Lenz (10 page)

His condition had in the meantime become more hopeless, all the peace he had derived from the nearness of Oberlin and the tranquility of the valley had vanished; the world he had wanted to benefit from had a gaping rip in it, he had no hate, no love, no hope, a horrible emptiness, and yet a tormented desire to fill it. He had
nothing
. Whatever he did, he did in full self-awareness, and yet some inner instinct drove him onward. When he was alone he felt so terribly lonely he constantly spoke to himself
aloud, called out, then grew afraid again, it seemed to him as if the voice of a stranger had spoken to him. He often faltered in conversation, he was seized by indescribable anxiety, he had mislaid the end of his sentences; then he thought he should hold on to the last word uttered and go on talking, only with great effort did he suppress this urge. The good people were deeply alarmed when sometimes he was sitting among them in quiet moments and speaking freely and then began stammering and an indescribable anxiety descended over his features and he would violently grab at the arms of the persons sitting closest to him and only then return to his senses by and by. When he was alone or reading, things got even worse, at times all his mental activity would fix upon a single idea; if he thought about another person, or vividly pictured them, it was as if he became that person, he grew completely confused, and yet at the same time he felt the constant urge to deliberately manipulate everything around him in his mind; nature, other people, Oberlin alone excepted, everything as in a dream, cold; he amused himself by standing houses on their roofs, dressing and undressing people, coming up with the most outlandish pranks. At times he felt an irresistible urge to carry the thing out, and then he made horrid faces. Once he was sitting next to Oberlin, the cat lying across from them on a chair, suddenly his eyes locked into a stare, he fixed
them upon the animal, then he slowly edged out of his chair, as did the cat, bewitched by his gaze, horribly frightened, bristling with fear, Lenz hissing back at it, his face horribly contorted, the two going at each other as if in desperation, Madame Oberlin finally getting up to pull them apart. Which again caused him to feel deeply ashamed. The incidents during the night reached a horrific pitch. Only with the greatest effort did he fall asleep, having tried at length to fill the horrible void. Then he fell into a dreadful state between sleeping and waking; he bumped into something ghastly, hideous, madness took hold of him, he sat up, screaming violently, bathed in sweat, and only gradually found himself again. He had to begin with the simplest things in order to come back to himself. In fact he was not the one doing this but rather a powerful instinct for self-preservation, it was as if he were double, the one half attempting to save the other, calling out to itself; he told stories, he recited poems out loud, wracked with anxiety, until he came to his senses.

He also experienced these attacks during the day, they were even more frightful then; the light of day had previously warded them off. At these moments it seemed to him as if he alone existed, as if the world lay only in his imagination, as if there
were nothing but himself, eternally damned, Satan himself; alone, tormented by his imaginings. He chased through his past life at breakneck speed, saying: consistent, consistent; whenever somebody said something: inconsistent, inconsistent; it was the abyss of irreparable madness, an eternity of madness. The instinct to preserve his sanity drove him into Oberlin's arms, he clung to him as if wanting to squeeze into him, he was the only being alive to him and through whom life might again be revealed. Gradually Oberlin's words brought him back to his senses, he went down on his knees before Oberlin, his hands in Oberlin's, his face, covered with cold sweat, in the latter's lap, his whole body trembling and shivering. Oberlin felt enormous pity for him, the family went down on their knees and prayed for the unfortunate being, the maids fled away and said he was possessed. And when he grew calmer, it was like the misery of a child, he sobbed, he was seized with deep deep pity for himself; these were his happiest moments. Oberlin spoke to him of God. Lenz quietly drew away and looked at him with infinite sorrow on his face and finally said: as for myself, were I almighty, you see, if I were, if I could no longer put up with all this suffering,
I would just save, save everyone, for all I want is peace, peace, just a little peace, and to be able to sleep. Oberlin said this was blasphemy. Lenz shook his head dejectedly. The half-hearted attempts at suicide that he kept on making were not entirely serious, it was less the desire to die, death for him held no promise of peace or hope, than the attempt, at moments of excruciating anxiety or dull apathy bordering on non-existence, to snap back into himself through physical pain. But his happiest moments were when his mind seemed to gallop away on some madcap idea. This at least provided some relief and the wild look in his eye was less horrible than the anxious thirsting for deliverance, the never-ending torture of unrest! He would often beat his head against the wall or inflict sharp physical pain on himself in other ways.

