Addendum: It should be noted about "vagueness" that what occurs in its place is not a vacuum but
simplythe
rational morality ofa social, tech- nical sobriety that jumps in.
Musil - Man Without Qualities - v2
" She's lmown for quite a while that she will yield.
How Ulrich loves this re- strained, brave voice and the woman who fears everything as she does
From the Posthumous Papers · 1745
darlmess and yet who does everything! He would not have been able to bring himself to rush in with a gun and take revenge, or even call them to account.
Then a sigh of submission even comes over Agathe's lips, and the cracking of wood is deceptively heard.
And in spite of this being-happy-for-Agathe that Ulrich has dreamed through, he goes off to the war. But by no means with conviction.
QUESTIONS FOR VOLUME Two
Exposition of Volume Two of The Man Without Qualities
When I think of the reviews of Volume One [Musil is here referring to Chapters 1-123, which were published in 1930/31; Chapters 1--38 of Part III appeared in 1932i33-TRANs. ], I note again and again as some- thing they have in common the question as to what will or might happen in the second volume. The answer to this is simple: nothing or the begin- ning of the World War. Note the title of the major portion of the first volume: Pseudoreality Prevails. This means that in general today the personal givens of events are definite and delineated, but that what is general about them, or their significance, is indefinite, faded, and equiv- ocal, and repeats itself unintelligibly. The person awakened to aware- ness of the current situation has the feeling that the same things are happening to him over and over again, without there being a light to guide him out of this disorderly circle. I believe that this characterizes a major idea of the first volume, around which large parts of the material could be ordered. Above all, there is a continuity in that volume that permits the present period to be already grasped in the past one, and even the technical problem of the book could be characterized as the
attempt to make a story at all possible in the first place.
I add that what I have just referred to in other terms as the unequivo- cal nature of the event (of life) is by no means a philosophical demand but one that in an animal would already be satisfied, while in a person it
can apparently be lost.
This makes comprehensible that the major problem of the second
volume is the search for what is definitely signified or, to use another
1746 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
expression, the search for the ethically complete action or, as I might call it ironically, the search for 1 0 0 percent being and acting.
The more general investigations of the first volume permit me to con- centrate here more on the moral problems or, according to an old ex- pression, on the question of the right life. I attempt to show what I call "the hole in European morality" (as in billiards, where sooner or later the ball gets stuck in such a hole), because it interferes with right action: it is, in a word, the false treatment that the mystic experience has been subjected to.
But here I would like to stop burdening your desire for information with the impossible problem of philosophical window dressing and con- clude: Ulrich, who has traveled to his father's funeral, encounters in the house cleared out by death his almost unknown and unremembered sis- ter. They fall in love, not so much with each other as with the idea of being siblings. I greatly regret that this problem has a certain higher ba- nality, but on the other hand, this proves that it is the expression of broad currents. My representation is aimed at the needs leading to this expression. I contrast the two theses, one can love only one's Siamese- twin sister, and man is good. This means (the relation of brother and sister to each other is at first purely spiritual) Ulrich returns after a pe- riod filled with their being together in intense intimacy; his sister follows him, and they begin a provisional living together according to principles revealed to them, but they are disturbed by the attention of society, which is deeply touched by this act of brotherly and sisterly devotion. General Stumm reports on the state of the Parallel Campaign, which is fed up with the spirit and longs for deeds. Diotima, whose relation with Arnheim is cooling, busies herself with sexual science and again devotes more attention to her husband, Section Chief Tuzzi.
Feeling has never had freedom of association.
Fundamental idea: The first part turns out to be too overloaded, even ifconsideration did have to be given to the problems brought up in Vol- ume One. On the other hand, there was no way around them. What had been analyzed must somehow be summarized. Cf. , e. g. , the desire for a solution (Brecht) noted as justified in [a cross-reference-TRANs. ]. This coincides with Ulrich having in any event to build his life anew after the journey with Agathe, during which the "res~e idea" of his life has col- lapsed. So the connection to the ideas of VOlume One and their new
From the Posthumous Papers · 1 747 context is indicated from his point ofview also. This, whatever may hap-
pen in between, is the content of the second half.
Fundamental idea: The coinciding of the contemporary intellectual situation with the situation at the time of Aristotle. Then people wanted to unite understanding of nature with religious feeling, causal- ity with love. In Aristotle there was a split; that's when analytical inves- tigation arose. However much of a model the fourth century B. C. has been, this problem has not been admitted. In a certain sense, all philosophies, from scholasticism to Kant, have been, with their sys- tems, interludes.
That is the historical situation.
What prevails today is what Ulrich wants: every age must have a guid- ing idea about what it's here for, a balance between theory and ethics, God, etc. The age ofempiricism still does not have this. Hence Walter's inconsistent demands.
Fundamental idea: This furnishes Ulrich's relationship to the social sphere. Criminality out of a sense of opposition follows from this. Aims at the period after Bolshevism. Against total solutions.
Ulrich is, finally, one who desires community while rejecting the given possibilities.
Fundamental idea: War. All lines lead to the war.
Fundamental idea: Ulrich has sought to isolate: feeling-Other Con- dition. Now tries: deed-Moosbrugger. (An idea: he arranges things but is then drawn as a spectator only out of curiosity. ) Corresponding to the way he thinks. Finally, orgy of the contemporary horrible blending of qualities into the cultural type.
Fundamental idea: Keep putting depiction of the time up front. Ul- rich's problems and those of the secondary figures are problems of the time!
I748 •THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
Comprehensive structural idea:
The immanent depiction of the period that led to the catastrophe must be the real substance of the story, the context to which it can al- ways retreat as well as the thought that is implicit in everything.
All the problems, like search for order and conviction, role of the Other Condition, situation of the scientific person, etc. , are also prob- lems of the time and are to be regularly presented as such.
Especially the Parallel Campaign is to be presented this way.
Clarisse is an aggressive, Walter a conservative embodiment of the changing times.
Diotima, Arnheim: impotence of the idea of culture, of its accompa- nying ideology.
This age desires deeds, exactly like the present time, because ideol- ogy, or the relation of ideology to the other elements, has failed.
There is today no lack of men of action, but of human deeds.
Man without qualities against deed: The man who is not satisfied by any of the available solutions. (I'm thinking of deed vs. intellect in Na- tional Socialism. Of the desire of youth today to find a resolution, etc. "Resolution. . : a synonym for deed. Likewise: "conviction. " This is what lends significance to Hans Sepp and his circle. )
The conception of life as partial solution and the like as anachronistic. Derives from the prewar period, where the totality seemed relatively immutable even for the person who did not believe in it. Today all of existence has been thrown into disorder; discussions, contributions, arti- cles, and tinkerings are of no use, people want resolution, yes or no. The didactic element in the book is to be strengthened, a practical formula to be advanced. The opposition: practical-theoretical, the original idea of espionage, gains new importance through this.
