No More Learning

1630 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
[Visit to the madhouse]
What met her eyes was, in any event, peculiar enough: a game of cards.
Moosbrugger, in dark everyday clothes, was sitting at a table with three men, one ofwhom was wearing a doctor's white smock, the second a business suit, and the third the rather threadbare cassock of a priest; aside from these four figures around the table, and their wooden chairs, the room was empty, except for the three high windows that looked out over the garden. The four men looked up as Clarisse came toward them, and Friedenthal performed the introductions. Clarisse made the ac- quaintance of a young intern at the clinic, his mentor, and a doctor who had come to visit, from whom she found out that he had been one of the experts who had declared Moosbrugger sane at his court hearings. The four were playing three-man games, so that one was always sitting watching the others play. The sight of a cozy, ordinary game of cards dashed, for the moment, all Clarisse's ideas. She had been prepared for something horrifying, even if only that she would have been led end- lessly farther through such half-empty rooms in order finally to be mys- teriously informed that Moosbrugger was once again not to be seen; and after everything she had been through in the last few weeks, and espe- cially today, all she could feel now was an extraordinary sense of oppres- sion. She did not grasp that this card game had been arranged with the others by Dr. Friedenthal in order that Moosbrugger could be obseiVed at leisure; it seemed to her like devils playing with a soul in an ignoble fashion, and she thought she was in empty, icy tracts ofhell. To her hor- ror, Moosbrugger stood up straight and gallantly came up to her; Frie- denthal introduced him too, and Moosbrugger took her unsteady hand in his paw and made a quick, silent bow, like a big adolescent.
After that was done, Friedenthal asked that they please not disturb themselves and explained that the lady had come from Chicago to study the organization of the clinic and would certainly find that there was no other place in the world where the guests were treated so well.
"Spades were played, not diamonds, Herr Moosbruggerl" said the physician, who had been obseiVing his protege reflectively. In truth, Moosbrugger had enjoyed Friedenthal's referring to him, in the pres- ence of these strangers, as a guest of the clinic and not as a patient. Sa- voring this made him misread the cards, but because of the game he overlooked the reproach with a magnanimous smile. Ordinarily he played more carefully than a hawk. It was his ambition to lose to his learned opponents only through the luck of the cards, never by playing
From the Posthumous Papers · 1 631
worse than they did. But this time he also, after a while, allowed himself to count his tricks in English, which he could do up to thirty even if it interfered with his game, and he had understood that Clarisse came from America. Indeed, a little later he put his cards down entirely, pressed his fists against the table, leaned his strong back so broadly back- ward that the wood embracing it creaked, and began an involved story about his time in prison. "Take my word for it, gentlemen-" he began, because he knew from experience: if you want to get anywhere with women you have to act as if you aren't even aware of their existence, at least in the beginning; that had brought him success with them every time.
The young asylum physician listened to Moosbrugger's bombastic story with a smile; in the priest's face regret struggled with cheerfulness, while the visiting doctor, who was playing, and who had almost brought Moosbrugger to the gallows, encouraged him from time to time with sarcastic interruptions. The giant's proud but ordinarily basically decent manner of conducting himself had made him a comfortable presence to them. What he said made sense, even if not always in exactly the right places; the spiritual counselor in particular had come to like him sinfully well. When he reminded himself of the brutal crimes of which this man of lamblike piety was capable, he mentally crossed himself in fright, as if he had surprised himself in some reprehensible negligence, humbled himself before the inscrutability of God, and said to himself that such a vexed and complicated affair was best left to God's will. That this will was being manipulated by the two doctors like two levers working against each other, without its being for the moment apparent which was the stronger, was not unbeknownst to the man of the cloth.
