V. In the Abyss
I now turn to the time which is for me and every compassionate soul the most horrible, but for a psychologist the most interesting of all times. As I take up my pen write this down, I could give this account in such terms of psychology or even criminal psychology, which are most suitable to let an expert comprehend what happened inside of me then; but I am not writing this for a specialist in psychology, but for the general public reading my books, and therefore, I have to abstain from all attempts to practice psychology. Consequentially, I will avoid all technical terms and rather employ an allegoric form of expression than a terminology which is not universally understood.
The event described in the previous chapter had effected me like a blow, like a blow over the head, the impact of which will make a person collapse. And I did collapse! I did rise again, though, but only externally; internally I stayed down in mindless unconsciousness; for weeks, even for months. That it had happened at Christmas out of all times, had doubled the effect. Whether I had turned to a lawyer, whether I appealed, appellated, or had employed any other kind of legal remedy, I do not know. I only remember that I lived in a cell for six weeks, together with two other men. They were prisoners on remand. Apparently, I was regarded as harmless, or else I would not have been locked up together with persons who had not been convicted yet. One of them was a bank official, the other one an hotelier. I did not care why they were investigated. They were kind towards me and made every attempt to lift me out of the state of internal petrification I was in, but in vain. I left the cell, once my imprisonment had ended, with the same lack of emotion with which I had entered it. I went home to my parents.
Neither father, nor mother, nor grandmother, nor the sisters would have thought of reproaching me with something. And this was perfectly horrible! At that time when I, with all the ignorance of a child, wanted to go to Spain and father brought me home, I had promised myself that would never sadden him again anything similar, and now it had turned out so very differently and so much worse! I was not concerned about my future or about a job; I could have obtained this any time. Now, with matters being as they were, the thing for me to do was not to turn sideways off my path, but to set on that course right now and for ever on the other end of which were those ideals which I bore within the deepest depth of my heart since my boyhood: To become an author, to become a poet! Learning, learning, learning! To work myself up by what is great, beautiful, noble, out of my present deep and low state! To get to know the world as a stage, and the people who swarm on it! And in the end of this hard, laborious life, to write for that other stage, for the theatre, to solve, there, the mysteries which had captured me since my earliest childhood and which, though I felt them then, I was still far, far, far from comprehending!
The process which formed those thoughts and intentions within me was not at all clearly, shortly, and concisely expressing itself, oh no, because inside of me there was now the very opposite of clarity; it was night; there were only a few free moments when I saw further than the present day would allow me. This night was not entirely dark; it had the faint light of dawn. And strangely, it only extended over the soul, not the mind as well. My soul was ill, not my mind. I possessed the capability to make every logical conclusion, to solve every mathematical problem. I had the keenest insight in everything unconnected with my inner self; but as soon as something approached me, to interact with me, this insight stopped. I was not able to inspect myself, to understand myself, to guide and control myself. Just occasionally, a moment came which granted me the ability to know what I wanted, and then, this wish was my only desire until the next one of these moments came. This was a condition I had never observed before in another human being and never read about in any book. And mentally, I was very well aware of this condition of the soul, but did not possess the power to alter and even less to overcome it. I developed the realization that I no longer was one whole, but a split personality, very much according to the new doctrine, that man is not an individual, but a drama. In this drama, there were several characters, acting out their parts, who at some time were entirely indistinguishable and then again took on their very well distinguished forms.
First of all, there was myself, this is me, who was observing all of this. But who this "me" actually was and where he was within myself, I could not tell. He very much resembled my father and had all of his faults. A second being within myself always kept at a distance. It resembled a fairy, an angel, one of those impeccable, bliss bringing beings from grandmother's book of fairy-tales. It admonished; it warned. It smiled when I obeyed, and it mourned when I was disobedient. The third entity, of course not a physical one, but an appearance on the soul, was nothing less than abhorrent to me. Fateful, ugly, mocking, repulsive, always gloomy and threatening; I have never seen it any other way, and I have never heard it any other way. This is because I have not just seen it, I also heard it; it spoke. It often spoke to me for entire days and entire nights without interruption. And it never wanted what was good, but always just what was evil and unlawful. It was new to me; I had never seen it before, but only from now on, once my inner being was split. But when, for a short time, it kept silent and I therefore found the time to observe it secretly and attentively, then it struck me as so familiar and well acquainted, as if I had seen it a thousand times before. Then its appearance changed, and its face changed, too. At times, it was from the Batzendorf, then from the bowling alley, or from the Lügenschmiede. One day it looked like Rinaldo Rinaldini, the next day like the robber-knight Kuno of the Eulenburg <owls' castle>, and the day after like the god-fearing principal of the seminary, standing before my tallow-paper.
I did not make these observations of my inner self all at once, but gradually. Many, many months passed, until they had developed to such an extent within me that I was able to behold their image in my mind and commit this to memory. And then, I started to comprehend was all of this was actually about. What occurred within every human being, without him or she being aware of it or even suspecting it, also occurred in me, but with me seeing and hearing it. Was this a benefit, a gift of God? Or was I insane? If so, I was at any rate not insane in the mind, but in the soul, because I made these observations with an objectiveness and cold-bloodedness, as if this would not concern myself, but someone entirely different, a person who was a perfect stranger to me. And I lived my ordinary, every day life just as any sane person would, who is entirely unaffected by such psychological events. The strength and the will to live returned to me. I worked. I taught music and foreign languages. I wrote poetry; I composed. I formed a small group of musicians, to practice and to perform what I had composed. Members of this orchestra are still alive today. I became the chairman of a glee club, which I conducted at public concerts, in spite of my youth. And I began to write fiction. First, I wrote humorous short stories, then "Village-Tales from the Ore Mountains". I had no problems at all in finding publishers. Good, suspenseful, and humorous short stories are extremely rare and are very well paid. My stories were passed from one magazine to another. It was a joy to see how excellently this was developing. But this joy was ruined in a cruel manner by another development, which took place at the same time and in parallel inside of me. The split within me grew further. Every sensation, every feeling seemed to demand its own form. I was full of characters who wanted to worry with me, work with me, create with me, write with me, and compose with me. And every one of these characters spoke; I had to hear them. This was enough to drive a person insane! As there had previously been only two characters aside from myself, the bright one and the dark one, so there were now two groups aside from myself. And as more time passed, they became more distinguished, and I recognised them more clearly. There were two hostile forces, fighting against each other: grandmother's bright, luminous characters from the Bible and her fairy-tales against the filthy daemons of this unfortunate rental library from Hohenstein. Ardistan against Jinnistan. The legacy of thoughts from the swamp, I was born into, against the bliss bringing ideas of the highland, which I was seeking. The miasmas of a poisoned childhood and youth against the pure, redeeming wishes and hopes, with which I looked forward to my future; the lie against the truth; the vice against the virtue; the inborn human beast against the rebirth, which every mortal has to seek to become a person of noble spirit.
Every thinking human being who seeks for advancement has to go through such internal struggles. Normally, these are thoughts and emotions, which are competing against one another. But with me, those thoughts and feelings had taken on shapes of visible and audible characters. I saw them with my eyes closed, and I heard them by day and night; they interrupted my work; they woke me from my sleep. The dark ones were more powerful than the bright ones; when they forced themselves upon me, resistance was useless. At ordinary times, my inner world was quiet; then, there was no conflict. But was soon as I started to work, one character after another woke up. Every one of them wanted to change my work according to its wishes. This also very much depended on the topic I was dealing with. Nobody objected against a funny short story. I could finish something like this without an argument, without interruption. But when working on a serious village-tale, numerous voices spoke out for and against me. In those village-tales, I have proven time and time again that God will not permit any mockery of his power, but punishes precisely according to the sin committed. Against this, certain characters within me rose up. But I met with the greatest resistance, as soon as I rose to even higher paths in my work or in my reading. Whenever I took on a religiously, or ethically, or aesthetically higher topic, the dark character within me rebelled with all of its might against it and tormented me in a manner which is entirely inexpressible. In order to demonstrate in what manner this occurred and what kind of a torment this was, I want to give an explanatory example: I had been commissioned to write a parody of "Des Sängers Fluch" <The Singer's Curse> by Uhland [a]. I did so. This parody got the title "The Tailor's Curse". A tailor cursed a shoemaker, his ramshackle hovel, and tiny garden, where only two gooseberry-bushes grew. The curse on the house took on the form of the following lines:
[a] Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862)
"The mortgage does await this,
that you, today, shall fall.
Damn walls, hear what your fate is:
I will destroy you all!"
I wrote this parody, without being disturbed by my inner voices while doing so. Nothing within me rebelled to the slightest extent against such a base thing. Just the luminous character disappeared; it mourned, because I had enough abilities to do better and nobler things. Some time later, I had to write a didactic poem, of which I now remember nothing more than the following verses:
"Once you will comprehend the teachings,
Which your own saviour taught to you,
And in your country heed his preachings,
Obey and act as you should do,
Then, mankind will unite in one crowd,
From near and far, they'll join in then;
They'll pray to one Lord, all with no doubt;
The world's his church since it began.
Triumphant is the faith which says this:
One God, one Lord for evermore.
The names will fade, and what remains is
That all roads lead to heaven's door."
As soon as I had sat down to construct this ambitious poem, a rare clarity came over me, I saw the joyful smile of the luminous character, and a hundred beautiful, noble thoughts hurried towards me to enter my mind. I reached for the pen. But then, I suddenly felt as if a black curtain had veiled my inner self. The clarity was over; the luminous character disappeared; the dark one entered, laughing sarcastically, and throughout my entire inner being a thousand voices echoed: "The tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, etc." So it resounded within me for hours and hours, on and on, endlessly, unrelentingly, and without even the slightest pause, not just in my imagination, but for real, for real. I felt as if those voices spoke not from within me, but right before my very own ear. I tried my best to silence them, but this was all in vain as long as I held the pen in my hand remained on my seat to write. Even after I got up, they echoed forth, and only when I considered to give up all attempts to write this didactic poem, silence instantly followed. But since I had to keep my promise to write it, I soon reached for the pen again. Immediately, this multitude of voiced intoned again: "The tailor's curse, the tailor's curse!" and when, in spite of all this, I focused my thoughts on my task, they additionally loudly roared these sentences: "The mortgage does await this, the mortgage does await this; damn walls, hear what your fate is, damn walls, hear what your fate is!" This went on for the entire day and the entire night and even continued after this. Nobody else saw and heard it; no one suspected of what and how terribly I suffered. Anybody else would have described this as madness, but not me. I remained distant and observed myself. In spite of all opposition, I managed to complete my poem on time. But I always had to pay very dearly for such victories; once it was achieved, my inner self collapsed.
Unfortunately, this violent obstruction of my good intentions did not just extend to my studies and work, but to a much larger degree and quite particularly to my lifestyle, my daily routine, as well. It was as if I had brought quite a lot of invisible criminals back home from this cell, in which I had been incarcerated for six weeks; and those criminals, now, had made it their cause to force their companionship upon me and to turn my mind to their way of thinking. I did not see them; I only saw the dark, mocking, main character from the swamp which was my home town and the trashy novels from Hohenstein; but they persistently talked to me; they influenced me. And when I resisted, they grew louder, to cloud my senses and to tire me, so that I lost the strength to resist. The main point was that was supposed to seek revenge, revenge against the owner of that watch, who had reported me to the police just to get rid of me from his apartment, revenge against the police, revenge against the judge, revenge against the government, against mankind, against basically everybody! I was a model citizen, like a lamb so white, pure, and innocent. The world had cheated me out of my future, my happiness. By what means? By forever regarding me as this what they had turned me into: a criminal.
