Ordinarily
he played more carefully than a hawk.
Musil - Man Without Qualities - v2
To continue anesthetizing him- self, he used the excuse that the brutality he was exercising was his right as a husband.
Suddenly Clarisse screamed.
She made an effort to utter a long, shrill, monotone cry as she saw her will escaping, and in this final, desperate defense it was in her mind that with this cry and what re- mained of her will she could perhaps slip out of her body.
But she no longer had much breath left; the cry did not last long and brought no one rushing in.
She was left alone.
Walter was alarmed at her cry but then angrily intensified his efforts.
She felt nothing.
She despised him.
Fi- nally, she thought of an expedient: she counted as quickly and as loudly as she could: "One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five," over and over.
Walter found it horrible, but it did not stop him.
And when they separated and straightened up, in a daze she said: "Just wait. I'll have my revenge! "
NEW IDEAS ABOUT THE CLARISSE-W ALTER-ULRICH COMPLEX
To make Clarisse human, use the problem of genius. Or instead of ge- nius, one can also say: the will to greatness, to goodness. A miserable Prometheus. Genius in that case about the same thing: a person who is an exception. The person who sees the errors, sees what is out ofjoint in the world, and has the will not to let the matter drop. In her case she doesn't have the strength.
This defines part of Walter's problem: what has to happen if the strength is lacking? -island, discussion.
The fact already that she always clung to older men!
The relation to her parents: here she learned to see the world as ex- ception to her. -[Part] I, or wherever her early history is recounted.
The whole development of her insanity would then fall-which makes Clarisse more human and motivates the conclusion-under the title: Struggle for Walter as struggle for genius.
In order not to have to speak of Ulrich: she gave him a name, from the beginning. The leader? The Buddha? The Great One? The Eternal One? The Mysterious One? The Redeemer? - Or several names? The Beloved? The Healthy One? The Great Friend?
Clarisse in Rome
Clarisse, however, could not bear to stay in Rome long. Even the square in front of the railway station, with its palm trees, its shops, and the prox- imity of big hotels, repelled her.
Nevertheless, she walked to the center of the city and checked into a small albergo. In the meantime her impression had changed. The eve- ning sky was orange almost to the zenith; the trees stood black and feath- ered before it. The air in the Ludovisi quarter, that unique, deliciously light mixture of sea and mountain air, refreshed her. She inhaled the acquaintance of a new strength. Prophecy of fascism. She began to no- tice the pretentious splendor of the elevated private gardens that rested
1624 · THE MAN WITH 0 U T QUALITIES
on walls five to eight yards high above the heads ofordinary pedestrians, and the giant gates and high windows, which in this neighborhood were a feature even of the apartment buildings. Behind a park wall a donkey brayed. -How the donkeys bray here! Clarisse thought. -Differently from home. They don't go "hee-haw," they go "ya"! It was a metallic, persisting trumpet call. She thought she could tell at first glance that there were no philistines in this city. Or there were, but a whirling en- ergy threatened them. As she approached the center, everything was full of energy, rush, and noise: cars raced unexpectedly around comers and crossed the plazas on unpredictable paths; bicyclists cheerfully and at risk of their lives teemed their way through between them; from the bursting trams clusters of young men who were hying to ride hung like grapes, clinging to each other in bold and impossible positions. Clarisse felt that this was a city after her own temperament, she was experiencing such a place for the first time. At night she could not sleep because a small bar had placed its tables in the narrow alley under her windows; people sang popular songs into the early morning and after every verse screamed a cheerfully dissonant refrain. This completely electrified Cla- risse. Although it was still relatively early in the year, it was already quite warm, and Clarisse got diarrhea from the heat; it was an enchanting state, as light as elder pith, fledged, and fatiguingly exciting.