A cheerful antagonism prevailed between the two doctors. When Moosbrugger lost the thread of his story for a moment he was inter- rupted by the older man, the visitor, Dr. Pfeifer, with the words: "Enough talking, Moosbrugger, back to the cards, otherwise the Herr Intern will arrive at his diagnosis too soon! " Moosbrugger immediately replied with subservient eagerness: "Ifyou want to play, Doctor, we can play again! " Clarisse heard this with astonishment. But the younger of the two doctors smiled, unmoved. It was an open secret that he was try- ing to arrive at an unassailable clinical picture of Moosbrugger's inability to be held accountable for his actions. This doctor was blond and looked ordinary and unsentimental, and the traces of fraternity dueling scars did not exactly make his face any more cultured; but the self-confidence of youth made him advocate the clinical view of Moosbrugger's guilt, and his requisite punishment, with a zeal that scorned the customary detachment. He would not have been able to say precisely in what this
1632 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
clinical view consisted. It was just different. In this view, for example, an ordinazy bout of intoxication is a genuine mental disorder that heals by itself; and that Moosbrugger was in part an honorable man, in part a sex murderer, signified, as this view had it, competing drives, for which it was a matter of course that he had to reach a decision according to whether the stronger or the more sustained drive was uppermost at the moment. If others wanted to call that free will or a good or evil moral decision, that was their affair. ''Whose deal? " he asked.
It developed that it was his turn to cut and deal the cards. While he was doing this, Dr. Pfeifer turned to Clarisse to ask what interest had brought his "esteemed colleague" here. Dr. Friedenthal raised his hand to ward off the question and advised: "For heaven's sake, don't mention anything about psychiatry: there's no word in the German language this doctor wants to hear less! " This was true, and had the advantage of al- lowing the unauthorized visitor to appear to the others to be a doctor without Friedenthal having to say so expressly. He smiled contentedly. Dr. Pfeifer left off the banter with a flattered grin. He was a somewhat older little man, whose skull was flat on top and sloped out and down at the back and was festooned with wisps of unkempt hair and beard. The nails on his fingers were oily from cigarettes and cigars, and retained around the edges a narrow rim of dirt, although in medical fashion they appeared to be cut quite short. This could now be clearly seen because in the meantime the players had picked up their cards and were care- fully sorting them. "I pass," Moosbrugger declared; "I play," Dr. Pfeifer; "Good," the young doctor; this time the cleric was looking on. The game was languid and ran its uneventful course.
Clarisse, who was standing to one side next to Friedenthal, hidden slightly behind him, raised her mouth to his ear and, indicating Moos- brugger with her glance, whispered: "All he ever had was ersatz women! "
"Shh, for heaven's sake! " Friedenthal whispered back imploringly, and to cover the indiscretion stepped up to the table and asked aloud: ''Who's winning? " ''I'm losing," Pfeifer declared. "Moosbrugger was lying in wait! Our young colleague won't take any advice from me; there's no way I can convince him that it's a fatal error for doctors to believe sick criminals belong in their hospitals. " Moosbrugger grinned. Pfeifer went on joking and picked up the skirmishing with Friedenthal where it had broken off; there was no point going on with the game any- way. "You yourself," he pleaded ironically, "ought to be telling a young Hippocrates like this, when the occasion arises, that trying to cure evil people medically is a utopia and, moreover, nonsense, for evil is not only
From the Posthumous Papers · 1633
present in the world but also indispensable for its continuation. W e need bad people; we can't declare them all sick. "
. . You're out of tricks," the calm young doctor said, and put down his cards. This time the cleric, looking on, smiled. Clarisse thought she had understood something. She became warm. But Pfeifer looked loath- some. . . It's a nonsensical utopia," he joked. She was at a loss. Presum- ably it was only the undignified game of devils playing for a soul. Pfeifer had lit a fresh cigar, and Moosbrugger was dealing the cards. For the first time he looked over at Clarisse for a moment, and then he was asked for his response to the others' bids.