This was what the tempters inside of me were demanding. I resisted as much as I could, as long as my strength would last. Everything I wrote at this time, especially my village-tales, I gave an ethical, strictly lawful, royalist tendency. I did this not just for the spiritual support of others, but also for my own. But how hard, how infinitely hard was this on me! Whenever I did not do as those loud voices demanded, I was assaulted with mocking laughter, with curses and maledictions, not just for hours, but for half days and entire nights. To escape these voices, I used to jump out of my bed and run out into the rain and the snowstorm. I felt urged to leave, to go so far, so very far away! I quitted my home to save myself, nobody knew where to, but I felt drawn back, again and again. I did not let anyone know what took place inside of me and how inhumanly or even superhumanly I fought, neither father, nor mother, nor grandmother, nor one of the sisters. And even much less someone else, a stranger; I would not have been understood, anyhow; but they would rather have thought that I had just gone crazy. Whether anybody else in my place would have been able to bear this, I do not know, but I hardly think so. I was physically as well as mentally a sturdy, even a very sturdy person, but nevertheless I grew more and more tired. First, there were days, then even entire weeks, when everything within me turned completely dark; then, I sometimes hardly knew and often did not know at all what I did. At these times, the luminous character within me had disappeared completely. The dark entity led me my the hand. It always walked along the edge of the abyss. At times, I was supposed to do this, at another time that, in any case something illegal. In the end, I only resisted like in a dream. If I had only told my parents or at least my grandmother what state I was in, the deep fall I was heading for would surely have been avoided. And it came, not at home, but in Leipzig, to where some business connected with the theatre had brought me. There I have, though I did not need anything of the kind, bought furs and ran off with them, without paying. How I was capable of doing something like this, I can no longer tell; I probably did not even know it then either. This is because I feel sure and certain, that I could not have possibly acted this way while being fully conscious of what I was doing. I remember nothing at all of the ensuing trail, neither any detail nor any general impression. I also cannot recall how the verdict read. Up until now, I had believed that the sentence had been four years of imprisonment; but according to what the newspapers have recently reported, it was even one month more. But this is irrelevant. What matters is that the gaping abyss had not opened for me in vain. I had plunged into it; I was committed to the state penitentiary of Zwickau.
Before I elaborate on my imprisonment, I have to turn against some prejudices and wrong opinions, concerning everything connected with the penal system, which should finally be done away with. I have heard many an educated fellow prisoner threatening with understandable, but unfounded bitterness, that he would, after he had been released, write a book about his imprisonment, to disclose the equally severe as numerous shortcomings of our legal and penal system. A wise man would smile at such threats, which might be expressed, but are hardly ever carried out. Every released prisoner, if he possesses a sense of honour, is glad to have put the time of his punishment behind him. He would never consider making this public, what up to now only a few people knew about, now that he has managed to get through it. Thus, he will remain silent. And this is good, because his book, if he would write it, would surely prove that there is hardly one among a thousand prisoners who would be able to assess himself and his punishment impartially and objectively. But I believe that I have worked my way up to this objectivity and impartiality; I regard my conclusions as well considered and correct and feel obliged to set the following point straight, here:
The times when the prisons could be described as "schools for criminals" are long gone. In our penitentiaries, conditions are not less moral and not less humane than in freedom.
What was one denounced as "the world of the criminals", does not exist any more. The inmates of today's penitentiaries come from all classes of the population. In respect to their professions and intelligence, the same percentages are to be found here as among the "unpunished".
For the act of the individual, the society as a whole is also to blame. For its own sake, it has to take a part of the guilt from him and unto itself.
The German judges are very well aware of this truth. I have not met a single judge, even among those who had decided against me, whom I could accuse of any wrongdoing. The numerous lawsuits, my opponents virtually force me to conduct, give me ample opportunities to make such experiences, and I have to say that I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of these gentlemen, both in the criminal and the civil courts. I have even experienced one case where a judge in Dresden decided in my favour, though all of his relatives and acquaintances were against me and sought to influence him in that respect. What satisfaction and what confidence in all judges this can give, knows only he who has experienced something like I did.
In respect to the penal system, I have express the same thing. During my entire imprisonment, I have not met a single high-ranking official or guard, who had given me cause for any complaint in respect to his fairness and humane treatment of the prisoners. I would even say that the guards feel the harshness of their duties much more than the prisoners. Hundreds of times, I have admired a kindness, a patience and forbearance, which I would not have been capable of. Prison is no concert-hall and no dance-hall, but a very, very serious place, where a person has to discover who he is. The detainee who is wise enough to realize this will never find any cause for complaint, but only all conceivable help, to erase the memory of what he had been accused of. There were officials who became so very dear to me, and I am completely convinced that they not just pretended to return my kindness, but were perfectly honest about it.
With the achievements of our justice and penal system nonetheless not being as we would wish them to be, it are truly not the judges and also not the prison officials who are to blame for this; instead the cause is to be sought in an entirely different place: in a flawed legislation, in the foolish self-righteousness of one's dear neighbour, in certain, too deeply rooted forms of prejudice, and last but not least also in our so-called, highly praised "criminal psychology", in which only certain experts believe, but not those who really know human nature and even much less those, all this is in the end about, these are the so-called -- -- -- criminals.
These are the sources from which ever new crimes and recidivisms spring, though all kinds of measures are being taken, to contain these murky waters and to dry them out one after another. Should I give proof for those sources, starting right away with the latter one, the "criminal psychology", I have several works of this most interesting, extremely disputed subject opened up right in front of me, the contents of which are veritably abundant with evidence for my point. One of the authors, a well known prosecutor, distinguishes himself by means of his numerous attempts to turn the legal and penal system towards a milder, more humane course. He has made a name for himself by this. Whenever and wherever this humanisation is discussed, he is often quoted, and he would be a blessing for this cause, if he would not destroy it all again as a criminal psychologist, which he seeks to build up as a pioneer of humaneness. I will not name any names here as well, because I am not concerned with the person, but with the subject. Being, as a humanitarian, worthy of respect in the highest degree, he can be, as a psychologist (i.e. someone who "investigates the soul"), to an almost even higher degree inconsiderate and cruel. In trying to give evidence for his public assertions, he does not stop at including persons into his "psychiatric" studies, who have been punished thirty or more years ago, and have now, by means of hard work, obtained a public position, and he makes them thus recognisable in his writings that everyone knows whom he is referring to. Having been confronted about this by a lawyer, he answered that he, as a scientist, had the right to do this; there was an article of law which would allow it. I will refrain from adding any critical remarks to this. But even if it were true, that there was such an article, who would force this public prosecutor, for such an article's sake, to act against his own, otherwise evident humaneness and to vivisect with such a knife people who had never done him any harm and whose protection had been his duty as a representative of the government? If this article really exists, it is more than time for parliament, to put it under a serious examination. If every former prisoner, no matter how high he has worked his way up, is forced by this law, to allow those criminal psychologists to publicly put him into their scientific pillory, it is surely not surprising that criminology displays no tendency for improvement. I will have to return to this point in the further course of my discussion.
As far as the flaws in the legislature are concerned, I only need to point out how completely unprotected someone who has been previously convicted is against certain lawyers. The worst scoundrel can, by means of his lawyer, obtain the confidential criminal records of whomever he would like to ruin; these will then be published, and the poor devil is doomed! A. is a villain; B. is an honourable gentleman, but unfortunately with a criminal record. A. has the intention to destroy B.. He just needs to insult him and wait for B. to sue him. Being the accused, he will then demand that the plaintiff's records be presented. This is done. They are read in a public trail. A. is fined ten marks for his insult; but B. has been cast back into his former contempt and into the previous misery, and he will swear that for someone who had once been punished all resolutions to "better" himself are useless. If he would now revert to crime, this would surely be no surprise. Unfortunately, there are not just a few lawyers, who, entirely without scruples, turn to these most unfair of all means, to conduct lawsuits which cannot be won based on the facts in a personally malignant and ruthless manner. I myself was also faced with such opponents, but I have always seen that our judges never allowed themselves to be influenced by this kind of filth. I am convinced that, more than anybody else, those gentlemen would happily be in favour of a removal of these legal regulations, by means of which, as I have already said, every scoundrel is enabled to dig up things again which are long since past and long since atoned for. Then, the extensive number of repeat offenders due to so-called embitterment might soon be a thing of the past.
To list the foolish self-righteousness of our "dear neighbours", I was entire justified. This is and continues to be the main cause of the evils, which are to be discussed here. By no means, I want to assert that this is based on a lack of morality. I rather think that we are faced with old forms of prejudice, which have sunk in so deeply that they are no longer recognisable as prejudice, but are regarded as a truth, which no one dares to question. In old times, a "criminal" was outlawed; and today there is no difference. Everyone keeps picking on him; if it is not done openly, it nevertheless happens in secret. When he is looking for work, for help, for justice, he is always last in line after everyone else. In life, there are hundreds and hundreds of situations in which he is regarded and treated as a person of lower value, and it requires an unusual peace of mind and a rare strength of will on his part, to bear this again and again, without allowing himself to be cast back onto his old course. The greatest danger for him is to be found in the fact that his dear neighbours, by and by, will numb or even kill his sense for honour. Once he allows it to come to this, he is doomed, and criminology will never surrender its victim again, being either embittered or having become completely indifferent. This will not and cannot change at all, as long as the old, equally senseless and cruel prejudice is maintained, that every punished person has to be regarded as a "criminal" for the entire duration of his life. Recently, in Charlottenburg, the case occurred that someone who had been punished more than forty years ago, but had conducted himself well since then, had been described as a "born criminal" by a malicious person. The offended one sued the offender, but the latter was acquitted. Does this not mean that by this a poor man, who has, with all of his willpower, worked his way up out of the abyss and has proven himself for forty years at its top, is cast back down with brutal force? -- --
Down there, I also lay. In continuing to report about this, it is not at all my intention, to do this in a manner which readers who are in need for excitement and lust for sensations would wish. To experience these things only once, is more than enough. When being forced to experience them for a second time, by writing them down for others, it is surely justified to keep it as short as possible. I hereby make use of this right.
Upon my arrival at the penitentiary, I was received strictly, but by no means insultingly. He who is polite, complies with the prison's rules, and is not so stupid to keep on maintaining his innocence, will never have cause to complain about a hard treatment. As far as the occupation is concerned which was chosen for me, I was assigned to the clerical office. You can see from this how carefully the conditions of the prisoners were considered by the warden's office. But unfortunately, this care did not bear the expected success in my case. What happened was, that I failed so completely as a clerk, that I was regarded as useless. Having been a new arrival, I had to do the easiest job there was; but even this I could not cope with. This was noticed. They thought to themselves that there must have been something rather peculiar about me; after all, I must have been able to write! Particular attention was devoted on me. I was given different work, the most decent manual labour which was available. I was assigned to the room of the wallet manufacturers and became a member of a team, which produced fine purses and cigar-cases. Including me, this team consisted of four persons, these were a merchant from Prague, a teacher from Leipzig, and what the fourth one was I could not find out; he never talked about it. These three coworkers were kind, good people. They had already been working together for a longer time, were in a good reputation with the superiors, and did their best to make the training and all the rest of this hard time as easy as possible for me. No ugly or even illegal word was ever said between us. The room we worked in held seventy to eighty people. Among them, I noticed not a single one whose behaviour would have reminded me of the assertion, that prison would be the training ground for criminals. On the contrary! Every single one was constantly trying to make as good an impression as he could on his superiors and his fellow prisoners. During my entire imprisonment, I have never heard anything about hatching evil plans for the future. If anybody had dared to utter anything like this, even if he would not have been reported to the guards, he would nonetheless have been rejected in the most determined manner.
