Now follows, as we promised in the previous chapter, the proof 
that the aforesaid sum of 25 talers is the personal property of the 
dear Lord. 

They are without a master! Sublime thought, no mortal power 
owns them, yet the lofty power that sails above the clouds 
embraces the All, including therefore the aforesaid 25 talers; with 
its wings woven from day and night, from sun and stars, from 
towering mountains and endless sands, which resound as with 
harmonies and the rushing of the waterfall, it brushes where no 
mortal hand can reach, including therefore the aforesaid 25 talers, 
and—but I can say no more, my inmost being is stirred, I 
contemplate the All and myself and the aforesaid 25 talers, what 
substance in these three words, their standpoint is infinity, their 
tinkle is angelic music, they recall the Last Judgment and the state 
exchequer, for—it was Grethe, the cook, whom Scorpion, stirred 
by the tales of his friend Felix, carried away by his flame-winged 
melody, overpowered by his vigorous youthful emotion, presses to 
his heart, sensing a fairy within her. 

I conclude therefore that fairies wear beards, for Magdalene 
Grethe, not the repentant Magdalene, was decked out like a 
warrior jealous of his honour with whiskers and mustachios, 
the curls on the soft cheeks caressed the finely moulded chin 
which like a rock in lonely seas—that men however behold from 
afar—jutted out of the flat skilly-plate of a face, enormous and 
proudly aware of its sublimity, cleaving the air, to stir the gods 
and overwhelm men. 

Early Literary Experiments 617 

The goddess of fantasy seemed to have dreamed of a bearded 
beauty and to have lost herself in the enchanted fields of her vast 
countenance; when she awoke, behold, it was Grethe herself who 
had dreamed, fearful dreams that she was the great whore of 
Babylon, the Revelation of St. John and the wrath of God, and 
that on the finely furrowed skin He had caused a prickly 
stubble-field to sprout, so that her beauty should not excite to sin, 
and that her youth should be protected, as the rose by its thorns, 
that the world should 

to knowledge aspire 
and not for her take fire. 

Chapter 12 

“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” said Richard III.? 
“A husband, a husband, myself for a husband,” said Grethe. 

Chapter 16 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his 

Innocent, beautiful thought! Yet these associations of ideas led 
Grethe onward to the thought that the Word dwells in the thighs, 
just as in Shakespeare Thersites believes that Ajax wears his wit in 
his belly and his guts in his head,° and being convinced — Grethe, 
not Ajax—and filled with understanding of how the Word had 
been made flesh, she saw in the thighs its symbolic expression, she 
beheld their glory and decided—to wash them. 

Chapter 19 

But she had big blue eyes, and blue eyes are commonplace, like 
the water in the Spree. 

There is a silly, sentimental innocence in their expression, an 
innocence which is sorry for itself, a watery innocence which 
evaporates at the approach of fire into grey steam, and noth- 
ing else lies behind these eyes, their entire world is blue and 
their soul a blue bag, but as for brown eyes—theirs is the realm of 
the ideal, and the infinite, stimulating world of night slumbers in 

° W. Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act V, Scene 4.— Ed. 
> John 1: 1, 14.— Ed. 
© W. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 1.— Ed. 

their depths, lightnings of the soul flash out of them, and in their 
glance is music like the songs of Mignon, a distant, mellow land of 
radiance where there dwells a rich god who luxuriates in his own 
depths and, absorbed in the universality of his being, pours forth 
infinity and suffers infinity. We are held as by a spell, we would 
clasp to our breast the melodious, profound, soulful being and 
suck the spirit from its eyes and make songs from their glances. 

We love the world of rich animation which opens before us, we 
see in the background great sun-thoughts, we sense a demonic 
suffering, and before us delicate figures tread the measures of the 
round dance and wave to us and, like the Graces, shyly retire as 
soon as they are recognised. 

Chapter 21 
Philological Broodings 

Felix tore himself from the embraces of his friend far from 
gently, for he did not suspect the latter’s profound and emotional 
nature, and at that moment was preoccupied with the continuation 
of his— digestion, to which we now address a final summons to set 
the coping-stone to its great work, since it is holding up our plot. 

