Lenz (8 page)

Lenz went up to his room contented, he thought of a text for the sermon and his mind drifted off, and his nights grew peaceful. Sunday morning arrived, a thaw had set in. Clouds scudding
overhead, blue sky in between, the church on a spur of the mountain, the churchyard surrounding it. Lenz stood above while the bell rang and the churchgoers, women and girls in their somber black local costumes, white handkerchiefs folded on their hymnals and sprigs of rosemary, converged from all sides on the small paths leading up and down between the rocks. Bursts of sunshine playing over the valley, a soft lazy breeze, the landscape afloat in fragrance, distant bells, the whole as if dissolving into a single melodious wave.

The snow was gone from the small churchyard, dark moss beneath the black crosses, a late rosebush leaning against the cemetery wall, late flowers rising through the moss, sun at moments, then the dark. The service began, human voices joined into a pure clear sound; the impression of gazing into a pure transparent mountain stream. The singing trailed off, Lenz spoke, he was shy, the music had completely melted his paralysis away, all his pain was now awake and lay within his heart. He was suffused with a sweet sense of infinite well-being. He spoke simply to the people, they shared in his suffering, and it was comforting that he could offer sleep to various eyes tired from crying and peace to tortured hearts, that he could show
the way to heaven to existences tortured by material needs, all these muffled sorrows. He had grown more steady as he came to the end, then the voices began again:

              
Burst, O divine woe,
              The floodgates of my soul;
              May pain be my reward,
              In pain I love the Lord
.

The pressure within him, the music, the pain, shook him to the core. The universe was an open wound; it caused him deep nameless pain. Another existence now, the quiver of heavenly lips bending down over him and sucking on his; he returned to his lonely room. He was alone, alone! Then the springwaters gushed forth, tears poured from his eyes, he crumpled into himself, his limbs twitched, it was as if he needed to dissolve, he could find no end to the ecstasy; finally his mind began to clear, he felt deep quiet pity for himself, he wept for himself, his head sank onto his chest, he dozed off, the full moon hung in the sky, his hair fell over his temples and face, the tears clung to his eyelashes and dried on his cheeks, he now lay there alone, everything peaceful and silent and cold, and the moon shone the whole night through, above the mountains.

The following morning he came down, he very calmly told Oberlin how his mother had appeared to him in the night; she had emerged from the dark churchyard wall in a white dress and had a white and a red rose pinned to her chest; she had then sunk into a corner and the roses had slowly grown over her, she had no doubt died; he had felt quite calm about this. Oberlin then remarked that when his father died he was alone in the fields and had then heard a voice so that he knew his father was dead and when he came back home this was indeed so. This led them further, Oberlin spoke of the mountain people, of girls who could detect water and metal under the ground, of men who had been possessed on certain peaks and wrestled with spirits; he also told of how he had once been transported into a state of somnambulism upon looking into the empty depths of a mountain pool. Lenz told him that the spirit of water had come over him, that he had then experienced something of its special essence. He continued on: the simplest, purest creatures were closest to elemental nature, the more refined a man's mental life and feelings, the more blunted this elemental sense became; he did not consider it to be a higher plane, it lacked the requisite self-sufficiency, but he believed it must be an endless delight to
feel moved by the unique life of each and every form; to have a soul for stones, metals, water and plants; to take in every being in nature into oneself as in a dream, as flowers do with the air at every waxing and waning of the moon.

He continued to speak his mind, how all things were imbued with an indefinable harmony, a note, a bliss that in higher forms of life became more pronounced, more resonant, perceiving the world with a greater variety of organs, and was thereby all the more susceptible, whereas in the lower forms everything was more subdued, more circumscribed, yet thereby more at peace with itself. He pursued this even further. Oberlin interrupted him, this was leading too astray from his simple ways. On another occasion Oberlin showed him color charts, he explained the relationship of each color to mankind, he adduced the twelve apostles, each represented by a color. Lenz took this all in, he carried things further, began having anxious dreams, and started reading the Apocalypse like Stilling, consulting his Bible at great length.