Clarisse ordered all the impressions Rome made on her under the color red. When she thought back to her experiences in the sanatorium they had changed from a watery green, a color belonging to the present, the color of the German woods, into this red, which had been the red of the processions in her imagination; but it must be said that Clarisse did not clearly remember the experiences that had driven her to make this journey, but had the clear feeling ofrunning from a green state into one that was glowing red. Unfortunately, it was quite impossible for Clarisse to hit upon the idea that she was suffering from mad delusions. For green states even have their composers, who set them to music; these days sounds are painted, poems form sensory spaces, thoughts are danced: this is a vague kind of associating that has become popular be- cause thinking has lost its authority; it's about one eighth sensible and seven eighths nonsensical, and Clarisse could still regard herself as being very cautious and deliberate. So it was with calm, anticipatory attentive- ness that she found herself on the way from a green state into a red one.
On an excursion through Rome's palaces she encountered the marvel- ous, totally red portrait of Innocent X by Velazquez; the sight shot through her like a bolt of lightning. Now she saw clearly that this burn- ing color of life, red, was at the same time the color of Christianity, which, in Nietzsche's phrase, had given classical Eros poison to drink,
From the Posthumous Papers · 1625
the color of ascesis and inculpation of the senses. -O h my friends- Clarisse thought-you will not catch me! Her heart beat as if she had recognized a mortal danger at the last moment. She had discovered the ambivalent countenance of this city. It was the city of the Pope, and she remembered that Nietzsche had attempted to live here and had fled. She went to the house where he had lived. She took in nothing. The house was "spiritually closed. " She walked home smiling, outwitting this city at every step. It was a double city. Here the dark pessimism of Chris- tianity flared up to cardinal red, and here the blackness of insanity had flowed into Nietzsche's red blood. But what she thought was not so im- portant to Clarisse; the main thing was the smiling ambivalence in every- thing she saw. She went past palaces, excavations, and museums; she had still seen only the least part of them, and her impressions had not sunk to the measure of reality; she had assumed that the most marvelous treasures of the world were here set up side by side, but they were laid out like a bait; she had to remove this beauty from its hook very, very carefully. And everything that is beautiful in youth depends on the things around which people circle having one aspect that is known only to oneself.
In some way or other, the idea had seized Clarisse that she had to take up the mission at which Nietzsche had failed here in a different way, by beginning with the north. Evening had come. Once more she looked out the window of her small room: in the bar below, the first guests were already beginning to shout and sing, and if you leaned your body way out-above their heads, like a northern gargoyle-and craned your neck, you could see the round serrated shape of a gray church standing like a tiara before the still-darker gray of the night.
From what remained of her money she bought a ticket that took her back to one of the small towns through which she had passed on her way down. An unerring feeling told her at the railway station that it was not the right place. She went on by the next train. In this way Clarisse trav- eled for three days and four nights. On the fourth morning she was trav- eling along a seacoast and found a place that held her fast. With no money, she went into the hotels. This fact, that she had no money, was quite sudden and very peculiar; she made a rather long speech to the people in the hotels, in order to get them to serve her, and they listened politely but without understanding; then she hit upon the idea, because Walter was not to know where she was staying, of appealing to Ulrich. she sent him a long telegram in German.
1626 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
Clarisse-Island
That Clarisse appealed to Ulrich was not only due to her needing money and wanting to keep her whereabouts concealed from Walter. Involved as well was an "I mean you," a grasping with rays offeeling across moun- tains and far distances. Clarisse had come to the conviction that she was in love with Ulrich. That was not quite so simple as such a thing can be. She explained the horrible scene between the two of them that had upset her so, and everything that preceded it, by saying that at the time it had been too soon for Ulrich; it was only now that he was in the right spot in the system of her imaginings (but that is love, when a person finds himself in the right spot in the system of our imaginings), and the energy of the whole was streaming toward him in a way that was un- heard of. Wherever his name fell, the earth melted. When she uttered it her tongue was like a wisp of sun in a mild rain. Clarisse explored her new surroundings. They consisted of a small island pitched close to the mainland, bearing an old fort left half open, and a gigantic sandbank that pushed out from this island farther into the sea and that with its trees and bushes formed a large empty second island, belonging to Clarisse alone when she had herself rowed over there. It seemed people did not have much confidence in its stability, for although there was an old hut on it in which to store nets and other fishing gear, this hut, too, was abandoned and decayed, and there were no other signs of settlement or division of possessions. Wind, waves, white sand, sharp grasses, and all sorts ofsmall animals lived here freely together; the resonance ofwater, earth, and sky was as empty and loud as tin banging on tin.