So Merten also thought to himself, for a strong blow, which 
Felix felt, had been delivered by his broad historic hand. 

The name Merten recalls Charles Martel, and indeed Felix be- 
lieved himself to have been caressed with a hammer, so agree- 
able was the electric shock which he received. 

He opened his eyes wide, swayed on his feet and thought of his 
sins and the Last Judgment. 

But I meditated upon electric matter, upon galvanism, upon 
Franklin’s learned letters to his geometrical lady-friend, and upon 
Merten, for I am intensely curious to learn what lies behind this 
name. 

It is beyond doubt that the man himself is a direct descendant 
of Martel: 1 was assured of this by the sexton, although this period 
lacks all harmony. 

The | changes to an n, and since Martel, as everyone familiar 
with history knows, is an Englishman and in English a is often 
pronounced like the German “eh”, which appears as ‘“‘e” in 
Merten, Merten may well be another form of Martel. 

Since among the Germans of old names serve to express the 
character of their bearer, as may be seen from such bywords as 
Krug the Knight, Raupach the Hofrat, Hegel the Dwarf, it may be 

Early Literary Experiments 619 

concluded that Merten is a rich and respectable man, although by 
trade he is a tailor and in this story the father of Scorpion. 

This warrants a new hypothesis: partly because he is a tailor, 
partly because his son’s name is Scorpion, it is highly probable that 
he is descended from Mars, the god of war, genitive Martis, Greek 
accusative Martin, Mertin, Merten, since the craft of the god of war, 
like that of the tailor, consists in cutting, for he cuts off arms and 
legs and hacks the happiness of the earth to pieces. 

The scorpion, further, is a poisonous animal which kills with a 
glance, whose wounds are fatal, whose eyes discharge annihilating 
lightning, a fine allegory of war, whose gaze is lethal, whose 
consequences leave scars on the victim which bleed internally and 
are past healing. : 

As, however, Merten had in him little of the heathen, but was, on 
the contrary, of a most Christian turn of mind, it appears even 
more probable that he is a descendant of St. Martin. A slight 
displacement of the vowels gives us Mirtan; 1 in the speech of the 
common people is often pronounced e, as in “gib mer” instead of 
“gib mir”, and in English, as has already been pointed out, a is 
often pronounced “eh”, which with the passage of time can easily 
become e, especially with the growth of culture; and thus the name 
Merten evolves quite naturally and means a Christian tailor. 

Although this derivation is quite probable and is grounded in 
profound reasoning, nevertheless we cannot refrain from men- 
tioning another which does much to weaken our faith in St. 
Martin, whom it would only be possible to consider as a patron 
saint, since to the best of our knowledge he was never married 
and therefore could not have had any male descendant. 

This doubt appears to be reinforced by the following fact. All 
members of the Merten family, like the Vicar of Wakefield, made a 
habit of marrying as early as possible, and so each generation 
adorned itself betimes in the Myrthen [myrtle] wreath, and this 
alone — unless one is to have recourse to miracles — explains Merten’s 
birth and his appearance in this story as Scorpion’s father. 

“Myrthen”, of course, would have to lose the “h”, as at the 
conclusion of a marriage the “Eh”? is accentuated and so the “he” is 
dropped, so that “Myrthen” becomes “Myrten”’. 

“y” is a Greek “v”, not a German letter at all. Since the Merten 
family, as we have established, was of sound German stock and at 
the same time a most Christian family of tailors, the foreign and 

66,99 66299, 

heathen “yy” of necessity changed into a German “i”; and because 

* A pun on the German word Ehe (marriage).— Ed. 

in this same family marriage is the dominant trait, while the vowel 
‘4” is shrill and: ascending in contrast to the mild gentleness of 
Merten marriages, it changed into an “eh” and later, in order that 
the bold alteration should not arouse remark, into “e”, which 
being a short sound serves to indicate the resoluteness of spirit 
displayed in the solemnisation of marriage, so that in the German 
“Merten”, open to diverse interpretations, “Myrthen” attains the 
summit of perfection. 

