Steppenwolf (11 page)

This means was therefore out of the question. But I now formulated my decision as follows: as soon as my condition was again bad enough to make me reach for that opiate, I should be allowed, instead of slurping it in search of fleeting relief, to seek lasting salvation in death – and a certain and reliable death, what’s more, either by a bullet or the blade of a razor. This clarified the situation. To wait until my fiftieth birthday, the solution oddly suggested in the booklet about Steppenwolf, seemed to me far too long. After all, there were still two years to go till that date. Whether it was a matter of a year or a month, whether tomorrow even – the door was now open.

I cannot say that the ‘decision’ greatly changed my life. It made me a little more indifferent to ailments, a little more careless in my consumption of opium and wine, a little more curious about the limits of what I could bear, but that was all. The other experiences of that evening had stronger after-effects. I read through the Steppenwolf tract once more, now with rapt attention and gratitude as if I knew that some invisible magician was wisely determining my fate, now with scorn and contempt against the tract’s cool objectivity which, so it seemed to me, totally failed to understand the tenor and tension of my life. The points made in it about lone wolves and suicide cases, for all their accuracy and intelligence, were ingenious abstractions, valid only for the general category and type. However, it seemed to me that my person, my real psyche, my own unique, individual destiny could not be caught in so wide-meshed a net.

However, what preoccupied me most was that hallucination or vision I had had at the church wall, the dancing illuminated letters with their inviting message that tallied with some of the things intimated in the tract. I had been promised much then, the voices from that strange world had greatly aroused my curiosity, and I often spent hours on end deeply absorbed in contemplation of the matter. In the process, the warnings contained in those inscriptions became more and more clear to me: ‘Not for everybody!’ and ‘For mad people only!’ So I had to be mad and quite remote from ‘everybody’ if those voices were to reach me, those worlds to communicate with me. My God, had I not long since been living at a sufficient remove from everybody, from the lives and minds of normal folk? Had I not been enough of an outsider, mad enough, for years? And yet, deep down inside me, I fully understood this summons, this invitation to go mad, to jettison all reason, inhibition and bourgeois respectability, and to surrender myself to the fluctuating, anarchic world of the soul, of the imagination.

One day, after yet again searching the streets and squares in a vain attempt to find the man with the placard on a pole and roaming several times on the lookout past the wall with the invisible portal, I encountered a funeral procession in the suburb of St Martin. Contemplating the faces of the mourners who were trudging along behind the hearse, the thought went through my head: Where is there anyone in this city, in this world, whose death would be a loss to me? And where is there anyone to whom my death might matter? True, there was Erika, the woman I loved. Well yes, but we had been in a very unsteady relationship for ages, rarely seeing one another without falling out, and at that moment I didn’t even know where she was staying. From time to time she would come to me or I would travel to see her and since we are both solitary and difficult people, to some degree like each other in mentality and mental sickness, some sort of bond continued to exist between us despite everything. But might she not breathe a sigh of relief if she heard of my death? I didn’t know, nor could I guarantee my own feelings with any certainty. To have any knowledge of such matters you have to live a normal, practical life.

In the meantime I had, on a whim, joined the funeral procession, jogging along behind the mourners as far as the cemetery, an up-to-date concrete affair, complete with crematorium and all mod cons. However, our deceased one was not cremated. Instead, his coffin was unloaded in front of a plain hole in the ground and I watched the clergyman and the remaining vultures, employees of some undertaker, going about their business. Attempting to invest their activities with a semblance of solemnity and grief, they overdid things to the point where, through sheer theatricality, awkwardness and insincerity, they ended up being comic. Dressed from head to foot in flowing black robes, the uniform of their profession, they were doing their utmost to instil the right mood in the assembled mourners, hoping to force
them to their knees before the majestic spectacle of death. But all their efforts were in vain; nobody wept; none of them seemed to miss the deceased at all. Nor could anyone be persuaded to adopt a solemnly religious air. Again and again the clergyman addressed the assembly as ‘dear brothers and sisters in Christ’, but all these silent shopkeepers, master bakers and their wives merely looked at the ground in front of them, forced expressions of seriousness on their tradespeople’s faces. They were awkward and insincere, wishing for nothing more than a rapid end to this uncomfortable ceremony. Well, it did come to an end and the two Christian brethren standing furthest forward, having shaken hands with the speaker, went to the edge of the nearest bit of lawn to rub the damp clay, in which their deceased had been laid, from their shoes. Without the slightest delay they resumed their normal, human appearance, the face of one of them suddenly striking me as familiar. It seemed to me to be the same man who had carried the placard that night and thrust the pamphlet into my hand.

