Stages on Life’s Way Page 8

  So it was with that dejected man who was left alone in the world, notwithstanding that it comforted him to find the late beloved already so far along, if not because of someone else nevertheless with someone else. How fine it is for the girls, I thought, that they do not have to be buried every time they die; if parents hitherto have regarded boys as the most expensive, girls could then easily become even more expensive. A simple case of unfaithfulness is not nearly so amusing, I think, as when a girl falls in love with someone else and says to her husband: I can’t help it; save me from myself. But to die of sorrow because she cannot bear to have her beloved be far away on a journey to the West Indies, to have to reconcile herself to his going, and then upon his homecoming not only be dead but united forever to someone else—that is really a strange fate for a lover. No wonder that the dejected man sometimes comforted himself with the chorus of an old ballad: Cheers for you and me, say I; this day will never be forgotten.151

  Forgive me, dear drinking companions, if I have spoken too long; and now let us empty a glass to erotic love and to woman. Beautiful is she and lovely when she is viewed esthetically—no one can deny it. But as is said so often, so I, too, will say: One should not stop with that but should go further.152 Look at her ethically; just start doing that, and you have the jest. Even Plato and Aristotle assume that woman is an incomplete form,153 consequently an irrational quantity that perhaps in a better existence can be led back to the male form; here in life one must take her for what she is. What that is will soon be manifest, for she, too, is not satisfied with the esthetic. She goes further; she wants to be emancipated—she is man enough to say that. If that happens, the jest will exceed all bounds.

  When Constantin had spoken, he promptly invited Victor Eremita to begin; the latter spoke as follows.

  [VI 57] 154Plato, as we know, thanks the gods for four things, and for the fourth he gives thanks because he had been contemporary with Socrates.155 An earlier Greek philosopher156 had already thanked the gods for the three first good things that he mentions, and I conclude that they are thankworthy.157 Ah, but no matter if I wanted to give thanks as those Greeks did, I still cannot give thanks for what has been denied to me. Hence I will summon my soul to give thanks for the one thing that was in fact given me—that I became a man, not a woman.

  To be a woman is something so special, so mixed, so compounded that there are no predicates to describe it, and the many predicates, if they were used, contradict one another in a manner only a woman can tolerate, indeed, even worse, can relish. That in actuality she signifies less than man is not her misfortune, even less if she were to find out about it, for that, of course, can be endured; no, the misfortune is that her life in the romantic consciousness has become meaningless. Thus, one moment she means everything, nothing at all in the next, yet without ever finding out what significance she actually does have, and still this is not the misfortune—it is mainly that she cannot come to know it, because she is woman. 158For my part, if I were a woman, I would rather be one in the Orient, where I would be a slave, for to be a slave—either more nor less—is still always something compared with being “hurrah” and nothing.

  Even if a woman’s life did not have such contradictions, the distinction she enjoys and that is correctly assumed to be due to her qua woman, a distinction she does not share with the man, already points to meaninglessness. This distinction is that of gallantry. To be gallant toward woman befits the man. Now gallantry, quite simply, consists in conceiving in fantastic categories the person toward whom one is gallant. Thus to be gallant to a man is an insult, for he declines the use of fantastic categories. On the other hand, gallantry is a tribute to the fair sex, a distinction to which she is essentially entitled. Alas! Alas! Alas! It would not be so bad if it were a matter of one gentleman who is gallant. But such is not the case. Basically every man is gallant; he is instinctively gallant. This [VI 58] means, then, that it is life [Tilværelse] itself that has regaled the fair sex with this provenue [perquisite]. On the other hand, woman instinctively accepts it. This, again, is unfortunate, for there would have to be another explanation if one woman were to do so. Here again we have life’s own irony. If gallantry is to be genuine, it must be reciprocal and be the quoted rate for the specified difference between beauty and power, cunning and strength. But this is not the case, woman is essentially entitled to gallantry, and the fact that she instinctively accepts it can be explained by nature’s solicitude for the weaker, the stepmotherly treated, for whom an illusion provides more than compensation. But this illusion is precisely the calamity.159 Not rarely is it the case that nature comes to the aid of a deformed person by consoling him with a delusion that he is the handsomest of men. Thus nature has compensated for everything; he possesses even more than a reasonable claim could request. But to possess this in a delusion, not to be enslaved in wretchedness but to be tricked into a delusion—this is indeed an even greater mockery. Woman is a long way from being verwahrloszt [neglected] in the sense in which a deformed person is,160 but certainly in another sense insofar as she cannot ever shed the illusion with which life has consoled her.