In accordance with this deduction we should have St. Martin’s 
Christian tailor, the sterling courage of Martel, the quick resolution 
of the war god Mars linked with that marriage-proneness which 
reverberates in the two es in “Merten”, so that this hypothesis 
unites within itself all previous ones and at the same time inval- 
idates them. 

A different opinion is advanced by the scholiast who with great 
diligence and unremitting pains wrote commentaries on the 
ancient historian from whom we have gleaned our story. 

Although we cannot accept it, his opinion nevertheless merits a 
critical appraisal, since it originated in the mind of a man who 
combined immense learning with a great proficiency in smoking, 
so that his parchments were enveloped with holy tobacco fumes 
and thus in a Pythian ecstasy of incense filled with oracles. 

He believes that “Merten” must come from the German “Mehr- 
en” [to multiply], which in its turn comes from “Meer” [sea], 
because the Merten marriages multiplied like the sand of the sea, 
and because in the concept of a tailor there is concealed the con- 
cept of a “Mehrer” [multiplier], since he makes men out of apes. 
It is on investigations as thorough and profound as these that 
he has founded his hypothesis. 

As I read this, I was as if dizzy with amazement, the tobacco 
oracle transported me, but soon cold, discriminating reason 
awakened and mustered the following counter-arguments. 

I grant the aforesaid scholiast that the concept of a tailor can 
include that of a multiplier, but the concept of a multiplier should 
on no account be considered to embrace the concept of a di- 
minisher since this would be a contradictio in terminis, which we 
may explain to the ladies as the equating of God with the Devil, 
tea-table talk with wit, and the ladies themselves with philosophers. 
But if “Merten” was derived from “Mehrer”, then clearly the word 
would have lost, hence not gained, an “h”, which has been shown 
to be in contradiction with the substance of its formal nature. 

Thus “Merten” cannot possibly be derived from “Mehren”, and 
its derivation from Meer is disproved by the fact that Merten 

Early Literary Experiments 62] 

families have never fallen into the water nor have they ever 
wavered, but they have been a pious family of tailors, which is in 
contradiction to the concept of a wild and stormy sea, from which 
reasons it becomes manifest that the aforesaid author, despite his 
infallibility, was mistaken and that ours is the only true deduction. 
After this victory I am too fatigued to continue further and will 
relish the bliss of self-satisfaction, one moment of which, as 
Winkelmann declares, is worth more than all posterity’s praise, 
though of this I am as convinced as was Pliny the Younger. 

Chapter 22 

“Quocumque adspicias, nihil est nisi pontus et aer, 
Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax. 

Inter utrumque fremunt immani turbine venti: 
Nescit, cui domino pareat, unda maris. 

Rector in incerto est: nec quid fugiatve petatve 
Invenit: ambiguis ars stupet ipsa malis.” * 

“Look where you may, there is nought to be seen but Scorpion 
and Merten, 

The former in torrents of tears, the latter beclouded with wrath. 
Wild is the storm of words that rages between them unceasing, 
Nor does the tossing sea know which of the two to obey. 
I, the helmsman, can make no choice twixt writing and silence, 
From the commotion art cowers in corners and holes.” 

Thus Ovid relates in his libri tristtum the sad story which as the 
sequel comes after what went before. The task was clearly beyond 
him, but I continue the story as follows: 

Chapter 23 

Ovid sat in Tomi, whither the god Augustus had hurled him in 
his anger, because he had more genius than sense. 

There among the wild barbarians wilted the tender poet of love, 
whose ruin love itself had brought about. Deep in thought, he 
rested his head upon his right hand, and his longing eyes 
wandered toward distant Latium. The singer’s heart was broken, 
and yet he could not abandon hope and his lyre could not be 
silent and in sweet songs of passionate melody it spoke his longing 
and his pain. 

Around the old man’s frail limbs the north wind whistled, so 

* Ovid, Tristia, II, 23 et seq.— Ed. 

that he was seized with unfamiliar shudderings, for it was in the 
hot land of the South that his life had flowered, and it was there 
that his imagination had decked its rich hot-blooded frolics in 
robes of splendour, and when these children of genius became too 
bold, then about their shoulders Grace would gently cast her 
divine, enswathing garland of veils so that the gossamer folds 
spread wide and a rain of warm dew-drops fell. 