Around this time
Kaufmann
arrived in Steintal with his bride-to-be. Lenz was at first uneasy about meeting him, he had carved out such a nice little place for himself, this tiny bit of peace was
so precious to him, and now someone was coming his way who reminded him of so much, with whom he had to speak, converse, who knew of his situation. Oberlin knew nothing at all; he had taken him in, cared for him; for him it was the hand of God that had sent this unfortunate creature his way, he loved him dearly. Besides, it was fitting that he be there, he belonged among them as if he had been there forever, and no one asked from where he had come and where he was bound. At table Lenz was again in fine spirits, the talk turned to literature, he was in his element; the era of idealism was just then beginning, Kaufmann was among its adherents, Lenz vehemently disagreed. He said: the writers who were purported to offer up reality had no idea of what it was, even though they were more bearable than those who wanted to transfigure it. He said: the good Lord has without a doubt made the world as it should be and there is no way we can scratch together anything better, our sole goal should be to imitate him in a small way. What I demand in all things is life, the potentiality of existence, and that's that; we need not then ask whether it be beautiful or ugly, the feeling that whatever's been created possesses life outweighs these two and should be the sole criterion in matters of art. As it is, we encounter it rarely, we find it in Shakespeare and it rings forth fully in folk songs, now and then in Goethe. Everything else can be tossed into the
fire. These people can't even draw a doghouse. They claim they want idealistic figures, but from what I've seen, they're all just a bunch of wooden puppets. This idealism represents the most disgraceful contempt for human nature. Let them just once try to descend into the life of the humblest person and reproduce all the twitches, all the winks, all the subtle, barely noticed play of facial features; he had tried something of the sort in “The Tutor” and “The Soldiers.” They are the most prosaic people under the sun; but the pulse of feeling courses through nearly everyone, only the sheathings through which it must break are more or less thick. One merely needs the eyes and ears for this. Yesterday as I was walking along above the valley, I saw two girls sitting on a rock, one was putting up her hair, the other helping her; and the golden hair was hanging free, and a pale, solemn face, and yet so young, and the black peasant dress, and the other one so absorbed in her task. The finest, most heartfelt paintings of the Old German School scarcely convey an inkling of this. At times one wishes one were a Medusa's head in order to turn a group like this into stone and call everybody over to have a look. They stood up, the lovely group was destroyed; but as they made their way down among the rocks, there was yet another tableau. The finest images, the most soaring sounds, group themselves,
dissolve. Only one thing remains, an infinite beauty passing from form to form, eternally unfolding, transformed, but of course one cannot always capture it and stick it in museums or set it to music and call everybody over, young and old alike, and have them all prattle on about it, going into raptures. One has to love mankind in order to penetrate into the unique existence of each being, nobody can be too humble, too ugly, only then can you understand them; the most insignificant face makes a deeper impression than the mere sensation of beauty and one can allow the figures to emerge without copying anything into them from the outside where no life, no muscle, no pulse surges or swells. Kaufmann objected that he would find no models of the Apollo Belvedere or a Raphael Madonna in reality. So what, he replied, I have to admit they leave me quite cold, if I work at it within myself, I suppose I may end up feeling something, but I am the one making all the effort. The writers and painters I prefer are those who make nature so utterly real to me that their works move me to feel, everything else is plain annoying. I prefer the Dutch painters to the Italians, they are the only ones who make sense; I know of only two paintings, both Dutch, that
have made the same impression on me as the New Testament; one of them, I know not by whom, is Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus. When one reads of how the disciples went forth, all of nature immediately lies within these few words. Shadowy night is falling, a solid red streak on the horizon, the road half in darkness, a stranger approaches, they talk, he breaks bread, in their simple humanity they recognize who he is and the divine suffering in his features speaks to them distinctly, and they grow afraid, for it has gotten dark, and something incomprehensible comes over them but it is not some ghostly dread; it is as if the dear departed one were coming up to you in the twilight just as he used to, and so it is in the painting, with its uniform brownish cast and the shadowy stillness of the evening. Then another one. A woman is sitting in her room, prayer book in hand. The room all tidied up for a Sunday, the sand strewn, cozy, clean and warm. The woman had not been able to go to church and she is holding service at home, the window is open, she sits facing it and it is as if the village bells were drifting over the wide flat landscape into the window and the singing of the nearby congregation were echoing forth from the church, and the woman is following the text. — He continued on in this fashion, people listened attentively, many points were being made, he had grown flush from all the talking, now all
smiles, now serious, he tossed his curls of blond hair. He had completely forgotten himself. After the meal Kaufmann drew him aside. He had received letters from Lenz's father, his son was to return, provide assistance. Kaufmann told him he was throwing away his life here, squandering it to no purpose, he should set himself a goal and so on and so forth. Lenz retorted: Away from here? Away? Back home? Go crazy there? You know, this is the only place I can bear; if I couldn't now and then go up into the mountains and look over the countryside and then come back down to the house and walk through the garden and look in through the window, I'd go crazy!! Crazy!! Leave me in peace! Just a little peace, now that I am feeling a bit better! Back home? This makes no sense, these two words ruin everything. Everybody needs something; if you find peace, what more could you have! To be always scrambling upwards, struggling, and thus throwing away everything granted by the moment; to go always hungry in the hope of satiety; to go thirsty while clear springs leap over your path. Things are now tolerable, and this is where I want to stay put; why? Why? Because I am feeling well; what does my father want? What can he give me? Out of the question! Leave me in peace. He was furious, Kaufmann left, Lenz was in a foul mood.

