Looking back at the last ten years, I am full of gratitude for having survived them. There has never been a "persecution" like the one against me for as long as earth exists in the literature of any country, of any nation. There were tempests in the newspapers, tempests in the courtrooms, tempests in my own house, and tempests inside of me. Though my old, faithful, good friend, the body, maintains that he could no longer go along with me, I am still convinced that he will nevertheless be as willing and understanding again as he has always been. He had to endure what normally could not possibly have been endured. First, there were for entire six years the three instances of the first trial against the Münchmeyers with all those upsetting and pathetic aspects connected with it. Then followed the twenty-two months of the investigation for perjury and incitement to perjury. This was because the Münchmeyers' lawyer had filed a complaint for perjury with the public prosecutor's office against me and my witnesses, after he had lost the trial. The prosecutor had, according to his own statement, accepted the complaint to finally clear this matter up. This struggle, lasting for almost two years, quite naturally ended with the finding that no proof of any punishable act committed by me or my witnesses could be established. But this was not the end of it yet, for other things came on top of this, which were almost even worse than everything which had happened before: the first assaults by Lebius; a double pneumonia, which kept me between life and death for several months; the accusations my ex-wife brought up against me, my present wife, and her mother, and by means of which she had sought to bring a severe punishment upon us; the complaints with the public prosecutor's office, which she had then filed by a friend against us on account of these accusations; the same complaints being repeated by Lebius in Berlin. Luckily, this ex-wife had voluntarily told and confessed everything which she then denied after the divorce, during the divorce proceedings in the presence of perfect strangers without any interference on my part, so that she could only have been lured into this later denial. The presentation of these pieces of evidence proved that all accusations against me were lies. Furthermore, there is the petition of Lebius with the public prosecutor's office to lock me up in a lunatic asylum; his petition to have me followed to America with a warrant for my arrest; the numerous articles against me in his paper "Der Bund"; his pamphlets with the most horrible lies, which were circulated in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, England, North and South America. In these, he even accused me of having strangled my father-in-law! [a] This goes on like this up until recent times. Finally, he informed against me for having made insulting statements about an investigating judge, and the very last thing was, about four weeks ago, a complaint with the public prosecutor against me for incest, the punishment for which is, as we all know, five years in prison. You see that the very most extreme means are being used to "destroy" me! To endure this, without losing the faith in God, the belief in the good of mankind, and all joy of life and strength to live, is an act I hardly think everybody would be capable of. I have endured it, without allowing myself to be tempted to take the law into my own hands, because I am incapable of doubting for a single moment in God and his love, and because, in all of these more than hard times, there had been a person by my side, whose brave, upward striving soul had lifted me up, like on the wings of angels, above all suffering, I was meant to be subjected to, this person is my present wife. If someone has had the right to write books on the topic of "The Savage Beast in a Woman" , I might just as well feel obliged to publish, as a contrast to this, a book bearing the title "Heaven in a Woman".
[a] This should probably read "grandfather-in-law", refering to C.G. Pollmer, the grandfather of Karl May's first wife. At any rate, Lebius's accusation is bogus.
"Die Bestie im Weibe" by Carl Felix von Schlichtegroll (1862-1946).