“Soon to dust, poor poet!” and a tear rolled down the old man’s 
cheek, when— Merten’s powerful bass, incited against Scorpion, 
was heard 

Chapter 27 

“Ignorance, limitless ignorance.” 

“Because (refers to an earlier chapter) his knees bent too much 
to a certain side!”, but definition is lacking, definition, and who 
shall define, who shall determine, which is the right side and 
which the left? 

Tell me, thou mortal, whence cometh the wind, or has God a 
nose in his face, and I will tell you which is right and left. 

Nothing but relative concepts, to drink of wisdom is to gain only 
folly and frenzy! 

Oh, vain is all our striving, our yearning is folly, until we have 
determined which is right and left, for he will place the goats on 
the left hand, and the sheep on the right. 

If he turns round, if he faces in another direction, because in 
the night he had a dream, then according to our pitiful ideas the 
goats will be standing on the right and the pious on the left. 

So define for me which is right and left, and the whole riddle of 
creation is solved, Acheronta movebo, I shall deduce for you exactly 
on which side your soul will come to stand, from which I shall 
further infer which step you are standing on now; for that primal 
relation would appear to be measurable with the help of the 
Lord’s definition of where you stand, but your present position 
can be judged by the thickness of your skull. I am dizzy—if a 
Mephistopheles appeared I should be Faust, for clearly each and 
every one of us is a Faust, as we do not know which is the right 
side and which the left; our life is therefore a circus, we run 
round, try to find sides, till we fall down on the sand and the 
gladiator, Life, slays us. We need a new saviour, for—you rob me 
of slumber, tormenting thought, you rob me of my health, you are 
killing me—we cannot distinguish the left side from the right, we 
do not know where they lie 

Early Literary Experiments 623 

Chapter 28 

“Clearly on the moon, on the moon lie the moonstones, false- 
ness in the breast of women, sand in the sea and mountains 
on the earth,” answered a man who knocked on my door, without 
waiting for me to ask him in. 

I quickly pushed my papers to one side, said that I was very 
glad not to have made his acquaintance before, since I thus had 
the pleasure of making it now, that in his teaching there was great 
wisdom, that all my doubts were stilled by his words; but the only 
thing was that however fast I spoke, he spoke still faster, hissing 
sounds poured forth from between his teeth, and the whole man, 
as I perceived with a shudder on closer perusal and inspection, 
appeared a shrivelled lizard, nothing but a lizard, that had crawled 
out of crumbling masonry. 

He was of stocky build, and his stature had much in common 
with that of my stove. His eyes might be called green rather than 
red, pinpoints rather than flashes of lightning, and he himself 
more goblin than man. 

A genius! I recognised that quickly and with certainty, for his 
nose had sprung out of his skull like Pallas Athena from the head 
of Father Zeus, to which fact I also attributed its delicate scarlet 
glow indicating aethereal origin, while the head itself might be 
described as hairless, unless one wished to apply the term of 
head-covering to a thick layer of pomade which together with 
diverse products of the air and elements richly encrusted the 
primeval mountain. 

Everything in him bespoke height and depth, but his facial 
structure seemed to betray a man of papers, for the cheeks 
were hollowed out like smooth basins and so well protected 
against the rain by the gigantic prominences of the cheek-bones that 
they could serve as containers for documents and governmental 
decrees. 

In short, everything reveals that he was the god of love himself, 
if only it had not been himself that he resembled, and that his 
name has a sweet ring to it like love, if it did not sooner remind 
one of a juniper bush. 

I prayed him to calm himself, for he claimed to be a hero, 
whereat I humbly interposed that the heroes had been of a 
somewhat finer build, that the heralds for their part had had 
voices of simpler, less contrived, more harmonious tone, and 
Hero, lastly, was beauty transfigured, a truly beautiful nature in 
which form and soul vied with each other, each claiming to be the 

sole source of her perfection, and that she was therefore unsuited 
for his love. 