Supplement: Up to now the answer has been Walter's. Perhaps like this: Ulrich repeats this response from time to time, but no one believes him or even takes it seriously.
Germany's enthusiasm for National Socialism is proof that a firm mental and spiritual mind-set is what is most important to people. The war was the first attempt.
Politics is only to be understood as education for action; what sover-
From the Posthumous Papers · 1749
eignty, then, do thinking. feeling, etc. , have. National Socialism= domi- nance of the political more than = part of collectivism.
I probably really ought to make "the idea of the inductive age" the central argument. Induction calls for pre-assumptions, but these may only be employed heuristically and not regarded as immutable. Democ- racy's error was the absence of any deductive basis; it was an induction that did not correspond to the motivating mental and spiritual mind-set.
God, thought's strong approach to Him, was an episode.
From today's vantage point the problem is: the (warlike) man capable of defense is to be preserved, but war is to be avoided. Or: The man without qualities, but without decadence.
What has so far been missing in Volume Two is intellectual humor. The Stumm chapters are no substitute for the theory of the Other Con- dition and the love between brother and sister being treated without humor. First attempt now in the Monster chapter (kiss). Occurred to me as paradigm: The duel is a remnant ofcourtship rivalry, therefore our conceptions of honor are too. My principles are now nothing more than such an ape~u: this awareness must still be added to its serious treatment!
What is the basic theme ofthe whole second volume? Really, perhaps, the utopia of the Other Condition. The utopia of the Other Condition is replaced by that of the inductive way of thinking.
Professor Lindner's view ofthe world: Example of a person who lives "For" and fears the "In"- Augustinian Christianity (therefore future) and incapability of believing- Lindner's bearing arms corresponds to the wearing of swords in the B[riinn] chapter (Ulrich can be aware of the allusion)- His being energetic is not merely German, intended as a profound, irrational trait ofthe time- The contradictions ofthe time in the form: One would like to be this way and one would like to be differ- ent, and therefore feels oneselfa whole man-the most vain time: from lack of metaphysical decisiveness- Credulity in the form of the "For"- His impression of liberalism. This expression of a particular constellation. It needs a strict new pulling together- Since God speaks
1750 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
to him about "For" and "In" it's not an Ulrich-Agathe problem but a general one- Religion is an institution for people and not for saints- The remarkable phenomenon of emotions not remaining fresh. Dogma- tizing and constant reactualizing: aims at God as empiricism, transfor- mation of the intimation that can be experienced into faith that is not experienced (along with: Do and Don't do, affirmative actions) and dis- tinction between good and goody-good. (The first comes from morality, the second from God)- Acquisition of a bureaucratic language of the emotions.
Ulrich's relation to politics really reduces to the following: like all peo- ple who objectively or subjectively have their own mission, he wants to be disturbed by politics as little as possible. He did not expect that what was important to him could be endangered by it. That in any case even in the existing state of affairs there is already a certain degree of implicit challenge, in other words that it could also get a lot worse, did not cross his mind. For him a politician was a specialist who dedicates himself to the by no means easy task of combining and representing various inter- ests. He would also have been prepared to subordinate himself to a bearable degree and assume some sacrifice.
Ulrich was not unaware that the element of power is part of the con- cept of politics; he had often considered the question whether anything good could come about without the "supporting" involvement of evil. Politics is command. Astonishingly, his own teacher Nietzsche: Will to power! But Nietzsche had sublimated it into the intellectual. Power stands in contradiction to the principles I condition essential for life I of the mind. Here two claims to power compete. Power in the political way disappeared from his field ofview, as did power in the manner ofwar. It might exist, but basically it is as primitive as boys fighting.
He now becomes aware of this naiVete.
The marasmus of democracy advanced to meet this. The tacit as- sumption of parliamentarianism was that progress would emerge from all the chatter, that it would yield an increasingly close approach to the truth. It did not look that way. The press, etc. The horrendous notion of "worldviews. " The politicizing of the mind through letting only what is acceptable prevail. Beyond that the fiction of the unity of culture, a fic- tion that had grown thin and brittle. (Represented by the monarchy.
From the Posthumous Papers · I 7 5 I Democracy had not yet been stripped of its skin. ) Whatever was good in
this life was done by individuals.
Today there are only dishonorably acquired convictions.
N. B. : If Ulrich looks away from his Other Condition adventure: The relation of power to mind will always be there, but it can take on sub- limated forms (and will perhaps do so, after it has run through a series of collective attempts that are now just beginning).
If Ulrich imagined this practically: One would have to begin with the schools, no, one has no idea where not to begin! That is the individual's feeling of being abandoned, etc. , which leads Ulrich to his experiment and to crime.
"If Europe doesn't join together, in the foreseeable future European culture will be destroyed by the yellow race. " "Unless Japan harnesses all its energies, then . . . " etc. This could be reduced to the formula: they would rather destroy their own culture themselves! It's comical, this hot, sudden, and doubtless momentarily not disreputable passion for one's culture.
Incidentally, behind this also lies the experience that dependent countries are treated ruthlessly. Just like dependent people.
It's the feeling for one's own well-worn groove. Progress would be something shared and unifying.
They defend culture instead of having it.
The person with culture is alone all over the world.
There are only the two views: Culture! Then everything that happens
is perverse. Or: Power! or similar struggle between animal species. Be- tween chosen peoples. A vision that could be great in certain circum- stances but is completely unfounded, since the peoples involved have no goal beyond self-assertion.
Differently: A spirit rules without having been completely developed. Then someone comes along and imposes something different. In other words, perhaps: The totality is changed by an individual I produces him, many say. It seems to people to be absurdity, insanity, criminality. After
1752 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
a short time they adapt to it. Carrot-stick, the notorious lack of character and despicableness of people, what is it really? And spirit is always only a decorative frill in a room, the room can be laid out for it. That's why mind and spirit are never constant but change with the change in power.
A useful pendant to government bureaucracy.
Connected with this: Nietzsche predicted it. The mind lives more or less the way a woman does: it subjects itself to power, is thrown down, resisting, and then finds pleasure in the process. And prettifies, makes reproaches, persuades in matters of detail. Offers pleasure. What need was it leaning on there?
Ulrich-Agathe is really an attempt at anarchy in love. Which ends negatively even there. That's the deeper link between the love story and the war. (Also its connection to the Moosbrugger problem. ) But what remains in the end? That there is a sphere of ideals and a sphere of real- ity? Guidelines and the like? How profoundly unsatisfying! Isn't there a better answer?
