An ancient philosopher has said that if a person carefully chronicles all his experiences, he is, before he knows where he is, a philosopher.!”? For a long time now, I have lived in asso- ciation with the fellowship of the engaged. Such a connection certainly ought to yield some harvest. I have thought of gath- ering material for a book titled: A Contribution to a Theory of the Kiss, dedicated to all doting lovers.!”4 Incidentally, it is curious that there is no book on this topic. If I manage to finish it, I shall also fill a long-felt need. Can the reason for this deficiency in the literature be that philosophers do not think about such things or that they do not understand them? —I am already in a position to offer some hints. A perfect kiss requires that the agents be a girl and a man. A man-to-man kiss is in bad taste, or, worse yet, it tastes bad. —In the next place, it is my opin- ion that a kiss comes closer to the idea when a man kisses a girl than when a girl kisses a man. When over the years the distinc- tion has been lost in this relationship, the kiss has lost its mean- ing. That is the case with the conjugal domestic kiss, by which husband and wife, for want of a napkin, wipe each other’s mouth while saying ““May it do us good [ Velbekom’s].”’
If the age gap is very great, the kiss lies outside the idea. I recall a special expression used by the senior class of an outly- ing girls’ school—“‘to kiss the councilor”’—an expression with anything but agreeable connotations. It began this way. The teacher had a brother-in-law living in the house. He was an elderly man, formerly a councilor, and because of his age he took the liberty of kissing the young girls.
The kiss must be the expression of a particular passion. When a brother and sister who are twins kiss each other, it is not an authentic kiss. The same holds for a kiss paid in Christ- mas games, also for a stolen kiss. A kiss is a symbolic act that The Seducer’s Diary 417 is meaningless if devoid of the feeling it is supposed to signify, and this feeling can be present only under specific conditions.
‘>If one wants to try to classify kisses, numerous possible principles of classification come to mind. The kiss can be clas- sified according to sound. Unfortunately, language does not have an adequate range for my observations. I do not believe all the languages of the world have the stock of onomatopoeiea necessary to designate the variations I have come across just in my uncle’s house. Sometimes it is a smacking sound, some- times whistling, sometimes slushy, sometimes explosive, sometimes booming, sometimes full, sometimes hollow, sometimes like calico, etc. etc.
The kiss can be classified according to touch—the tangential kiss, the kiss en passant, and the clinging kiss.
The kiss can be classified according to time as short or long. In the category of time, there is another classification, really the only one I like. A distinction is made between the first kiss and all the others. What is under consideration here cannot be used as the measure of what appears in the other classifica- tions—it has nothing to do with sound, touch, time in general. The first kiss is qualitatively different from all others. Very few people think about this. It would be a shame if there were not even one who thinks about it.
My Cordelia, A good answer is like a sweet kiss, says Solomon.'”6 As you know, I have a weakness for asking questions; I may almost be censured for it. This happens because people do not under- stand what I am asking about, for you and you alone under- stand what I am asking about, and you and you alone know how to answer, and you and you alone know how to give a good answer, for, as Solomon says, a good answer is like a sweet kiss.
Your JOHANNES There is a difference between the mental erotic and the earthly erotic. Until now, I have tried mainly to develop the 385 386 418 _ Either/Or, I mental kind in Cordelia. My personal presence must be differ- ent now, not just the accompanying mood; it must be tempt- ing. These days, I have been continually preparing myself by reading the well-known passage in the Phaedrus'” about erotic love. It electrifies my whole being and is an excellent prelude. Plato really had knowledge of the erotic.17 My Cordelia, 1The Latinist says of an attentive pupil that he hangs on his teacher’s lips. For love, everything is a symbol; in recom- pense, the symbol in turn is actuality. Am I not a diligent, at- tentive pupil? But you do not say a word.