But he remonstrated that he had a p-p-powerful bone-str-r-r- 
ructure, that he had a sh-sh-shadow as good as anybody else’s and 
even better, because he cast more sh-sh-shadow than light about 
him, and so his s-s-spouse could cool herself in his shadow, 
prosper and become a sh-sh-shadow herself, that I was a c-c-coarse 
man and a gutter-genius and a blockhead into the bargain, that he 
was c-c-called Engelbert, which was a n-name with a b-b-better 
ring to it than S-S-Scorpion, that I had been mistaken in 
Ch-Ch-Chapter 19 because blue eyes were more beautiful than 
brown, and d-d-dove’s eyes were the most s-s-spiritual, and that 
even if he himself was no dove? he was at least deaf to reason, 
and besides he championed the right of primogeniture and 
possessed a wash-closet. 

“Sh-sh-she shall take my r-r-right hand in betrothal, and now let 
us have no more of your investigations into right and left, she lives 
directly opposite, neither to the right nor to the left.” 

The door slammed, from my soul there emanated a heavenly 
apparition, the sweet tones of converse ceased, but through the 
keyhole came a ghostly whisper: “Klingholz, Klingholz!” 

Chapter 29 

I sat deep in thought, laid aside Locke, Fichte and Kant, and 
gave myself up to profound reflection to discover what a wash- 
closet could have to do with the right of primogeniture, and 
suddenly it came to me like a flash, and in a melodious succession 
of thoughts one upon the other my vision was illuminated and a 
radiant form appeared before my eyes. 

The right of primogeniture is the wash-closet of the atistocracy, 
for a wash-closet only exists for the purpose of washing. But 
washing bleaches, and thus lends a pale sheen to that which is 
washed. So also does the right of primogeniture silver the eldest 
son of the house, it thus lends him a pale silvery sheen, while on 
the other members it stamps the pale romantic hue of penury. 

He who bathes in rivers, hurls himself against the rushing 
element, fights its fury, and with strong arms wrestles against it; 
but he who sits in the wash-closet, remains in seclusion, contem- 
plating the corners of the walls. 

* Taube in German.— Ed. 
5 Tauber in German.— Ed. 

Early Literary Experiments 625 

The ordinary mortal, i.e., he who has no right of primogeniture, 
fights the storms of life, throws himself into the billowing sea and 
seizes pearls of Promethean rights from its depths, and before his 
eyes the inner form of the Idea appears in glory, and he creates 
with greater boldness, but he who is entitled to primogenital 
inheritance lets only drops fall on him, for fear he might strain a 
limb, and so seats himself in a wash-closet. 

Found, the philosopher’s stone! 

Chapter 30 

Thus in our day, as is apparent from the two considerations just 
set forth, no epic can be composed. 

In the first place, by engaging in profound speculations on the 
subject of the right and left side, we strip these poetical expres- 
sions of their poetical drapery as Apollo flayed Marsyas and turn 
them into an embodiment of doubt, like the mis-shapen baboon, 
who has eyes in order not to see and is an Argus in reverse; for 
the latter had a hundred eyes to find what was lost, while he, the 
wretched stormer of heaven, doubt itself, possesses a hundred eyes 
to make what has been seen unseen. 

But the side, the situation, is among the main prerequisites of 
epic poetry, and as soon as there are no more sides, which has 
been shown to be the case with regard to us, epic poetry can only 
arise from its slumber of death when the blast of trumpets wakes 
Jericho. 

Further, we have discovered the philosopher’s stone, everybody 
unfortunately points to the stone and they 

Chapter 31 

They were lying on the ground, Scorpion and Merten, for the 
supernatural apparition (refers to an earlier chapter) had so 
shattered their nerves that in the chaos of expansion, which, like 
the embryo, had not yet broken away from world relations to 
assume separate form, the cohesive power of their limbs had 
disintegrated, so that their noses hung down to their navels and 
their heads sank to the ground. 

Merten shed thick blood containing much iron—how much, I 
am unable to determine, the general state of chemistry is still 
unsatisfactory. ; 

Organic chemistry in particular is every day becoming more 
involute through simplification, inasmuch as every day new ele- 

ments are being discovered which have this in common with 
bishops that they bear the names of countries which belong to the 
unfaithful and are situated in partibus infidelium, names, moreover, 
which are as lengthy as the title of a member of numerous learned 
societies and of the German imperial princes, names which are 
free-thinkers among names, because they do not let themselves be 
bound to any language. 

