable flowering of the maid- servant class, would not this in turn have a beneficial effect on the daughters in our homes? Or is it rash of me to catch a glimpse along this particular road of a future for Denmark that truly can be called matchless? If only I myself might be al- lowed to be contemporary with this golden age,!® then with good conscience I could spend the whole day walking around the streets and lanes and delight in the pleasures of the eyes! — How bold and spacious are my teeming thoughts, how pa- triotic! But here I am, of course, out in Frederiksberg where the servant girls come on Sunday afternoon and I, too.
First come the peasant girls holding hands with their sweet- hearts, or in another pattern, all the girls in front holding hands and the fellows behind, or in another pattern, two girls and one fellow. This flock forms the frame; they usually stand or sit under the trees in the great square in front of the pavil- lion. They are healthy and lively; the color contrasts are a bit too strong—their clothing as well as their complexions. Inside come the girls from Jylland and Fyn—tall, straight, a little too powerfully built, their clothing somewhat mixed. Here there would be much for the committee to do. Nor is a representa- tive of the Bornholm division lacking here either: clever kitchen girls but rough customers both in the kitchen and here in Frederiksberg—there is something proudly repelling in their nature. Thus by contrast their presence here is not with- out effect, and I would be loath to do without them, but I sel- dom become involved with them.
Now come the select troops—the Nyboder girls, less tall, well rounded and filled out, delicate in complexion, merry, happy, quick, talkative, a bit coquettish, and, above all, bare- headed. Their attire may often approximate a lady’s except for two things: they wear scarves and not shawls, and no hats—at most a little fluttering cap, but preferably they should be bare- headed. —Well, good day, Marie! So we meet out here. It is a long time since I saw you. Are you still at the councilor’s?
381 382 381 382 414 Either/Or, I “Yes.” It is a very good place, I imagine. ‘‘Yes.”’ But you are so alone out here, have no one to go with—no sweetheart—or perhaps he has no time today, or you are waiting for him. — What, you are not engaged? Impossible! The prettiest girl in Copenhagen, a girl who works at the councilor’s, a girl who is an ornament and a model for all servant girls, a girl who knows how to dress so neatly and—so sumptuously. That is indeed a pretty handkerchief you are holding in your hand, made of the finest linen. And what do I see, edged with em- broidery? I wager it cost ten marks. There is many a fine lady who does not own its equal. French gloves, a silk umbrella— and such a girl is not engaged. It is indeed preposterous.!If } remember correctly, Jens thought a good deal of you—you know whom I mean—Jens, the wholesaler’s Jens, the one up there on the third floor. —You see, I hit it on the head. Why didn’t you become engaged? After all, Jens was a handsome fellow, had a good job; perhaps with a little pull on the part of the wholesaler, in time he could have become a policeman or a fireman; it wouldn’t have been such a bad match. —You must be to blame yourself; you must have been too hard on him. “No! But I found out that Jens had been engaged once before to a girl he did not treat very well at all.” —What am I hearing? Who would have thought that Jens was such a bad fellow? — Yes, those guardsmen, those guardsmen, they are not to be trusted. —You did absolutely right; a girl like you is much too good to be thrown to just anybody. —You will surely make a better match, I can vouch for that. —How is Miss Juliane? I have not seen her for a long time. Would my pretty Marie be so kind as to enlighten me about a few things. —Because one has been unhappy in love, one should not therefore be unsym- pathetic toward others. —There are so many people here. —I dare not speak with you about it; | am afraid someone might spy on me. —Please listen for a moment, my pretty Marie. Look, here is a place on this shaded path where the trees are entwined together to hide us from others, where we see no one, hear no human voices, only the soft echo of the music. Here I dare speak about my secret. Is it not true, if Jens had not been a bad fellow you would have walked with him here, arm The Seducer’s Diary 415 in arm, listened to the jolly music, even enjoyed a still more...Why are you so agitated—forget Jens. —Do you want to be unfair to me? It was to meet you that I came out here. It was to see you that I visited the councilor’s. You must have noticed—every time I had a chance I always went to the kitchen door. You are going to be mine. The banns will be read from the pulpit. Tomorrow evening I will explain every- thing to you—up the kitchen stairway, the door to the left, di- rectly opposite the kitchen door. —-Good-bye, my pretty Marie. Do not mention to anyone that you have seen me out here or spoken with me. Now you know my secret. She is very lovely; something could be done with her. Once I get a foothold in her room, I can read the banns from the pulpit my- self. [ have always tried to develop the beautiful Greek attdo- zeta. [self-sufficiency] and in particular to make a pastor super- fluous.
If I could manage to stand behind Cordelia when she re- ceives a letter from me, it would be of great interest to me. Then it would be easy for me to find out to what extent she has in the most proper sense appropriated them erotically. On the whole, letters are and will continue to be a priceless means of making an impression on a young girl; the dead letter of writ- ing often has much more influence than the living word.17! A letter is a secretive communication; one is master of the situa- tion, feels no pressure from anyone’s actual presence, and I do believe a young girl would prefer to be all alone with her ideal, that is, at certain moments, and precisely at those moments when it has the strongest effect on her mind. Even if her ideal has found an ever so perfect expression in a particular beloved object, there nevertheless are moments when she feels that in the ideal there is a vastness that the actuality does not have. These great festivals of atonement must be permitted her, ex- cept that one must be careful to use them properly so that she comes back to the actuality not fatigued but strengthened. In this, letters are an aid; they help one to be invisibly and men- tally present in these moments of sacred dedication, while the 383 384 416 Either/Or, I idea that the actual person is the author of the letter forms a natural and easy transition to the actuality!”
Could I become jealous of Cordelia? Damn it, yes! And yet in another sense, no! That is, if I saw that her nature would be disordered and not be what I want it to be—even though I won in the clash with another—then I would give her up.