With such a woman by my side, who is a source everything which is clean, noble, and eternal in a human being, everything can be achieved in respect to the pains of life on earth, and everything can be performed in respect to the work which is still ahead for me, as far as it is humanly possible. I am no longer so terribly alone. No longer, I have to tap into nothing but my own inner self, but rather I have been joined by a delightfully plentiful living soul, by whose influence everything inside of me which is leading me towards the good goal is being doubled. Severely ailing physically, I am of a fresh mind and in my soul at least just as much full of confidence as in my youth. I am not foolish enough to deny to myself that I am regarded as an outcast, cast out from the church, society, and literature. One person will start bashing at me, because he regards me as a Catholic or even Jesuit in disguise; another one will reach for the cudgel, because he thinks that I was still secretly a Protestant. Do you think that those two would manage to pledge their allegiance exclusively to whomever they happen to get the most thorough thrashing from at any given time? That I am regarded as socially dead, I do not care about. I do not have the slightest reason to be eager to be a part of that society the acquaintance of which I had been forced to make in my times of suffering. By the way, we two old folks, my dear wife and I, are thus perfectly sufficient to one another in respect to world within ourselves, that we would not even be capable to yearn for the "society" of others. And concerning me being cast out from literature, I can also live with that. The path I am on has been taken by no one else before me; I would therefore, even without the hatred directed against me, be forced to be a lonely man. I am furthermore convinced that later, once they will be properly acquainted with me and what I want, a sizable number, perhaps even many, will leave the large crowd, in order to join me. Old paths can lead to nothing more than old, dead treasures. But whoever is searching for new, living treasures, shall also take new, not old, paths. And my path is a new one! The fate of my previous work will only be determined by their worth or worthlessness, by nothing else. If they are any good, they will stay, no matter whether they are presently being praised or condemned. If they are no good, they will disappear, no matter whether they are now rejected or not. And the most important thing is, the person who has their worth or worthlessness under his control is just me alone. No one of my opponents, no matter how powerful and influential he may be in literature, can influence this in even the slightest degree. This sounds proud and boastful, but it is true. These works are collections of sketches, are preliminary exercises, are preparations for what is to come later. If those later things will turn out well, everything by means of which I prepared myself for it will be justified, no matter how or what is being thought and written about it now.
Now, there is only one final remark in respect to the Münchmeyer novels left for me to make. One of my most unrelenting opponents wrote I should by no means fool anybody into believing that a trashy publisher could transform decent novels into indecent ones; this would be a huge job, which nobody would be able to cope with. This gentleman seems to be in the fortunate position to be infinitely far removed from the live and activities of a trashy publisher. First of all, if someone is able to spend the time and effort to write a novel, then someone ought to be much more able to spend the shorter time and lesser effort to change this novel! Secondly, such a change requires by no means as much time and work as my opponent seems to assume. The insertion of a few words is perfectly sufficient to transform a "moral" sheet of printed paper into an "immoral" one. Thirdly, there is more than enough manpower for such changes available, and they have such an astonishing routine in it that even an insider is amazed by the the amount they can cope with. I have supplied evidence to this and will supply even more. Walther, the frequently mentioned factotum, sat at Münchmeyers' every day, from early in the morning until in the evening, only doing these kinds of work, and then reading the proofs, which the author never got to see. The evidence given first by Fischer, who had bought the Münchmeyers' business, and a few years later by his heirs, in a material manner and in court, on these adaptations of my novels, is well known. Concerning this, Münchmeyer's nephew, who had been the head pressman, had confirmed as a witness in the trial that Münchmeyer had personally altered entire chapters. Another witness had testified under oath that Münchmeyer had confessed to him that he was making large, extensive changes to my novels, he would better not tell me anything about. I suppose, I do not need to list here even more examples, which are available to me, to make you comprehend why I am absolutely demanding to be presented with my original manuscripts, which surely would carry a so very different weight as evidence than the fading memory of an old typesetter, who, after thirty years, is expected to find his way around through the mess of Münchmeyer's letter-cases of that time. Furthermore, these changes often stand out thus sharply from my original text, that very numerous readers are assuring me that they could say very precisely where the forgery begins and where it ends.