In general organic chemistry is a heretic in seeking to explain 
life by a dead process! Sinning against life, as if I were to derive 
love from algebra. 

The whole clearly rests on the theory of process, which has not 
yet been properly elaborated, nor ever can be, because it is based 
on the card game, a game of pure chance, in which the ace plays a 
leading part. 

The ace is, however, the foundation of all recent jurisprudence, 
for one evening Irnerius lost at cards, came straight from a ladies’ 
party, finely dressed in a blue tail-coat, new shoes with long 
buckles, and a waistcoat of crimson silk, and sat down and wrote a 
dissertatio on the as, which then led him on to start teaching 
Roman law. 

Now Roman law embraces everything, including the theory of 
process and including chemistry — for it is the microcosm which has 
broken loose from the macrocosm, as Pacius has demonstrated. 

The four books of the Institutions are the four elements, the 
seven books of the Pandects are the seven planets and the twelve 
books of the Codex are the twelve signs of the zodiac. 

No spirit, however, penetrated the whole, it was merely Grethe, 
the cook, calling out that supper was ready. 

In violent agitation Scorpion and Merten had kept their eyes 
closed and so had mistaken Grethe for a fairy. When they had 
recovered from their Spanish terror, which dated from the last 
defeat and the victory of Don Carlos, Merten flung himself upon 
Scorpion and rose up like an oak, for O! Moses will say, let man 
consider the stars and not look down upon the ground; meanwhile 
Scorpion seized his father’s hand and placed his body in a 
dangerous position, by setting it up on its two feet. 

Chapter 35 

“By God! Merten the tailor is good at helping out, but he also 
charges high prices!” 
“Vere! beatus Martinus bonus est in auxilio, sed carus in negotio!” 

Early Literary Experiments 627 

exclaimed Clovis after the battle of Poitiers when the priests of 
Tours told him that it was Merten who had tailored the riding- 
breeches in which he had ridden the mettlesome jade that secured 
him the victory, and demanded two hundred gold gulden for 
Merten’s services. 

But the truth of the whole matter is 

Chapter 36 

They were sitting at table, Merten at the head, Scorpion on his 
right, on his left Felix the senior apprentice, and lower down the 
table, leaving a certain gap between the principes and the plebs, 
the subordinate members of the Merten body politic, usually 
termed apprentices. 

The gap, which no human creature might occupy, was not filled 
by Banquo’s ghost but by Merten’s dog, which had every day to 
say grace at table, for Merten, who cultivated Humaniora, main- 
tained that his Boniface—that was the dog’s name— was one and 
the same person as St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, quoting 
in proof a passage in which the latter announces that he is a 
barking dog (see Epist. 105, p. 145, ed. Seraria). He therefore felt 
superstitious reverence for this dog, whose place at table was by 
far the most elegant; for his Boniface was seated upon a soft 
crimson rug of finest cassimere with a fringe of silken tassels, 
upholstered like a sumptuous couch, supported on cunningly 
interlocked springs, and as soon as the gathering broke up, the 
seat was carried to the seclusion of a remote alcove, which appears 
to be the same as that described by Boileau in his patrie as the 
provost’s temple of repose. 

Boniface was not in his place, the gap was not filled, and the 
colour drained from Merten’s cheeks. “Where is Boniface?” he 
called from a deeply troubled heart, and the whole table was 
visibly moved. “Where is Boniface?” Merten asked again, and how 
he started in fear, how he trembled in every limb, how his hair 
stood on end, when he heard that Boniface was not there. 

All leapt up to search for him, Merten’s usual calm seemed to 
have completely deserted him, he rang the bell, Grethe entered, 
her heart fearing the worst, she thought 

“Hey, Grethe, where is Boniface?” and she was visibly relieved, 
and he then knocked over the lamp with his groping arms, so that 
all was veiled in darkness, and night fell, tempestuous and preg- 
nant with disaster. 

