Lenz (12 page)

At long last I received news that the two men that had been sent for had arrived — O how happy I was! It was high time, Mr. L. in fact was just asking to go to bed. I said to him: “My dear friend, we all love you as you fully realize, and you love us, as we also fully realize. If you committed suicide it would only worsen your condition, not improve it; it is therefore incumbent on us to insure your survival. But when you are overcome with melancholy, you are no longer your own master; I have therefore asked two men to sleep (to stay awake, I thought to myself) in your room in order to provide you with company or, if necessary, help. He readily agreed.

One should not be surprised that I spoke and dealt with him in this fashion; he always displayed considerable understanding and an exceptionally sympathetic heart; when his fits of melancholy
had passed, everything seemed so stable and he himself was so amiable that one almost felt guilty about suspecting him or troubling him. Add to this the most tender empathy that we as frequent witnesses had felt for his immeasurable torment. For what he was experiencing was indeed horrible and hellish, and it pierced and broke my heart when I felt compelled to empathize, as far as he was concerned, with the consequences of those principles expounded by much of the fashionable literature of our day, with the consequences of his disobedience to his father, his erratic way of life, his aimless occupations, his excessive frequenting of the fairer sex. I was horrified and I underwent a particular form of torture, never before experienced by me, when he went down on his knees, his hand in mine, his head leaning on my knees, his pale cold sweaty face buried in my sleeping gown, his whole body trembling and shivering, not exactly confessing, but unable to hold back the outpouring of his tormented conscience or frustrated longing. — The more difficult it became to calm him down the more pitiable he grew to me, for the principles we respectively observed were diametrically opposed, or at least appeared to differ.

Now back to the facts: I have mentioned that he agreed to
have two men in his room. I accompanied him back in. One of his guards shot him a terrified glance. In order to allay the latter's fears, in the presence of the two guards I told Mr. Lenz in French what I had previously told him in my room, namely that I loved him dearly, as he did me; that I desired his survival and hoped that he himself realized that his fits of melancholy left him nearly powerless over himself, I had therefore asked these two citizens to sleep with him in order to provide him company or, if necessary, help. I concluded with a few kisses which I pressed on the young man's mouth with my entire heart, and made my way to bed, limbs quivering with exhaustion.

When he had gotten into bed, he said to his guards among other things: “Ecoutez, nous ne voulons point faire de bruit, si vous avez un couteau, donnez-le moi tranquillement et sans rien craindre.” After making this request repeatedly and receiving no response, he began banging his head against the wall. In our sleep we at several points heard a thumping noise that seemed to keep starting and stopping and that finally woke us up. We thought it was up in the attic but we could not figure out the cause. — The clock struck three and the thumping continued on; we rang for a
light; our people were all deep in horrible dreams and had difficulty rousing themselves. Finally we discovered that the thumping was coming from Mr. L. and in part from his guards who, because they were not allowed to let him out of their hands, were stamping on the floor to call for help. I rushed into his room. As soon as he saw me, he stopped trying to wrestle free from his guards' hands. The guards then also released their holds. I motioned to them to set him free, sat down on his bed, chatted with him, and he having requested to pray, I prayed with him. He was still a bit jumpy, and at one point he smashed his head against the wall with great violence, the guards sprang into action and again restrained him.

I left and called for a third guard. When Mr. L. saw the third one, he jeered at them, saying that all three of them wouldn't be strong enough for him.

I secretly ordered my coach to be made ready, to be covered, to have two extra horses brought over in addition to mine, and sent for Seb. Scheidecker, the schoolmaster of Bellefosse and Johan David Bohy, the schoolmaster of Solb, two sensible, determined men, both of whom Mr. L. quite liked. Johan Georg Claude, the churchwarden of Waldersbach also came; the house was all astir even though day had not yet broken. Mr. L. sensed
something afoot, and just as he had previously been so cunning or so violent in his attempts to get free, to smash his head apart, to acquire a knife, now he was suddenly so quiet.