This time the intern was odd man out. He seemed to have been wait- ing for the opportunity, and very slowly pulled his thoughts together in words. . . For a scientist," he said, . . there is nothing that does not have its basis in a law ofnature. So ifa person commits a crime without any ratio- nal external motive, it must mean he has an inner one. And that's what I have to be on the lookout for. But it's not subtle enough for Dr. Pfeifer. " That was all he said. He had turned red, and looked around with amiable annoyance. The cleric and Dr. Friedenthal laughed; Moosbrugger laughed the same way they did and threw a lightning glance at Clarisse. Clarisse said suddenly: . . A person can also have unusual rational mo- tives! " The intern looked at her. Pfeifer agreed: . . Our colleague is quite right. And you are really betraying a criminal nature just by assuming that there are also rational motives for a crime! " . . Oh, nonsense! " the younger man retorted. . . You know exactly what I'm talking about. " And again to Clarisse: 'Tm speaking as a doctor. Splitting words may have a place in philosophy or somewhere else, but I find it repulsive! "
Whenever he was entrusted with preparing a faculty report, he was known for getting angry and upset at the concessions he was expected to make to an unmedical way of thinking and at the unnatural questions to which he was expected to respond. Justice is not a scientific concept any more than the concepts derived from it are, and the doctor associates quite different ideas than does the lawyer with . . deserving of punish- ment," . . free will," . . use of reason," . . derangement of the senses," and all such things that determine the destiny of countless people. Since the lawyer, for whatever reasons, will neither dispense with the doctor nor yield to his judgment, which is understandable, medical experts who tes- tify in court not seldom resemble little children forbidden by an older sister to speak in their natural way, even though at the same time she commands them to do so and then waits for the truth to emerge from their childish mouths. So it was not from any emotional sentimentality but from pure ambition and cutting zeal for his discipline that the young
1634 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
researcher with the dueling scars was inclined to exclude the persons in his report as much as possible from the court's cerebral cortex, and since this had a chance of succeeding only when these persons could be classi- fied quite clearly and distinctly under a recognized category of disease, he was in Moosbrugger's case also collecting everything that pointed to one. But Dr. Pfeifer did exactly the opposite, although he only occasion- ally came to the clinic to inquire after Moosbrugger, like a sportsman who, once his own match is over, will sit on the rostrum and watch the others. He was recognized as an outstanding expert, even if a rather odd one, on the nature of mentally ill criminals. His practice as a physician could be called at most complaisant, and that only with the accompani- ment of disrespectful statements against the value of his discipline. He lived mostly from a modest but steady income from testifying as an ex- pert witness, for he was very popular in the courts on account of his sym- pathy for the tasks of justice. He was so much the expert (which also earned him Friedenthal's benevolence) that out of sheer scientism he denied his science, indeed denigrated human knowledge in general. Ba- sically, perhaps, he did this only because in this fashion he could aban- don himself without restraint to his personal inclinations, which goaded him to treat with great skill every criminal whose mental health was questionable, like a ball that was to be guided through the holes of sci- ence to the goal ofpunishment. All kinds ofstories were told about him, and Friedenthal, doubtless fearing that the usual conversation between the two adversaries might well erupt in a quarrel that was better left unheard this time, quickly seized the initiative by turning to Clarisse right after the young doctor and explaining to her what he understood by "splitting words. " "According to the opinion of our esteemed guest Dr. Pfeifer," he said with a soothing glance and smile, "no one is capable of deciding whether a person is guilty. We doctors can't because guilt, being held accountable for one's actions, and all those things aren't med- ical concepts at all, and judges can't because without some knowledge of the important connections between body and mind, there is no way of arriving at a judgment about such questions either. It's only religion that unambiguously demands personal responsibility before God for every sin, so ultimately such questions always become questions of religious conviction. " With these last words he had directed his smile at the pas- tor, hoping by this teasing to give the conversation a harmless turn. The priest did turn slightly red in the face and smiled back in confusion, and Moosbrugger expressed by an unmistakable growl his complete ap- proval ofthe theory that he belonged before God's tribunal and not psy- chiatry's. But suddenly Clarisse said: "Perhaps the patient is here because he is standing in for someone else. "
FromthePosthurrwusPapers · z 6 3 5
She said this so quickly and unexpectedly that it got lost; several aston- ished glances brushed her, from whose face the color had drained ex- cept for two red spots, and then the conversation proceeded on its previous course.
"That's not entirely so," Dr. Pfeifer responded, and laid down his cards. 'W e can't even talk clearly about what it means to say Tm speak- ing as a doctor,' about which our colleague has such a high opinion. A 'case' that occurred in life is placed before us in the clinic; we compare it with what we know, and the rest, simply everything we don't know, sim- ply our lack of knowledge, is the delinquent's responsibility. Is that the way it is, or isn't it? "
Friedenthal shrugged his shoulders in statesmanlike fashion, but re- mained silent.