Utopia ofPrecision: Ideal ofthe three treatises is characterized as the most important expression of a state of mind that is extremely sharp- sighted toward what is nearest and blind toward the whole. A laconic frame of mind. The less something is written about, the more productive one is. Presumably, therefore, one should conduct all human business in the manner of the exact sciences. That is the ideal of the precise life. It means that one's lifework ought also to consist only of three poems or three treatises, in which one concentrates oneselfin the extreme; for the rest, one ought to keep silent, do what is essential, and remain without emotion wherever one does not have creative feeling. One should be "moral" only in the exceptional cases and standardize everything else, like pencils or screws. In other words, morality is reduced to the mo- mt:lnts of genius, and for the rest treated merely reasonably.
It is determined that this {utopian) person as man of action is already present today; but precise people don't bother about the utopias plotted out inside them.
In connection with this, the nature ofutopias is described as an exper- iment in which the possible alteration of one element of life, and its ef-
From the Posthu1TWUS Papers · 1753
fects, are observed. A possibility released from its inhibiting bond to re- ality and developed.
The Utopia of Precision yields a person in whom a paradoxical combi- nation of precision and vagueness occurs. Aside from the temperament of precision, everything else in him is vague. He places little value in morality, since his imagination is directed toward changes; and, as demonstrated, his passions disappear and in their place something like the primitive fire of goodness appears.
More developed version: Inductive attitude also toward his own af- fects and principles.
Addendum: It should be noted about "vagueness" that what occurs in its place is not a vacuum but simplythe rational morality ofa social, tech- nical sobriety that jumps in. (The present version relies rather too much on the Other Condition. )
But that implicitly assumes that the "nongenius" relationships could be regulated through reason. This is contested, and to a great degree properlyso; the motorofsocial action is affect. We therefore have to see to what extent that is satisfactorily taken into consideration in what comes later.
Provisional summation
We have hit upon Ulrich's three utopias: The utopia of inductive thinking or
of the given social condition;
the utopia oflife in love;
the utopia of the Other Condition.
Ofthese, the utopia ofinductive thinking is in a certain sense the worst! That would be the standpoint to be adopted from a literary point ofview (which justifies the other two utopias). But this demonstration, or the representation that goes along with it, is only completed with the end (war). An apparent interim summary: the museum chapter. The journey into the Millennium places the other two utopias in the foreground and disposes of them as much as possible. But a good deal about the utopia of inductive thinking occurs in the Stumm, Parallel Campaign, Lindner, Schmeisser, and Moosbrugger chapters. So it is not necessary to master
1754 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
the utopia of inductive thinking down to the last detail around the diary chapters, but it probably is necessary to be familiar with its important general characteristics.
War and the age. Notes
Individualism is coming to an end This is of no concern to Ulrich But the right thing to do would be to rescue something from it.
I am struck in my notes on Mo6r [Gyulia Mo6r, On Eternal Peace: Outline ofa Philosophy ofPacifism and Anarchism (Leipzig, 1930)- TRANs. ] how the just-concluded Kellogg Treaty is immediately being interpreted by France according to its needs of the moment.
States are really such that they not only take account of aesthetic needs but also actually obey them, while interpreting the ideas involved the way passionate people do. (Hans Sepp would therefore be only an overt instance. ) What is it that plays the role of the affect in this. Evi- dently the affects arising for statesmen through responsibility. In this regard, responsibility is as much a national egotism as is the individual and party egotism of the politician who is dependent on his people.
A goal, a striving, determine the emotions, and the emotions the ar- gumentation.
States are intellectually inferior.
A question: How can one lose wars? (Stumm: That's something we lmow something about! ) Earlier: How could an absolute ruler miscalcu- late so badly as often happened? False intelligence, also lack of talent, will have played a role. But for the most part it was probably always a not-being-able-to-retreat, and the human quality that it is easier to as- sume the burden of a great remote danger than a smaller but closer one. Before one discards a city, rather than taking upon oneself a war that can cost one a province. Then the collective boastfulness; so great that no single person could achieve it, and there is no escaping it. Patriotism as affect instead of reason: the state is not conducted like a business but as an ethical "good. " Yet they are also manly affects!
But that doubtless happens as it should. What is striking is only that
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1 755 the moral nature of the state has remained far less developed than that
of the individual.
The outstanding personalities of history are criminals: Ulrich's plans to become a Napoleon. But for the most part, criminal here means: anti- philistine, someone unconstrained. But they really were criminals: mur- derers, oath breakers, liars, tricksters, in a word: on principle, the historical personality can be credited with any iniquity: the mature per- son is confronted with this idea. And has less sympathy for it. An ef- feminacy?
In a criminal, affects outweigh the inhibitions (except when caused by environment or degeneration, weakness and such). But don't they in a man ofaction too? Revision ofthe reflections that are occasionally given to Moosbrugger? Clarisse?
The world calls for strongly affective, strong-willed leaders.
But compare it to the individual person: will and intelligence must be strong. Beginning miscreants later become self-possessed. I must have a note about this (cf. men of action and human deeds).
The valuation of historical personalities and deeds is a functional one.
Here, in distinction to historical and private morality, is an example of functional evaluation. Absolutely the paradigm, for translated into the private sphere the historical is positively disgusting.
1930-1942
Concluding portion
Overall problem: war.
Pseudorealities lead to war. The Parallel Campaign leads to war! War as: How a great event comes about.
All lines lead to the war. Everyone welcomes it in his fashion.
The religious element in the outbreak of the war.
Deed, emotion, and Other Condition join as one.
Someone remarks: that was what the Parallel Campaign had always
been looking for. It has found its great idea.
1756 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
Arises (like crime) from all those things that people ordinarily allow to dissipate in small irregularities.
Ulrich recognizes: either real working together (Walter's inductive piety) or Other Condition, or from time to time this has to happen.
Agathe says (repeatedly): We were the last romantics oflove.
Ulrich possibly: the genius's needs and way of life are different from those ofthe masses. Perhaps better: . . . from the condition of genius and the condition of masses.
Individualist with the awareness of the impossibility of this viewpoint.
Doesn't go to Switzerland because he has no confidence in any idea at all.
Regards it as his suicide.
The collectivity needs a stable mental attitude. Its first attempt. Ulrich: It's the same thing we did: flight (from peace).
Ulrich at the end: knowing, working, being effective without illusions.
Something like a religious shudder.
The fixed and stable is disavowed.
Other Condition-normal condition will never be resolved.
Most profound hostility toward all these people; at the same time one
rushes around with them and wants to embrace the first person who comes along.
The individual will sinks, a new age of multipolar relations emerges before the eye of the mind.
Ulrich sees what a fascinating moment it was that never quite hap- pened between himself and Agathe. Ultimate refuge sex and war, but sex lasts for one night, the war evidently for a month, etc.
Amheim: The individual is the one who is fooled.
Agathe: We go on living as ifnothing were happening. Ulrich: Timid- ity before this robustness.
The priests: God's Officer Corps.
Overpowered by a ridiculous feeling for his homeland. Strives to re- gret, do penance, let himself be swept up. At the same time mocked.
Te deum laudamus.