Your JOHANNES Your JOHANNES If anyone other than I were directing this development, he presumably would be too sagacious to let himself direct. If I were to consult an initiate among those who are engaged, he would no doubt say with a great flourish of erotic audacity: In these gradations of love, I seek in vain for the Chladni figure!®° in which the lovers converse about their love. I would answer: I am pleased that you look in vain, for the figure does not be- long within the scope of the essentially erotic, not even when the interesting is drawn into it. Erotic love is much too sub- stantial to be satisfied with chatter, the erotic situations much too significant to be filled with chatter. They are silent, still, definitely outlined, and yet eloquent, like the music of Mem- non’s statue.'®! Eros gesticulates, does not speak; or if he does, it is an enigmatic intimation, symbolic music. The erotic sit- uations are always either sculptural or pictorial, but two peo- ple speaking together about their love is neither sculptural nor pictorial. But the solid engaged couple always begin with such chitchat, which goes on to become the thread that holds their loquacious marriage together. This chitchat is also the begin- ning of the dowry Ovid mentions: dos est uxoria lites [the dowry of a wife is quarreling]'®? and the guarantee that their marriage will not lack it. —If there must be speaking, it is suf+ ficient that one person does it. The man should do the speak- The Seducer’s Diary 419 ing and therefore ought to possess some of the powers in the girdle of Venus!® with which she beguiled: conversation and sweet flattery, that is, the power to ingratiate. —It by no means follows that Eros is mute, or that it would be erotically improper to converse, provided that the conversation itself is erotic and does not wander off into edifying observations on life’s prospects etc. and that the conversation is actually re- garded as a respite from the erotic action, a diversion, not as the ultimate. Such a conversation, such a confabulatio [fantas- izing together], is entirely divine by nature, and I can never be- come bored conversing with a young girl. That is, I can be- come weary ofa particular young girl, but never of conversing with a young girl. That is just as impossible for me as it is to become weary of breathing. What is really the distinctive char- acteristic of such speaking together is the vegetative flowering of conversation. The conversation keeps contact with the earth, has no actual subject; the accidental is the law of its movements—but daisy [ Tusindfryd, thousand delights] is its name and the name of what it produces.
My Cordelia, My Cordelia, “My—Your’—those words, like parentheses, enclose the paltry content of my letters. Have you noticed that the dis- tance between its arms is becoming shorter? O my Cordelia! '84T¢ is nevertheless beautiful that the emptier the parenthesis becomes the more momentous it is.
Your JOHANNES My Cordelia, Is an embrace a struggle?!® Your JOHANNES Usually Cordelia keeps silent. This has always made me happy. She has too deep a womanly nature to pester one with hiatuses, a mode of speaking especially characteristic of women and unavoidable when the man who should supply the preceding or succeeding circumscribing consonant is just as 387 388 420 Either/Or, I feminine. But at times a single brief remark betrays how much dwells within her. Then I assist her. It is as if behind a person, who with an unsure hand hastily made a few strokes in a draw- ing, there stood another person who every time made some- thing vivid and finished out of it. She herself is surprised, and yet it is as if it belonged to her. This is why I watch over her, over every chance remark, every casual word, and as I give it back to her it always becomes something more significant, which she both recognizes and does not recognize.
Today we were at a party. We had not exchanged a word with each other. We rose from the table; then a servant came in and told Cordelia that there was a messenger who wished to speak with her. This messenger was from me, bringing a letter alluding to a remark I had made at the table. I had managed to introduce it into the general dinner conversation in such a way that Cordelia, although she sat some distance from me, was bound to hear it and misunderstand it. The letter was com- posed with this in mind. If] had been unable to turn the dinner conversation in that direction, I would have been present at the designated time to confiscate the letter. She came in again and had to tell a little white lie. Such things consolidate the erotic secretiveness without which she cannot walk the path assigned to her.
My Cordelia, Do you believe that the person who pillows his head on an elf-hillock sees the image of an elf-girl in his dreams? I do not know, but this I do know—when I rest my head upon your breast and then do not close my eyes but look up, I see an an- gel’s face. Do you believe that the person who leans his head against an elf-hillock cannot lie quietly? I do not think so, but this Ido know—that when my head inclines upon your bosom it is too deeply stirred for sleep to alight upon my eyes.