"That's the way it is," Pfeifer repeated. "Despite all the pomp ofjus- tice and science, despite all hairsplitting, despite our wigs of split hairs, the whole business finally just comes down to the judge saying: 'I wouldn't have done that' and to us psychiatrists adding: 'Our mentally disturbed patients wouldn't have behaved that way'! But the fact that our concepts aren't better sorted out can't be allowed to lead to society's being hurt. Whether the will of an individual person is free or not free, society's will is free as far as what it treats as good and evil. And for my- self, I want to be good in society's sense, not in the sense of my private emotions. " He relit his dead cigar and brushed the hairs of his beard away from his mouth, which had become moist.
Moosbrugger, too, stroked his mustache, and was beating rhythmi- cally on the tabletop with the edge of his telescoped hand of cards.
'Well, do we want to go on playing, or don't we? " the intern asked patiently.
"Of course we want to go on," Ffeifer responded, and picked up his cards. His eyes met Moosbrugger's. "Moreover, Moosbrugger and I are of the same opinion,'' he went on, looking at his hand with a worried expression. "How was it, Moosbrugger? The counselor at the trial asked you repeatedly why you put on your Sunday clothes and went to the tavern-"
"And got shaved," Moosbrugger corrected; Moosbrugger was ready to talk about it at any time, as if it was an act of state.
"Calmly got shaved," Pfeifer repeated. "'You shouldn't have done that! ' the counselor told you. Well! " He turned to the rest. 'We do ex- actly the same thing when we say that our mental patients wouldn't have done that. Is this the way to prove anything? " This time, his words were subdued and relaxed and only an echo of his earlier, more passionate protest, because the game had again begun to go around the table.
1636 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
A patronizing smile could be discerned on Moosbrugger's face for quite some time; it slowly faded in his absorption in the game, the way pleats in a stiff material soften with constant use. So Clarisse was not entirely wrong when she thought she was seeing several devils struggling for a soul, but the relaxed way in which this was happening deceived her, and she was especially confused by the manner in which Moosbrugger was behaving. He apparently did not much like the younger doctor, who wanted to help him; he put up with his efforts only reluctantly and be- came restless when he felt them. Perhaps he wasn't acting any differ- ently from any simple person who finds it impertinent when someone busies himself about him too earnestly; but he was delighted every time Dr. Pfeifer spoke. Presumably what he was expressing in this case was not exactly delight, for such a condition formed no part of Moosbrug- ger's demeanor, oriented as it was toward dignity and recognition, and much of what the doctors said among themselves he also found incom- prehensible; but if talk there had to be, then it should be like Dr. Pfeifer's. That this was, on the whole, his opinion was unmistakably evi- dent. The collision of the two doctors had made him cheerful; he began to count his tricks again out loud and in English, and in conspicuous repetition threw into the conversation or into the silence from time to time the obsetvation: "Ifit must be, it must be! " Even the good cleric, who had seen a good deal, shook his head at times, but the scorn heaped on earthly justice had pleased him not a little, and he was also pleased that the scholars ofworldly science were not able to agree. He no longer recalled how all these problems that they had been talking about were to be decided according to canon law, but he thought calmly: "Let them carry on, God has the last word," and since this conviction led him not to get involved in the verbal duel, he won the game.
So among these four men there was a quite cordial understanding. It was true that the prize being offered was Moosbrugger's head, but that was not in the least troublesome as long as each person was completely preoccupied with what he had to do first. After all, the men concerned with forging, polishing, and selling knives are not constantly thinking of what it might lead to. Moreover, Moosbrugger, as the only one person- ally and directly acquainted with the slaying of another person, and whose own execution was in the offing, found that it was not the worst thing that could befall a man of honor. Ufe is not the highest of values, Schiller says: Moosbrugger had heard that from Dr. Pfeifer, and it pleased him greatly. And so, as he could be touching or a raging animal depending on how his nature was appealed to or manipulated, the oth- ers too, as friends and executioners, were stretched over two differing spheres of action that had hardly a single point of contact. But this
From the Posthumous Papers · 1637
greatly disturbed Clarisse. She had seen right away that under the guise of cheerfulness something secret was going on, but she had grasped this only as a blurred picture and, confused by the content of the conversa- tion, was just now beginning to understand; but not only did she under- stand, she saw persistent evidence, ominous and indeed urgent in its uncanniness, that these men were surreptitiously observing Moosbrug- ger. But Moosbrugger, unsuspecting, was observing her, Clarisse. From time to time he furtively directed his eyes at her and tried to surprise and hold her glance. The visit of this beautiful lady who had come so far-it was only Clarisse's thinness and small size that were just a little too unimpressive-flattered him greatly, in spite of all the deference with which he was generally treated. When he found her extraordinary glance directed at him, he did not doubt for an instant that his bushy- bearded manliness had made her fall in love with him, and now and then a smile arose beneath his mustache that was meant to confirm this con- quest, and this, along with the superiority practiced on servant girls, made a quite remarkable impression on Clarisse. An inexpressible help- lessness squeezed her heart. She had the notion that Moosbrugger found himself in a trap, and the flesh on her body seemed to her a bait that had been cast before him while the hunters lurked around him.