National romanticism, displacement into scapegoats and love-goats. Nations have no intentions. Good people can make a cruel nation. Na-
tions have a mind that is not legally accountable. More properly: they have no mind at all. Comparison with the insane. They don't want to. But they have at each other.
Also a solution to: loving a person and not being able to love him.
From the Posthu1TWUS Papers · 1757
Anarchism couldn't prove itself even in love! Ulrich stands and acts under this impression.
In general the mob chapters, and within them especially Ulrich, de- pend on the as yet undetermined outcome of the Utopia of Inductive Thinking. But apparently it will amount to: struggling (mentally) and not despairing. Intimation reduced to belief, belief in an inductive God, un- provable but credible. As an adventure that keeps the affects in motion. Main idea. Circulation of the emotions without mysticism. Discovery of God in Kohler's fashion [Wolfgang Kohler, founder of gestalt psychol- ogy-TRANs. ], or on the basis of other ideas: God's becoming material. Intimation, Other Condition: someone else, who is better suited, might perhaps take these up. How one could force this on people: unimagin- able. Either leave what is hated to the age. Or work toward it, that is for it: write a book, therefore suicide, therefore go to war.
Once again the uppermost problem: To be advanced more concretely than both "Pseudorealities," therefore externalized: collapse of the cul- ture (and of the idea of culture). This is in fact what the summer of 1914 initiated.
Now it turns out that this was the great idea the Parallel Campaign was searching for, and what happens is the unfathomable flight from culture. Stumm might say that he is fleeing. All states claim to stand for something spiritual, which they don't define and summarily call culture. It turns out to be utopian in my assessments too. And that's what people no longer have confidence in.
In a certain sense, the entire problem of reality and morality is also the problem of drives. Of their running their instinctive course without result, their causing mischief; they must be controlled in order to pre- vent murder, usury, etc. But the counterproblem of being controlled is weakness of the drives, the paling of life, and how this is to be compen- sated for cannot be clearly imagined.
STUDIES FOR CHAPTERS (1932/33-1941)
Study for the closing session, and then Ulrich-Agathe
Beginning: No one wants to host the closing session of the Parallel Campaign. Finally, Count Leinsdorf: it ought to be ceremonial, not sim- ply a leaving in the lurch, decides to host it himself. Again the hall, etc. , as at the last meeting; but this time without the secretaries. And he
delivers the concluding address.
Beforehand people gather (ceremoniously) in another room. This
provides the opportunity (or also short conversations as they hasten away) of having the other characters pass by in review.
Reconciliation scene between Tuzzi and Diotima. Tuzzi: Now reason wins out. Does he mean that against pacifism? He means: Now the situ- ation is clearing up, perhaps: the situation that up to now has uncon- sciously hidden behind pacifism. And most profoundly: Reason belongs to the realm of evil. Morality and reason are the opposites of goodness. (Ulrich, too, might possibly say that, coming up to them. )
Then what dominates is: We are in the right; according to the rules of reason and morality we are the ones attacked: perhaps Count Leins- dorf's address. Everyone: We are defending what is ours (homeland, culture).
Arnheim: The world is perhaps perishing or entering a long hell- But perhaps Arnheim is no longer present.
Who? : The world would then perish not through its immoral but through its moral citizens.
Agathe: We go on living as ifit were nothing.
Ulrich: No. Suicide. I'm going to war.
Agathe: If anything happens to you: poison.
The shadowing presence of death suddenly becomes visible. One's
personal death, without one's having got anything straightened out, and ignoring which life stumbles on and continues unfolding its diversions. In the mob mood, moreover, everyone believes in giving up diversions for a long time. Isn't the final result for Ulrich something like ascesis? The Other Condition has miscarried, and diversions belong to the muta- tion of emotions? So that would once again be in opposition to the healthy life. An end of utopias.
Buildings-breathlike mass, condensation on surfaces that present themselves . . .
Freed from connections, every impulse momentarily deforms the in- dividual.
From the Posthumous Papers · 1759
The individual, who comes about only through expression, forms him- self in the forms of society. He is violated and thus acquires surface.
He is formed by the back-formations of what he has created. If one takes away these back-formations, what remains is something indefinite, unshaped. The walls of the streets radiate ideologies.
GENERAL REFLECTIONS (c. 1930-1942)
For the beginning
The stories being written today are all very fine, significant, profound, useful distillations and full of spirit. But they have no introductions.
Therefore I have decided to write this story in such a way that in spite of its length it needs an introduction.
It is said that a story needs an introduction only if the writer has not been able to shape it successfully. Splendid! Literature's progress, which expresses itselftoday in the absence ofintroductions, proves that writers are very sure oftheir subjects and their audience. For ofcourse the au- dience is involved too; the writer has to open his mouth, and the audi- ence must already know what it is he wants to say; if he then says it a little differently and in an unexpected way, he has legitimized himself as creative. So authors and public are generally on good terms today, and the need for an introduction indicates an exceptional case.
A small variation. I would not, however, want to be understood to mean that in my view the greatness of the genius is expressed in the greatness of the variation. On the contrary-the age of fools.
But we also do not want to overlook the fact that in writing introduc- tions a relationship with the audience can be expressed that is too good; looked at historically, this is even the way it has been most of the time. The author appears in his window in shirtsleeves and smiles down at the street; he is certain that people will obligingly look up to his popular face if he says a few words personally. It is enough for me to say that I have
1760 • THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
been spoiled far too little by success to hit upon such an idea. My need for an introduction does not indicate a particularly good relation with the public, and although, as is already apparent, I will make abundant use of the custom of talking about myself in this preface, I hope to be speaking not about an individual person but about a public matter.
Preface, first continuation
Many will ask: What viewpoint is the author taking, and with what results? I can't give a satisfactory account of myself. I take the matter neither from all sides (which in the novel is impossible) nor from one side, but from various congruent sides. But one must not confuse the unfinished state of something with the author's skepticism. I expound my subject even though I know it is only a part of the truth, and I would expound it in just the same way if I knew it was false, because certain errors are way stations of the truth. Given a specific task, I am doing what I can.
This book has a passion that in the area of belles lettres today is some- what out of place, the passion for rightness/precision. (Polgar [Alfred Polgar, writer and friend of Musil-TRANs. ]: Spare us brief stories. In saying that he writes a long one. )
The story of this novel amounts to this, that the story that ought to be told in it is not told.
Possibly: Adduce as well the principle of partial solutions, which is vital to the way I have set up my task. For instance Torless, Unions. The basis of many misunderstandings. The public prefers writers who go for the whole.
The term "essayism" is impossibly chosen ifone thinks for instance of Carlyle.
Readers are accustomed to demanding that you tell them about life and not about the reflection oflife in the heads ofliterature and people. But that is justified with certainty only insofar as this reflection is merely
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1761 an impoverished and conventionalized copy of life. I am trying to offer
them originals, so they have to suspend their prejudice too.