Finally, I cannot neglect drawing your attention to a trick of my opponents, and of Mr. Lebius in particular, which is being employed to cause those of my readers who belong to the higher classes to be outraged against me. They would write, for instance, in an eye-catching place, that I was socialising with the high society of Dresden and that I would quite generally make the greatest effort to obtain the acquaintance of high-ranking people. Not a single word, not a single letter of this is true. When I am by myself, I feel most comfortable, and I also wish, in this respect, for nothing else than to remain by myself. I would like to see that person who would want to prove to me that I had forced my company on him! In other places, it has been stated emphatically, that I was a regular guest at "courts". This is even more decisively untrue. If some aristocrat, who might belong to some "court", would read my books and occasionally exchange a few words with me, I would be the very last person to interpret this as me being a "regular at court". Behind these statements, which are pure fiction, there can only be the intention, to give me, in those circles, the reputation of a indiscrete person or even a liar, and to harm me even there, where I am absolutely not to be found. -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
In the end of this volume, I am returning to the beginning, to my old, dear fable of "Sitara", I had started with. Not much time will pass, before this fable will be known as the truth, and even as the most tangible there is. It is the task of the present century, which has just started, to enable our untrained eyes to see the great, exalted symbolism of daily life and to bring us to the bliss giving and uplifting realisation that there are higher and more undeniable realities than those with which the workdays and weekdays keep us busy. The sketches I drew and published shall serve to prepare for this realisation. Therefore, they are written in a symbolic manner and only have to be interpreted allegorically, if they are to be understood. One would think that it is quite amazing that this seems to be so hard for the common reader. It should not be too much of a hard nut to crack, to figure out something when reading a parable. When I refer to Ardistan as the land of the ethically low and Jinnistan as the land of the high, nobly thinking people, it could not require an almost academic education to see what I mean when I describe a journey from Ardistan to Jinnistan. The reader simply has to transport himself in his imagination from his world of weekdays into my world of Sundays, and this, I would think, is surely not harder for him than to leave his workshop every Sunday, in order to go to church at the sound of the bells.
Just as going to church this way frees a person from earthly pressures, I want to free the inner part of my readers from the external pressure by means of my tales. They shall hear bells ringing. They shall sense and experience how a prisoner feels who hears the locks clanging, because the day has come when he is being released. It is is just as easy to understand my books and to comprehend their contents, as it is easy to interpret this imprisonment allegorically. I want my readers to stop regarding life as a merely material existence. This view is a prison for them, beyond the walls of which they are unable to see, to behold the sunny, free, wide land. They are prisoners, but I want to free them. And in seeking to free them, I am freeing myself, because I am also not free, but rather imprisoned since a long, long time ago. At that time, when I was living in prison, I was free. There, I lived protected by the walls. There, everyone stepping into my cell came with good and honest intentions. There, nobody was allowed to touch me. There, nobody was allowed to disturb the development of my inner self. No villain had me in his power. Whatever I possessed and whatever I obtained was my sure and inalienable property, until I -- -- was released, not for a moment longer! For when I was released, I lost my freedom and my human rights. What others who only know how to talk in materialistic terms refer to as freedom has been a prison to me, a labour camp, a penitentiary, in which I have been languishing by now for thirty-six years, without finding a single person, aside from my present wife, I would have been able to talk to, as I used to talk to that unforgettable Catholic Bible teacher. I have not lived and worked for myself, but only for others. Whatever I obtained, I have been defrauded out of. Whatever savings I made, have been stolen from me. Any given person was allowed to do with me whatever he pleased, for everywhere he found a lawyer taking his case. Any given person was allowed to suspect me, insult me, bash away at me, for everywhere there was an article of law protecting him. I had to conduct lawsuits for six years for the sake of my property, and when I had won the trial, this did not mean by a long shot that I would have received anything, and I was put under preliminary investigation for perjury for twenty-two months. By now, I am already conducting lawsuits for almost ten years, and still, I have no result. The law does not want to have it any other way. But in the meantime, I have been like a prison inmate, who may be flogged, hurt, and tortured by everybody however he may please, if he only succeeds in arming himself with one of those articles of law, which are the ideals of all "resolute" lawyers. Yes indeed, I am a captive, a prison inmate, even now! A dozen lawsuits have detained me, so that by no means I would be able to escape, and everybody who wanted money from me, but did not get any, has behaved like a disciplinarian and has been bashing away at me. I have wanted the best for all of those I write for, their internal and external wellbeing, their present and their future happiness. What have I been given for this good intentions of mine? Scorn, mockery, and sarcasm! When I was a prison inmate, I was no prisoner. And now that I am it no more, I am it still. Why?