The inhabited island behind it boasted high, fortified walls overgrown with green; cannons that did not intimidate but, wrapped in sailcloth, looked astonishingly like prehistoric animals; moats, near which were unbelievably large rats; and in the midst of the rats running around in broad daylight there was a small tavern shaped like a cube, with a four- sided pyramid for a roof, under shaggy trees. There Clarisse had taken a room for herself and Ulrich. The house was also the canteen for the fort, and all day long dark-blue soldiers with yellow stripes on their sleeves stood around nearby. One did not have the feeling ofpeople going about life but rather felt an oppression, which emptied the heart, as ifbefore a deportation or something similar. The young men too, strolling with ri- fles on their arms in front of the cannons wrapped in sails, reinforced this impression: who had put them there? Where, at what distance, was the brain of this madness that expressed itself in a joyless, pedantic au- tomatism preserved in catatonic rigidity?
From the Posthumous Papers · 1627
It was the right island for Ulrich and Clarisse, and Ulrich baptized it the "Island of Health," because every fit of madness seemed bright against its dark background. He had received Clarisse's telegram in the night when he came home and was crossing his garden. In the light of a lamp on the white wall of his house he had tom open the dispatch and read it, because he thought it came from Agathe. It was already the end of May. But the May night was like a belated March night; the stars looked down sharply, withdrawn to their heights, icily crisp out of the unilluminated, infinitely remote canopy of the sky. The telegram's sen- tences were long and confused, but held together by a rhythm of excite- ment. When Clarisse turned her back on the small military middle of her island, loneliness stretched before her like the desert of the anchor- ite. Connected with this idea of retiring from the world was an overloud, unchanging emotional tone full of covetous horror, something like the final purification and trial on the path ofthe "great one. " The adultery to which she had condemned herself would have to be consummated on this island as on a cross, for a cross on which she had to lay herself was what the empty sand over there across the waves, trodden by no one, seemed to her to be. Something ofall this came through in the telegram. Ulrich guessed that the great disorder had now really overtaken Clarisse, but that was precisely what suited him.
In their small inn they had a room that contained barely the most in- dispensable furniture, but a chandelier of Venetian glass hung from the center of the ceiling, and large mirrors in broad glass frames that were painted with flowers hung on the walls. In the mornings they went over to the Island of Health, which hovered in the air like a mirage, and from there they looked back on the inhabited island, which, with its cannons, embrasures, serrations, and little houses and trees, lay there like a round, perfect, exiled word that has lost the connection to its discourse.
Island I
Clarisse arrives while Agathe and Ulrich are still together. Stays 1-3 days in the hotel, during which time she seeks and finds her island. This is when she tells the Moosbrugger story. Invites Ulrich to the island (or Ulrich and Agathe) and Ulrich comes over. Spends half a day with her. Her hut, etc.
So it apparently goes not as far as intercourse but only to Clarisse's readiness. This is the way to utilize the material from the old coitus scene.
1628 ·THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
Something like:
Island II
(I) Agathe has left only a few lines in a note. Contents?
(II) Shortly thereafter Walter arrives toward evening. Ulrich spontane- ously: Did you see Agathe? That did not happen. But that Agathe had been there until just now calms his jealousy. Walter, somewhat paunchy belly.
Ulrich takes him to Clarisse. Clarisse is sitting somewhere on the beach. Ulrich hadn't been paying attention to her. Walter feels profound solidarity with the ill and abandoned.
They enter the fishermen's hut. It looks as if the three of them had lived there. They arrange things for the three of them. Walter doesn't say anything about it; acts as if it is a self-explanatory matter of being chaperon.
(III) How does Clarisse take this? - That also depends on what came before (Island I), which is still undetermined.
Idea: She confesses. If there had been intercourse with Ulrich, that way; but more probably (because of Agathe's proximity) coitus is only to be reduced to hints, a half seduction of Ulrich by Clarisse. So nothing took place, and it also makes the scene stronger if she confesses made- up sins and Ulrich listens. Usable as climax: suddenly or by degrees, the powerful sexual arousal turns into the mystic emotion of transfigured union with God, which is almost unimaginable.