Your JOHANNES!86 Jacta est alea [The die is cast].187 Now the turn must be made. I was with her today but was completely engrossed in thinking The Seducer’s Diary 421 about an idea that totally occupied me. I had neither eyes nor ears for her. The idea itself was interesting and captivated her. Furthermore, it would have been incorrect to begin the new operation by being cold in her presence. After I have gone and the thought no longer occupies her, she will easily discover that I was different from what I have usually been. Because she discovers this change in her solitude, the discovery will be much more painful for her, will work its effect more slowly but all the more penetratingly. She cannot promptly flare up, and when she does have a chance she will already have thought out so much to say that she cannot say it all at once but will always retain a remnant of doubt. The disquietude mounts, the letters stop coming, the erotic rations are diminished, erotic love is mocked as something ludicrous. Perhaps she goes along with it for a time, but in the long run she cannot endure it. Then she will want to make me captive with the same means I have employed against her—with the erotic.
'8On the subject of breaking an engagement, every little miss is a great casuist, and although in the schools there is no course on the subject, every little slip of a girl is superbly in- formed when the question is under what circumstances an en- gagement should be broken. This really ought to be the stand- ing question in the senior examination, and although I know that generally the papers written in girls’ schools are very much the same, I am sure that there would be no lack of vari- ety here, since the issue itself opens a wide field to a girl’s acuteness. And why should a young girl not be given the op- portunity to use her acuteness in the most brilliant manner? Or will she not precisely thereby have the opportunity to show that she is mature enough—to become engaged? I once wit- nessed a situation '*°that interested me very much. One day, the parents in a family I sometimes visited were absent; how- ever, the two daughters of the household had invited a circle of girl friends for morning coffee. There were eight in all, be- tween the ages of sixteen and twenty. Very likely they had not expected a visit—in fact, the maid even had orders to say they were not at home. But I went in and clearly perceived that they 389 390 422 Either/Or, I were somewhat surprised. God knows what eight young girls like that discuss in such a solemn synodical meeting. At times, married women also convene in similar meetings. Then they discourse on pastoral theology, discussing in particular such important questions as: under what circumstances it is all right to allow a maidservant to go to market alone; whether it is bet- ter to have a charge account at the butcher’s or to pay cash; the likelihood that the kitchenmaid has a sweetheart; how to elim- inate all this sweetheart traffic that delays the cooking.
190T found my place in this beautiful cluster. It was very early in the spring. The sun sent out a few odd shafts of light as ex- press messengers of its arrival. Inside the apartment, every- thing was wintry, and for that very reason the sun’s rays were so portentous. The coffee shed fragrance at the table, and the young girls themselves were happy, healthy, blooming—and hilarious, for their anxiety had quickly subsided. What was there to be afraid of, after all; in a way they were strong in manpower. I managed to direct their attention and conversa- tion to the question: under what circumstances should an en- gagement be broken. While my eyes delighted in flitting from one flower to the next in this circle of girls, delighted in resting now on this beauty, now on that one, my outer ears delighted in reveling in the enjoyment of the music of their voices, and my inner ears delighted in listening closely to what was said. A single word was frequently enough for me to gain a deep in- sight into such a girl’s heart and its history. How seductive are the ways of love, and how interesting to explore how far along the way the individual is. I continually fanned the flames; bril- liance, wit, esthetic objectivity contributed to making the sit- uation more relaxed, and yet everything remained within the bounds of the strictest propriety. While we jested this way in the regions of light conversation, there slumbered the possibility of putting the good maidens into a disastrously awk- ward situation with a single word. This possibility was in my power. The girls did not comprehend this, had scarcely an ink- ling of this. It was kept submerged at all times by the easy play of conversation, just as Scheherazade! held off the death sen- tence by telling stories.
