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smal , white-covered table under a striped awning spangled with
sunlight, eating croissants with golden butter and various kinds of
jam, and considering plans for outings that would fil the whole long
summer day. After the coffee I would strol calmly, without
excitement and at a deliberate pace, to a steamship, which would
carry me toward the Gotthard and the foot of those giant mountains
whose tops were covered with gleaming glaciers.
For many decades this image rose up whenever I was wearied
from overwork and sought a point of rest. In real life I have promised
myself this splendor again and again, but I have never kept my
promise.
This, my first conscious journey, was fol owed by a second a year or
two later. I had been al owed to visit my father, who was on holiday
in Sachseln. From him I learned the impressive news that he had
become friendly with the Catholic priest there. This seemed to me
an act of extraordinary boldness, and secretly I admired my father's
courage. While there, I paid a visit to the hermitage of Flueli and the
relics of Brother Klaus, who by then had been beatified. I wondered
how the Catholics knew that he was in a beatific state. Perhaps he
was stil wandering about and had told people so? I was powerful y
impressed by the genius loci, and was able not only to imagine the
possibility of a life so entirely dedicated to God but even to
understand it. But I did so with an inward shudder and a question to
which I knew no answer: How could his wife and children have
borne having a saint for a husband and father, when it was precisely
my father's faults and inadequacies that made him particularly
lovable to me? "Yes," I thought, "how could anyone live with a
saint?" Obviously he saw that it was impossible, and therefore he
had to become a hermit. Stil , it was not so very far from his cel to
his house. This wasn't a bad idea, I thought, to have the family in
one house, while I would live some distance away, in a hut with a
pile of books and a writing table, and an open fire where I would
roast chestnuts and cook my soup on a tripod. As a holy hermit I
wouldn't have to go to church any more, but would have my own
private chapel instead.
From the hermitage I strol ed on up the hil , lost in my thoughts, and
was just turning to descend when from the left the slender figure of a
young girl appeared. She wore the local costume, had a pretty face,
and greeted me with friendly blue eyes. As though it were the most
natural thing. in the world we descended into the val ey together.
She was about my own age. Since I knew no other girls except my
cousins, I felt rather embarrassed and did not know how to talk to
her. So I began hesitantly explaining that I was here for a couple of
days on holiday, that I was at the Gymnasium in Basel and later
wanted to study at the university. While I was talking, a strange
feeling of fatefulness crept over me. "She has appeared just at this
moment," I thought to myself, "and she walks along with me as
natural y as if we belonged together? I glanced sideways at her and
saw an expression of mingled shyness and admiration in her face,
which embarrassed me and somehow pierced me. Can it be
possible, I wondered, that this is fate? Is my meeting her mere
chance? A peasant girl--could it possibly be? She is a Catholic, but
perhaps her priest is the very one with whom my father has made
friends? She has no idea who I am. I certainly couldn't talk to her
about Schopenhauer and the negation of the Wil , could I? Yet she
doesn't seem in any way sinister. Perhaps her Priest is not one of
those Jesuits skulking about in black robes.
But I cannot tel her, either, that my father is a Protestant clergyman.
That might frighten or offend her. And to talk about philosophy, or
about the devil, who is more important than Faust even though
Goethe made such a simpleton of him--that is quite out of the
question. She stil dwel s in the distant land of innocence, but I have
plunged into reality, into the splendor and cruelty of creation. How
can she endure to hear about that? An impenetrable wal stands
between us. There is not and cannot be any relationship.
Sad at heart, I retreated into myself and turned the conversation to
less dangerous topics. Was she going to Sachseln, wasn't the
weather lovely, and what a view, and so on. Outwardly this
encounter was completely meaningless. But, seen from within, it
was so weighty that it not only occupied my thoughts for days but
has remained forever in my memory, like a shrine by the wayside.
At that time I was stil in that childlike state where life consists of
single, unrelated experiences. For who could discover the threads
of fate which led from Brother Klaus to the pretty girl?
This period of my life was fil ed with conflicting thoughts.
Schopenhauer and Christianity would not square with one another,
for one thing; and for another, No. 1 wanted to free himself from the
pressure or melancholy of No. 2. It was not No. 2 who was
depressed, but No. 1 when he remembered No. 2. It was just at this
time that, out of the clash of opposites, the first systematic fantasy
of my life was born. It made its appearance piece by piece, and it
had its origin, so far as I can remember, in an experience which
stirred me profoundly.