  If a feminine existence is summed up to show the decisive elements in its totality, then every feminine existence makes a thoroughly fantastic impression. The critical turning points in her life are quite different from man’s, for her critical turning points turn everything upside down. In Tieck’s romantic plays we sometimes find a character who, formerly king of Mesopotamia, is now a grocer in Copenhagen.161 Every feminine existence is precisely as fantastic as this. If the girl’s name is Juliane, then her life is as follows: “Formerly empress in the vast outskirts [Overdrev] of erotic love and titular queen of all exaggerations [Overdrivelser] of giddiness, now Mrs. Petersen on the corner of Badstustræde [Bathhouse Street].”

  As a child, a girl is regarded as inferior to a boy. When she is a little older, one does not quite know what to do with her; finally comes that decisive period that makes her the sovereign. [VI 59] Adoring, man approaches her; he is the suitor. Adoring, for every suitor is that; it is not an invention of a cunning deceiver. Even the public executioner, when he lays down his fasces162 to go a-wooing, even he bends the knee, even though he intends as soon as possible to devote himself to domestic executions, which he takes so much for granted that he is far from trying to make the excuse that public executions are becoming so rare. The cultured gentleman conducts himself in the same way. He kneels, he adores, he conceives of the beloved in the most fantastic categories and thereupon very quickly forgets his kneeling position and would know full well while he was kneeling that it was fantasy. If I were a woman, I would prefer being sold by my father to the highest bidder, as in the Orient, for a business transaction nevertheless does have meaning. What a misfortune to be a woman, and yet the misfortune is really that if one is a woman then one does not comprehend it. If she complains, she does not complain about the former but about the latter. If I were a woman, I would first and foremost decline all wooing and reconcile myself to being the weaker sex, if that is what I am, but I would take care—and this is the main point if one wishes to be proud—not to step outside the truth. This concerns her less. Juliane is in seventh heaven, and Mrs. Petersen is reconciled to her fate.

  So I thank the gods I became a man and not a woman. And yet how much I have to renounce! From the drinking song to the tragedy, poetry is the idolization of woman. Worst of all for her and for him who admires, for if he does not take care he will suddenly pull a long face as he is standing there. Beauty, excellence, man’s achievements are attributable to woman, for she inspires him. Woman is the inspiring influence—how many amorous flutists have played this theme, and how many shepherdesses have listened to it! Truly my soul is without envy and is only grateful to the god, for I would rather be a man and a little inferior, and actually be that, than be a woman and be an undefinable quantity and made blissful in fantasy; I would, however, rather be a concretion that means something than an abstraction that means ev
erything. 163So it is altogether true: ideality came into life because of woman—what would man be without her? Many a man became a genius because of a girl, many a man became a hero because of a girl, many a man became a poet because of a girl, many a man became a saint because of a girl—but he [VI 60] did not become a genius because of the girl he got, for with her he became only a cabinet official; he did not become a hero because of the girl he got, for because of her he became only a general; he did not become a poet because of the girl he got, for because of her he became only a father; he did not become a saint because of the girl he got, for he got none at all and wanted only to have the one and only whom he did not get, just as each of the others became a genius, a hero, a poet with the aid of the girl he did not get. 164If woman’s ideality were in itself inspiring, then the one who inspires would have to be the one to whom he is bound for life. Life expresses it another way. It says: In a negative relationship woman makes man productive in ideality. Understood in this way, she is inspiring, but to say it directly is to become guilty of a paralogism, which one must be a woman to ignore. Indeed, who ever heard that anyone became a poet because of his wife? As long as man does not have her, she inspires him. This is the truth that is the source of poetry’s and woman’s fantasy. That he does not have her means that he is still fighting for her (for example, a girl has inspired many a man and made a knight of him, but has anyone ever heard that someone became valiant because of his wife!), or that he does not have her means that he cannot get her at all. In this way a girl has inspired many a man and awakened his ideality, that is, if he has any to display. But a wife who has ever so much to give scarcely arouses ideality. Or that he does not have her means he is pursuing ideality. He may love many, but loving many is also a kind of unhappy love, and yet his soul’s ideality actually consists in this striving and aspiring, not in the fractions of charm that constitute the summa summarum [sum total] of the contributions of all the individuals.