After I had arranged everything, I went to Mr. L., told him that in order for him to receive better care in accordance with his condition I had asked several men to accompany him to Strasbourg and that my coach was now at his service.

He was lying there calmly, with only a single guard sitting by his side. Hearing my proposition, he moaned and groaned, begged me to have patience with him for only nine more days (seeing him one felt like crying). — But he said he wanted to think it over. A quarter of an hour later, he let it be known: Yes, he wanted to leave, stood up, got dressed, was most reasonable, packed his things up, thanked everyone individually in the sweetest fashion, even his guards, sought out my wife and maids who had hidden themselves away from him and had kept quiet because shortly before this, whenever he heard a woman's voice or thought he had heard one, he would fly into a rage. Now he asked to see everybody, thanked everybody, asked forgiveness of everybody, in short, took leave of everybody in such a moving fashion that all eyes were bathed with tears.

And thus this unfortunate young man departed from us with three companions and two coachmen. During the trip he did
not resort to violence, seeing he was outnumbered, even though he did resort to cunning, especially at Ensisheim, where they spent the night. But the two schoolmasters responded to his cunning politeness with their own, and everything went off exceptionally well.

Whenever we speak, we are judged; whenever we act, it is passed over in silence. In this matter, several judgments have already been offered; there are those who have said: we should not have taken him in in the first place; there are others: we should not have kept him on so long; and still others: we should not have sent him away.

Things will, I think, go the same way in Strasbourg. Everybody judges according to his particular temperament (one could not do otherwise) and according to his preconceived notions of the entire matter, which however cannot possibly be accurate and true, for at the very least it does not account for all the many links in the chain which, over and beyond us, can only be known to God; it would be impossible to describe these accurately, and yet a single inflection, a single glance that cannot be described is often more crucial and more meaningful than the recounting of events now lying in the past.

My only answer to all current or future judgments, contrary
or self-contradictory though they may be, is the following: everything that we did in this matter, we did before God, and at every point we were convinced that, given the circumstances, it was the best thing to do.

I recommend this unfortunate patient to the good offices of my fellow men and recommend that he be treated with the same good intentions by everybody who reads this.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

W
HOEVER
wishes to get a more immediate sense of what this lively [Strasbourg] group was thinking, talking and arguing about should read Herder's essay on Shakespeare in the collection
On German Character and Art;
and in addition Lenz's “Remarks on Theater,” appended to his translation of
Love's Labour's Lost
. Herder delves into the depths of Shakespeare's essence and provides a magnificent account of them; Lenz takes a more iconoclastic stand against theatrical conventions, insisting that each and every thing be treated in Shakespearean fashion. Since I have been obliged to mention this individual, as talented as he was strange, this is the fitting place to say a few words about him by way of experiment. I first made his acquaintance toward the end of my Strasbourg stay. We saw little of each other; he moved in circles other than mine, but we sought out opportunities to meet and enjoyed each other's conversation, given the mutual convictions we shared as young men the same age. Small, nicely proportioned, a charming little head whose delicate shape was perfectly complemented by his dainty and somewhat understated
features; blue eyes, blond hair, in short, a little personage of the sort I have from time to time met among Northern youths; soft yet cautious in step, agreeable yet not entirely fluent in speech, whose demeanor, fluctuating between reserve and shyness, well became a young man. He was excellent at reciting short poems, especially his own, and wrote in a flowing hand. As for his disposition, all that comes to my mind is the English word
whimsical
which, as the dictionary indicates, gathers any number of oddities into a single concept. Precisely for this reason no one was perhaps more suited to feel and imitate the extravagances and excesses of Shakespeare's genius. The abovementioned translation bears witness to this. He treats his author with considerable license, playing loose and easy, but he is so adept at donning his predecessor's armor, or rather his clown costume, and manages to mime his gestures so hilariously that he was certain to reap the applause of anyone who finds delight in these things.