The Seducer’s Diary 423 Sometimes I led the conversation to the edge of sadness; sometimes I let flippancy break loose; sometimes I tempted them out into a dialectical game. Indeed, what subject contains greater multiplicity, all according to how one looks at it. I con- tinually introduced new themes.'”? —I told of a girl whom the parents’ cruelty had forced to break an engagement. The un- happy collision almost brought tears to their eyes. —I told of a man who had broken an engagement and had given two grounds: that the girl was too big and that he had not knelt be- fore her when he confessed his love. When I protested to him that they could not possibly be regarded as adequate grounds, he replied, ‘Well, they are quite adequate to achieve what I want, for no one can give a reasonable reply to them.” —I sub- mitted a very difficult case for the assembly’s consideration. A young girl broke her engagement because she felt sure that she and her sweetheart were not compatible. The lover sought to bring her to her senses by assuring her how much he loved her; whereupon she answered: Either we are compatible and there is a real sympathy, and in that case you will perceive that we are not compatible, or we are not compatible, and in that case you will perceive that we are not compatible. It was amusing to see how the girls cudgeled their brains to grasp this enig- matic talk, and yet I clearly noticed that there were a couple of them who understood it superbly, for on the subject of break- ing an engagement every young miss is a born casuist. —Yes, I really do believe it would be easier for me to argue with the devil himself than with a young girl when the topic is: under what circumstances should an engagement be broken.
Today I was with her. Precipitously, with the speed of thought, I immediately turned the conversation to the same subject with which I had occupied her yesterday, once again trying to make her enraptured. ““Yesterday, after I had gone, I thought of something I would have said.” It worked. As long as I am with her, she enjoys listening to me; after I am gone, she perceives very well that she is being deceived, that I am dif- ferent. In this way one withdraws one’s shares of stock. It is a disingenuous method but very expedient, as are all indirect [ 391 392 424 Either/Or, I methods. She can very well understand that something such as we are discussing can occupy me; indeed, she herself finds it interesting at the moment, and yet I am cheating her of the es- sentially erotic.!% Oderint, dum metuant [Let them hate me, so they but fear me}, as if only fear and hate belong together, whereas fear and love have nothing to do with each other, as if it were not fear that makes love interesting. With what kind of love do we embrace nature? Is there not a secretive anxiety and horror in it, because its beautiful harmony works its way out of lawless- ness and wild confusion, its security out of perfidy? But pre- cisely this anxiety captivates the most. So also with love, if it is to be interesting. Behind it ought to brood the deep, anxious night from which springs the flower of love. Thus the nym- phaea alba [white water lily] rests with its calyx on the surface of the water, while thought is anxious about plunging down into the deep darkness where it has its root. —I have noticed that she always calls me “‘my”’ when she writes to me but does not have the courage to say it to me. Today, with as much in- sinuating and erotic warmth as possible, I beseeched her to do so. She began to do so; an ironic look, briefer and swifter than it takes to say it, was enough to make it impossible for her, al- though my lips did their utmost to encourage her. This mood is normal.
She is mine. This I do not confide to the stars, according to custom; I really do not see of what concern this information can be to those remote globes. Neither do I confide it to any human being, not even to Cordelia. This secret I keep to my- self alone, whisper it, as it were, into myself in the most secre- tive conversations with myself. Her attempted resistance to me was not particularly great, but the erotic power she dis- plays is admirable. How interesting she is in this profound passionateness, how great she is—almost larger than life! How agile she is in escaping, how adroit in insinuating herself wher- ever she discovers a weak point! Everything is set in motion, but I find myself right in my element in this rioting of the ele- ments. And yet even in this agitation she is by no means un- beautiful, not torn to pieces in moods, not split up into frag- The Seducer’s Diary 425 ments. She is always an Aphrodite, except that she does not rise up in naive loveliness or in unbefangen [disinterested] tran- quillity but is stirred by the strong pulsebeat of erotic love, al- though she nevertheless is unity and balance. Erotically, she is fully equipped for battle; she fights with the arrows of her eyes, with the command of her brow, with the secretiveness of her forehead, with the eloquence of her bosom, with the dan- gerous enticements of her embrace, with the appeal of her lips, with the smile of her cheeks, with the sweet longing of her whole being. There is a power in her, an energy, as if she were a Valkyrie, but this erotic plenitude of power is tempered in turn by a certain pining languor that suffuses her. —She must not be kept too long at this pinnacle where only anxiety and uneasiness support her and keep her from plunging down. Emotions such as these will soon make her feel that the en- gagement is too constricted, too hampering. She will herself become the temptress who seduces me into going beyond the boundary of the universal; in this way she will become con- scious of it herself, and for me that is primary.