Walter doubtless does not believe, Ulrich makes him a sign, but still there is something credible in it, as if its not being true were merely accidental.
(IV) In order to leave Clarisse alone while she gets undressed, they go outside, then toward the beach. Walter says, because he is jealous: it is madness to doubt a person's faithfulness. There are situations in which one is quite properly uncertain. In the half-light he looks at Ulrich from the side. But you must have the courage to let yourself be deceived. That is the way a bullet must sometimes heal over without being removed. Out of this deception that you encapsulate within yourself something
From the Posthumous Papers · 1629
great can arise. It's a matter not only of faithfulness between man and wife but also of other values.
He did not say: greatness, but that's what he was probably thinking. He seemed important to himself, and above all manly, because he wasn't making a scene and forcing Ulrich to confess the truth. Somehow he was grateful to fate for this great trial. Transitionally or combined with:
(V) They sit down by the edge of the melancholy of the evening sea. She was the star of my life! Walter said.
But Ulrich starts at contact with the word faithfulness. He's not nearly
as magnanimous as Walter.
(VI) Walter now picks up on star of my life, develops it.
Now it is sinking into night; what is to become of me? At this moment he has this sense of self-importance they had when they were young. He steps outside himself: I am at a critical juncture. You have no idea what I've had to fight through and suffer this past year. In the last analysis my whole life has been a battle. Fought like a madman I fought day and night with a dagger in my fist. But does it mean anything? I think I have now come so far as really to be the man I wanted to be; but is there any sense in it? Do you believe that the way things are today, we could really
carry out anything at all ofwhat we desired as young people?
Ulrich sat there in a dark-blue wool fisherman's sweater; he had lost weight, which only emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the muscular power of his arms, which, leaning forward, he had rested on his knees-and he wanted most of all to howl at this crepuscular com- radeship. He replied gloomily: Don't talk to me about your victories. You were beaten and finally you want to throw up without being embar- rassed. You're now in your early thirties, and at forty everyone is through. At fifty everyone sees himself contented in life and soon after that will have all his troubles behind him. The only people who have it good are the ones who seek refuge in conformity! That's the wisdom of life! The best part is reserved for those who are defeated! And nothing is
worse than being alone!
He was dejected. His crassness did not prevent Walter from notic-
ing it.
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.
And when they separated and straightened up, in a daze she said: "Just wait. I'll have my revenge! "
NEW IDEAS ABOUT THE CLARISSE-W ALTER-ULRICH COMPLEX
To make Clarisse human, use the problem of genius. Or instead of ge- nius, one can also say: the will to greatness, to goodness. A miserable Prometheus. Genius in that case about the same thing: a person who is an exception. The person who sees the errors, sees what is out ofjoint in the world, and has the will not to let the matter drop. In her case she doesn't have the strength.
This defines part of Walter's problem: what has to happen if the strength is lacking? -island, discussion.
The fact already that she always clung to older men!
The relation to her parents: here she learned to see the world as ex- ception to her. -[Part] I, or wherever her early history is recounted.
The whole development of her insanity would then fall-which makes Clarisse more human and motivates the conclusion-under the title: Struggle for Walter as struggle for genius.
In order not to have to speak of Ulrich: she gave him a name, from the beginning. The leader? The Buddha? The Great One? The Eternal One? The Mysterious One? The Redeemer? - Or several names? The Beloved? The Healthy One? The Great Friend?
Clarisse in Rome
Clarisse, however, could not bear to stay in Rome long. Even the square in front of the railway station, with its palm trees, its shops, and the prox- imity of big hotels, repelled her.