[Part III, Book 11]

I have already supplied a sketch of the outward features of this odd individual and affectionately recalled his talent as a humorist; now I would like to speak of his character more in
terms of its side effects than from a descriptive angle, for it would be impossible to accompany him along the erratic course of his life while providing a portrayal of all his peculiarities.

One is aware of that species of self-torture which, in the absence of any external or social constraints, was then the order of the day, afflicting precisely those possessed of the most exceptional minds. Things which torment ordinary people only in passing and which, because unengaged in self-contemplation, they seek to banish from their thoughts, were instead acutely registered and observed by the better sort, and set down in books, letters, and diaries. But now the strictest moral demands placed upon oneself and others were commingled with an extreme negligence in one's own actions, and the vague notions arising out of this semi-self-knowledge encouraged the strangest proclivities and most outlandish behavior. This unremitting work of self-contemplation was further abetted by the rise of empirical psychology, which, if unwilling to describe everything that causes us inner unrest as wicked or reprehensible, could nonetheless not entirely condone it; and thus was set into motion a permanent, irresoluble state of conflict. Of all the full- or half-time idlers intent on digging into their inmost depths, Lenz excelled in cultivating and perpetuating this state of conflict, and thus he suffered in general
from that tendency of the age to which the depiction of Werther was meant to put a stop; but he was cut from a different cloth, which set him apart from all the others, whom one had to admit were thoroughly open, decent creatures. He, by contrast, had a decided propensity for intrigue, indeed, for intrigue pure and simple, without any particular goal in view, be it reasonable, personal, or attainable; on the contrary, he was always concocting some twisted scheme, whose very contortions were enough to keep him wholly entertained. In this way, throughout his life his fancies played him for a rascal, his loves were as imaginary as his hates, he juggled his ideas and feelings at whim, so that he would always have something to do. By these topsy-turvy means, he would attempt to impart reality to his sympathies and antipathies, and then would himself destroy this creation again; and so he was never of use to anybody he loved, nor did he ever do harm to anybody he hated, and in general he seemed only to sin in order to punish himself, only to intrigue in order to graft some new fiction onto an old one.

His talent, in which delicacy, agility, and extreme subtlety all vied with each other, proceeded from a genuine depth, from an inexhaustible creative power, but, for all its beauty, there was something thoroughly unhealthy about it, and it is precisely talents such as these that are the most difficult to evaluate. One
cannot fail to appreciate the outstanding features of his works; they are suffused by something quite sweet and tender, but this is intermixed with instances of buffoonery so baroque and so asinine that, even in a sense of humor this all-pervasive and unassuming, even in a comic gift this genuine, they can hardly be pardoned. His days were occupied by airy nothings to which, ever assiduous, he managed to give meaning, and if he was able to idle away his hours in this fashion, it was because, given his outstanding memory, the time he actually devoted to reading always proved to be most fruitful, enriching his original way of thinking with a great variety of materials.

He had been sent to Strasbourg to accompany two Livonian cavalry officers, and a more unfortunate choice of a tutor could not have been made. The older of the two barons returned to his native land for a time and left behind him a young lady to whom he was tenderly attached. In order to keep at bay the younger brother, who was also courting this young lady, as well as any other suitors, and to preserve her heart for his absent friend, Lenz now took it upon himself to pretend he was smitten by this beauty or, if you will, head over heels in love. He put this hypothesis to work with the most obstinate adherence to the ideal he had formed of her, without any awareness whatsoever that he, like the others, was merely serving as a figure of fun and entertainment
for her. So much the better for him! For he too took the whole thing to be a sheer game, one that would last all the longer given that she was playfully replying in kind, now attracting him, now repelling him, now encouraging him, now rejecting him. One may rest assured that had he fully realized what was actually transpiring on various occasions, he would have certainly congratulated himself upon the happy discovery.