Mastering unreality is a program, so point to Volume Two, but as a way of concluding it is almost absurd.
From the Posthumous Papers · 1745
darlmess and yet who does everything! He would not have been able to bring himself to rush in with a gun and take revenge, or even call them to account.
Then a sigh of submission even comes over Agathe's lips, and the cracking of wood is deceptively heard.
And in spite of this being-happy-for-Agathe that Ulrich has dreamed through, he goes off to the war. But by no means with conviction.
QUESTIONS FOR VOLUME Two
Exposition of Volume Two of The Man Without Qualities
When I think of the reviews of Volume One [Musil is here referring to Chapters 1-123, which were published in 1930/31; Chapters 1--38 of Part III appeared in 1932i33-TRANs. ], I note again and again as some- thing they have in common the question as to what will or might happen in the second volume. The answer to this is simple: nothing or the begin- ning of the World War. Note the title of the major portion of the first volume: Pseudoreality Prevails. This means that in general today the personal givens of events are definite and delineated, but that what is general about them, or their significance, is indefinite, faded, and equiv- ocal, and repeats itself unintelligibly. The person awakened to aware- ness of the current situation has the feeling that the same things are happening to him over and over again, without there being a light to guide him out of this disorderly circle. I believe that this characterizes a major idea of the first volume, around which large parts of the material could be ordered. Above all, there is a continuity in that volume that permits the present period to be already grasped in the past one, and even the technical problem of the book could be characterized as the
attempt to make a story at all possible in the first place.
I add that what I have just referred to in other terms as the unequivo- cal nature of the event (of life) is by no means a philosophical demand but one that in an animal would already be satisfied, while in a person it
can apparently be lost.
This makes comprehensible that the major problem of the second
volume is the search for what is definitely signified or, to use another
1746 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
expression, the search for the ethically complete action or, as I might call it ironically, the search for 1 0 0 percent being and acting.
The more general investigations of the first volume permit me to con- centrate here more on the moral problems or, according to an old ex- pression, on the question of the right life. I attempt to show what I call "the hole in European morality" (as in billiards, where sooner or later the ball gets stuck in such a hole), because it interferes with right action: it is, in a word, the false treatment that the mystic experience has been subjected to.
But here I would like to stop burdening your desire for information with the impossible problem of philosophical window dressing and con- clude: Ulrich, who has traveled to his father's funeral, encounters in the house cleared out by death his almost unknown and unremembered sis- ter. They fall in love, not so much with each other as with the idea of being siblings. I greatly regret that this problem has a certain higher ba- nality, but on the other hand, this proves that it is the expression of broad currents. My representation is aimed at the needs leading to this expression. I contrast the two theses, one can love only one's Siamese- twin sister, and man is good. This means (the relation of brother and sister to each other is at first purely spiritual) Ulrich returns after a pe- riod filled with their being together in intense intimacy; his sister follows him, and they begin a provisional living together according to principles revealed to them, but they are disturbed by the attention of society, which is deeply touched by this act of brotherly and sisterly devotion. General Stumm reports on the state of the Parallel Campaign, which is fed up with the spirit and longs for deeds. Diotima, whose relation with Arnheim is cooling, busies herself with sexual science and again devotes more attention to her husband, Section Chief Tuzzi.
Feeling has never had freedom of association.
Fundamental idea: The first part turns out to be too overloaded, even ifconsideration did have to be given to the problems brought up in Vol- ume One. On the other hand, there was no way around them. What had been analyzed must somehow be summarized. Cf. , e. g. , the desire for a solution (Brecht) noted as justified in [a cross-reference-TRANs. ]. This coincides with Ulrich having in any event to build his life anew after the journey with Agathe, during which the "res~e idea" of his life has col- lapsed. So the connection to the ideas of VOlume One and their new
From the Posthumous Papers · 1 747 context is indicated from his point ofview also. This, whatever may hap-
pen in between, is the content of the second half.
Fundamental idea: The coinciding of the contemporary intellectual situation with the situation at the time of Aristotle. Then people wanted to unite understanding of nature with religious feeling, causal- ity with love. In Aristotle there was a split; that's when analytical inves- tigation arose. However much of a model the fourth century B. C. has been, this problem has not been admitted. In a certain sense, all philosophies, from scholasticism to Kant, have been, with their sys- tems, interludes.
That is the historical situation.
What prevails today is what Ulrich wants: every age must have a guid- ing idea about what it's here for, a balance between theory and ethics, God, etc. The age ofempiricism still does not have this. Hence Walter's inconsistent demands.
Fundamental idea: This furnishes Ulrich's relationship to the social sphere. Criminality out of a sense of opposition follows from this. Aims at the period after Bolshevism. Against total solutions.
Ulrich is, finally, one who desires community while rejecting the given possibilities.
Fundamental idea: War. All lines lead to the war.
Fundamental idea: Ulrich has sought to isolate: feeling-Other Con- dition. Now tries: deed-Moosbrugger. (An idea: he arranges things but is then drawn as a spectator only out of curiosity. ) Corresponding to the way he thinks. Finally, orgy of the contemporary horrible blending of qualities into the cultural type.
Fundamental idea: Keep putting depiction of the time up front. Ul- rich's problems and those of the secondary figures are problems of the time!
I748 •THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
Comprehensive structural idea:
The immanent depiction of the period that led to the catastrophe must be the real substance of the story, the context to which it can al- ways retreat as well as the thought that is implicit in everything.
All the problems, like search for order and conviction, role of the Other Condition, situation of the scientific person, etc. , are also prob- lems of the time and are to be regularly presented as such.
Especially the Parallel Campaign is to be presented this way.
Clarisse is an aggressive, Walter a conservative embodiment of the changing times.
Diotima, Arnheim: impotence of the idea of culture, of its accompa- nying ideology.
This age desires deeds, exactly like the present time, because ideol- ogy, or the relation of ideology to the other elements, has failed.
There is today no lack of men of action, but of human deeds.
Man without qualities against deed: The man who is not satisfied by any of the available solutions. (I'm thinking of deed vs. intellect in Na- tional Socialism. Of the desire of youth today to find a resolution, etc. "Resolution. . : a synonym for deed. Likewise: "conviction. " This is what lends significance to Hans Sepp and his circle. )
The conception of life as partial solution and the like as anachronistic. Derives from the prewar period, where the totality seemed relatively immutable even for the person who did not believe in it. Today all of existence has been thrown into disorder; discussions, contributions, arti- cles, and tinkerings are of no use, people want resolution, yes or no. The didactic element in the book is to be strengthened, a practical formula to be advanced. The opposition: practical-theoretical, the original idea of espionage, gains new importance through this.
Supplement: Up to now the answer has been Walter's. Perhaps like this: Ulrich repeats this response from time to time, but no one believes him or even takes it seriously.