The very moment I thought I recognized him he turned round, bent down and busied himself with his trousers, painstakingly rolling them up above his shoes. Then he rapidly walked off, an umbrella tucked under his arm. Walking after him, I caught him up and nodded to him, but he seemed not to recognize me.

‘Is there no show tonight?’ I asked, attempting to give him a wink, as people who are in on some secret do. However, the time when such knowing facial expressions came naturally to me was all too long past. After all, I had almost forgotten how to speak, so secluded a life did I lead. I myself sensed that I only managed a stupid grimace.

‘Show tonight?’ the man snarled, looking me in the eye as if he didn’t know me from Adam. ‘The Black Eagle’s the place to go, for goodness’ sake, if that’s what you are in need of.’

In fact I was no longer certain that he was the man. Disappointed,
I continued on my way, not knowing where to go. For me there were no goals, nothing to strive for, no responsibilities. Life had a dreadfully bitter taste. I felt the nausea that had been mounting for a long time reach its peak, felt myself cast out by life, thrown on the scrap heap. I walked through the grey city in a rage. Everything seemed to me to have an odour of damp earth and burial about it. I wasn’t having one of those vultures standing at my graveside in his black clergyman’s robes, oh no, nor any of that sentimental twaddle about brothers and sisters in Christ! Sad to say, wherever I looked, whatever I turned my thoughts to, there was no joy to be found, no one to call out my name. Nothing felt the least bit attractive; everything had the smell of stale second-hand goods, of stale, lukewarm contentment. It was all old, faded, grey, listless, worn out. My God, how was it possible? What had managed to reduce me – inspired youth, man of letters, lover of the arts, widely travelled man and ardent idealist – to such a sorry state? How had this paralysis so slowly and stealthily come over me, this hatred of myself and everyone else, this emotional constipation, this profound, evil disgruntlement? How had I ended up, my heart empty, in this filthy hellhole of despair?

As I was going by the library, I bumped into a young professor with whom I had earlier had occasional conversations. When I was last staying in this city, I had even visited him several times in his flat in order to discuss oriental mythologies, an area of study I was much occupied with at the time. Walking stiffly in my direction, this learned scholar, who was rather short-sighted, only recognized me as I was already about to pass him by. Hurling himself at me, he greeted me most warmly, for which I, given the lamentable state I was in, was moderately grateful. Pleased to see me, he became animated, reminding me of detailed points from our former conversations and assuring me that he had benefited a great deal from my suggestions and had often thought of me. Since then, he said, he had rarely had such lively and
productive exchanges with colleagues. He asked me how long I had been in town – only a few days, I lied – and why I hadn’t looked him up. As I gazed into the charming fellow’s learned, kind face I actually found the scene ridiculous, but like a starving dog I nevertheless enjoyed the scrap of warmth, the sip of love, the morsel of recognition it brought me. Steppenwolf Harry was so touched that he began to grin; his parched gullet filled with saliva and, against his will, sentimentality made him grovel. I did indeed grovel, lying through my teeth, saying I was here only briefly, to do some research, and in any case I didn’t feel particularly well, otherwise I would of course have paid him a visit. And when, despite everything, he then warmly invited me to spend the evening at his home I gratefully accepted, asking him to give my best wishes to his wife. What with all this energetic smiling and talking my cheeks, no longer accustomed to such exertions, were now aching. And while I, Harry Haller, caught unawares and feeling flattered, courteous and anxious to please, stood there in the street, smiling back at the kind face of this friendly, short-sighted man, the other Harry was standing next to me, a grin on his face too. And as he stood there grinning, he was thinking what a strange, twisted and two-faced chap I was, since only two minutes ago I had been fiercely baring my teeth against the whole damned world. Now, as soon as I heard someone call my name, immediately upon being innocuously greeted by some solid respectable citizen, I was so moved that I couldn’t wait to give my blessing and consent to everything. Like a little pig in muck, I was wallowing in the minimal benevolence, respect and friendliness shown to me. Thus the two Harrys, neither cutting a particularly sympathetic figure, stood facing the worthy professor, mocking each other, observing each other and spitting at one another’s feet. As always in such situations, they were once again wondering whether their behaviour was simply a sign of stupidity and weakness, a common feature of human nature, or
whether such sentimental egoism, such spinelessness, emotional dishonesty and ambivalence were merely personal characteristics of a peculiarly Steppenwolf kind. If this disgraceful behaviour was a common feature of human nature, I was justified in hurling my contempt in humanity’s face with even greater force than before; if it was just a personal weakness, then I had reason to indulge in an orgy of self-contempt.