Nevertheless, she walked to the center of the city and checked into a small albergo. In the meantime her impression had changed. The eve- ning sky was orange almost to the zenith; the trees stood black and feath- ered before it. The air in the Ludovisi quarter, that unique, deliciously light mixture of sea and mountain air, refreshed her. She inhaled the acquaintance of a new strength. Prophecy of fascism. She began to no- tice the pretentious splendor of the elevated private gardens that rested
1624 · THE MAN WITH 0 U T QUALITIES
on walls five to eight yards high above the heads ofordinary pedestrians, and the giant gates and high windows, which in this neighborhood were a feature even of the apartment buildings. Behind a park wall a donkey brayed. -How the donkeys bray here! Clarisse thought. -Differently from home. They don't go "hee-haw," they go "ya"! It was a metallic, persisting trumpet call. She thought she could tell at first glance that there were no philistines in this city. Or there were, but a whirling en- ergy threatened them. As she approached the center, everything was full of energy, rush, and noise: cars raced unexpectedly around comers and crossed the plazas on unpredictable paths; bicyclists cheerfully and at risk of their lives teemed their way through between them; from the bursting trams clusters of young men who were hying to ride hung like grapes, clinging to each other in bold and impossible positions. Clarisse felt that this was a city after her own temperament, she was experiencing such a place for the first time. At night she could not sleep because a small bar had placed its tables in the narrow alley under her windows; people sang popular songs into the early morning and after every verse screamed a cheerfully dissonant refrain. This completely electrified Cla- risse. Although it was still relatively early in the year, it was already quite warm, and Clarisse got diarrhea from the heat; it was an enchanting state, as light as elder pith, fledged, and fatiguingly exciting.
Clarisse ordered all the impressions Rome made on her under the color red. When she thought back to her experiences in the sanatorium they had changed from a watery green, a color belonging to the present, the color of the German woods, into this red, which had been the red of the processions in her imagination; but it must be said that Clarisse did not clearly remember the experiences that had driven her to make this journey, but had the clear feeling ofrunning from a green state into one that was glowing red. Unfortunately, it was quite impossible for Clarisse to hit upon the idea that she was suffering from mad delusions. For green states even have their composers, who set them to music; these days sounds are painted, poems form sensory spaces, thoughts are danced: this is a vague kind of associating that has become popular be- cause thinking has lost its authority; it's about one eighth sensible and seven eighths nonsensical, and Clarisse could still regard herself as being very cautious and deliberate. So it was with calm, anticipatory attentive- ness that she found herself on the way from a green state into a red one.
On an excursion through Rome's palaces she encountered the marvel- ous, totally red portrait of Innocent X by Velazquez; the sight shot through her like a bolt of lightning. Now she saw clearly that this burn- ing color of life, red, was at the same time the color of Christianity, which, in Nietzsche's phrase, had given classical Eros poison to drink,
From the Posthumous Papers · 1625
the color of ascesis and inculpation of the senses. -O h my friends- Clarisse thought-you will not catch me! Her heart beat as if she had recognized a mortal danger at the last moment. She had discovered the ambivalent countenance of this city. It was the city of the Pope, and she remembered that Nietzsche had attempted to live here and had fled. She went to the house where he had lived. She took in nothing. The house was "spiritually closed. " She walked home smiling, outwitting this city at every step. It was a double city. Here the dark pessimism of Chris- tianity flared up to cardinal red, and here the blackness of insanity had flowed into Nietzsche's red blood. But what she thought was not so im- portant to Clarisse; the main thing was the smiling ambivalence in every- thing she saw. She went past palaces, excavations, and museums; she had still seen only the least part of them, and her impressions had not sunk to the measure of reality; she had assumed that the most marvelous treasures of the world were here set up side by side, but they were laid out like a bait; she had to remove this beauty from its hook very, very carefully. And everything that is beautiful in youth depends on the things around which people circle having one aspect that is known only to oneself.
In some way or other, the idea had seized Clarisse that she had to take up the mission at which Nietzsche had failed here in a different way, by beginning with the north. Evening had come. Once more she looked out the window of her small room: in the bar below, the first guests were already beginning to shout and sing, and if you leaned your body way out-above their heads, like a northern gargoyle-and craned your neck, you could see the round serrated shape of a gray church standing like a tiara before the still-darker gray of the night.