  The highest ideality woman can awaken in man is really to awaken the consciousness of immortality. The nerve of this proof consists in what could be called the necessity for final lines. Just as we say of a play—it cannot end until this one and that one have been given final lines—so ideality says that life cannot end with death; I demand final lines. Positive proof of this is often to be found in Adresseavisen. 165I find this quite as it should be, for if it is to be carried in Adresseavisen, it must be carried out positively. Mrs. Petersen had lived so and so many years until the night between the twenty-fourth and the twenty-fifth it pleased providence etc. On this occasion, Mr. Petersen has an attack of nostalgic memories of the courtship period, and to put it quite specifically—reunion is his only [VI 61] consolation. In the meantime, he prepares himself for this blessed reunion by taking a second wife, for it may be true that a second marriage is not quite as poetic as the first, but it is still a good reprint. This is the positive proof. Mr. Petersen is not satisfied with demanding final lines—no, reunion in the hereafter. It is well known that imitation metal sometimes has the sheen of the genuine—this is the brief silver-flash. For the imitation metal this is tragic, for now the imitation metal must put up with being an imitation. Not so with Mr. Petersen. Every person is rightly entitled to ideality. If, then, I laugh at Mr. Petersen, it is not because he, if he was actually imitation metal, had but a single silver-flash, but because this silver-flash betrays that he has become imitation metal. Thus the bourgeois-philistine mentality looks most ludicrous when, decked out in ideality, it provides an appropriate occasion to say with Holberg: Isn’t the cow, too, wearing a Parisian gown?166

  167The point is this—if woman awakens ideality and thereby proof of immortality in man, she always does it negatively. The person who because of a woman actually became a genius, became a hero, became a poet, became a saint, that person in the very same instant seized the immortal. If the idealizing element were positively present in woman, then the wife and only the wife might awaken the consciousness of immortality in the husband. Life expresses the very opposite. If she is really going to awaken ideality in her husband, she must die. Yet she does not awaken it in Mr. Petersen. If by her death she does awaken ideality in the husband, she then does all the great things poetry says of her; but, please note, whatever she did positively for him did not awaken ideality. Her meaning, however, becomes more and more questionable the longer she lives, because she actually has begun to want to have a positive meaning. The more positively the proof is produced, the less it proves, for then the longing will be for something experienced, the content of which must be assumed to be essentially exhaustive, inasmuch as it is experienced. The proof becomes most positive when the object of longing is those trifles of marital life: the time we were in Deer Park together. In the same way one can suddenly have a longing for a pair of old shoes one once wore so comfortably, but this longing is no proof of the immortality of the soul. The more negative the proof, the better it is, for the negative is higher than the positive, is the infinite, and thus the one and only positive.

  Woman’s entire meaning is negative; her positive meaning [VI 62] is nothing in comparison—indeed, it probably is even corruptive. It is this truth that life has concealed from her, and life has consoled her with a fancy that surpasses anything that can arise in any man’s mind168 and has paternally arranged existence in such a way that language and everything else strengthens her in the fancy. Even when she is viewed as the opposite of being inspiring, as the source of corruption, whatever it may be—that sin entered the world through her, or it is her unfaithfulness that destroys everything—the conception is at all times gallant. 169When one hears such talk, one would indeed think that woman is really capable of becoming infinitely much more guilty than man—which certainly is a prodigious acknowledgment.