Chapter 37 

David Hume maintained that this chapter was the locus communis 
of the preceding, and indeed maintained so before I had written 
it. His proof was as follows: since this chapter exists, the earlier 
chapter does not exist, but this chapter has ousted the earlier, 
from which it sprang, though not through the operation of cause 
and effect, for this he questioned. Yet every giant, and thus also 
every chapter of twenty lines, presupposes a dwarf, every genius a 
hidebound philistine, and every storm at sea—mud, and as soon 
as the first disappear, the latter begin, sit down at the table, 
sprawling out their long legs arrogantly. 

The first are too great for this world, and so they are thrown 
out. But the latter strike root in it and remain, as one may see 
from the facts, for champagne leaves a lingering repulsive after- 
taste, Caesar the hero leaves behind him the play-acting Oc- 
tavianus, Emperor Napoleon the bourgeois king Louis Philippe, 
the philosopher Kant the carpet-knight Krug, the poet Schiller the 
Hofrat Raupach, Leibniz’s heaven Wolf’s schoolroom, the dog 
Boniface this chapter. 

Thus the bases are precipitated, while the spirit evaporates. 

Chapter 38 

That last sentence about. the bases was an abstract concept, and 
therefore not a woman, for, as Adelung exclaims, an abstract 
concept and a woman, how different they are! However, I 
maintain the contrary and will duly prove it, only not in this 
chapter but in a book without any chapters at all which I intend to 
write as soon as I have accepted the Holy Trinity. 

Chapter 39 

If anyone desires to obtain a concrete, not abstract conception of 
the same—I do not mean the Greek Helen nor the Roman 
Lucretia, but the Holy Trinity —I cannot advise him better than 
to dream of Nothing, as long as he does not fall asleep, but on 
the contrary to watch in the Lord and to examine this sentence, 
for in it there lies the concrete conception. If we ascend to its 
height, whole flights above our present position and floating over 
it like a cloud, we are confronted by the gigantic “Not”, if we 
descend to its middle, we behold in fear the enormous 

Early Literary Experiments 629 

“Nothing”, and if we sink down into its depth, then both are 
again harmoniously reconciled in the “Not” which in its upright, 
bold characters of flame springs to meet them. 

“Not’?? — SN re) t h i n g” os *“Not’’ 

that is the concrete conception of the Trinity, but as for the 
abstract—- who shall fathom it, for 

“Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath gathered the 
wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established 

all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou 
canst tell?” says the wise Solomon.” 

Chapter 40 

“I do not know where he is, but this much is certain, a skull is a 
skull!” exclaimed Merten. Anxiously he stooped down to discover 
whose head his hand was touching in the dark, and then he 
started back as if in mortal terror, for the eyes 

Chapter 41 

Yes, indeed! The eyes! 

They are a magnet and attract iron, for which very reason we 
feel ourselves attracted to the ladies, but not to Heaven, for the 
ladies look at us out of two eyes, but Heaven out of only one. 

Chapter 42 

“[ll prove to him the opposite!” said an invisible voice to 
me, and as I looked round to see who spoke, I saw—you will not 
believe it, but I assure you, I swear, that it is true—I saw—but 
you must not be angry, do not be afraid, for it is nothing to do 
either with your wife or with your digestion —I saw myself, for I 
had offered myself as proof of the contrary. 

The thought — “Ha! I am a doppelganger!” — came over me ina 
flash, and Hoffmann’s Elixirs of the Devil 

Chapter 43 

— Lay on the table before me just as I was pondering why the 
Wandering Jew is a native of Berlin and not a Spaniard; but it 

“ Proverbs 30: 4.— Ed. 

coincides, I see, with the counter-evidence I have to provide, 
therefore we will, for the sake of precision—do neither, but 
instead content ourselves with the remark that Heaven lies in the 
ladies’ eyes but not the ladies’ eyes in Heaven, whence it emerges 
that it is not so much the eyes that attract us but rather Heaven, 
for we do not see the eyes but only Heaven within them. If it were 
the eyes that attracted us and not Heaven, then we should feel 
ourselves attracted to Heaven and not to the ladies, for Heaven 
has not one eye, as stated above, but no eye at all, yet Heaven 
itself is nothing but a look of infinite love from the Godhead, 
indeed the mild, melodious eye of the spirit of light, and an eye 
cannot have an eye. 