The name of the watchman of this room, or this "visitation" as it was called there, was Göhler. I mention his name with great, honest gratitude. He had to observe me and, though he did not know the slightest thing about psychology, just on account of his humanity and his rich experience, he tracked down the innermost part of nature so well, that his reports about me, as it turned out later, almost reached the truth. He had, as I guess all of these watchman had, previously served in the military, in his case it had been the band where he had played the first piston [a]. Therefore he had been put in charge of the musical corps and brass-band of the prisoners. On Sundays, he had concerts in the visitations and prison-yards, which he conducted very well. He also had to accompany the singers with his instrumental music during the religious services. But unfortunately, neither he nor the Bible teacher, who was in charge of the church corps, possessed the necessary theoretical knowledge, to rework, or to arrange, which is the technical term, the pieces, which were supposed to be performed, for the available personnel. Therefore, both gentlemen had already for a long time been looking for a prisoner, who might be able to fill this void; but there had not been any.
[a] Piston (French): A special kind of cornet, one octave above a trumpet; a.k.a. key-bugle or keyed bugle or Kent bugle.
At this point, watchman Göhler, due to his observation of my psychological condition, got the idea to take me into his brass-band, to see, if this might have a good effect on me. He asked the warden's office and received the permission. Then, he asked me, and quite naturally, I also did not say no. I joined the band. At that time, only the althorn happened to be available. I had never held an althorn in my hands before, but soon I joined in the best I could. The watchman was happy about this. He was even more happy, when he found out that I had learnt about compositions and was able to arrange musical pieces. Immediately, he reported this to the Bible teacher, and the latter made me one of the church singers. So I was now a member of both the brass-band and the church corps and was busy in going through the available pieces of music and to arrange new ones. The concerts and the performances in church received, from now on, an entirely different character.
I have to mention that this musical work was not my main occupation. By no means, it caused me to be relieved from performing the same amount of work which any other prisoner had to do every day, if he wanted to avoid getting into trouble. This workload was not too much; everyone who is willing to work could make it. The skillful ones would even make it in a few hours. Therefore, I was left with amply enough time for my compositions, which I did not even abandon, after I had been transfered out of the visitation of the wallet manufacturers. This was when they fulfilled my profound wish to be by myself.
Right from the start, when I had been committed, I had asked to be given a cell for myself; but a fulfilment of this wish had not been possible. Not until now, after the final psychological judgement had been made about me, I was transfered to the isolation building and received my room right next to the office of its inspector. He was a highly educated and humane gentleman, who was very conscious of his duties, and I became his personal clerk. This had been a job which had not existed up until this point. Let me here draw your attention to this psychologically meaningful point, that at the time of my commitment I had been completely unable to be a clerk, but was now regarded as capable, to perform the job of a clerk, which required great mental carefulness and insight and was the position of the highest confidence in the entire institution. This is because, aside from being the head of the isolation building, my inspector's professional duties also included the preparation of written documents. This work of his concerned the peculiar statistics of our institution and the manner and the tasks of the penal system in general. He wrote the reports which dealt with his subject and was very busy corresponding with all outstanding men of the penal system. My task was to determine the statistical figures, to investigate their reliability, to compile and compare them, and finally to extract result out of them. Basically, this was a very hard, strenuous, and seemingly boring occupation with a set of lifeless numbers; but to piece these numbers together into characters and to breathe life and soul into these characters, to make them speak, this was most interesting, and I may very well say that I have learnt much, very much there, and that this work in my quiet, lonely cell has advanced my progress in understanding the psychology of mankind much further, than what I would have been able to achieve without this imprisonment. That, for this purpose, only the best and most reliable documents were at my disposal, goes entirely without saying. There, I have learnt to understand the most peculiar things. There, I have looked into the deepest depths of human existence and seen things, which others will never see, because they are blind to them. There, I have realized that grandmother's fable was telling the truth, that there is a Jinnistan and an Ardistan, an ethical highland and an ethical lowland, and that the main movement, we all have to participate in, is not downwards, but upwards, up, up towards liberation from sin, rising towards the nobler state of the human soul. This realization has been the greatest blessing for me; it has even freed me as well. I have heard those voices, I talked about earlier, also in the cell, screaming inside of me. I have fought them, and I have always silenced them. They returned, though; they rose their voices again, but with longer and longer intervals, until I could finally assume, that they had become completely mute once and for all.
Furthermore, I had to manage the prisoner's library, and the official's library was also made available to me. The works collected in the latter were not at all just concerned with the criminal law and the penal system, but rather all fields of science were represented. I have not just read these delightful books, which were so rich in contents, but rather I have studied them and gained very much from them. And there were not just the volumes of the institution's libraries, which were made available to me, but I was also happily granted the opportunity to access books from outside. I felt the irresistible desire, to use the quiet and undisturbed situation in my cell as much as possible to progress mentally, and the officials enjoyed in assisting me in this in every manner which did not contradict the institution's regulations. Thus, the time of my punishment transformed for me into a time of studying, in which I found greater opportunities for being focused and greater possibilities for in-depth studies than any university student would ever find in freedom. I will say more about this great, inestimable benefit, which the imprisonment afforded me, later on. Even today, I am still in particularly grateful for the fact that I was not prohibited to obtain books on foreign grammar and to lay, by this, the actual foundation of my later traveller's tales, which are, as is well known, not based on any actual travels at all, but were meant to form an entirely different, up to this point untreated, genre. But for now, it is not my intention, to elaborate on these studies of mine, but rather I have to concentrate here solely and in particular on the fact that the management of the prisoner's library, which I had been entrusted with, gave me the opportunity to make most important observations and experiences, under the influence of which my work as an author has taken on the shape in which it appears now.
In stating that I got to know what literature, or let me rather say reading material, the mentality of the general public desires, I am asking you to take this statement serious. It should not be said that each librarian in every public library and every rental library could make the same experiences, because this is not true. A reader in freedom and a reader in prison, this are two entirely different characters. In the latter, reading can actually become a spiritual requirement for his existence. His nature is changing direction, it is turning around. The external personality no longer matters under the discipline of the institution; the internal one emerges. And this is the one which has to be discovered and seized by the officials, by the system of reeducation in such an institution, if the greatly humane purpose of punishment is to be realized: moral uplifting and consolidation, reconciliation between society and the so-called criminal, who have both committed a sin against one another. In freedom, this emergence of the internal personality is the exception, but in captivity it is the rule. During his imprisonment, the prisoner has to do without all of his physical privileges. In the physical respect, he is no longer a person, but just a thing, a number, which is registered in books and by which he is also addressed. Just the more strongly, yes even with an unstoppable vitality, his internal form, his soul emerges, to demand its rights, to satisfy its needs. The body is forced to put up with the prison's clothing and the prison's food. But do not dare to commit the mistake to restrict the soul in the same manner as well! Forcefully, it seeks to break out of the prison's clothing; famishedly, it demands a kind of food, by which it can become ethically sound and strong, to free itself from the bondage, in which it languished up to now. Believe me, no convict wishes to be evil; they all wish to be good. In the deepest bottom of his heart, everyone has the urge to be, not just physically, but also ethically, free, even the seemingly unreformable ones. But from what shall this naked, hungry soul receive good clothing and good food, meaning good in the ethical sense? From itself? From the sermons, held in the institution every Sunday? From the few, short visits of the institution's chaplain and other officials? From the companionship of the other prisoners? However you may answer these questions, the main source of all reeducation, improvement, and uplifting can under conditions like these only be the library. Each prisoner, who conducts himself in such a manner that he does not have to be forbidden to read, receives one book per week. For seven days, its contents provides the spiritual food for his famished soul. He is not allowed to choose the book; he has to take what he gets. What he is given, can turn out to be his blessing or his misfortune, can enrich his knowledge or worsen his punishment, can lead him towards understanding himself and the errors of his ways, but it can also offend and harden him. One of my fellow prisoners, an intelligent banker, had, for three quarters of a year, received nothing but old issues of a magazine called "Fraundorfer Blätter" to read, dry instructions in gardening, which neither interested him, nor could benefit him in any way. He put up with it, being increasingly embittered, until I got in charge of the library and gave him something more fitting to his needs. An actor, who was a hothead, was thus enraged by the tales of Jeremias Gotthelf, that he had almost been punished for improper behaviour. The last one he had to read bore the title "How Five Girls Miserably Perish with Brandy" [a]. When I gave him a volume by Edmund Höfer , he was as happy as if I had given him a fortune. A social democratic plumber had been victimised my a long series of devotional books. He angrily swore to me that just for these books there could not be any God. He had only gone bankrupt due to his bitter poverty; but the authors and publishers of these scriptures were bankrupt due to self-righteousness and arrogance and deserved at least the same prison sentence as he.
[a] "Wie fünf Mädchen im Branntwein jämmerlich umkommen" was published in 1838. Jeremias Gotthelf is a pseudonym for the Swiss author Albert Bitzius (1797-1854).
Edmund Franz Andreas Hoefer (1819-1882).
From these examples you can see how well I first had to get to know my library and then also the needs of its readers. This involved some serious and difficult psychological considerations and led to the sad final conclusion that, basically, of the kind of books we needed there were only a very few. They were not just missing from our prison library, they were also missing from literature in general. I thought of my boyhood, of the little tracts I had read then and of the trash which had poisoned me; I thought further, and I compared. Then, a realization dawn on me. Are only the inmates of the penitentiaries in confinement? Is not every human being basically a prisoner? Are not millions of people confined by walls, which might not be visible to the eyes, but the existence of which can nonetheless be felt just too well? Does it only apply to the inmates of a penitentiary that the body has to be constricted, so that the higher part of our being, the part which came from above, shall reveal itself? Does it not apply to all mortals, and thus to all of mankind, that everything which is low has to be put in bondage, so that the soul, having gained liberty by such means, could uplift itself up to the highest ideal to be found on earth, to the nobility of the spirit? And are not religion, art, and literature those things which are supposed to guide us from these depths into those heights? The very literature, I, the prisoner confined to my narrow cell, am also a part of!