Quite a few remarks dropped from her side to indicate that she is tired of the engagement. They do not pass my ear un- noticed; they are the reconnoiterers of my enterprise in her soul that give me informative clues; they are the ends of the threads by which I am spinning her into my plan.
My Cordelia, You complain about the engagement; you think that our love does not need an external bond, which is only a hin- drance. I thereby recognize at once my excellent Cordelia! I truly do admire you. Our outward union is still only a sepa- ration. There is still a partition that keeps us apart like Pyra- mus and Thisbe.’ There is still the disturbance of having others share our secret. Only in contrast is there freedom. Only when no alien suspects our love, only then does it have meaning; only when all outsiders think that the lovers hate each other, only then is love happy.
Your JOHANNES I 393 394 426 Either/Or, I Soon the bond of the engagement will be broken. She her- self will be the one who dissolves it, in order by this dissolu- tion to captivate me even more, if possible, just as flowing locks captivate more than those that are bound up. If I broke the engagement, I would miss out on this erotic somersault, which is so seductive to look at and such a sure sign of the au- dacity of her soul. For me, that is primary. Moreover, the whole incident would create for me some unpleasant conse- quences in connection with other people. I shall become un- popular, detested, loathed, although unjustly so, for would not many people derive some advantage from it? There is many a little miss who, failing to become engaged, would still be quite content to have been close to it. After all, it is some- thing, even though, to tell the truth, exceedingly little, for just when one has elbowed forward this way in order to obtain a place on the waiting list [Exspectance-List], the prospects [Exspectance] are dim; the higher one moves up, the further one advances, the dimmer the prospects. In the world of love, the principle of seniority does not hold with respect to advance- ment and promotion. In addition, such a little miss is bored by holding undivided possession of the property; she wants her life to be stirred by some event. But what can compare with an unhappy love affair, especially when, in addition, one can take the whole thing so lightly. So one makes oneself and the neighbors believe that one is among the victimized, and, not qualified to be accepted into a home for fallen women, one takes lodging next door as a wailer. People are duty-bound to hate me.
In addition, there is still a class of those whom someone has deceived totally, one-half, or three-quarters. There are many gradations here, from those who have a ring as evidence to those who hang their hats on a handclasp in a square dance. Their wound is torn open again by the new pain. I accept their hate as a bonus. But, of course, all these haters are the same as crypto-lovers to my poor heart. A king without any territory is a ludicrous character, but a war of succession among a mob of pretenders to a kingdom without any territory goes beyond even the most ludicrous. Thus I really ought to be loved and The Seducer’s Diary 427 cared for by the fair sex as a pawnshop is. '°°A person who is actually engaged can take care of only one, but such an exten- sive potentiality can take care of, that is, up to a point take care of, as many as you please. '’I escape all this finite nonsense and also have the advantage of being able to appear to others in a totally new role. The young girls will feel sorry for me, pity me, sigh for me. I play in the very same key, and in this way one can also make a catch.
8Strangely enough, right now I note with distress that am getting the sign of denunciation Horace wished upon every faithless gir—a black tooth,!? moreover, a front one. How superstitious one can be! The tooth really disturbs me; I dislike any reference to it—it is a weak point I have. Although I am fully armed everywhere else, here even the biggest lout can give me a jolt that goes far deeper than he thinks when he re- fers to the tooth. I do everything to whiten it, but in vain. I say with Palnatoke: Iam rubbing it by day, by night, But cannot wipe out that black shadow.”
Life does indeed have extraordinarily much that is enigmatic. Such a little circumstance can disturb me more than the most dangerous attack, the most painful situation. I would have it pulled out, but that would affect my speaking and the power of my voice. But if I do have it pulled out, I will have a false one put in—that is, it will be false to the world; the black one was false to me.