On the morning of the 8th he remained in bed, Oberlin went upstairs; he was lying on the bed almost naked, and thrashing around. Oberlin wanted to cover him, but he complained bitterly about everything being so heavy, he doubted he would be able to walk, he was now finally realizing just how horribly heavy the air was. Oberlin urged him to gather up his courage. But he remained in this condition for the greater part of the day, and also refused to eat. Towards evening Oberlin was called to Bellefosse to visit a sick person. The weather was mild and the moon
was out. On his way back he encountered Lenz. He seemed entirely rational and conversed calmly and amiably with Oberlin. The latter asked him not to stray too far, he promised this; as he was wandering off he suddenly turned around and sidled up to Oberlin and blurted out: you see, dear Reverend, if I no longer had to listen to this it would be of great help to me. “Listen to what, my dear friend?” Can't you hear it, can't you hear that hideous voice screaming across the entire horizon, it's what's usually called silence and ever since I've been in this quiet valley I can't get it out of my ears, it keeps me up at night, oh dear Reverend, if I could only manage to sleep again. He then wandered off shaking his head. Oberlin returned to Walbach and was considering sending someone after him when he heard him climbing the stairs to his room. A moment later something crashed into the courtyard with such a loud thud that Oberlin could not conceive it could have been made by a person falling. The nursemaid came, deathly pale and trembling all over.

He sat in the coach with cold resignation as they drove out of the valley toward the west. He cared little where they were taking him; on the several occasions when the coach was put at risk by the bad road, he remained seated quite calmly; nothing mattered
to him at all. In this condition he traversed the mountains. Towards evening they reached the valley of the Rhine. Little by little they left the mountains behind, now rising in the red glow of dusk like a wave of dark blue crystal and on whose warm crest the red rays of evening played; above the plain at the foot of the mountains lay a shimmering bluish web. Night was falling as they approached Strasbourg; a high full moon, all the distant objects dark, only the nearby mountain forming a sharp line, the earth like a golden goblet over whose rim the golden ripples of the moon foamed. Lenz stared out quietly, no misgivings, no stress, just a dull anxiety building up inside him the more the objects disappeared into the dark. They had to stop over for the night, he made several more attempts on his life but was too closely watched. The following morning he entered Strasbourg under dreary rainy skies. He seemed quite rational, conversed with people; he acted like everybody else, but a terrible emptiness lay within him, he felt no more anxiety, no desire; he saw his existence as a necessary burden. — And so he lived on.

by Johann Friedrich Oberlin

 

H
E ARRIVED
here January 20th 1778. I did not know him. At first glance, given his long curly hair, I took him to be some sort of traveling apprentice; his candid manner however soon revealed that his hair had misled me. — “Welcome, whoever you are.” “I am a friend of K . . .'s and bring you his compliments.” — “Your name, if you please?” — “
Lenz
.” — “Aha, it's appeared in print, hasn't it?” (I remembered having read a few plays that had been attributed to a gentleman by this name.) He answered: “Yes; but I beg you not to judge me by them.”

We took pleasure in his company; he made sketches of some of the local costumes of the Russians and Livonians for us; we discussed their customs, etc. We put him up in the guest room in the schoolhouse.

The very following night, I heard loud talking in my sleep, though I was unable to rouse myself from my slumbers. Finally I gathered myself together, listened hard, sprang out of bed, listened hard again. Then I heard the voice of the schoolmaster
saying loudly: Allez donc au lit — qu'est-ce que c'est que ça — hé! — dans l'eau par un temps si froid! — Allez, allez au lit!