From what remained of her money she bought a ticket that took her back to one of the small towns through which she had passed on her way down. An unerring feeling told her at the railway station that it was not the right place. She went on by the next train. In this way Clarisse trav- eled for three days and four nights. On the fourth morning she was trav- eling along a seacoast and found a place that held her fast. With no money, she went into the hotels. This fact, that she had no money, was quite sudden and very peculiar; she made a rather long speech to the people in the hotels, in order to get them to serve her, and they listened politely but without understanding; then she hit upon the idea, because Walter was not to know where she was staying, of appealing to Ulrich. she sent him a long telegram in German.
1626 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
Clarisse-Island
That Clarisse appealed to Ulrich was not only due to her needing money and wanting to keep her whereabouts concealed from Walter. Involved as well was an "I mean you," a grasping with rays offeeling across moun- tains and far distances. Clarisse had come to the conviction that she was in love with Ulrich. That was not quite so simple as such a thing can be. She explained the horrible scene between the two of them that had upset her so, and everything that preceded it, by saying that at the time it had been too soon for Ulrich; it was only now that he was in the right spot in the system of her imaginings (but that is love, when a person finds himself in the right spot in the system of our imaginings), and the energy of the whole was streaming toward him in a way that was un- heard of. Wherever his name fell, the earth melted. When she uttered it her tongue was like a wisp of sun in a mild rain. Clarisse explored her new surroundings. They consisted of a small island pitched close to the mainland, bearing an old fort left half open, and a gigantic sandbank that pushed out from this island farther into the sea and that with its trees and bushes formed a large empty second island, belonging to Clarisse alone when she had herself rowed over there. It seemed people did not have much confidence in its stability, for although there was an old hut on it in which to store nets and other fishing gear, this hut, too, was abandoned and decayed, and there were no other signs of settlement or division of possessions. Wind, waves, white sand, sharp grasses, and all sorts ofsmall animals lived here freely together; the resonance ofwater, earth, and sky was as empty and loud as tin banging on tin.
The inhabited island behind it boasted high, fortified walls overgrown with green; cannons that did not intimidate but, wrapped in sailcloth, looked astonishingly like prehistoric animals; moats, near which were unbelievably large rats; and in the midst of the rats running around in broad daylight there was a small tavern shaped like a cube, with a four- sided pyramid for a roof, under shaggy trees. There Clarisse had taken a room for herself and Ulrich. The house was also the canteen for the fort, and all day long dark-blue soldiers with yellow stripes on their sleeves stood around nearby. One did not have the feeling ofpeople going about life but rather felt an oppression, which emptied the heart, as ifbefore a deportation or something similar. The young men too, strolling with ri- fles on their arms in front of the cannons wrapped in sails, reinforced this impression: who had put them there? Where, at what distance, was the brain of this madness that expressed itself in a joyless, pedantic au- tomatism preserved in catatonic rigidity?
From the Posthumous Papers · 1627
It was the right island for Ulrich and Clarisse, and Ulrich baptized it the "Island of Health," because every fit of madness seemed bright against its dark background. He had received Clarisse's telegram in the night when he came home and was crossing his garden. In the light of a lamp on the white wall of his house he had tom open the dispatch and read it, because he thought it came from Agathe. It was already the end of May. But the May night was like a belated March night; the stars looked down sharply, withdrawn to their heights, icily crisp out of the unilluminated, infinitely remote canopy of the sky. The telegram's sen- tences were long and confused, but held together by a rhythm of excite- ment. When Clarisse turned her back on the small military middle of her island, loneliness stretched before her like the desert of the anchor- ite. Connected with this idea of retiring from the world was an overloud, unchanging emotional tone full of covetous horror, something like the final purification and trial on the path ofthe "great one. " The adultery to which she had condemned herself would have to be consummated on this island as on a cross, for a cross on which she had to lay herself was what the empty sand over there across the waves, trodden by no one, seemed to her to be. Something ofall this came through in the telegram. Ulrich guessed that the great disorder had now really overtaken Clarisse, but that was precisely what suited him.
In their small inn they had a room that contained barely the most in- dispensable furniture, but a chandelier of Venetian glass hung from the center of the ceiling, and large mirrors in broad glass frames that were painted with flowers hung on the walls. In the mornings they went over to the Island of Health, which hovered in the air like a mirage, and from there they looked back on the inhabited island, which, with its cannons, embrasures, serrations, and little houses and trees, lay there like a round, perfect, exiled word that has lost the connection to its discourse.