One day a 'northwest wind was lashing the Rhine into foaming
waves. My way to school led along the river. Suddenly I saw
approaching from the north a ship with a great mainsail running up
the Rhine before the storm. Here was something completely new in
my experience--a sailing vessel on the Rhine! My imagination took
wings. If, instead of this swiftly flowing river, al of Alsace were a
lake, we would have sailing boats and great steamers. Then Basel
would be a port; it would be almost as good as living by the sea.
Then everything would be different, and we would live in another
time and another world. There would be no Gymnasium, no long
walk to school, and I would be grown up and able to arrange my life
as I wished. There would be a hil of rock rising out of the lake,
connected by a narrow isthmus to the mainland, cut through by a
broad canal with a wooden bridge over it, leading to a gate flanked
by towers and opening into a little medieval city built on the
surrounding slopes. On the rock stood a wel -fortified castle with a
tal keep, a watchtower. This was my house. In it there were no fine
hal s or any signs of magnificence. The rooms were simple,
paneled, and rather smal . There was an uncommonly attractive
library where you could find everything worth knowing. There was
also a col ection of weapons, and the bastions were mounted with
heavy cannon. Besides that, there was a garrison of fifty men-at-
arms in the castle. The little town had several hundred inhabitants
and was governed by a mayor and a town council of old men. I
myself was justice of the peace, arbitrator, and adviser, who
appeared only now and then to hold court. On the landward side the
town had a port in which lay my two masted schooner, armed with
several smal cannon.
The nerve center and raison d'étre of this whole arrangement was
the secret of the keep, which I alone knew. The thought had come to
me like a shock. For, inside the tower, extending from the
battlements to the vaulted cel ar, was a copper column or heavy
wire cable as thick as a man's arm, which ramified at the top into
the finest branches, like the crown of a tree or--better stil --like a
taproot with al its tiny rootlets turned upside down and reaching into
the air. From the air they drew a certain inconceivable something
which was conducted down the copper column into the cel ar. Here I
had an equal y inconceivable apparatus, a kind of laboratory in
which I made gold out of the mysterious substance which the
copper roots drew from the air. This was real y an arcanum, of
whose nature I neither had nor wished to form any conception. Nor
did my lmagination concern itself with the nature of the
transformation process. Tactful y and with a certain nervousness it
skirted around what actual y went on in this laboratory. There was a
kind of inner prohibition: one was not supposed to look into it too
closely, nor ask what kind of substance was extracted from the air.
As Goethe says of the Mothers, "Even to speak of them dismays
the bold."
"Spirit," of course, meant for me something ineffable, but at bottom I
did not regard it as essential y different from very rarefied air. What
the roots absorbed and transmitted to the copper trunk was a kind
of spiritual essence which became visible down in the cel ar as
finished gold coins. This was certainly no mere conjuring trick, but a
venerable and vital y important secret of nature which had come to
me I know not how and which I had to conceal not only from the
council of elders but, in a sense, also from myself.
My long, boring walk to and from school began to shorten most
delightful y. Scarcely was I out of the schoolhouse than I was already
in the castle, where structural alterations were in progress, council
sessions were being held, evildoers sentenced, disputes
arbitrated, cannon fired. The schooner's decks were cleared, the
sails rigged, and the vessel steered careful y out of the harbor
before a gentle breeze, and then, as it emerged from behind the
rock, tacked into a stiff nor'wester. Suddenly I found myself on my
doorstep, as though only a few minutes had passed. I stepped out
of my fantasy as out of a carriage which had effortlessly driven me
home. This highly enjoyable occupation lasted for several months
before I got sick of it. Then I found the fantasy sil y and ridiculous.
Instead of daydreaming I began building castles and artful y fortified
emplacements out of smal stones, using mud as mortar--the
fortress of Huningen, which at that time was stil intact, serving me
as a model. I studied al the available fortification plans of Vauban,
and was soon familiar with al the technicalities. From Vauban I
turned to modern methods of fortification, and tried with my limited
means to build models of al the different types. This preoccupied
me in my leisure hours for more than two years, during which time
my leanings toward nature study and concrete things steadily
increased, at the cost of No. 2.
