The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04

"That is a beautiful mistake. But you men are full of bad will and you persist in it."

"Oh no! If we seem to be obstinate, it is only because we cannot be otherwise, not because our will is bad. We cannot, because we do not will properly. Hence it is not bad will, but lack of will. And to whom is the fault attributable but to you women, who have such a super-abundance of good will and keep it all to yourselves, unwilling to share it with us. But it happened quite against my will that we fell a-talking about will—I am sure I do not know why we are doing it. Still, it is much better for me to vent my feelings by talking than by smashing the beautiful chinaware. It gave me a chance to recover from my astonishment over your unexpected compunction, your excellent discourse, and your laudable resolution. Really, this is one of the strangest pranks that you have ever given me the honor of witnessing; so far as I can remember, it has been several weeks since you have talked by daylight in such solemn and unctuous periods as you used in your little sermon today. Would you mind translating your meaning into prose?"

"Really, have you forgotten already about yesterday evening and the interesting company? Of course I did not know that."

"Oh! And so that is why you are so out of sorts—because I talked with Amalia too much?"

"Talk as much as you please with anybody you please. But you must be nice to me—that I insist on."

"You spoke so very loud; the stranger was standing close by, and I was nervous and did not know what else to do."

"Except to be rude in your awkwardness."

"Forgive me! I plead guilty. You know how embarrassed I am with you in society. It always hurts me to talk with you in the presence of others."

"How nicely he manages to excuse himself!"

"The next time do not pass it over! Look out and be strict with me. But see what you have done! Isn't it a desecration? Oh no! It isn't possible, it is more than that. You will have to confess it—you were jealous."

"All the evening you rudely forgot about me. I began to write it all out for you today, but tore it up."

"And then, when I came?"

"Your being in such an awful hurry annoyed me."

"Could you love me if I were not so inflammable and electric? Are you not so too? Have you forgotten our first embrace? In one minute love comes and lasts for ever, or it does not come at all. Or do you think that joy is accumulated like money and other material things, by consistent behavior? Great happiness is like music coming out of the air—it appears and surprises us and then vanishes again."

"And thus it was you appeared to me, darling! But you will not vanish, will you? You shall not! I say it!"

"I will not, I will stay with you now and for all time. Listen! I feel a strong desire to hold a long discourse with you on jealousy. But first we ought to conciliate the offended gods."

"Rather, first the discourse and afterward the gods."

"You are right, we are not yet worthy of them. It takes you a long time to get over it after you have been disturbed and annoyed about something. How nice it is that you are so sensitive!"

"I am no more sensitive than you are—only in a different way."

"Well then, tell me! I am not jealous—how does it happen that you are?"

"Am I, unless I have cause to be? Answer me that!"

"I do not know what you mean."

"Well, I am not really jealous. But tell me: What were you talking about all yesterday evening?"

"So? It is Amalia of whom you are jealous? Is it possible? That nonsense? I did not talk about anything with her, and that was the funny part of it. Did I not talk just as long with Antonio, whom a short time ago I used to see almost every day?"

"You want me to believe that you talk in the same way with the coquettish Amalia that you do with the quiet, serious Antonio. Of course! It is nothing more than a case of clear, pure friendship!"

"Oh no, you must not believe that—I do not wish you to. That is not true. How can you credit me with being so foolish? For it is a very foolish thing indeed for two people of opposite sex to form and conceive any such relation as pure friendship. In Amalia's case it is nothing more than playing that I love her. I should not care anything about her at all, if she were not a little coquettish.

"Would that there were more like her in our circle! Just in fun, one must really love all the ladies."

"Julius, I believe you are going completely crazy!"

"Now understand me aright—I do not really mean all of them, but all of them who are lovable and happen to come one's way."

"That is nothing more than what the French call galanterie and coquetterie."

"Nothing more—except that I think of it as something beautiful and clever. And then men ought to know what the ladies are doing and what they want; and that is rarely the case. A fine pleasantry is apt to be transformed in their hands into coarse seriousness."

"This loving just in fun is not at all a funny thing to look at."

"That is not the fault of the fun—it is just miserable jealousy. Forgive me, dearest—I do not wish to get excited, but I must confess that I cannot understand how any one can be jealous. For lovers do not offend each other, but do things to please each other. Hence it must come from uncertainty, absence of love, and unfaithfulness to oneself. For me happiness is assured, and love is one with constancy. To be sure, it is a different matter with people who love in the ordinary way. The man loves only the race in his wife, the woman in her husband only the degree of his ability and social position, and both love in their children only their creation and their property. Under those circumstances fidelity comes to be a merit, a virtue, and jealousy is in order. For they are quite right in tacitly believing that there are many like themselves, and that one man is about as good as the next, and none of them worth very much."

"You look upon jealousy, then, as nothing but empty vulgarity and lack of culture."

"Yes, or rather as mis-culture and perversity, which is just as bad or still worse. According to that system the best thing for a man to do is to marry of set purpose out of sheer obligingness and courtesy. And certainly for such folk it must be no less convenient than entertaining, to live out their lives together in a state of mutual contempt. Women especially are capable of acquiring a genuine passion for marriage; and when one of them finds it to her liking, it easily happens that she marries half a dozen in succession, either spiritually or bodily. And the opportunity is never wanting for a man and wife to be delicate for a change, and talk a great deal about friendship."

"You used to talk as if you regarded us women as incapable of friendship. Is that really your opinion?"

"Yes, but the incapability, I think, lies more in the friendship than in you. Whatever you love at all, you love indivisibly; for instance, a sweetheart or a baby. With you even a sisterly relation would assume this character."

"You are right there."

"For you friendship is too many-sided and one-sided. It has to be absolutely spiritual and have definite, fixed bounds. This boundedness would, only in a more refined way, be just as fatal to your character as would sheer sensuality without love. For society, on the other hand, it is too serious, too profound, too holy."

"Cannot people, then, talk with each other regardless of whether they are men or women?"

"That might make society rather serious. At best, it might form an interesting club. You understand what I mean: it would be a great gain, if people could talk freely, and were neither too wild nor yet too stiff. The finest and best part would always be lacking—that which is everywhere the spirit and soul of good society—namely, that playing with love and that love of play which, without the finer sense, easily degenerates into jocosity. And for that reason I defend the ambiguities too."

"Do you do that in play or by way of joke?"

"No! No! I do it in all seriousness."

"But surely not as seriously and solemnly as Pauline and her lover?"

"Heaven forbid! I really believe they would ring the church-bell when they embrace each other, if it were only proper. Oh, it is true, my friend, man is naturally a serious animal. We must work against this shameful and abominable propensity with all our strength, and attack it from all sides. To that end ambiguities are also good, except that they are so seldom ambiguous. When they are not and allow only one interpretation, that is not immoral, it is only obtrusive and vulgar. Frivolous talk must be spiritual and dainty and modest, so far as possible; for the rest as wicked as you choose."

"That is well enough, but what place have your ambiguities in society?"

"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The question is not why we say them, but how we say them. It would be rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a sexless Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what she is and is going to be. It is really a comical situation, considering how indelicate, stiff and guilty society is, to be an innocent girl."

"That reminds me of the famous Buffo, who, while he was always making others laugh, was so sad and solemn himself."

"Society is a chaos which can be brought into harmonious order only by wit. If one does not jest and toy with the elements of passion, it forms thick masses and darkens everything."

"Then there must be passion in the air here, for it is almost dark."