Quickly making up her mind, she laid her hand on Friedenthal's arm and told him that she had seen enough and felt tired.
"What did you really mean when you said he had always had only 'er- satz women'? '' Friedenthal asked after they had left the room.
"Nothing! " Clarisse, still upset at what she had been through, re- sponded with a dismissive gesture.
Friedenthal became melancholy and thought he needed to justify the strange performance. "Basically, of course, none of us are responsible for our actions," he sighed. Clarisse retorted: "He least of all! "
Friedenthallaughed at the "joke.
" "Were you very much surprised? " he continued, in apparent astonishment. "Some of Moosbrugger's indi- vidual traits emerged quite nicely. "
Clarisse stopped. "You shouldn't allow that to continue! " she de- manded forcefully.
Her companion smiled and devoted himself to dramatizing his state of mind. "What do you expect! " he exclaimed. "For the medical man everything is medicine, and for the lawyer, law! The justice system is in the final analysis a function ofthe concept of'compulsion,' which is part of healthy life but is mostly applied without thinking to sick people as well. But in the same way, the concept of'sickness,' our starting point as
1638 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
doctors, and all its consequences, are also applicable to healthy life. These things can never be reconciled! "
"But there are no such things! " Clarisse exclaimed.
"Oh, but there are," the doctor complained gently. "The human sciences developed at different times and for different purposes, which have nothing to do with each other. So we have the most divergent con- cepts about the same thing. At most the only place it comes together is in the lexicon. And I bet it's not only the priest and myself but you, too, and, for instance, your brother or your husband and l-each one of us would know only one comer ofthe contents ofevery term we would look up in it, and of course each of us would know a different comer! The world hasn't been able to arrange things any better than that! " Frieden- thal had leaned over Clarisse, who was standing in a window alcove, and supported his arm against the windowbars. Some sort ofgenuine feeling resonated in his words. He was a doubter. The insecurity of his disci- pline had opened his eyes to the insecurity of all knowledge. He would have loved to be someone important, but in his best hours had an inkling that for him the paralyzing confusion of everything about which truth existed, did not yet exist, or would never exist, permitted nothing more than a vain and sterile subjectivity. He sighed, and added: "I sometimes feel as if the windows of this building were nothing more than magnify- ing glasses! "
Clarisse asked seriously: "Can we go to your office for a bit? I can't talk here. " Two arrows shot forth from beneath the shield ofher eyelids. Friedenthal slowly disengaged his hand from the window and his glance from her eyes. Then he also disengaged his thoughts from the absorp- tion he had revealed, and said, as they walked along the tiled corridor: "This fellow Pfeifer is an extraordinary figure. He lives without friends or girlfriends, but he has the biggest collection of paintings, mal pro- ceedings, and memorabilia connected with the death sentences of the last twenty or thirty years. I saw them once. Extraordinary. Drawers full of his 'victims': polished and brutal faces of men and women, some marked by crime, some quite ordinary-looking, smile up at you from yel- lowed newspapers and faded photographs, or gaze into their unknown future. Then there are scraps of clothing, rope ends-real gallows ropes--canes, vials of poison. Do you know the museum in Zermatt, where what's left behind by those who've fallen from the surrounding mountains is preserved? It's that kind of impression. He obviously has a tender feeling for these things. You notice it, too, whenever he talks of the 'victims' to whose legal murder, or whatever you want to call it, he himself has conbibuted. As astute observer might see in this something like a rivalry, the joy of intellectual superiority, sexual cunning. All of
From the Posthumous Papers · 1639
course entirely within the bounds of what is permissible and scientifi- cally admissible. But one could indeed say that being preoccupied with danger makes one dangerous-"
"He hunts them? " Clarisse asked in a choked voice.