As long as I knew so little about real things, there was no point, I
thought, in thinking about them. Anyone could have fantasies, but
real knowledge was another matter. My parents
7 Faust, Part Two, p. 76. 1
al owed me to take out a subscription for a scientific periodical,
which I read with passionate interest. I hunted and col ected al the
fossils to be found in our Jura mountains, and al the obtainable
minerals, also insects and the bones of mammoths and men--
mammoth bones from gravel pits in the Rhineland plain, human
bones from a mass grave near Huningen, dating from 1811. Plants
interested me too, but not in a scientific sense. I was attracted to
them for a reason I could not understand, and with a strong feeling
that they ought not to be pul ed up and dried. They were living
beings which had meaning only so long as they were growing and
flowering--a hidden, secret meaning, one of God's thoughts. They
were to be regarded with awe and contemplated with philosophical
wonderment. What the biologist had to say about them was
interesting, but it was not the essential thing. Yet I could not explain
to myself what this essential thing was. How were plants related to
the Christian religion or to the negation of the Wil , for example?
This was something I could not fathom. They obviously partook of
the divine state of innocence which it was better not to disturb. By
way of contrast, insects were denatured plants--flowers and fruits
which had presumed to crawl about on legs or stilts and to fly
around with wings like the petals of blossoms, and busied
themselves preying on plants. Because of this unlawful activity they
were condemned to mass executions, June bugs and caterpil ars
being the especial targets of such punitive expeditions. My
"sympathy with al creatures was strictly limited to warm-blooded
animals. The only exceptions among the cold-blooded vertebrates
were frogs and toads, because of their resemblance to human
beings.
III
Student Years
IN spite of my growing scientific interests, I turned back from time to
time to my philosophical books. The question of my choice of a
profession was drawing alarmingly close. I looked forward with
longing to the end of my school days. Then ' I would go to the
university and study--natural science, of course. Then I would know
something real. But no sooner had I made myself this premise than
my doubts began. Was not my bent rather toward history and
philosophy? Then again, I was intensely interested in everything
Egyptian and Babylonian, and would have liked best to be an
archaeologist. But I had no money to study anywhere except in
Basel, and in Basel there was no teacher for this subject. So this
plan very soon came to an end. For a long time I could not make up
my mind and constantly postponed the decision. My father was very
worried. He said once, "The boy is interested in everything
imaginable, but he does not know what he wants." I could only admit
that he was right. As matriculation approached and we had to
decide what faculty to register for, I abruptly decided on science,
but I left my schoolfel ows in doubt as to whether I intended to go in
definitely for science or the humanities.
This apparently sudden decision had a background of its own.
Some weeks previously, just at the time when No. 1 and No. 2.
were wrestling for a decision, I had two dreams. In the first dream I
was in a dark wood that stretched along the Rhine. I came to a little
hil , a burial mound, and began to dig. After a while I turned up, to
my astonishment, some bones of prehistoric animals. This
interested me enormously, and at that moment I knew: I must get to
know nature, the world in which we live, and the things around us.
Then came a second dream. Again I was in a wood; it was
threaded with watercourses, and in the darkest place I saw a
circular pool, surrounded by dense undergrowth. Half immersed in
the water lay the strangest and most wonderful creature: a round
animal, shimmering in opalescent hues, and consisting of
innumerable little cel s, or of organs shaped like tentacles. It was a
giant radiolarian, measuring about three feet across. It seemed to
me indescribably wonderful that this magnificent creature should be
lying there undisturbed, in the hidden place, in the clear, deep
water. It aroused in me an intense desire for knowledge, so that I
awoke with a beating heart. These two dreams decided me
overwhelmingly in favor of science, and removed al my doubts.
It became clear to me that I was living in a time and a place where a
person had to earn his living. To do so, one had to be this or that,
and it made a deep impression on me that al my schoolfel ows
were imbued with this necessity and thought about nothing else. I
felt I was in some way odd. Why could I not make up my mind and
commit myself to something definite? Even that plodding fel ow D.
who had been held up to me by my German teacher as a model of
diligence and conscientiousness was certain that he would study
theology. I saw that I would have to settle down and think the matter
through. If I took up zoology, for instance, I could be only a
schoolmaster, or at best an employee in a zoological garden. There
was no future in that, even if one's demands were modest--though I
would certainly have preferred working in a zoo to the life of a
school-teacher.
In this blind al ey the inspiration suddenly came to me that I could
study medicine. Strangely enough, this had never occurred to me
before, although my paternal grandfather, of whom I had heard so
much, had been a doctor. Indeed, for that very reason I had a
certain resistance to this profession. "Only don't imitate," was my
motto. But now I told myself that the study of medicine at least
began with scientific subjects. To that extent I would be doing what I
wanted. Moreover, the field of medicine was so broad that there
was always the possibility of specializing later. I had definitely opted
for science, and the only question was: How? I had to earn my
living, and as I had no money I could not attend a university abroad
and obtain the kind of training that would give me hopes of a
scientific career. At best I could become only a dilettante in
science. Nor, since I possessed a personality that made me
disliked by many of my schoolfel ows and of the people who
counted (i.e., the teachers), was there any hope of finding a patron
who would support my wish. When, therefore, I final y decided on
medicine, it was with the rather disagreeable feeling that it was not
a good thing to start life with such a compromise. Nevertheless, I
felt considerably relieved now that this irrevocable decision had
been made.