Proceeding with this train of thought, I arrived at considerations and conclusions, which might seem to be very strange, but were in their essence quite natural. A light shone between my four tight walls; they grew more spacious. At first I felt, than I saw, and finally I understood the concealed and yet intimate connections between the small and the big, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the mind, the finite and the infinite. This was the time, when I started to comprehend those dear, old fables of my grandmother in their deepest meaning. For entire nights, I lay awake and pondered. I was chained to the deepest, lowest, most despised Ardistan and sent all of my thoughts up to the bright, free, Jinnistan. I imagined myself as the lost human soul, which can never be found again, unless it finds itself. This finding of one's true self can never be achieved high up in Jinnistan, but only down here in Ardistan, among the suffering of earth, the torment of mankind, eating the husks of the lost son [a] of our biblical story. My imagination started to put this what I was looking for into a tangible form, to be able to seize it and to hold on to it. It dwelled and lived within me. And not just there, but also outside of me, omnipresent, in every other human being, and also in the entire human race as one large and whole entity. At this time, Marah Durimeh took form within me, this great, glorious soul of mankind, to which I gave the appearance of my beloved grandmother. At this time, Tatellah-Satah for the first time appeared within me, this mysterious "keeper of the great medicine", whom my readers got to know in the thirty-third volume of my works. And at this time, the idea of "Winnetou" was born as well. Do not get me wrong, it was just the idea, not really him, whom I did not find until later. In those days, the psychological volumes of the officials' library and all others which had been made available to me were -- almost devoured, I was inclined to say; but this would not be the truth, because I have slowly analysed them, dissected them word by word, and have marked every word with a thoughtfulness, which is most likely not a very common thing; but I have done this so eagerly and with a hunger, with a zeal, as if my life, my salvation would depend upon me becoming fully aware of my internal condition. And when I finally thought that I was on the right path, I reached back into my childhood and turned back to my old, bold wish "to become a story-teller, like you, grandmother". After all, I was in in one of those places which are the greatest and richest sources of stories to tell, in prison. Here, all this gets condensed and concentrated which out there, in freedom, flows past so easily and thinly, that it cannot be seized and even much less be observed. And here, the contrasts, which outside intermix like on a plane surface, rise high up like mountains, so that, in this magnification, everything is revealed which would otherwise remain concealed in secrecy. They lay opened up before me, those difficult, scientific volumes on psychology, especially on criminal psychology. Almost every line was impressed on my memory. They contained the theory, a conglomeration of riddles and problems. But what this meant in practice, I could see all around me in a truthfulness, which was just as plain as it was disturbing. What a contrast between theory and practice? Where was the truth to be found? In the opened books or in open reality? In both! Science is true, and life is true. Science commits mistakes, and life commits mistakes. Both of these ways lead via mistakes towards the truth; there, they will have to meet. Where this truth is and what it says, we can only guess. Just one eye is granted the gift to glimpse ahead at it and this is the eye of -- -- the fable. Therefore I want to be a stroy-teller, nothing but a story-teller, just as grandmother was! I only need to open my eyes, to see them recorded, hundreds and hundreds of incarnations of these parables and salvation seeking fables. One in every cell and one on every chair in the workshops. Lots of sleeping beauties, who are just waiting for the kiss of mercy and love to wake them up. Lots of souls, languishing in bondage, in old castles, which had been converted into prisons, or in modern huge buildings, in which kindness goes from cell to cell, from chair to chair, to wake up and to free, whoever proves himself to be worthy of the awakening and of freedom. I want to be the mediator between science and life. I want to tell parables and fables, with the truth being hidden deeply inside, the truth which by other means cannot be perceived, yet. I want to derive light out of the darkness of my life in prison. I want to convert the punishment, which has come upon me, into freedom for others. I want to turn the severity of the law, under which I suffer, into a great sympathy for all those who have fallen, into a love and mercy, to which there will finally be no "crime" and no "criminals", but only the sick, again and again nothing but the sick.
[a] "the lost son": see Luke 15:24: "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
"Winnetou IV", a.k.a. "Winnetous Erben" <Winnetou's Heirs>
But no one may suspect, that my stories are only parables and only fables, for if it was known, I would never achieve what I intend to achieve. I have to become a fable myself, I, my own self. This will surely be a boldness, which might easily ruin me, but what does the fate of one single, small human being matter, when the subject is the great, hugely arising question facing the entire human race? What matters the tiny fate of a despised prisoner, who is anyhow already lost to society, if the manner in which "crime" is regarded and discussed does not change soon!
This was a thought which came to me quite suddenly, but sunk in deeply and never left me again. It gained power over me; it became large. It finally encompassed my entire soul, which was probably because it contained the fulfilment of all this, which already, since my childhood, lived as my wish and hope within me. I seized it, this thought; I extended and deepened it; I elaborated on it. It had me, and I had it; we both became identical. But this did not happen quickly, it rather took a long, long time, and even harder and more dreary days than the present ones passed by, before I had developed the plan of my work and had it such firmly fixed, that no further change was to be made to it. I planned to continue writing my humorous stories and village-tales from the Ore Mountains for a while, to make a name for myself among the German readers and to show them that I was absolutely just moving on god-fearing territory. But then, I wanted to turn to a genre, the public was interested in, and possesses the greatest ability to make an impression: to the traveller's tale. To make real journeys the basis of these tales, was no absolute necessity; after all, they were only meant to be parables and only fables, though extraordinarily meaningful parables and fables. Nevertheless, journeys were desirable, to conduct studies, to get to know the various circles in which my characters had to move. Most of all, I had to prepare myself thoroughly, study geography, ethnology, and languages. I had to take my topics from my own life, from the lives around me, from the place where I was at home, and therefore, I could always maintain truthfully that everything I told about was experienced or witnessed by myself. But I had to move those topics out into distant lands and to foreign peoples, to give them the effect they would not have dressed in the familiar garments of home. Set in the prairie or under palm-trees, in the glistening sun of the orient or in raging blizzards of the Wild West, in perils which would evoke the reader's strongest compassion, thus and in no other way all of my characters had to be depicted, if I was to achieve through them what they were meant to achieve. And for this purpose, I had to be, at least theoretically, as much at home in all of those countries which I had to describe as a European could possibly be able to. So I had to work, to work hard and exhaustingly, to prepare myself; and for this, the quiet, undisturbed prison cell, I lived in, was just the right place.
There is a truth of earth, and there is a truth of heaven. The truth of earth is presented to us by science, the truth of heaven by revelation. Science usually proves its truthfulness; what a revelation asserts, the learned will regard as nothing more than believable, but not as proven. Such a true revelation from heaven descends down to earth on the rays of the stars and goes from one house to the next, to knock and to be allowed to enter. It is rejected everywhere, because it wants to be believed, but it is not believed, because it possesses no learned proof of validity. Thus it goes from one village to another, from one town to another, from one country to another, without being listened to and without being accepted inside. Then, it ascends back up to heaven on the rays of the stars and returns to the one from whom it came. Weeping, it laments before Him of its pains. But He smiles kindly and speaks: "Do not weep! Go back down to earth and knock at the door of that one person, whose house you have not found, yet: the poet. Ask him to dress you into the guise of a fairy-tale, and then try your luck again!" It obeys. The poet lovingly takes it on and dresses it up. It now begins its journey once again as a fairy-tale, and wherever it knocks, it is welcome. The doors and hearts are opened for it. Its words are attentively listened to; it is believed. It is asked to stay, because it has become so dear to everyone. But it must go on, on and on, to fulfil the task it had been given. But it only leaves as a fairy-tale; as the truth, it stays. And even though it is not seen, it is nevertheless there and works its influence within the house for all times to come.
So, this is the fairy-tale! But not the kind of fairy-tale for children, but rather the true, genuine, real fairy-tale, the fables and legends, which are in spite of their unseeming, simple appearance the highest and most difficult of all forms of fiction, due to the soul which lives within each tale. And one of those poets, to whom the eternal truth would come, to be dressed up, I wanted to be! I know very well, how bold this was. But I admit it without apprehension. Truth is so much hated, and the fairy-tale is so much despised, as I am myself; we are a good match. The fairy-tale and I, we are being read by thousands, without being understood, because the depth is not explored. As they say that fairy-tales were only for children, so I am referred to as "author for young people", who would only write for immature boys. In short, I need not apologise at all for having been so bold to wish for nothing more than to be an author of fables and parables. Do not "my life and my efforts" by themselves already seem rather like a fairy-tale, and are there not almost innumerable fables and fairy-tales, my opponents have build up around me! And whenever I protest against this, I am believed just as little as some people believe in the fairy-tales. But as for every genuine fairy-tale, there will finally come the time, when its truth will be evident, so all of my truth will eventually become evident, and what they do not believe from me today, they will learn to believe tomorrow.
Thus, all of my traveller's tales, which I had intended to write, were meant to be read figuratively, were supposed to be symbolic. They were meant to say something which was not visible on the surface. I wanted to bring something new, something blissful, without putting my readers at variance with the old, the previous. And what I had to say, I had to make them look for; I could not lay it openly before their doors, because people tend to ignore everything they get so cheaply and only appreciate what they had to fight for with great effort. It would have been an unforgivable mistake, to hint right from the start, that my traveller's tales were to be read figuratively. My books simply would not have been read, and everything I wanted to solve would have remained a fable and a fairy-tale. The reader had to find unsuspectingly what I had to give; he would then regard it as a prize he had fought for and hold on to it for the rest of his life.
But what was this, actually, I wanted to give? This was many things and nothing commonplace. I wanted to answer the questions of mankind and solve the mysteries of mankind. Laugh at me if you will; but this was what I wanted; I have tried it and I will continue trying it. Whether I will achieve it, neither I nor anybody else would be able to know. In carrying out my plan, I might have committed many a mistake, because I am just a flawed human being; but my intentions have been good and pure. Furthermore, I wanted to publish my psychological experiences. A young teacher, who has been punished, talking about his psychological experiences? Is this not even more ridiculous than the first plan? You may think so if you will; but I have seen in hundreds and hundreds of unfortunate people that the only cause for the beginning and continuation of their misfortune had been that their souls, those most precious entities of the entire creation of earth, had been completely neglected. The mind is the spoiled, conceited teacher's pet, the soul is the rejected, starving and freezing Cinderella. For the mind, there are all kinds of schools, from the simple primary school up to the university, but there is not a single school for the soul. For the mind, millions of books are written, but how many are there for the soul? To the human mind, thousands and thousands of monuments are built; where are those, which are dedicated to the praise of the human soul? Well so, I am saying to myself, let me be the one writing for the the soul, exclusively for the soul alone, no matter whether I will be laughed at for it or not! The soul is unknown. Therefore, many people will either not understand or misunderstand my work, but this should by no means keep me from doing what I had planned.