Island I
Clarisse arrives while Agathe and Ulrich are still together. Stays 1-3 days in the hotel, during which time she seeks and finds her island. This is when she tells the Moosbrugger story. Invites Ulrich to the island (or Ulrich and Agathe) and Ulrich comes over. Spends half a day with her. Her hut, etc.
So it apparently goes not as far as intercourse but only to Clarisse's readiness. This is the way to utilize the material from the old coitus scene.
1628 ·THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
Something like:
Island II
(I) Agathe has left only a few lines in a note. Contents?
(II) Shortly thereafter Walter arrives toward evening. Ulrich spontane- ously: Did you see Agathe? That did not happen. But that Agathe had been there until just now calms his jealousy. Walter, somewhat paunchy belly.
Ulrich takes him to Clarisse. Clarisse is sitting somewhere on the beach. Ulrich hadn't been paying attention to her. Walter feels profound solidarity with the ill and abandoned.
They enter the fishermen's hut. It looks as if the three of them had lived there. They arrange things for the three of them. Walter doesn't say anything about it; acts as if it is a self-explanatory matter of being chaperon.
(III) How does Clarisse take this? - That also depends on what came before (Island I), which is still undetermined.
Idea: She confesses. If there had been intercourse with Ulrich, that way; but more probably (because of Agathe's proximity) coitus is only to be reduced to hints, a half seduction of Ulrich by Clarisse. So nothing took place, and it also makes the scene stronger if she confesses made- up sins and Ulrich listens. Usable as climax: suddenly or by degrees, the powerful sexual arousal turns into the mystic emotion of transfigured union with God, which is almost unimaginable.
Walter doubtless does not believe, Ulrich makes him a sign, but still there is something credible in it, as if its not being true were merely accidental.
(IV) In order to leave Clarisse alone while she gets undressed, they go outside, then toward the beach. Walter says, because he is jealous: it is madness to doubt a person's faithfulness. There are situations in which one is quite properly uncertain. In the half-light he looks at Ulrich from the side. But you must have the courage to let yourself be deceived. That is the way a bullet must sometimes heal over without being removed. Out of this deception that you encapsulate within yourself something
From the Posthumous Papers · 1629
great can arise. It's a matter not only of faithfulness between man and wife but also of other values.
He did not say: greatness, but that's what he was probably thinking. He seemed important to himself, and above all manly, because he wasn't making a scene and forcing Ulrich to confess the truth. Somehow he was grateful to fate for this great trial. Transitionally or combined with:
(V) They sit down by the edge of the melancholy of the evening sea. She was the star of my life! Walter said.
But Ulrich starts at contact with the word faithfulness. He's not nearly
as magnanimous as Walter.
(VI) Walter now picks up on star of my life, develops it.
Now it is sinking into night; what is to become of me? At this moment he has this sense of self-importance they had when they were young. He steps outside himself: I am at a critical juncture. You have no idea what I've had to fight through and suffer this past year. In the last analysis my whole life has been a battle. Fought like a madman I fought day and night with a dagger in my fist. But does it mean anything? I think I have now come so far as really to be the man I wanted to be; but is there any sense in it? Do you believe that the way things are today, we could really
carry out anything at all ofwhat we desired as young people?
Ulrich sat there in a dark-blue wool fisherman's sweater; he had lost weight, which only emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the muscular power of his arms, which, leaning forward, he had rested on his knees-and he wanted most of all to howl at this crepuscular com- radeship. He replied gloomily: Don't talk to me about your victories. You were beaten and finally you want to throw up without being embar- rassed. You're now in your early thirties, and at forty everyone is through. At fifty everyone sees himself contented in life and soon after that will have all his troubles behind him. The only people who have it good are the ones who seek refuge in conformity! That's the wisdom of life! The best part is reserved for those who are defeated! And nothing is
worse than being alone!
He was dejected. His crassness did not prevent Walter from notic-
ing it.
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.