A number of thoughts rushed to my mind. Perhaps, I said to myself, he is a sleepwalker who was unlucky enough to fall into the basin of the fountain; we'll have to make him a fire and some tea in order to warm him up and dry him out. I threw my clothes on and went down to the schoolhouse. The schoolmaster and his wife, still pale with fright, said to me: Herr Lenz had not slept the entire night, he had wandered around the field behind the house, then had gone in again, and finally down to the fountain, dipping his hands into the water, climbing up onto the rim, plunging into it and splashing around like a duck; they, the schoolmaster and his wife, fearing he was trying to drown himself, had called out to him — he got out of the water, told them it was his custom to bathe in cold water, and went back up to his room. — Praise the Lord, I said, that this is all there was to it; Mr. K. . . likes cold baths as well, and Mr. L. . . is a friend of Mr. K. . .'s.

This was the first fright we all experienced; I rushed back to reassure my wife as well.

Thereafter, at my request, he organized his bathing so as to make less noise.

The 21st he rode over to Belmont with me, where we buried
an ancient grandmother who was survived by 176 descendents. During our return, he chatted in a candid gentlemanly fashion, communicating his various reservations, etc., about the speech I had made; we got along famously, I felt at ease with him; he showed himself in every respect to be a young man worthy of affection.

Mr. K. . . had informed me that he planned on visiting the Steinthal in order to show it to his bride-to-be and that he would bring along a theologian who was eager to preach here.

I have been in these parts almost eleven years now; at the outset my sermons were quite eloquent, much to the taste of the inhabitants of the Steinthal. But ever since I discovered the defects of these good people and their extreme ignorance of everything, and especially of the very language in which one is preaching to them, and therefore tried to come down to their level as much as possible, tailoring my sermons to what I now recognized as the needs of my audience, I have been exposed to constant criticism. Some say: I am too blunt; others: anybody could do this; still others: my maids had written my sermons, etc. For this reason I find that preaching involves more effort than all the other aspects of my position combined. I am therefore heartily grateful when from time to time someone offers to preach in my stead.

After he had inspected the local religious schools and other establishments and had candidly conveyed his opinions of everything, Mr. L. . . expressed a wish to deliver a sermon for me. I asked him whether he was the theologian whom Mr. K. . . had mentioned. “Yes,” he replied, and for the reasons mentioned above, I was happy with the arrangement; it took place the following Sunday, the 25th. I went to altar, said the absolution, and Mr. L. delivered a pretty sermon from the pulpit, although perhaps with too much trepidation. Mr. K. . . was also in the church with his fiancée. As soon as he could, he drew me off to the side and asked me with a meaningful glance how Mr. L. had been behaving recently and what we had been talking about together. I told him what I knew; Mr. K., said: this was fine. Shortly afterwards he also went off alone with Mr. L. I thought all this was somewhat strange, but did not want to inquire into their secrets, though I decided I would try to gather more information.

Mr. K. was kind enough to invite me to go to Switzerland with him for his wedding. As much as I had long wanted to see Switzerland, to meet and converse with such men as Lavater and Pfenniger, as much as I desired the stimulation and invigoration that a journey might provide to my body and mind (I had gone through some hard months), I nonetheless saw insurmountable
obstacles on far too many sides. Mr. K. removed a good portion of these with the details of his travel plans: I considered the remainder and found it was indeed feasible.

On Monday the 26th, after I had buried the last of my current patients, I took the nearest road over the Rhine. Mr. L. was to take care of the sermons and my fellow clergyman would see to the pastoral duties which, given the circumstances, were certain to be few and far between.

I got no further than Köndringen and Emmendingen, where for the first time I met and spoke with Mr. Sander and Mr. Schlosser; then via Breisach to Colmar, where I made the acquaintance of Messrs. Pfeffel and Lerse; then back to the Steinthal.

I had now gathered sufficient information concerning Mr. L. and was so satisfied by my trip that, rare as money might be for a Steinthal country clergyman, I would not give it up for a hundred thalers.