As a result of the dispute between the two Harrys the professor almost got forgotten. Suddenly finding him tiresome again, I rid myself of him as fast as I could. For a long time I watched him go off along the avenue of leafless trees. He had the good-natured, slightly comical walk of an idealist, a man who believed in something. The battle inside me was still raging. Mechanically bending my stiff fingers and stretching them out again in an effort to combat the pangs of gout that were secretly torturing me, I had to admit that I had just allowed myself to be duped. I had now landed myself with an invitation to dinner at half past seven with all that entailed in the way of responsibility to be polite, to indulge in academic chit-chat and to observe the happy family life of others. Making my way angrily back home, I mixed myself a brandy and water, washed down my gout pills with it, lay down on the sofa and tried to read. When I had finally managed a few pages of
Sophia’s Journey from Memel to Saxony
,
²
an enchanting eighteenth-century romance, I suddenly remembered the invitation, and realized that I needed to shave and get dressed. God knows why I had lumbered myself with this! Now then, Harry, on your feet, put the book away, lather your chin and scrape it till it bleeds, dress up and take pleasure in the company of human beings! And while brushing my chin with shaving soap my thoughts turned to that muddy hole in the cemetery into which earlier today they had lowered the stranger’s coffin. Thinking of
the pinched faces of the bored brothers and sisters in Christ, I was unable even to raise a laugh. It seemed to me that what I had witnessed there by that muddy hole in the ground, surrounded by the stupid, awkward words of the clergyman, the stupid, awkward expressions on the faces of the assembled mourners, all the dreary crosses and plaques in metal and marble, all the artificial flowers made of wire and glass, was more than just the demise of that stranger. Not only would I myself perish too, tomorrow or the next day; end up being interred in the mud, surrounded by awkward and insincere onlookers, no – that was how everything would end up, all our aspirations, our whole civilization, all we believed in, all the joy and delight we took in life. It would soon be laid to rest there too, so terminally sick had it become. Our whole cultural world was a cemetery in which Jesus Christ and Socrates, Mozart and Haydn, Dante and Goethe were now nothing more than faded names on rusting metal plaques, surrounded by awkward and insincere mourners, who would have given a great deal to have their faith in these once sacred plaques restored to them. They would also have given a lot to be able to utter just one single sincere, serious word of mourning and despair over the demise of this world, instead of which they had no alternative but to stand with awkward grins on their faces around its grave. In my fury I managed to cut my chin with the razor in the same old place again. I spent some time cauterizing the wound, but I still had to replace the clean collar I had just put on. I had absolutely no idea why I was doing all this since I hadn’t the least desire to go to the professor’s. However, one part of Harry was putting on an act again, calling the professor a likeable chap, yearning for a whiff of humanity, a chance to chat, and good company. Recalling that the professor had a pretty wife, this part of Harry was, in spite of everything, basically cheered up by the thought of spending the evening with such friendly hosts. He helped me stick a plaster on my chin and
put on a decent tie, thus gently persuading me to abandon my real wish, which was to stay at home. At the same time I was thinking to myself: just as I am now getting dressed, going out to visit the professor and exchange polite remarks with him – all the opposite of what I really want to do – so most human beings spend their lives acting compulsorily, day after day, hour after hour. Without really wanting to, they pay visits, hold conversations, work fixed office hours – all of it compulsorily, mechanically, against their will. It could all be done just as well by machines, or not done at all. And it is this perpetual mechanical motion that prevents them from criticizing their own lives in the way I do, from realizing and feeling just how stupid and shallow, how horribly, grotesquely questionable, how hopelessly sad and barren their existence is. And oh, how right they are, these people, a thousand times right to live the way they do, playing their little games and pursuing what seems important to them instead of resisting this depressing machinery and staring despairingly into the void as individuals who have gone off the rails do, like me. If from time to time I seem to despise and even pour scorn on such people in these pages, let no one think that I wish to accuse others of being responsible for my personal misery or put all the blame on them. However, once you have got to the point where you are standing on the very edge of life like me, gazing down into a dark abyss, it is wrong and dishonest to attempt to deceive yourself and others into believing that life’s machinery is still running smoothly, that you can still be a party to that blissful, childlike world of endless game-playing.