Thus the final result of our inquiry is that the reason why we 
feel ourselves attracted to the ladies and not to Heaven is that in 
Heaven we do not see the ladies’ eyes, whereas in the ladies’ eyes 
we do see Heaven; that we therefore feel ourselves attracted to the 
eyes so to speak because they are not eyes, and because wandering 
Ahasuerus is a native of Berlin, for he is old and ailing and has 
seen many lands and eyes, yet he still does not feel himself 
attracted to Heaven but very much so to the ladies, and there are 
only two magnets, a Heaven without eyes and an eye without 
Heaven. 

The one lies above us and draws us aloft, the other beneath 
us and draws us down into the depths. And Ahasuerus is drawn 
mightily downwards, for would he otherwise wander eternally 
through the lands of the Earth? And would he wander eternally 
through the lands of the Earth if he were not a native of Berlin and 
used to sands? 

Chapter 44 
Second Fragment from Halto’s Letter-Case 

We came to a country-house, it was a beautiful, dark-blue night. 
Your arm was in mine and you wanted to break free, but I would 
not release you, my hand held you captive as you held my heart, 
and you let it be so. 

I murmured words of longing, my utterance was the most 
sublime and the most beautiful that mortal man can speak, for I 
said nothing whatever, I was withdrawn into myself, I saw a realm 
rise up in which the air hung so light and yet so heavy, and in that 
ether there stood a divine image, beauty personified, as once in 
the deep dreams of fantasy I had sensed but not known her, she 

Early Literary Experiments 631 

was radiant with spiritual fire, she smiled, and you were the 
image. 

I marvelled at myself, for I had become great through my love, 
as a giant; I beheld a boundless sea, but no tides swelled it any 
more, for it had attained depth and eternity, its surface was crystal 
and in its dark abyss were set quivering golden stars, they sang 
love-songs, they sent forth radiant fire and the sea itself was 
aglow! 

If only this path had been life! 

I kissed your sweet, soft hand, I spoke of love and of you. 
Above our heads floated a fine mist, its heart broke and it shed a 
great tear which fell between us, we felt the tear and were 
silent 

Chapter 47 

“It is either Boniface or a pair of trousers!” cried Merten. “Light, I 
say, light!” and there was light. “By God, it is no pair of trousers, but 
Boniface, stretched out here in this dark corner, and his eyes are 
burning with a sinister fire, but what do I see? He is bleeding!” and 
without another word he flung himself down. The apprentices 
looked first at the dog and then at their master. At length he leapt 
violently to his feet. “You asses, what are you gaping for? Do you not 
see that the holy Boniface is hurt? I will institute strict inquiries, and 
woe, thrice woe, to the guilty. But quick, carry him to his seat, 
summon the doctor, bring vinegar and lukewarm water, and do not 
forget to summon the schoolmaster Vitus! His words have powerful 
influence over Boniface!” Thus followed the curt commands. They 
rushed out of the door in all directions, Merten took a closer look at 
Boniface, in whose eyes a milder gleam had still not yet appeared, 
and shook his head many times. 

“I fear misfortune, a great misfortune! Call a priest!” 

Chapter 48 

As still not one of his helpers had appeared, Merten sprang to 
his feet several times in desperation. 

“Poor Boniface! But wait! What if in the meantime I dared to 
administer the treatment myself? You are all in a fever, the blood 
is streaming from your mouth, you refuse your food, I see violent 
convulsions shake your belly, I understand you, Boniface, I 

632 | Karl Marx 

understand you!” and then Grethe came in with lukewarm water 
and vinegar. 

“Grethe! How many days is it since Boniface last had a motion? 
Did I not instruct you to administer to him a lavement at least 
once every week? But I see that in future I shall have to take over 
such weighty matters myself! Bring oil, salt, bran, honey and a 
clyster! | 

“Poor Boniface! You are constipated with your holy thoughts 
and reflections, since you can no longer relieve yourself in speech 
and writing! 

“O admirable victim of profundity! O pious constipation!” 

APPENDICES