The painful question then presented itself: Where was the money to
come from? My father could raise only part of it. He applied to the
University of Basel for a stipend for me, and to my shame it was
granted. I was ashamed, not so much because our poverty was laid
bare for al the world to see, but because I had secretly been
convinced that al the "top" people, the people who "counted," were
il disposed toward me. I had never expected any such kindness
from them. I had obviously profited by the reputation of my father,
who was a good and uncomplicated person. Yet I felt myself total y
different from him. I had, infact, two different conceptions of myself.
Through No. 1's eyes I saw myself as a rather disagreeable and
moderately gifted young man with vaulting ambitions, an
undisciplined temperament, and dubious manners, alternating
between naive enthusiasm and fits of childish disappointment, in
his innnermost essence a hermit and obscurantist. On the other
hand, No. 2 regarded No. 1 as a diflicult and thankless moral task,
a lesson that had to be got through somehow, complicated by a
variety of faults such as spel s of laziness, despondency,
depression, inept enthusiasm for ideas and things that nobody
valued, liable to imaginary friendships, limited, prejudiced, stupid
(mathematics!), with a lack of understanding for other people,
vague and confused in philosophical matters, neither an honest
Christian nor anything else. No. 2 had no definable character at al ;
he was a vita peracta, born, living, dead, everything in one; a total
vision of life. Though pitilessly clear about himself, he was unable to
express himself through the dense, dark medium of No. 1, though
he longed to do so. When No. 2 predominated, No. 1 was
contained and obliterated in him, just as, conversely, No. 1
regarded No. 2 as a region of inner darkness. No. 2 felt that any
conceivable expression of himself would be like a stone thrown
over the edge of the world, dropping soundlessly into infinite night.
But in him (No. 2) light reigned, as in the spacious hal s of a royal
palace whose high easements open upon a landscape flooded with
sunlight. Here were meaning and historical continuity, in strong
contrast to the incoherent fortuitousness of No. 1's life, which had no
real points of contact with its environment. No. 2, on the other hand,
felt himself in secret accord with the Middle Ages, as personified by
Faust, with the legacy of a past which had obviously stirred Goethe
to the depths. For Goethe too, therefore--and this was my great
consolation--No. 2 was a reality. Faust, as I now realized with
something of a shock, meant more to me than my beloved Gospel
according to St. ]ohn. There was something in Faust that worked
directly on my feelings. John's Christ was strange to me, but stil
stranger was the Savior of the other gospels. Faust, on the other
hand, was the living equivalent of No. 2, and I was convinced that he
was the answer which Goethe had given to his times. This insight
was not only comforting to, me, it also gave me an increased
feeling of inner security and a sense of belonging to the human
community. I was no longer isolated and a mere curiosity, a sport of
cruel nature. My godfather and authority was the great Goethe
himself.
About this time I had a dream which both frightened and
encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was
making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog
was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny
light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything
depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the
feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back,
and saw a gigantic black figure fol owing me. But at the same
moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my
little light going through night and wind, regardless of al dangers.
When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the
Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being
by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too, that this little light was my
consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the
sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely smal
and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is stil a
light, my only light.
This dream was a great il umination for me. Now I knew that No. 1
was the bearer of the light, and that No. 2 fol owed him like a
shadow. My task was to shield the light and not look back at the vita
peracta; this was evidently a forbidden realm of light of a different
sort. I must go forward against the storm, which sought to thrust me
back into the immeasurable darkness of a world where one is
aware of nothing except the surfaces of things in the background. In
the role of No. 1, I had to go forward--into study, moneymaking,
responsibilities, entanglements, confusions, errors, submissions,
defeats. The storm pushing against me was time, ceaselessly
flowing into the past, which just as ceaselessly dogs our heels. It
exerts a mighty suction which greedily draws everything living into
itself; we can only escape from it--for a while--by.pressing forward.
The past is terribly real and present, and it catches everyone who
cannot save his skin with a satisfactory answer.
My view of the world spun around another ninety degrees; I
recognized clearly that my path led irrevocably outward, into the
limitations and darkness of three-dimensionality.