201It is superb that Cordelia takes exception to an engage- ment. Marriage still is and will continue to be an honorable in- stitution, even though it does have the wearisome aspect of en- joying already in its youth a share of the honor that age provides. An engagement, however, is a strictly human inven- tion and as such is so significant and so ludicrous that on the one hand it is entirely appropriate that a young girl in the tu- mult of passion overrides it, and yet on the other hand she feels its significance, perceives the energy of her soul as a higher blood system everywhere present in herself. The point now is 395 396 428 Either/Or, I to guide her in such a way that in her bold flight she entirely loses sight of marriage and the continent of actuality, so that her soul, as much in pride as in her anxiety about losing me, will destroy an imperfect human form in order to hurry on to something that is superior to the ordinarily human. But in this regard, I need have no fear, for her movement across life is al- ready so light and buoyant that actuality has already been lost sight of to a large extent. Moreover, I am indeed continually on board and can always stretch out the sails.
202Woman still is and will continue to be an inexhaustible subject for contemplation for me, an everlasting overabund- ance for observations. The person who feels no need for this study can be whatever he wants to be in the world as far as I am concerned, but one thing he is not, he is no esthetician. What is glorious and divine about esthetics is that it is associ- ated only with the beautiful; essentially it deals only with belles lettres and the fair sex. It can give me joy, it can joy my heart, to imagine the sun of womanhood sending out its rays in an infinite multiplicity, radiating into a confusion of Jan- guages, where each woman has a little share of the whole king- dom of womanhood, yet in such a way that the remainder found in her harmoniously forms around this point. In this sense, womanly beauty is infinitely divisible. But the specific share of beauty must be harmoniously controlled, for other- wise it has a disturbing effect, and one comes to think that na- ture intended something with this girl, but that nothing ever came of it.
My eyes can never grow weary of quickly passing over this peripheral multiplicity, these radiating emanations of wom- anly beauty. Every particular point has its little share and yet is complete in itself, happy, joyous, beautiful. Each one has her own: the cheerful smile, the roguish glance, the yearning eye, the tilted head, the frolicsome disposition, the quiet sad- ness, the profound presentiment, the ominous depression, the earthly homesickness, the unshriven emotions, the beckoning brow, the questioning lips, the secretive forehead, the alluring curls, the concealing eyelashes, the heavenly pride, the earthly The Seducer’s Diary 429 modesty, the angelic purity, the secret blush, the light step, the lovely buoyancy, the languorous posture, the longing dreaminess, the unaccountable sighing, the slender figure, the soft curves, the opulent bosom, the curving hips, the tiny feet, the elegant hands.
Each one has her own, and the one does not have what the other has. When I have seen and seen again, observed and ob- served again, the multiplicity of this world, when I have smiled, sighed, flattered, threatened, desired, tempted, laughed, cried, hoped, feared, won, lost—then I fold up the fan, then what is scattered gathers itself together into a unity, the parts into a whole. Then my soul rejoices, my heart pounds, passion is aroused. This one girl, the one and only in all the world, she must belong to me; she must be mine. Let God keep his heaven if I may keep her.?% I know very well what I am choosing; it is something so great that heaven itself cannot be served by sharing in this way, for what would be left in heaven if I kept her? The hopes of believing Mohammedans would be disappointed if in their paradise they embraced pale, feeble shadows, because they would not be able to find warm hearts, since all the warmth of the heart would be concentrated in her breast; they would despair inconsolably when they found pale lips, lusterless eyes, an inert bosom, a weak hand- clasp, for all the redness of the lips and fire of the eye and rest- lessness of the bosom and promise of the handclasp and inti- mation of the sighing and seal of the lips and quivering of the touch and passion of the embrace—all—all would be united in her, who squandered on me what would be sufficient for a world both here and to come.
I have often thought on the matter in this way, but every time I think thus I always become warm because I imagine her as warm. Although warmth is generally considered a good sign, it does not follow from this that my mode of thinking will be conceded the honorable predicate that it is sound. Therefore, for variety, I, myself cold, shall imagine her as cold. I shall attempt to consider woman categorically. In which category is she to be placed? In the category of being- for-other.2°4 But this is not to be taken in the bad sense, as if 397 398 430 Either/Or, I