"Yes; you could almost say he's a hunter in love with his prey. " Clarisse froze; she did not know what was happening to her. Frieden-
thal had conducted her back along a somewhat different route, and as he was speaking opened the door of a ward they had to traverse, which seemed to contain the most glorious thing she had ever seen. It was a large hall, and she thought she was looking into a living flower bed. They were crossing the ward for hysterical women. These women were stand- ing around singly and in small clusters, and lying in beds. They all ap- peared to be wearing snow-white clothes and to have loosened and flowing inky-black hair. Clarisse couldn't take in a single detail; the total- ity resembled something unutterably beautiful and dramatically agitated. "Sisters! " Clarisse felt softly but powerfully in that moment when atten- tion streamed in irregular pulses toward her and Friedenthal; she had the feeling of being able to fly higher with a swarm of wondrous lovebirds than all the excitements of life and art allow. Her companion made only slow fmward progress with her, for all sorts of humble enamored souls approached him from every side, or wandered in his path with a strength oferotic gentleness such as Clarisse had never before experienced. Frie- denthal directed placating or severe words to them, and with soft move- ments pushed them away; and meanwhile other women lay in their beds in their white jackets, having spread out their hair darkly over the pillows, women whose bellies and legs under their thin blankets performed the drama oflove. Sinning figures. Paired with a partner who remained invis- ible but was palpably present, against whom they pushed their arms with exaggerated resistance, who exaggeratedly stimulated the swelling of their breasts, from whose mouths they withdrew with superhuman effort and toward whom their bellies vaulted with superhuman effort, while in the midst of this obscene play their eyes shone innocently with the en- chanting inert beauty of large, dark flowers.
Clarisse was still deeply confused by this flower bed of love and suf- fering, by its morbid and yet intoxicating aroma, by its aura, by the glid- ing-through and not-being-allowed-to-stop, when she was sitting in Friedenthal's office being observed by him with an unflagging smile. Collecting herself and returning from her almost spatially deep distrac- tion, she clung to something she managed to get out in a raw, almost mechanical voice: "Declare him not accountable for his actions! "
Friedenthal looked at her with astonishment. "My dear lady," he asked in a joking tone, "of what concern is that to you? "
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Clarisse recoiled because she could not think of an answer. But since nothing occurred to her, she said simply and suddenly: "Because he can't help it! "
Dr. Friedenthal now scrutinized her more closely. "What makes you so sure of that? "
Clarisse energetically withstood his glance and answered haughtily, as if she was not certain whether to condescend to giving him such a re- sponse: "But he's here only because he's standing in for someone else! " Annoyed, she shrugged her shoulders, jumped up, and looked out the window. When after a short while she perceived that this did not have any effect, she turned around again and came down a peg. "You can't understand me: he reminds me of someone! " she observed, half at- tenuating the truth. She did not want to say too much and held back.
"But that's not a scientific reason," Friedenthal drawled.
"I thought you'd do it if I asked you to," she now said simply.
"You're too casual about that. " The doctor was reproachful. He
leaned back in his armchair like Faust and went on with a glance at his studio: "Have you at all considered whether you are doing the man a favor by wanting him committed instead of punished? It's no fun living within these walls. " He shook his head disconsolately.
His visitor replied clearly: "First the executioner must leave him alone! "
"Look," Friedenthal said. "In my opinion, Moosbrugger is probably an epileptic. But he also shows symptoms of paraphrenia systematica and perhaps of dementia paranoides. He just happens to be in every re- spect a borderline case. His attacks, in which excruciatingly terrifying delusions and sensory disorientation certainly do play a role, can last minutes or weeks, but they often pass over imperceptibly into complete mental clarity, just as they are also capable of arising with no fixed boundaries from this same clarity, and besides, even in the paroxysmal stage consciousness never quite disappears but is only diminished in varying degrees. So something probably could be done for him, but the case is by no means one in which it would be necessary for a doctor to exclude his responsibility as a physician! "
"So you'll do something for him? " Clarisse urged.