This was basically enough for one person; but I did not want just this, I even wanted much more. All around me, I saw the deepest misery of mankind; to myself, I was was its centre. And high above us was the salvation, was the noble state of the human soul, we had to aspire up to. But this task was not just ours alone, but rather it had been given to all of mankind; the only difference was that we, who were staying in a so much deeper place than the others, had to ascent much further and with more difficulties then they. From the depth into the height, from Ardistan to Jinnistan, from a low, lustful person, rising to become a nobly spirited person. How this had to happen, I wanted to demonstrate by two examples, one in the orient and one in America. For these, my very special purposes, I divided earth in my mind in two halfs, in an American and an Asian-African half. There lives the race of the native Americans and here Semitic-Mohammedan race. I wanted to make these two races the subjects of my fables, my thoughts, and explanations. Therefore, my primary task was to learn about the Arabian and other languages as well as the native American dialects. The steadfast faith in Allah on the one side and the highly poetic faith in the "great, good spirit" of the others, fitted well with my own, firm faith in God. In America, a male character, and in Asia, a female character were to represent the ideal, by whose example my readers had to let their ethical intentions grow upwards. The one character became Winnetou, the other one Marah Durimeh. In the west, the plot shall rise, by and by, from the low life of the savanna and prairie up to the pure and lofty heights of Mount Winnetou. In the east, it shall uplift itself from the dunes of the desert up to the hight summit of Jebel Marah Durimeh. Therefore, my first volume starts with the title "Durch die Wüste" <Through the Desert>. The main character of all of these tales was, for the sake of unity, supposed to be always the same, a noble human soul in his earliest stages, who cleanses himself by and by from all the dross of an anima-person. For America he was supposed to be called Old Shatterhand, but for the orient he was to bear the name Kara Ben Nemsi [a], because I took for granted that he would have to be a German. He had to be introduced as the one telling the stories, as the "first person narrator". This first person is not real, but a fictional character. But even though this "first person" does not exist, everything which is being related about him shall still be based in reality and become reality. This Old Shatterhand and this Kara Ben Nemsi, this "first person" is meant to portray this great question of mankind, which was created by God himself, when he walked through paradise, to ask: "Adam, i.e. human being, where are you?" "Nobly spirited human, where are you? I only see fallen, low people!" This question of mankind has since then gone through all times and all countries of the globe, calling out loudly and lamenting loudly, but never receiving an answer. It has seen people of violence by the millions, fighting, mangling, and annihilating one another, but it never saw a person with a noble soul, who was like the inhabitants of Jinnistan and lived by their wonderful law, that everyone had to be his neighbour's angel, so that he shall not become his own devil. But eventually, mankind must and will nonetheless rise to such a hight, that this question, which had been asked in vain before that time, will receive its bliss bringing answer from somewhere: "Here I am. I am the first nobly spirited person, and others will follow after me!" Thus, Old Shatterhand also travels and thus Kara Ben Nemsi also travels through those countries, to look for nobly spirited people. And wherever he finds none, he gives an example through his own nobly spirited behaviour, how he thinks such a person would have to be like. And this fictional Old Shatterhand, this fictional Kara Ben Nemsi, this fictional "I", does not need to remain fictional, but has to manifest himself, has to become reality in my readers, who are experiencing in their minds and souls everything just as he does, and who therefore, like my characters, are rising up and ennobling themselves. In this manner, I am contributing my part to solve this great task of enabling the violent people, who are the people on a low level, to develop into the nobly spirited people.
[a] In "Through the Desert" the main character is introduced by his sidekick to a third person by this name. The first person narrator then explains it like this: "The good man had at one time before asked me for my name and actually kept the word Karl in his memory. But since he was unable to pronounce it, he, without thinking much of it, turned it into Kara and added Ben Nemsi, meaning descendant of the Germans."
While considering these thoughts in my mind, I felt very well that I, by carrying them out, would put myself in a danger which was not to be taken lightly. What if this fictional self would not be understood and the meaning of this "first person narrator" would not be comprehended? What if they would believe that I was referring to myself? Was is not obvious that everybody who lacked the intelligence or good will to distinguish between fiction and reality, would call me a liar and a swindler? Yes, this was indeed possible, but I did not regard it as probable. After all, I had to equip this "first person narrator", this Kara Ben Nemsi or Old Shatterhand, with all of the good attributes which mankind had achieved up until this day in the course of its development. My hero had to possess the highest intelligence, the deepest heart, and the greatest skillfulness in all physical exercises. Did it not go entirely without saying that in reality, this could never all be found in a single human being! And if I, as I intended to do, would write a series of thirty to forty volumes, it could certainly be presumed, that no reasonable man would get the idea, that a single person could have experienced all this. No! The accusation that I was a liar and a swindler was, at least for people who think, entirely impossible! This was how I thought then. Yes, I was even firmly convinced that, though I did not describe myself in this "first person narrator", I could nevertheless maintain with a clear conscience that I had experienced or witnessed the contents of these narrations myself, because they were taken from my own life or at least from my closest environment. It was not at all difficult on me, but rather very easy, and most of all also interesting, to imagine that though Karl May writes those traveller's tales down, he does it in such a way, as if they were not the product of his own mind, but as if they were dictated to him by this fictional "first person", which is the great question of mankind. Whether this assumption of mine was right, the future will soon show.
The intention to give some of my characters native American and some of them oriental features led me quite naturally to a deep sympathy for the fate of those peoples. The extinction of the red race, which had been described as unstoppable, started to occupy my mind constantly. And about the ingratitude of the occident against the orient, to which it owes its entire material and mental culture, I had all kinds of serious thoughts. The welfare of mankind demands that there shall be peace between the two, no more exploitation and bloodshed. I was resolved to constantly emphasise this in my books and to kindle in my readers the love for the red race and for the inhabitants of the orient which we owe them as fellow human beings. These days, I am assured that I have not just achieved this in a few, but in hundreds of thousands, and I am inclined to believe this.
And now here is the main question: For whom were my books meant to be written? Quite naturally for the people, for the entire people, not just for single parts of it, for single classes, for single age-groups. Most of all, they were not solely meant for the young people! I have to put the greatest weight and the sharpest emphasis on this latter statement. If it had been my intention to be or to become an author for young people, I would quite necessarily have had to give up on executing all of my plans and on achieving all of my ideals for ever. And to do this, has never crossed my mind. It is true that I also had to think of the young generation, because they form, not just in a temporal sense, the first stage of the people; they are not just the ones who constantly replenish the people, but they are also the ones who will have to lead the way in the uplifting of mankind for the old and the lazy, to occupy the the terrain, discovered by our pioneers, at the quickest pace. But just as they only form a part of the people, this with what I had to address them could also be just a part of what I wrote for the people as a whole. When I say that I wanted to write for the people, I mean mankind in general, no matter how young or how old they may be. But not every one of my books is meant for every person. And yet again, it is for every person, but one after another, depending on whether he develops forward, depending on how much older and more experienced he has become, depending on whether he has gained the ability to understand and to comprehend their contents. My books shall accompany him through his entire life. He shall read them as a boy, a youth, an adult, an old man, at every one of these ages, he shall read what corresponds with the level of experience he has gained. He shall do all this slowly, with thoughtfulness and consideration. He who reads my books indiscriminately and too quickly, is perhaps to be pitied; but at any rate, it is even more of a pity for them! He who abuses them, shall not hold me or them responsible, but only himself. Let me just remind you of smoking, of eating and drinking. Smoking is an indulgence of pleasure. Eating and drinking is a necessity. But to smoke, to eat, to drink anytime, and to smoke and to devour everything available, would not just be foolish, but even harmful. Good, interesting literature shall be savoured, but not be devoured like by a shark! Since my books contain nothing but parables and fables, it goes without saying that the reader is supposed to think about them thoroughly and that they only belong into the hand of people, who are not just able to think about something, but also willing to do so.
At this time, when I had considered these ideas and made my plans, I had already written and published various things, but I would not have dared to call myself an novelist or even an artist yet. And does not every real novelist have to be an artist as well. I did not even regard myself as a proper apprentice in this business, but only as a beginner, who is not a part of this business, but just groping his way, like a child trying to take his first steps. And in spite of this all, I already made plans, covering so much ground, extending so far into the future! Looking over these plans, I ought to have become pretty scared, because undoubtedly, it had to take several men's lives full of work, without disturbances, and without misfortune, to cope with this task I was facing in a genuinely literary, which is to say artistic, fashion. But still, I did not become scared, I rather remained very calm through all of this. I was asking myself: Is it really necessary to be a novelist, and to be an artist, to be allowed to write these kinds of things? Who would want and who could forbid someone to do it? Let's do it without the established world of literature, if it will only turn out right! And let's do it without art, if it will only have its effect and achieves what it is supposed to achieve! Whether novelists and artists would accept me as a "colleague", I had to ignore then. Though, I had my individual pride just as anybody else, and I had the highest possible opinion of art. But these thoughts of mine were different than other people's thoughts, especially those of my fellow authors. To be an artist, stuck me as being the highest thing to be on earth, and deeply within my heart, there lived the ardent wish to reach these heights, even if it should not be until the final hour before my death. That night when I got to see the "Faust" as a child, still lived unforgotten in my soul, and the resolutions I had made under its impression still possessed the very same willpower and the same hold over me as before. To write for the theatre! To write dramas! Dramas, which show how man shall and can rise up from the sufferings of earth to the joys of existence, from the slavery of the low urges to the purity and greatness of the soul. To be able to write something like this, it is necessary to an artist, not just any artist, but a genuine and true one. But all of my conceptions of art were something entirely different than this what today's critics describe as art; and thus I was left with no other choice than to postpone all of my wishes, which concerned me being allowed to be an artist in literature, an artist who is a true, valuable artist, for many, many long years and to remain until then what I was at the time, a beginner, who is not a part of the established business, and who made no pretension to becoming a member of it. As I had always been, as long as I had lived, by myself and lonely, I was already then convinced, that my path as an author would also be a lonely one up to the end of my life. What I was looking for, could not be found in daily life. What I wanted was something absolutely beyond a common person. And what I deemed right, was most probably wrong for other people. Furthermore, I could not forget that I was a convicted criminal. Therefore, to stay entirely to myself and not to bother any more valuable people with my presence, seemed to be the natural thing to do. I was no expert on art. Perhaps, the others were right; I could be mistaken. In any case, my ideal kept me going: In the end of my life, once I was fully matured, a great, beautiful work of poetry was to be created, a symphony of redeeming thoughts, in which I ventured to produce light out of my darkness, happiness out of my misfortune, joy out of my torment. This was for later, when death will first announce his presence. But for now, my job was to learn, to learn a lot and to prepare myself for this great project, so that it would not fail. Now, I would write fables and parables, in order to extract the truth and the reality out of them in the end of my life and to put these onto the stage!
But these parables are not short texts like, for example, those wonderful parables of Christ, but long narratives, in which many characters appear and act out their parts. And they are numerous; they were meant to fill a large number of volumes and supply the material for that other great task, later on, with which I want to conclude my work. Thus, they cannot be carefully executed paintings, but only pen-and-ink drawings, only sketches, first exercises, études [a], which must not be measured by those standards which only apply to genuine works of art. I am neither able, nor willing, nor allowed to be another Paul Heyse , who has achieved perfection in this art, but rather my task is to chisel crude blocks of marble and alabaster from highly situated quarries, to be used in subsequent works of art, the shape of which I cannot more than hint, because the time to create them is not yet available to me. I give these very hints in these fables, which are interjected into my narrative parables and form the spots on which the interest of the reader is concentrated. Therefore, art critics do not need to deal with my traveller's tales, because it is not my intention at all to give them an artistic form or even perfection. They have to be like the simple, plain arm- and foot-bracelets of the Arabian women, which are meant to be nothing more than silver rings. Their value is in the metal, not in the work. A painter, hastily drawing sketches in preparation for a great painting, would surely be astonished by a critic, measuring these sketches by the same standards, he would then later have to use on the painting.
[a] études: studies, exercises (French)
Paul Heyse (1830-1914) won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1910.