Germany's enthusiasm for National Socialism is proof that a firm mental and spiritual mind-set is what is most important to people. The war was the first attempt.
Politics is only to be understood as education for action; what sover-
From the Posthumous Papers · 1749
eignty, then, do thinking. feeling, etc. , have. National Socialism= domi- nance of the political more than = part of collectivism.
I probably really ought to make "the idea of the inductive age" the central argument. Induction calls for pre-assumptions, but these may only be employed heuristically and not regarded as immutable. Democ- racy's error was the absence of any deductive basis; it was an induction that did not correspond to the motivating mental and spiritual mind-set.
God, thought's strong approach to Him, was an episode.
From today's vantage point the problem is: the (warlike) man capable of defense is to be preserved, but war is to be avoided. Or: The man without qualities, but without decadence.
What has so far been missing in Volume Two is intellectual humor. The Stumm chapters are no substitute for the theory of the Other Con- dition and the love between brother and sister being treated without humor. First attempt now in the Monster chapter (kiss). Occurred to me as paradigm: The duel is a remnant ofcourtship rivalry, therefore our conceptions of honor are too. My principles are now nothing more than such an ape~u: this awareness must still be added to its serious treatment!
What is the basic theme ofthe whole second volume? Really, perhaps, the utopia of the Other Condition. The utopia of the Other Condition is replaced by that of the inductive way of thinking.
Professor Lindner's view ofthe world: Example of a person who lives "For" and fears the "In"- Augustinian Christianity (therefore future) and incapability of believing- Lindner's bearing arms corresponds to the wearing of swords in the B[riinn] chapter (Ulrich can be aware of the allusion)- His being energetic is not merely German, intended as a profound, irrational trait ofthe time- The contradictions ofthe time in the form: One would like to be this way and one would like to be differ- ent, and therefore feels oneselfa whole man-the most vain time: from lack of metaphysical decisiveness- Credulity in the form of the "For"- His impression of liberalism. This expression of a particular constellation. It needs a strict new pulling together- Since God speaks
1750 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
to him about "For" and "In" it's not an Ulrich-Agathe problem but a general one- Religion is an institution for people and not for saints- The remarkable phenomenon of emotions not remaining fresh. Dogma- tizing and constant reactualizing: aims at God as empiricism, transfor- mation of the intimation that can be experienced into faith that is not experienced (along with: Do and Don't do, affirmative actions) and dis- tinction between good and goody-good. (The first comes from morality, the second from God)- Acquisition of a bureaucratic language of the emotions.
Ulrich's relation to politics really reduces to the following: like all peo- ple who objectively or subjectively have their own mission, he wants to be disturbed by politics as little as possible. He did not expect that what was important to him could be endangered by it. That in any case even in the existing state of affairs there is already a certain degree of implicit challenge, in other words that it could also get a lot worse, did not cross his mind. For him a politician was a specialist who dedicates himself to the by no means easy task of combining and representing various inter- ests. He would also have been prepared to subordinate himself to a bearable degree and assume some sacrifice.
Ulrich was not unaware that the element of power is part of the con- cept of politics; he had often considered the question whether anything good could come about without the "supporting" involvement of evil. Politics is command. Astonishingly, his own teacher Nietzsche: Will to power! But Nietzsche had sublimated it into the intellectual. Power stands in contradiction to the principles I condition essential for life I of the mind. Here two claims to power compete. Power in the political way disappeared from his field ofview, as did power in the manner ofwar. It might exist, but basically it is as primitive as boys fighting.
He now becomes aware of this naiVete.
The marasmus of democracy advanced to meet this. The tacit as- sumption of parliamentarianism was that progress would emerge from all the chatter, that it would yield an increasingly close approach to the truth. It did not look that way. The press, etc. The horrendous notion of "worldviews. " The politicizing of the mind through letting only what is acceptable prevail. Beyond that the fiction of the unity of culture, a fic- tion that had grown thin and brittle. (Represented by the monarchy.
From the Posthumous Papers · I 7 5 I Democracy had not yet been stripped of its skin. ) Whatever was good in
this life was done by individuals.
Today there are only dishonorably acquired convictions.
N. B. : If Ulrich looks away from his Other Condition adventure: The relation of power to mind will always be there, but it can take on sub- limated forms (and will perhaps do so, after it has run through a series of collective attempts that are now just beginning).
If Ulrich imagined this practically: One would have to begin with the schools, no, one has no idea where not to begin! That is the individual's feeling of being abandoned, etc. , which leads Ulrich to his experiment and to crime.
"If Europe doesn't join together, in the foreseeable future European culture will be destroyed by the yellow race. " "Unless Japan harnesses all its energies, then . . . " etc. This could be reduced to the formula: they would rather destroy their own culture themselves! It's comical, this hot, sudden, and doubtless momentarily not disreputable passion for one's culture.
Incidentally, behind this also lies the experience that dependent countries are treated ruthlessly. Just like dependent people.
It's the feeling for one's own well-worn groove. Progress would be something shared and unifying.
They defend culture instead of having it.
The person with culture is alone all over the world.
There are only the two views: Culture! Then everything that happens
is perverse. Or: Power! or similar struggle between animal species. Be- tween chosen peoples. A vision that could be great in certain circum- stances but is completely unfounded, since the peoples involved have no goal beyond self-assertion.
Differently: A spirit rules without having been completely developed. Then someone comes along and imposes something different. In other words, perhaps: The totality is changed by an individual I produces him, many say. It seems to people to be absurdity, insanity, criminality. After
1752 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
a short time they adapt to it. Carrot-stick, the notorious lack of character and despicableness of people, what is it really? And spirit is always only a decorative frill in a room, the room can be laid out for it. That's why mind and spirit are never constant but change with the change in power.
A useful pendant to government bureaucracy.
Connected with this: Nietzsche predicted it. The mind lives more or less the way a woman does: it subjects itself to power, is thrown down, resisting, and then finds pleasure in the process. And prettifies, makes reproaches, persuades in matters of detail. Offers pleasure. What need was it leaning on there?
Ulrich-Agathe is really an attempt at anarchy in love. Which ends negatively even there. That's the deeper link between the love story and the war. (Also its connection to the Moosbrugger problem. ) But what remains in the end? That there is a sphere of ideals and a sphere of real- ity? Guidelines and the like? How profoundly unsatisfying! Isn't there a better answer?
Utopia ofPrecision: Ideal ofthe three treatises is characterized as the most important expression of a state of mind that is extremely sharp- sighted toward what is nearest and blind toward the whole. A laconic frame of mind. The less something is written about, the more productive one is. Presumably, therefore, one should conduct all human business in the manner of the exact sciences. That is the ideal of the precise life. It means that one's lifework ought also to consist only of three poems or three treatises, in which one concentrates oneselfin the extreme; for the rest, one ought to keep silent, do what is essential, and remain without emotion wherever one does not have creative feeling. One should be "moral" only in the exceptional cases and standardize everything else, like pencils or screws. In other words, morality is reduced to the mo- mt:lnts of genius, and for the rest treated merely reasonably.