Friedenthal smiled. "I don't know yet. "
"You have to! "
"You're strange," Friedenthal drawled. "But . . . one could weaken. " "You don't nave the slightest doubt that the man is sick! " the young
woman asserted emphatically.
"Ofcourse not. But it's not myjob to judge that," the doctor defended
himself. "You've already heard: I am to judge whether his free will was
From the Posthumous Papers · I 64 I
excluded during the deed, whether his consciousness was present dur- ing the deed, whether he had any insight into his wrongdoing: nothing but metaphysical questions, which put this way have no meaning for me as a physician, but in which I do have to show some consideration for the judge! "
In her excitement Clarisse strode up and down the room like a man.
"Then you oughtn't to let yourself be used like that! " she exclaimed harshly. "If you can't prevail against the judge, it has to be attempted some other way! "
Friedenthal tried another tack to dissuade his visitor from her annoy- ing ideas. "Have you ever really tried to picture to yourselfwhat a horri- ble raging beast this momentarily calm half-sick man can be? " he asked.
''What's that to us now? " Clarisse retorted, cutting off his effort. ''When confronted with a case of pneumonia, you don't ask whether you can help a good person go on living! Your only task now is to prevent yourself from becoming accessory to a murder! "
Friedenthal sadly threw up his hands. ''You're crazy! " he said rudely and dejectedly.
"One has to have the courage to be crazy if the world is to be set right again! From time to time there have to be people who refuse to go along with the lies! " Clarisse asserted.
He took this to be a witty joke, which in the rush he had not quite understood. From the start this little person had made an impression on him, especially since, dazzled by General von Stumm, he overestimated her social position; and in any case, many young people these days give a rather confused impression. He found her to be something special, and felt himself restlessly stirred by her spontaneous eagerness as if by something relentlessly, even nobly, radiant. To be sure, he perhaps ought to have seen this radiance as diamondlike, for it also had some- thing of the quality of an overheated stove: something distinctly unpleas- ant that made one hot and icy. He unobtrusively assessed his visitor: stigmata of a heightened nervousness were doubtless to be perceived in her. But who today did not have such stigmata! Friedenthal's response was no different from the usual one-for when there are hazy notions of what is really meaningful, what is confused always has the same chance to excel that the con artist has in a hazily defined society-and although he was a pretty good observer, he had always managed to regain his composure no matter what Clarisse said. In the last analysis, one can always regard any person as a small-scale swatch of mental illness; that's the job of theory, how one looks at a person at one time psychologically and at another chemically; and since after Clarisse's last words a chasm of silence yawned, Friedenthal again sought "contact" and at the same
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time sought once more to divert her from her insistent demands. "Did you really like the women we saw? " he asked.
"Oh, enormously! " Clarisse exclaimed. She stood quietly before him, and the hardness was suddenly gone from her face. "I don't know what to tell you," she added softly. "That ward is like a monstrous magnifying glass held over a woman's triumph and suffering! "
Friedenthal smiled with satisfaction. ''Well, so now you see," he said. "Now you'll have to concede that the attraction that illness exercises is not alien to me either. But I must observe limits, I have to keep things in their places. Then I wanted to ask you whether you have ever considered that love, too, is a disturbance of the mind. There is hardly anyone who does not conceal something in his most private and proper love life that he reveals only to his guilty partner, some craziness or weakness: why not simply call it perversity and madness? In public you have to take measures against it, but in your inner life you can't always arm yourself against such things with the same rigor. And psychiatrists-psychiatry is ultimately an art too-will celebrate their greatest success when they have a certain sympathy and rapport with the medium in which they are working. " He had seized his visitor's hand, and Clarisse ceded to him its outermost fingertips, which she felt lying between his fingers as softly and helplessly as if they had fallen from her like the petals a flower drops. Suddenly she was completely a woman, full of that tender capri- ciousness in the face of a man's beseeching, and what she had experi- enced in the morning was forgotten. A soundless sigh parted her lips. It seemed to her that she had never felt this way, or not for the longest time, and evidently at this moment something from the magic of his realm rubbed off on Friedenthal, whom she by no means especially liked. But she pulled herself together and asked sternly: ''What have you made up your mind to do? "
"I have to make my rounds now," the doctor replied, "but I would like to see you again. But not here. Can't we meet somewhere else? "
"Perhaps," Clarisse responded. ''When you have carried out my re- quest! "
Her lips narrowed, the blood drained from her skin, and this made her cheeks look like two small leather balls; there was too much pressure in her eyes. Friedenthal suddenly felt exploited. It is extraordinary, but when a person sees another as merely a means to an end, it is much easier for him to take on that impenetrable look ofsomeone who is men- tally ill, the more natural it seems to him that consideration ought to be shown him. "Every hour here we see souls suffer, but we have to stay within our bounds," he countered. He became circumspect.