This is all I want to say right now about these plans, which formed within me at this time and from which I did not depart and which I have carried out up until this day. They did not appear suddenly, and they did not appear all at once, but slowly, one after another. And they did not mature quickly, but it took months and years, until I had fully decided on one aspect after another. But I also had enough time for this. I have made a kind of agenda of my plans and their execution; I have kept it as a sacred treasure and still possess it today. Every thought was dissected into its parts, and every one of these parts was written down. I even made a directory of the titles and the contents of all these traveller's tales, I wanted to tell. Though I did not precisely go by this directory, it was nevertheless very useful to me, and I still benefit today from topics which had already then taken form within me. I also wrote busily; I wrote manuscripts, to have as much material as possible, to be published right after my release. In short, I was enthusiastic about my project and, though I was a prisoner, I felt infinitely happy about the prospects for a future, which promised to become an not entirely ordinary one, as it seemed I had every reason to hope.
Destiny seemed to agree with my intentions. It granted me, as if it wanted to compensate me for all the suffering, a rich, highly welcome gift: I was pardoned. The warden's office had applied for clemency on my behalf, due to which my prison term was reduced by a full year. My conduct was evaluated with the highest mark and I received an attestation of my trustworthiness, which eased my way back into life outside and spared me from all kinds of trouble with the police. He who knows about these things, will be able to appreciate what this means!
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, when I left the institution, armed with my manuscripts to fight the obstacles of life. I had written home, to inform my family about my return. How was I looking forward to this reunion. I had no reason to be afraid of accusations; this had already been settled in letters. I knew that I was welcome and that I would not get to hear a single word which would hurt me. Most of all, I was looking forward to seeing grandmother. How much must she have worried and grieved! And how much would she want to extend her old, dear, faithful hand to me. How delighted would she be about my plans! How much would she help me to carry them out and to get as much as possible out of them! I went from Zwickau to Ernstthal, this was precisely the way I had gone that time as a boy, to seek help in Spain. You can imagine what thoughts accompanied me on this way. On that way home with my father, I had promised myself never to sadden him with something like this again; but how badly had I kept my word! Should I make similar resolutions today, the fulfilment of which could never be guaranteed due to the powerlessness of man? The "fable of Sitara" appeared before me. Could it be that I was one of those whose souls were received at birth by the devil, to be hurled into misery, so that they would be lost? All resistance and rebelling is useless; they are doomed. Does this apply to me as well?
My thoughts became more and more gloomy, the closer I came to my home. I felt, as if evil premonitions were coming at me from this direction. It seemed as if my joyful confidence was trying to leave me; I had to try hard to hold on to it. From the Lungwitzer hill, I looked over the small town. There before my very eyes, were those winding paths, I used to walk so often, while desperately struggling with those frightful inner voices, calling out to me day and night without pausing these words: "the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse". And what was that? While thinking of it, I heard the very same voices echoing within me, very clearly, as I used to, only from a far, but they seemed to get closer, "the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse, the tailor's curse!" Was this supposed and willing to start all over again? A sudden fear came over me, a fear as I had never felt before, and I hurried away from this place, away from this memory, down the hill, through the town, home, home, home!
I arrived sooner than I had been expected. My parents still lived on the first floor of the same house. I walked up one flight of stairs and then another to the attic, where grandmother had always liked spending her time the most. I wanted to see her first and only then father, mother, and the sisters. Then, I saw the few things she had owned; but she was not there. There was her chest, with blue and yellow flowers painted on it. It was locked, the key was not in the lock. And there was her bed; it was empty. I rushed downstairs into the living-room. There sat my parents. The sisters were absent. They were considerate. They had thought, the parents had the right to go first. I did not even greet them, but asked where grandmother was. "Dead -- -- -- deceased!" was the answer. "When?" "Last year." Hearing this, I fell onto a chair and lay my head and arms on the table. She was no longer alive! It had been kept from me, to spare me, to avoid making the imprisonment even harder on me. These might have been rather good intentions; but now it hit me just the more powerfully. She had not been really sick; she had just simply pined away, because of the grief and suffering for -- -- -- me!
It took a long time, before I rose my head again, in order to greet the parents now. They were startled. Later, they told me that my face had looked worse than that of a corpse. The sisters joined us. They were happy about the reunion, but they looked at me so strangely, so timidly. This was nothing else but a reflection of my own face. Though I tried my best, I could still not fully conceal the blow which had just hit me. I wanted to know only things about grandmother for now, nothing else, and they told me. She had talked a lot about me, but never a single word which would necessarily have offended me, if I had been present. And she had never complained or even wept. She had said that now she knew that I was one of those souls which had been hurled over to the wrong side at their births, to be destroyed there. Now, she was convinced that I had to go through the spirits' furnace, to suffer all the torment of earth. But she knew that I would not scream, I would bear what I had to bear, and force my way up to Jinnistan. The closer she came to death, the more exclusively she only lived in her world of fairy-tales, and the more exclusively she talked about nothing else but me. On one of her final days, she said that the cantor, who had died a long time before, had been with her that night. He had been our neighbour. Those two houses were connected. Then, she said, the wall had suddenly opened in the darkness and a bright light had filled the room, but it was no ordinary light, but rather a light she had never seen before. Lit by this light, the cantor had appeared. He had looked just as he used to when he was still alive. Slowly, he had come up to her bed, had greeted her with a friendly smile, as he had always done, and then, he had said that she should not worry about me at all; I might very well fall as anybody else, but I could not stay down; I would be given a hard time, but I would surely reach my goal. Having said these words, he again nodded at her in his friendly manner and left just as slowly as he had come, back trough the gap in the wall. It closed behind him. The light disappeared; it became dark again.
After she had told this, it had been as if a part of this unknown, previously unfamiliar light was still reflected by her face, and it was still in her features, once she had closed her eyes and stopped breathing. Her death had been soft, peaceful, blissful; but I was not feeling peaceful and blissful at all, when I was told about it. Recriminations formed within me, but none of the kind which are mere thoughts, like in other people who do not have the same tendencies as I, but recriminations of a much more essential, much more compact kind. I saw them coming up within me, and I heard what they said, every word, yes really, every word! This were not thoughts, but characters, genuine beings, which did not seem to have anything in common with me, and yet they were identical with me. What a puzzle! But what an unusual, terribly frightening puzzle! They were like dark characters which used to scream inside of me in the past, which I had -- -- -- my God, as soon as I had thought of them, they were back, just as I used to be forced to see and hear them inside of me. I heard their voices as clearly, as if they were standing in front of me and were talking to me instead of my parents and sisters. And the stayed. When I went to bed, they lay down to sleep with me. But they did not sleep and did not let me sleep either. It started again, the former misery, the former torture, the former fight with these incomprehensible powers, which were just the more dangerous, since I could not discover at all, whether they were parts of myself or not. They seemed to be it, because they knew every one of my thoughts, even before I grew fully aware of them myself. And yet, they could not possibly be a part of me, because what they wanted was almost always the opposite of my own wishes. I had put an end to my past. The part of my life which was still to come was supposed to be entirely different from the part I had left behind. But those voices were trying hard to drag me back into the past with all of their might. As before, the demanded that I should seek revenge. Now more than ever, I was to seek revenge for the precious time I had lost in prison! They grew louder day by day; but I resisted them; I pretended to hear nothing, nothing at all. But even using the greatest strength, I could not stand this for more than a few days. In the meantime, I visited a few publishers, to negotiate the publication of the manuscripts, I had written in prison, with them. In doing so, it turned out that during my absence, the voices within me became just the more silent, the further I went from home, and became more clearly again, the closer I came to my home again. It was as if those dark characters resided there and could only attack me, whenever I was so imprudent to go there. I decided to put this to the test. I took the pay for my stories and made a longer trip abroad. Where I went, I will have to tell in the second volume of this work, in which I am planning to devote more space to my travels and their results than I could spare here. During this journey, these images disappeared entirely; I became completely free of them. But instead, an very unusual compulsion to return home came over me. This was no healthy, but a sick urge; I felt this very well, but it grew so strong that I lost my power to resist and gave in to it. I returned home, and as soon as I was there, everything I thought I had done away with came over me again as violently as ever. The struggle started anew. Incessantly, I heard the order inside of me, to seek revenge against human society by violating its laws. I felt that, if I should obey this order, I would be a most dangerous person and gathered up all of my strength to fight against this horrible fate.
I consider it necessary to state here that I did not regard my condition as pathological at all. All of my ancestors, as far as I knew them, had been both physically and mentally thoroughly healthy people. There was nothing atavistic in me. This which had attached itself to me in this respect had surely not been generated inside of me, but had come over me from outside. I worked busily, almost day and night, as I had generally always found my greatest joy in my work. My stories were eagerly bought. So, I was suffering no need at all, especially since I lived with my parents, which were now also better off than they used to be. Even if I had earned nothing for myself, I would have had all I needed to live. During this work was repeated what I had already described before. Whenever I wrote something ordinary, I was not obstructed in the least. But as soon as I turned to a higher topic, a mentally, religiously, or ethically more valuable task, forces stirred inside of me, which rebelled against this and kept me from performing my work by interjecting the most trivial, most stupid, or even most illegal thoughts, while I was writing. I was not supposed to rise up; I was supposed to stay down. They were joined by an old, very well known scoundrel, whom nobody may trust, no matter how much flattery he may use; I am talking about thirst. A disgust for liquor is part of my nature; if I drink it at all, it is only as a medicine. Wine had been out of my reach up until now, if for nothing else than for the price, and I also by no means have that kind of a liking for beer which one must have, to become an alcoholic. But now, strangely, I always felt a strong thirst, whenever I passed by an inn on my walks, and also in the evening, when others had finished their work, the desire came over me to put down the pen and to go to the bar, as they did. But I did not do it. Father did it. He could not very well do without his glass of simple beer and his smaller glass of hard liquor. But I did not feel like it and stayed at home. This was by no means a sacrifice for me and was not hard on me, oh no. I am only telling this, because it is psychologically interesting, since it strikes me as rather strange that this thirst for alcoholic beverages, which is so contrary to my entire nature and is otherwise so completely unknown to me, only appeared whenever those voices had the upper hand within me, but never at any other time!
So much, I had been looking forward to presenting the plans of my work to grandmother; now she was dead. Thus, I discussed them with my parents and sisters. Father had other things on his mind now. He was going through some kind of a social transformation and therefore of no use to me, especially since he never stayed at home in the evening. The sisters also had other interests. My entire train of thought was incomprehensible to them. So, I was just left with mother. In the evening, she sat, quietly knitting stockings, by the table, where I wrote. I enjoyed so very much putting the thoughts to her I kept my pen busy with. She calmly listened to me. She nodded in agreement. She smiled encouragingly. She said a dear, consoling word. She was like a saint. But she did not understand me either. She only felt it, had a hunch of it. And she wished with all of her heart that everything should turn out the way I yearned for it to be. And when she saw how firmly and unwaveringly I believed in my future, she believed as well and was as glad as a mother can be whose child is still thus fortunate, to be able to rely on God, mankind and himself. But I felt lonely, lonely as always; because even in the entire town, there was not a single person who would have been willing or even able to understand me. And for me, for me in particular, being thus harshly besieged in my inner self, this loneliness was dangerous in the highest degree. There was nothing I needed more than the company of someone who would understand me. But I was always on my own, though not externally, but internally, and thus, I was almost incessantly and unprotectedly subjected to those characters, who wanted to subdue me. And in the midst of all this vulnerability, I was now also seized by other enemies, which, though they were not internal, but external, were still to the same extent out of the grasp of my hands.