It is determined that this {utopian) person as man of action is already present today; but precise people don't bother about the utopias plotted out inside them.
In connection with this, the nature ofutopias is described as an exper- iment in which the possible alteration of one element of life, and its ef-
From the Posthu1TWUS Papers · 1753
fects, are observed. A possibility released from its inhibiting bond to re- ality and developed.
The Utopia of Precision yields a person in whom a paradoxical combi- nation of precision and vagueness occurs. Aside from the temperament of precision, everything else in him is vague. He places little value in morality, since his imagination is directed toward changes; and, as demonstrated, his passions disappear and in their place something like the primitive fire of goodness appears.
More developed version: Inductive attitude also toward his own af- fects and principles.
Addendum: It should be noted about "vagueness" that what occurs in its place is not a vacuum but simplythe rational morality ofa social, tech- nical sobriety that jumps in. (The present version relies rather too much on the Other Condition. )
But that implicitly assumes that the "nongenius" relationships could be regulated through reason. This is contested, and to a great degree properlyso; the motorofsocial action is affect. We therefore have to see to what extent that is satisfactorily taken into consideration in what comes later.
Provisional summation
We have hit upon Ulrich's three utopias: The utopia of inductive thinking or
of the given social condition;
the utopia oflife in love;
the utopia of the Other Condition.
Ofthese, the utopia ofinductive thinking is in a certain sense the worst! That would be the standpoint to be adopted from a literary point ofview (which justifies the other two utopias). But this demonstration, or the representation that goes along with it, is only completed with the end (war). An apparent interim summary: the museum chapter. The journey into the Millennium places the other two utopias in the foreground and disposes of them as much as possible. But a good deal about the utopia of inductive thinking occurs in the Stumm, Parallel Campaign, Lindner, Schmeisser, and Moosbrugger chapters. So it is not necessary to master
1754 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
the utopia of inductive thinking down to the last detail around the diary chapters, but it probably is necessary to be familiar with its important general characteristics.
War and the age. Notes
Individualism is coming to an end This is of no concern to Ulrich But the right thing to do would be to rescue something from it.
I am struck in my notes on Mo6r [Gyulia Mo6r, On Eternal Peace: Outline ofa Philosophy ofPacifism and Anarchism (Leipzig, 1930)- TRANs. ] how the just-concluded Kellogg Treaty is immediately being interpreted by France according to its needs of the moment.
States are really such that they not only take account of aesthetic needs but also actually obey them, while interpreting the ideas involved the way passionate people do. (Hans Sepp would therefore be only an overt instance. ) What is it that plays the role of the affect in this. Evi- dently the affects arising for statesmen through responsibility. In this regard, responsibility is as much a national egotism as is the individual and party egotism of the politician who is dependent on his people.
A goal, a striving, determine the emotions, and the emotions the ar- gumentation.
States are intellectually inferior.
A question: How can one lose wars? (Stumm: That's something we lmow something about! ) Earlier: How could an absolute ruler miscalcu- late so badly as often happened? False intelligence, also lack of talent, will have played a role. But for the most part it was probably always a not-being-able-to-retreat, and the human quality that it is easier to as- sume the burden of a great remote danger than a smaller but closer one. Before one discards a city, rather than taking upon oneself a war that can cost one a province. Then the collective boastfulness; so great that no single person could achieve it, and there is no escaping it. Patriotism as affect instead of reason: the state is not conducted like a business but as an ethical "good. " Yet they are also manly affects!
But that doubtless happens as it should. What is striking is only that
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1 755 the moral nature of the state has remained far less developed than that
of the individual.
The outstanding personalities of history are criminals: Ulrich's plans to become a Napoleon. But for the most part, criminal here means: anti- philistine, someone unconstrained. But they really were criminals: mur- derers, oath breakers, liars, tricksters, in a word: on principle, the historical personality can be credited with any iniquity: the mature per- son is confronted with this idea. And has less sympathy for it. An ef- feminacy?
In a criminal, affects outweigh the inhibitions (except when caused by environment or degeneration, weakness and such). But don't they in a man ofaction too? Revision ofthe reflections that are occasionally given to Moosbrugger? Clarisse?
The world calls for strongly affective, strong-willed leaders.
But compare it to the individual person: will and intelligence must be strong. Beginning miscreants later become self-possessed. I must have a note about this (cf. men of action and human deeds).
The valuation of historical personalities and deeds is a functional one.
Here, in distinction to historical and private morality, is an example of functional evaluation. Absolutely the paradigm, for translated into the private sphere the historical is positively disgusting.
1930-1942
Concluding portion
Overall problem: war.
Pseudorealities lead to war. The Parallel Campaign leads to war! War as: How a great event comes about.
All lines lead to the war. Everyone welcomes it in his fashion.
The religious element in the outbreak of the war.
Deed, emotion, and Other Condition join as one.
Someone remarks: that was what the Parallel Campaign had always
been looking for. It has found its great idea.
1756 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
Arises (like crime) from all those things that people ordinarily allow to dissipate in small irregularities.
Ulrich recognizes: either real working together (Walter's inductive piety) or Other Condition, or from time to time this has to happen.
Agathe says (repeatedly): We were the last romantics oflove.
Ulrich possibly: the genius's needs and way of life are different from those ofthe masses. Perhaps better: . . . from the condition of genius and the condition of masses.
Individualist with the awareness of the impossibility of this viewpoint.
Doesn't go to Switzerland because he has no confidence in any idea at all.
Regards it as his suicide.
The collectivity needs a stable mental attitude. Its first attempt. Ulrich: It's the same thing we did: flight (from peace).
Ulrich at the end: knowing, working, being effective without illusions.
Something like a religious shudder.
The fixed and stable is disavowed.
Other Condition-normal condition will never be resolved.
Most profound hostility toward all these people; at the same time one
rushes around with them and wants to embrace the first person who comes along.
The individual will sinks, a new age of multipolar relations emerges before the eye of the mind.
Ulrich sees what a fascinating moment it was that never quite hap- pened between himself and Agathe. Ultimate refuge sex and war, but sex lasts for one night, the war evidently for a month, etc.
Amheim: The individual is the one who is fooled.
Agathe: We go on living as ifnothing were happening. Ulrich: Timid- ity before this robustness.
The priests: God's Officer Corps.
Overpowered by a ridiculous feeling for his homeland. Strives to re- gret, do penance, let himself be swept up. At the same time mocked.
Te deum laudamus.
National romanticism, displacement into scapegoats and love-goats. Nations have no intentions. Good people can make a cruel nation. Na-
tions have a mind that is not legally accountable. More properly: they have no mind at all. Comparison with the insane. They don't want to. But they have at each other.