  Alas, alas, alas! It isn’t that way at all. There is a secret way of reading that woman does not understand; for the very next moment all life acknowledges the same point of view as the state, which makes the husband responsible for his wife. She is condemned in a way no man has ever been condemned, for he receives only an actual sentence. It all ends not with her receiving a lighter sentence, for then, of course, her whole life would not be an illusion, but with dismissal of the charge and letting the public, that is, life, pay the costs. One moment she is supposed to know all the tricks, and the next moment we laugh at the one she is deceiving, which certainly is a contradiction, and even over Potiphar’s wife there hovers a possibility of being able to give the appearance that she has been seduced.170 Thus woman has a possibility that no man has, an enormous possibility; but her actuality is in proportion to it, and the most terrible of all is the witchcraft of the illusion in which she feels so happy.

  171Let Plato, then, thank the gods that he was contemporary with Socrates—I envy him; let him give thanks that he became a Greek—I envy him; but when he gives thanks that he became a man and not a woman, then I wholeheartedly join in. If I had become a woman and could understand what I now understand—how terrible! If I had become a woman and consequently could not even understand that—how much more terrible!

  But if this is the way it is, then it follows that one must stay out of any positive relationship with her. Wherever woman is involved, there promptly is this unavoidable hiatus that makes her happy because she does not notice it and is the death of man if he discovers it.

  A negative relationship with a woman can infinitize—this must always be said and be said to the honor of woman, and [VI 63] can be said absolutely unconditionally, because it does not depend essentially on the particular woman’s unique character, her loveliness, or on the continuance of her loveliness. It depends upon her making her appearance at the right moment, when ideality is acquiring its vision. It is a brief moment, and then she does well to vanish again. For a positive relationship with woman makes man finite on the largest possible scale. Therefore the highest a woman can do for a man is to make her appearance before him at the right moment. This, however, she cannot do; it is th
e courtesy of fate. But now comes the greatest thing she can do for a man—that is to be unfaithful to him, the sooner the better. The first ideality will help him to an intensified ideality, and he is helped absolutely. To be sure, this second ideality is purchased with the deepest pain, but it is also the greatest blessing. To be sure, he can by no means wish it before it has happened, but this is why he thanks her that it has happened; and since he, humanly speaking, does not have much reason to be so very thankful, all is well. 172But woe to him if she remains faithful to him!

  So I thank the gods that I became a man and not a woman; in the next place, I thank the gods that no woman continually makes me have afterthoughts because of a lifelong commitment.

  What a strange invention is marriage! And what makes it even more strange is that it is supposed to be a spontaneous step. And yet there is no step as decisive, for with regard to human life there is nothing as self-willed and as tyrannical as marriage.173 And then something so decisive one is supposed to do spontaneously. Yet marriage is not something simple, but is extremely complex and has many meanings. Just as turtle meat has a taste of all kinds of meat, so marriage has a taste of everything, and just as the turtle is a slow creature, so also is marriage. Falling in love is indeed something simple, but a marriage! Is it something pagan or something Christian, or something sacred or something secular, or something civil or a little of everything? Is it the expression of that inexplicable eroticism, that Wahlverwandtschaft [elective affinity]174 between kindred souls, or is it a duty, or is it a partnership or an expediency in life or the custom in certain countries, or is it a little of everything? Is the town musician or the organist to furnish the music—or should one have a little of both; should the pastor or the police sergeant give the talk and inscribe their names in life’s register—or in the municipal register; is it in comb-and-paper music that marriage can be heard or does it listen to that whisper that sounds like “the fairies’ from the [VI 64] grottos on a summer night”?175 Every benedict believes that when he entered upon marriage he performed a very composite number, a very complex passage, 176more complicated than anything else, and expects to go on performing it as a married man.