Due to her profession, my mother had to visit other families all of the time. They confided in her. They liked her. She was told everything, without feeling the need to explicitly ask her to keep it confidential. She got to know everything which happened in our little town and the surrounding area. Somewhere, there had been a burglary. Everyone talked about it. The perpetrator had escaped. Soon, there was another one, carried out in the same manner. In addition, there were some cases of fraud, probably pulled off by impoverished, young craftsmen. I did not even listen, when the conversation turned to this, but noticed after some time that mother was even more serious than usual and regarded me, when she thought she was unobserved, with such a peculiar, pitiful look. In the beginning, I stayed quiet, but soon, I thought that I had to ask her for the reason. She did not want to answer; but I asked her, until she did. There was a rumour going around, an incomprehensible rumour, that I was this burglar. Who else should be suspected but me, the former prisoner? Externally, I laughed about it, but internally I was outraged, and I had a few hard nights. There was a roaring inside of me from nightfall until morning. The voices screamed out to me: "Fight us as much as you will, we won't let you go! You belong to us! We will force you to get even! To the world, you are a scoundrel and have to continue being a scoundrel, if you want to have your peace!" So I heard it at night. When I wanted to work by day, I could not achieve anything. I could not eat. Mother had told it to father as well. Both asked me not to let this matter be so hard on me. They could speak up for me. After all, they knew very well that I had not left the house at the times in question. What we found out, was all said in confidence. No name was given. Therefore, there was nothing tangible, I could have used to defend myself. But it got worse. The local police was against me. I had been dismissed with an attestation of trustworthiness, and therefore, I had escaped their supervision. Now they thought to have a reason for investigating me. A few new pranks were pulled off, the perpetrators of which necessarily had to possess some intelligence. It was believed that this would point to me. This was at the same time when the before mentioned "Lügenschmiede" <forge of lies> started to form. New rumours circulated with romantic embellishments. The sergeant inquired unofficially, where I had been on certain days and at certain times. I was stared at, wherever I went in public; but as soon as I returned these looks, they swiftly turned away. Then, I met a poor, but decent fellow, a schoolmate, who had always liked me, and even now, still felt close to me. He was literally clumsy and unforgiveably honest. He thought it was everyone's duty to be crude. He could not stand it any longer. He came to me and told me, after I had given him my word by shaking hands that I would not tell on him, everything what had been said about me. This was so stupid and yet so outrageous, so careless and unscrupulous, so -- -- so -- -- so -- -- so -- -- -- I found no words to thank this poor, well-meaning person for his painful honesty. But when he saw my face, he ran off as quickly as he could.
This was a hard, a fateful day. I felt the urge to run out of the house. I ran about the forest and did not return home until late at night, deadly tired, and went to bed, without having eaten anything. In spite of my tiredness, I found no sleep. Ten, fifty, or even a hundred voices mocked me from inside with incessant laughter. I jumped up from my bed and ran away again, out into the night; where to, where to? I did not even pay any attention to this. It seemed to me, as if the characters from inside of me had left my body and were running next to me. Ahead of them all ran the pious principal of the seminary, followed by the accountant who had denied letting me borrow his watch, a pack of bowlers with bowling balls in their hands, and the robber-knights, robbers, monks, nuns, ghosts, and spooks from the trashy library at Hohenstein. These pursued me all about; they chased me to and fro. They screamed and cheered and mocked, so that my ears were ringing. At sunrise, I found myself climbing up a deep, steep quarry. I was trapped; I could not get out. There they got me, and they would not let me get back down either. There I was stuck between the sky and the ground, until the workers came and got me down with the help of a few ladders. Then, it went on, on and on and on, all day long, all of next night; then, I collapsed and fell asleep. Where, I do not know. It was on the narrow ridge between two fields of rye. A thunder woke me up. It was night again, and the rain of a thunder-storm was pouring down. I hurried away and reached a field of turnips. I was hungry and pulled out a turnip. With it, I reached the forest, crawled under the densely growing trees, and ate. After this, I fell asleep again. But I did not sleep tight; I kept on waking up. The voice woke me up. They mocked me constantly: "You've turned into a beast, eating turnips, turnips, turnips!" When the morning broke, I got a second turnip, returned to the forest, and ate. Then, I sought a clearing and let the sun shine on me, to get dry. Here, the voices kept silent; this calmed me down. I found a long, though only light sleep, during which I kept on tossing and turning from one side to another and was tortured by the short, upsetting images of a dreams, which suggested to me that at one time I was a bowling-pin, being knocked down, then again a gipsy from Preziosa, and then again something even worse. This sleep only made me even more tired, instead of strengthening me. I broke out of it, when night fell, and left the forest. Stepping out from under the trees, I saw the sky red as blood; smoke rose up to it. Surely, there was a fire. This had a rather peculiar effect on me. I did not know where I was; but I felt compelled to go there, to look at the fire. I reached a rocky slope, which seemed familiar to me. There, I sat on a rock and stared into the blaze. Though it was a house which was burning, the fire was inside of me. And the smoke, this thick, suffocating smoke! It was not over there with the fire, but here with me. It enveloped me and invaded my soul. There it clustered into shapes, which developed arms and legs and eyes and faces and moved inside of me. They spoke. But what? Only later, much later, I came to understand how such internal abominations are generated. Then, I did not understand it yet, and thus they could have this horrible effect, against which my nerves, though being strained to the extreme, had no power to resist any more. I collapsed, just as the burning house over there collapsed, once the flames became smaller and smaller and finally were extinguished. Then, I gathered my strength to get up and leave. Inside of me, everything was extinguished as well. I was stupid, perfectly stupid. My head was as if it had been enveloped in a thick layer of clay and chaff. I could not find any thoughts. I did not even look for them. I walked unsteadily. I walked without knowing where to. I stumbled on, until I finally reached a town, the churchyard of which was by the side of the road I had been walking along. I leaned against the cemetery's wall and wept. This might have been unmanly, but I did not have the strength to prevent it. These were no liberating tears. They brought me no relief; but they seemed to cleanse and to strengthen my eyes. I suddenly saw that it was the churchyard of Ernstthal, where I stood. I was just as familiar with it as with the road, where it was at; but today, I recognised neither.
The morning dawned. I slowly went down the path the funeral processions took, across the market square, and quietly opened the door of our house, walked just as quietly up the stairs, to our lodgings, and there, I sat on a chair by the table. I did this without plan, without a free will, like a puppet, pulled by its strings. After a while, the door to the bedroom opened. Mother came in. She was in the habit of getting up early on account of her profession. When she saw me, she was startled. She quickly pulled the door shut behind herself and said excitedly, but quietly:
"For God's sake! You? Has anybody see you come in?"
"No", I answered.
"How do you look like! Quickly, get out of here again, as far away as possible! Over to America! Or else they'll catch you! If they'd lock you up again, I wouldn't survive that!"
"Go away? Why?" I asked.
"What have you done; what have you done! This fire, this fire!"
"What about the fire?"
"You have been seen! In the quarry -- -- in the forest -- -- in the field -- -- and yesterday, also by the house, before it burnt down!"
This was really horrible, nothing less than horrible!
"Mo -- -- ther! Mo -- -- ther!" I stuttered. "You wouldn't believe that -- -- -- "
"Yes, I believe it; I have to believe it, and father, too", she interrupted me. "Everybody is saying it!"
She said this hastily. She did not cry, and she did not whine; she was so strong when she had to bear a burden on her soul. She continued without catching a breath:
"For God's sake, don't let them catch you, most of all not here with us in the house! Go, go! Before the people wake up and see you! I mustn't say that you've been here; I mustn't know where you are; I mustn't see you any more! So go, go! When it has come under the statute of limitations, you'll come back!"
She quietly rushed back into the bedroom, without having touched me and without waiting for another word from me. I was alone and grabbed my head with both hands. There, I felt so very clearly this thick layer of clay and chaff. This person standing there, this wasn't me, or was it? Him, in whom even his own mother did not believe any more? Who was this fellow, who looked like a tramp in his dirty, wrinkled clothes? Get him out of her, just out! Be gone, be gone!
I still had enough of my mental faculties left to open the wardrobe and to change into another, a clean suit. Then, I left. Where to? My memory fails me. Again, I was as sick as I used to be. Not sick in the mind, but in the soul. The internal characters and voices had me completely under their control. When I make an effort to remember these times, I feel like someone who has seen some play at the theatre fifty years ago and is now, after all of this time, expected to know what had happened from one moment to another and how the scenery had changed. Single images are left in my memory, but they are so blurred that I cannot say for certain what part of them is true and what is not. In those times, I have obeyed those dark characters, who lived inside of me and controlled me. What I have done, will seem unbelievable to everyone who has not made such an experience. I was accused of having stolen a baby carriage! What for? An empty purse, containing only three pfennig! Other things are more credible and some have been proven directly. I had been arrested, and wherever something had happened, I was brought there, hoping that I was the perpetrator. This was a very interesting time for the regulars or the Lügenschmiede of Ernstthal. There, almost every day, new stories were told or new variations of old ones were created on all the stuff I was supposed to have done. Every tramp who entered the area of these fairy-tales used my name to sin on my behalf. Even for a man who was a prisoner externally as well as internally this was too much. During a transport, I broke my bonds and disappeared. Where I went, I intend to report extensively in the second volume, where I will be giving an account of my travels. For now, there is nothing more to tell than what I have mentioned before, this is that my soul became just the more free, the more I distanced myself from my home, that out there, far from home, I was seized by an irresistible urge to return home, and that I was just the more freed from this, the closer I came again to the place where I was born. Is there anybody who could get to the bottom of this? I partly followed that incomprehensible compulsion, partly I returned out of my own free will, for the sake of my good plans and my future. If I had sinned, I had to do penance for it; this went entirely without saying. And before this penance was not done away with, there could not be any profitable work and no future for me. So, I returned home five months later, to give myself up to the court of law, but unfortunately, I did not do this straight away, as it would have been the right thing to do, but I was again subdued by these forces within me, which appeared again and prevented me from doing what I had been planning. The consequence of this was that I was apprehended, instead of being able to give myself up voluntarily. This worsened my situation to such an extent that I fully comprehend the severity which the judge, who was pronouncing my sentence, applied. But just as much, the behaviour of the lawyer, who had been appointed by the court as my defence attorney, cannot be comprehended. He did not defend, but incriminate me, and did so in the worst way. He had the delusion that he could or should practice criminal psychology at this welcome opportunity, and yet, he lacked basically everything which is needed to solve such a task even to some extent. I very well might have denied it all, but rather confessed to everything I was accused of straight out. I did this, to get rid of this affair, no matter what the price may be, and to lose as little time as possible. The lawyer was unable to comprehend me or what was going on in any other not entirely commonplace soul. The verdict was four years in prison and two years under police supervision. However hard it is for me to write this down for the public to read, I cannot relieve myself of this duty; it has to be this way. I do not feel sorry for myself, but for my poor, law-abiding parents and sisters, my parents whom I still feel sorry for in their graves, because their son, for whom they had such great, perhaps not entirely unfounded hopes, had been forced by the infinite cruelty of the facts and conditions to make such confessions.