Also a solution to: loving a person and not being able to love him.
From the Posthu1TWUS Papers · 1757
Anarchism couldn't prove itself even in love! Ulrich stands and acts under this impression.
In general the mob chapters, and within them especially Ulrich, de- pend on the as yet undetermined outcome of the Utopia of Inductive Thinking. But apparently it will amount to: struggling (mentally) and not despairing. Intimation reduced to belief, belief in an inductive God, un- provable but credible. As an adventure that keeps the affects in motion. Main idea. Circulation of the emotions without mysticism. Discovery of God in Kohler's fashion [Wolfgang Kohler, founder of gestalt psychol- ogy-TRANs. ], or on the basis of other ideas: God's becoming material. Intimation, Other Condition: someone else, who is better suited, might perhaps take these up. How one could force this on people: unimagin- able. Either leave what is hated to the age. Or work toward it, that is for it: write a book, therefore suicide, therefore go to war.
Once again the uppermost problem: To be advanced more concretely than both "Pseudorealities," therefore externalized: collapse of the cul- ture (and of the idea of culture). This is in fact what the summer of 1914 initiated.
Now it turns out that this was the great idea the Parallel Campaign was searching for, and what happens is the unfathomable flight from culture. Stumm might say that he is fleeing. All states claim to stand for something spiritual, which they don't define and summarily call culture. It turns out to be utopian in my assessments too. And that's what people no longer have confidence in.
In a certain sense, the entire problem of reality and morality is also the problem of drives. Of their running their instinctive course without result, their causing mischief; they must be controlled in order to pre- vent murder, usury, etc. But the counterproblem of being controlled is weakness of the drives, the paling of life, and how this is to be compen- sated for cannot be clearly imagined.
STUDIES FOR CHAPTERS (1932/33-1941)
Study for the closing session, and then Ulrich-Agathe
Beginning: No one wants to host the closing session of the Parallel Campaign. Finally, Count Leinsdorf: it ought to be ceremonial, not sim- ply a leaving in the lurch, decides to host it himself. Again the hall, etc. , as at the last meeting; but this time without the secretaries. And he
delivers the concluding address.
Beforehand people gather (ceremoniously) in another room. This
provides the opportunity (or also short conversations as they hasten away) of having the other characters pass by in review.
Reconciliation scene between Tuzzi and Diotima. Tuzzi: Now reason wins out. Does he mean that against pacifism? He means: Now the situ- ation is clearing up, perhaps: the situation that up to now has uncon- sciously hidden behind pacifism. And most profoundly: Reason belongs to the realm of evil. Morality and reason are the opposites of goodness. (Ulrich, too, might possibly say that, coming up to them. )
Then what dominates is: We are in the right; according to the rules of reason and morality we are the ones attacked: perhaps Count Leins- dorf's address. Everyone: We are defending what is ours (homeland, culture).
Arnheim: The world is perhaps perishing or entering a long hell- But perhaps Arnheim is no longer present.
Who? : The world would then perish not through its immoral but through its moral citizens.
Agathe: We go on living as ifit were nothing.
Ulrich: No. Suicide. I'm going to war.
Agathe: If anything happens to you: poison.
The shadowing presence of death suddenly becomes visible. One's
personal death, without one's having got anything straightened out, and ignoring which life stumbles on and continues unfolding its diversions. In the mob mood, moreover, everyone believes in giving up diversions for a long time. Isn't the final result for Ulrich something like ascesis? The Other Condition has miscarried, and diversions belong to the muta- tion of emotions? So that would once again be in opposition to the healthy life. An end of utopias.
Buildings-breathlike mass, condensation on surfaces that present themselves . . .
Freed from connections, every impulse momentarily deforms the in- dividual.
From the Posthumous Papers · 1759
The individual, who comes about only through expression, forms him- self in the forms of society. He is violated and thus acquires surface.
He is formed by the back-formations of what he has created. If one takes away these back-formations, what remains is something indefinite, unshaped. The walls of the streets radiate ideologies.
GENERAL REFLECTIONS (c. 1930-1942)
For the beginning
The stories being written today are all very fine, significant, profound, useful distillations and full of spirit. But they have no introductions.
Therefore I have decided to write this story in such a way that in spite of its length it needs an introduction.
It is said that a story needs an introduction only if the writer has not been able to shape it successfully. Splendid! Literature's progress, which expresses itselftoday in the absence ofintroductions, proves that writers are very sure oftheir subjects and their audience. For ofcourse the au- dience is involved too; the writer has to open his mouth, and the audi- ence must already know what it is he wants to say; if he then says it a little differently and in an unexpected way, he has legitimized himself as creative. So authors and public are generally on good terms today, and the need for an introduction indicates an exceptional case.
A small variation. I would not, however, want to be understood to mean that in my view the greatness of the genius is expressed in the greatness of the variation. On the contrary-the age of fools.
But we also do not want to overlook the fact that in writing introduc- tions a relationship with the audience can be expressed that is too good; looked at historically, this is even the way it has been most of the time. The author appears in his window in shirtsleeves and smiles down at the street; he is certain that people will obligingly look up to his popular face if he says a few words personally. It is enough for me to say that I have
1760 • THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
been spoiled far too little by success to hit upon such an idea. My need for an introduction does not indicate a particularly good relation with the public, and although, as is already apparent, I will make abundant use of the custom of talking about myself in this preface, I hope to be speaking not about an individual person but about a public matter.
Preface, first continuation
Many will ask: What viewpoint is the author taking, and with what results? I can't give a satisfactory account of myself. I take the matter neither from all sides (which in the novel is impossible) nor from one side, but from various congruent sides. But one must not confuse the unfinished state of something with the author's skepticism. I expound my subject even though I know it is only a part of the truth, and I would expound it in just the same way if I knew it was false, because certain errors are way stations of the truth. Given a specific task, I am doing what I can.
This book has a passion that in the area of belles lettres today is some- what out of place, the passion for rightness/precision. (Polgar [Alfred Polgar, writer and friend of Musil-TRANs. ]: Spare us brief stories. In saying that he writes a long one. )
The story of this novel amounts to this, that the story that ought to be told in it is not told.
Possibly: Adduce as well the principle of partial solutions, which is vital to the way I have set up my task. For instance Torless, Unions. The basis of many misunderstandings. The public prefers writers who go for the whole.
The term "essayism" is impossibly chosen ifone thinks for instance of Carlyle.
Readers are accustomed to demanding that you tell them about life and not about the reflection oflife in the heads ofliterature and people. But that is justified with certainty only insofar as this reflection is merely
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1761 an impoverished and conventionalized copy of life. I am trying to offer
them originals, so they have to suspend their prejudice too.
Mastering unreality is a program, so point to Volume Two, but as a way of concluding it is almost absurd.