Clarisse said: "Good, you don't want to. Let me make you another
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1643
proposition. " She stood before him, small, legs apart, hands behind her back, and looked at him with a bashfully sarcastic, urgent smile: "I'll join the clinic as a nurse! "
The doctor stood up and asked her to talk it over with her brother, who would make clear to her how many necessary prerequisites for such a position she was lacking. As he spoke, the sarcasm that was squeezed into her eyes drained out of them and they filled with tears. "Then I want," she said, almost voiceless from excitement, "to be accepted as a patient! I have a mission! " Because she was afraid of spoiling her chances if she looked directly at the doctor, she looked to one side and up a little, and perhaps her eyes even wandered around. A shudder heated her skin, which swelled up red. Now she looked lovely and in need of tenderness, but it was too late; irritation at her importunity had sobered the doctor and made him reserved. He did not even ask her any more questions, for it seemed politic not to know too much about her out of consideration for the General and Ulrich, who had brought her here, and also in view of the almost forbidden favors he had granted her. And it was only out of old medical habit that from this point on his speech became still gentler and more emphatic as he expressed to Cla- risse his regret that there was no way he could meet her second request, and he advised her to confide this wish to her brother too. He even in- formed her that before that happened he could not allow her to con- tinue her visits to the clinic, much as this would be a loss to him personally.
Clarisse offered no real resistance to what he said. She had already imputed worse to Friedenthal. "He's an impeccable medical bureau- crat," she told herself. That eased her departure: she casually extended her hand to the physician, and her eyes laughed cunningly. She was not at all depressed, and even as she went down the steps was thinking about other possibilities.
FISCHEL I GERDA I HANS SEPP I ULRICH
LATE 19. 20S
It was Ulrich's bad conscience that drove him to Gerda; since the melan- choly scene between them, he had not heard anything from her and did not know how she had come to terms with herself. To his swprise, he found Papa Leo at the Fischels' house; Mama Clementine had gone out with Gerda. Leo Fischel would not let Ulrich go; he had rushed out to the hall himselfwhen he recognized his voice. Ulrich had the impression of changes. Director Fischel seemed to have changed his tailor; his in- come must have increased and his convictions diminished. Then too, he had usually stayed later at the bank; he had never worked at home after the air there had become so irksome. But today he seemed to have been sitting at his desk, although this "roaring loom of time" had not been used for years; a packet ofletters lay on the baize cloth, and the chrome- plated telephone, otherwise used only by the ladies, was standing askew, as if it had just been in use. After Ulrich had sat down, Fischel turned toward him in his desk chair and polished his pince-nez with a handker- chief that he drew from his breast pocket, although earlier he would cer- tainly have objected to such a foppish action, saying that it had been sufficient for a Goethe, a Schiller, and a Beethoven to cany their hand- kerchiefs in their trouser pocket-whether that was the case or not.
-It's been a long time, said Director Fischel. -Y es, Ulrich said.
- D i d you inherit a great deal? Fischel asked. -Oh, Ulrich said. -Enough.
- Y e s , there are problems.
- B u t you look splendid. You somehow seem to have got younger. -Oh, thanks; professionally there have never been any problems.
But look- He pointed in a melancholyway to a pile ofletters that lay on the desk. You do know Hans Sepp?
- O f course. You took me into your confidence- -Right! Fischel said.
From the Posthumous Papers · 1645
- A r e those love letters?