I would not think of listing the misdeeds, I had been accused of, here. To my executioner, flayer, and knacker, is something I will leave up to this abysmal lack of honour, which has crucified me ten years ago and has not stopped for a single moment during all of this time inventing ever new ways to torture me. Let it continue digging through these faeces, to delight all of those base creatures who sustain their lives on these matters. And just the same, I am not willing to make a sensation out of this renewed imprisonment of mine. I simply have to report of it, to tell the truth, and then, to hurry on, bidding my farewell to this apparent abyss, which is actually no abyss at all.
My punishment was hard and long, and the additional two years under police supervision could not possibly have been interpreted in my favour, when was committed to prison. So, I was expecting a strict treatment. It turned out to be severe, but it did not hurt. An institution's management acts quite right in showing no prejudice, but waiting calmly whether and how a new prisoner complies with its rules. Well, I did comply! Of course, this time my profession got me no special consideration. I was assigned to the occupation, where they happened to need workers at that time. I became a cigar-maker. I asked for a cell for myself; my wish was granted. For four years, I have inhabited the same cell, and even today, I still think back on it with that peculiar, grateful sentiment which a quiet, not cruel place of suffering deserves. I also started to like my work. It was most interesting to me. I became acquainted with all blends of tobacco and learnt to manufacture all kinds of cigars, from the cheapest to the most expensive. The daily workload had not been set too high. It depended on the kind of cigar, the willingness to do a good job, and on one's skillfulness. Once I had enough training, I easily fulfilled my quota and still had hours or half days left. To be able to use this time for myself, was my most heartfelt wish, and it was granted to me sooner, much sooner than I had thought possible.
Let me emphasise here once and for all, that to me, nothing happens by chance. Every one of my readers knows this. To me, there is only providence. So it also was in this case. The church of the penitentiary of Waldheim had a Protestant and a Catholic congregation. The Catholic Bible teacher played the organ during the Catholic services. But by now, he had become more and more overburdened with new obligation and lots of work that he had to look for someone who could take over playing the organ in his place, especially since he had to read the sermon whenever the priest was unable to come and therefore could not play the organ as well. The warden's office allowed him to look for a substitute among the prisoners. He did so. There was quite a number of sentenced teachers among the prisoners. They were examined. Why they did not take anybody else, I do not know. They had all been there for a longer amount of time than I and thus had time to obtain the trust which is needed for filling such a position. But I had been committed with nothing less than good attestations of character, could not possible escape the future police supervision, and had not found any time yet to show that I nevertheless deserved their trust. This is for me the reason why I presume that it was no coincidence, but providence. The Bible teacher came into my cell, talked to me for a while, and then left, without telling me anything. A few days later, the Catholic priest came as well. He also left after a short while, without mentioning the reason for his visit. But the next day, I was escorted to the church, seated in front of the organ, was presented with sheet music, and had to play. The officials sat below in the nave of the curch, so that I did not see them. Only the Bible teacher was with me, who presented me with my tasks. I passed the test and had to appear before the warden, who informed me that I had been assigned to playing the organ, and that I therefore had to conduct myself very well, to be worthy of this trust. This was the beginning, out of which so very much for myself and for my inner self has developed.
I, the Protestant, was the organ player in a Catholic church! The first thing I got out of this was a certain freedom to move around the prison building. After all, they could not place an watchman next to me at the organ! But I got even more out of it, respect that is, and the kind of consideration I was seeking in regard to certain appearances. The watchman of our "visitation" was a quiet, earnest man, I liked rather well; when he read in the registration book, that I had been made the Catholic organ player, he astonishedly came into my cell, to ask, whether a mistake might have occurred in the files of my commitment; there I was listed as evangelical-Lutheran. I denied that this was a mistake. At this, he looked at me with big eyes and said:
"We've never had this before! You must be -- -- -- h'm, YOU [a] must be a very talented musician!"
[a] The most important part of this line is rather untranslatable. In German there is an informal "you" (du) and a formal "you" (Sie). It makes roughly the same difference as being on a first name basis or on a second name basis. Here, the watchman switches from the informal "du" to the more respectful "Sie".
The prisoners are of course called "Du"; but from now on, he said "Sie", and others followed his lead. This was a seemingly small, but nevertheless very valuable step ahead, because from this, many other things ensued. Soon, to my pleasant surprise, it turned out that my watchman was the conductor of the brass band. I told him about my musical occupation in Zwickau. Then, he swiftly brought me sheet music, to put me to the test. I passed this test as well, and from now on everything was so arranged that I was not kept from working towards my own goals in my spare time. This watchman has been a dear, fatherly friend to me, and we kept in contact in a kind, respectful manner for a long time, once he had retired and moved to Dresden.
The name of the Catholic Bible teacher was Kochta. He was just a teacher, without any academic background, but a man of honour in every respect, humane as there is rarely one to be found, and thus rich in experience as an educator and in a psychological regard, that his opinion was much more valuable to me than entire stacks of learned books. He never talked about the peculiarities of the denominations with me. He regarded me as a Protestant and did not make the slightest attempt to influence my religious beliefs. And as he acted towards me, so I acted towards him. I never posed a question concerning Catholicism to him. Whatever I had to know on this matter, I already knew or was able to find out in other ways. The beautiful relationship, which by and by formed between us, not allowing any obstructive differences to sneak into this purely human benevolence, was sacred to me. He served in church, I served at the organ, but otherwise religion remained entirely untouched between us and could thus have its effect just the more directly and purely upon me. It was this, his very silence, which was so eloquent, because it allowed his actions to speak, and these were the actions of a nobly spirited person, who might just work his effect on a small circle of people, but who knows how to treat even small things in a great manner.
I had never played Catholic hymns before; now I got to know them. What pieces of music, especially or the organ, did I get my hands on! I had thought, I would understand music. What a fool I was! This simple Bible teacher gave me many a nut which was very hard for me to crack. What music essentially is, I just now began to get a glimpse of, and music is by no means the lowest tool the church uses to perform its work.
The Catholic priest only came to me when a special arrangement in regard to accompanying the hymns on the organ had to be made. He never spoke more than what was absolutely necessary and never about religion at all; but whenever he entered my cell, I always felt as if the sun started to to shine on me. Such sunny people are rare, and yet, every minister ought to be such a sunny person, because a layman will just too easily regard and judge the church by the way its priest behave towards him. I am going to skip the differences between the Protestant and the Catholic religious services, but to every reasonable person it will be entirely natural and self-evident that I could not participate and even be an active part in the latter for four years, without being influenced by it. After all, we are no rocks, from which all soft things bounce back! And even such a rock becomes warm, when it is hit by a ray of sunshine! And these religious services actually were rays of sunshine! Still today, I feel an infinite gratitude for this warmth and this kindness, which cared for me and had not a single reproach for me, when everything else was against me. I have been blessing it up until this day and will bless it for as long as I will live! How poor must those people be inside who maintain that I would be spreading a Catholic ideology! It is entirely impossible that they should know the human soul and the sacred places which it contains. Besides, I have written nothing at all about the Catholic faith, but entire volumes about Mohammedanism. Thus, the allegation that I would spread the Islam might appear much more justified than the one that I would promote Catholicism! Why am I not accused of this? The Madonna has been depicted by hundreds of Protestant painters and was the topic of hundreds of Protestant poets, even of Goethe. Why are those not said to promote Catholicism? I have thanked the Catholic church for the high-minded hospitality, it granted me, the Protestant, for four years, by means of a single Ave Maria, which I wrote for my novel "Winnetou". Is that a reason for accusing me of religious hypocrisy? And to make matters even worse, to suggest that I did it for money! I repeat: How poor must these people be, how infinitely poor! -- --
I must conclude that those four years of undisturbed seclusion and focused concentration have allowed me to advance very, very much. Every book I needed for my studies was available to me. I completed the schedule of my work and then started to carry it out. I wrote manuscripts. As soon as one of them was finished, I sent it home. My parents then acted as middlemen between me and the publishers. I did not write to them directly, because they were not meant to find out, yet, that the author of these tales, they printed, was a prisoner. But one of them nevertheless found out about it, because he visited my parents in person. This was the bookseller of colportage [a] literature H.G. Münchmeyer from Dresden, about whom there is still much more to be said later. He had been a journeyman carpenter, had blown the key-bugle at village dances, and had then become a colporteur. In this capacity, he also came to Hohenstein-Ernstthal and met a maid servant in a neighbouring village, whom he married. This tied him to this area. He got to know its people and also found out about me. The crazy things he was told here he regarded as extraordinarily well suited for his colportage. He came to see my father and sought his acquaintance. Thus, my manuscripts got into his hands. He read them. Some of it was beyond his comprehension. But other parts of it he liked so much, that it, as put it, delighted him. He asked for the permission to print it and got it. He wanted to pay right away and placed the money on the table. But father did not take it. He pushed it back and told him to give it to me in person, after my release. Münchmeyer was very pleased to agree with this. He assured my father that I was the man he needed; he would come to see me after my return home and discuss all the details with me.
[a] colportage (French): novels published as a series of booklets and sold to subscribers by door-to-door salesmen (colporteurs).
I am telling this and just stating it for a fact for now. For many upcoming events, it is of the utmost importance to know that Münchmeyer did not only precisely know about my past, the truth of it, but had also heard all the lies which had been added to it.
As far as the condition of my soul was concerned, there was quiet, perfect quiet. In the first four weeks of the previous four years, there had still been occasions when the dark characters had tormented me internally and had forced me to listen to what they were shouting at me; but, by and by, this had ceased, and finally it had quieted down, without ever stirring again. When I thought about this, without being sidetracked by psychology, I came to understand that those spectres could only influence me for as long as I was caught in the views which they represented. But once those were overcome, the frightful visions would have to fade. And this seemed to be the right thing; the Bible teacher was of the same opinion. I had not told him about my internal struggle, as I generally never confide in another person concerning purely personal and family matters. But yet, occasionally, a word was dropped, which was not meant to give any indication, but nevertheless did. He started to notice something. At one time in the course of a conversation, I got to talk about my dark characters and their tormenting voices; but I pretended to talk about someone else, not myself. This made him smile. He knew just too well whom I was referring to. The next day, he brought me a little book, the title of which read: "The so-called split of a person's interior, a representation of the split in mankind in general." I read it. What pleasure this was! How much did it clarify matters for me! Now, I knew all of a sudden what was wrong with me! Now, let them return, these voices; I had no cause to fear them any more! Later, when he came to get his book back, I thanked him, according to the joy I felt about it. So, he asked me:
"Isn't it so, it was yourself you were talking about?"
"Yes", I answered.
"Did you understand everything?"
"No, not yet."
"What about this here?"
He opened a page, where it read: "He who suffers of these severe afflictions, shall keep clear of the place where he was born. He shall never live there for a longer time. And most of all, if he should ever get married, he should by no means get his wife from this place!"
"No, I don't understand this yet", I admitted.
"Nor do I", he conceded. "But think about it!"
This thinking, he had advised me to do, brought me no results. This was a purely psychological question. In this, experience is the only knowing teacher, and I had to make this experience, before I understood; unfortunately, unfortunately! -- -- --