The next day Kaufmann wanted to leave, he talked Oberlin
into going to Switzerland with him. The desire to meet Lavater in person, whom he had long known through letters, determined him. He agreed. The preparations delayed their departure by a day. This perturbed Lenz, to rid himself of his constant torment he had been anxiously clinging to everything; at certain moments he became deeply aware he was fabricating it all to his own advantage; he dealt with himself like a sick child, he rid himself of certain thoughts, overpowering emotions only with great anguish, then was again driven back onto them with even greater violence, he shivered, his hair nearly stood on end, until he finally emerged victorious after the most extraordinary exertions. He took refuge in a figure who always hovered before his eyes, and in Oberlin; his words, his face did him an immense amount of good. So it was with anxiety that he contemplated his departure.

Lenz was uneasy about remaining in the house on his own. The weather had turned mild and he decided to accompany Oberlin into the mountains. On the other side, where the valleys meet the plain, they parted. He returned back alone. He wandered through the mountains this way and that, broad planes inclined into the valleys, little woodland, nothing but powerful lines and in the distance the wide smoky plain, a brisk breeze in the air, nowhere a trace of man other than here and there an
abandoned hut where shepherds spent the summer, aslant on a slope. He grew still, perhaps even dreamy, everything blended into a single line like a wave rising and falling between heaven and earth, he felt as if he were lying beside an endless ocean that was gently rocking up and down. Sometimes he just sat there, then he began walking again, but slowly, dreamily. He was following no path. It was pitch dark when he came to an inhabited hut, on the slope down to Steintal. The door was locked, he went to the window through which a gleam of light was shimmering. A lamp illuminated little more than a single spot, its light fell on the pale face of a girl who was resting behind it, eyes half-open, quietly moving her lips. Further back in the dark sat an old woman who was singing out of a hymnal in a raspy voice. After much knocking she opened; she was half-deaf, she brought Lenz some food and showed him a place to sleep, continuing her singing all the while. The girl had not moved. Some time later a man came in, he was tall and haggard, traces of gray hair, with a restless troubled face. He went over to the child, she jerked convulsively and grew restless. He took a dried herb from the wall and laid its leaves on her hand and she quieted down, droning intelligible words in drawn out, penetrating tones. He
recounted how he had heard a voice in the mountains and then had seen sheet lightning over the valleys, he had been seized by it too and had wrestled with it like Jacob. He fell to his knees and quietly prayed with fervor while the sick girl sang in drawn-out, softly lingering tones. Then he went to bed.