Confusion (3 page)

At that time in Berlin my sense of liberation was so powerfully intoxicating that I could not endure even the brief seclusion of the lecture hall or the constraint of my own lodgings; everything that did not bring adventure my way seemed a waste of time. Still wet behind the ears, only just out of leading strings, the provincial youth that I was forced himself to appear a grown man—I joined a fraternity, sought to give my intrinsically rather shy nature a touch of boldness, jauntiness, heartiness; I had not been in the place a week before I was playing the part of cosmopolitan man about town, and I learned, with remarkable speed, to lounge and loll at my ease in coffee-houses, a true
miles gloriosus
. This chapter of manhood of course included women—or rather ‘
girls
', as we called them in our student arrogance—and it was much to my advantage that I was a strikingly good-looking young man. Tall, slim, the bronzed hue of the sea coast still fresh on my cheeks, my every movement athletically supple, I had a clear advantage over the pasty-faced shop-boys, dried like herrings by the indoor air, who like us students went out every Sunday in search of prey in the dance-floor cafés of Halensee and Hundekehle (then still well outside the city). I would take back to my lodgings now a flaxen-haired, milky-skinned servant girl from Mecklenburg, heated by the dancing, before she went home from her day off, now a timid, nervous little Jewish girl from Posen who sold stockings in Tietz's—most of them easy pickings, to be had for the taking and passed on quickly to my friends. The anxious schoolboy I had been only yesterday, however, found the unsuspected ease of his conquests a heady surprise—my successes, so cheaply won, increased my daring, and gradually I came to regard the street merely as the hunting ground for these entirely undiscriminating exploits, which were a kind of sport to me. Once, as I was stalking a pretty girl along Unter den Linden and—by pure coincidence—I came to the university, I could not help smiling to think how long it was since I had crossed that august threshold. Out of sheer high spirits I and a like-minded friend went in; we just opened the door a crack, saw (and an incredibly ridiculous sight it seemed) a hundred and fifty backs bent over their desks and scribbling, as if joining in the litany recited by a white-bearded psalmodist. Then I closed the door again, let the stream of that dull eloquence continue to flow over the shoulders of the industrious listeners, and strode jauntily out with my friend into the sunny avenue. It sometimes seems to me that a young man never wasted his time more stupidly than I did in those months. I never read a book, I am sure I never spoke a sensible word or entertained a thought worth the name—instinctively I avoided all cultivated society, merely in order to let my recently aroused body savour all the better the piquancy of the new and hitherto forbidden. This self-intoxication, this waste of time in wreaking havoc on oneself, may come naturally to every strong young man suddenly let off the leash—yet my peculiar sense of being possessed by it made this kind of dissolute conduct dangerous, and nothing was more likely than that I would have frittered away my life entirely, or at least have fallen victim to a dullness of feeling, had not chance suddenly halted my precipitous mental decline.

That chance—and today I gratefully call it a lucky one—consisted in my father's being unexpectedly summoned to the Ministry in Berlin for the day, for a headmasters' conference. As a professional educationalist, he seized his chance to get a random sample of my conduct without previous notice, taking me unawares and by surprise. His tactics succeeded perfectly. As usual in the evening, I was entertaining a girl in my cheap student lodgings in the north of the city—access was through my landlady's kitchen, divided off from my room by a curtain—and entertaining her very intimately too when I heard a knock on the door, loud and clear. Supposing it was another student, I growled crossly: “Sorry, not at home.” After a short pause, however, the knocking came again, once, twice, and then, with obvious impatience, a third time. Angrily, I got into my trousers to send the importunate visitor packing, and so, shirt half-open, braces dangling, barefoot, I flung the door open, and immediately, as if I had been struck in the face by a fist, I recognized my father's shape in the darkness outside. I could make out little more of his face in the shadows than the lenses of his glasses, shining in the reflected light. However, that shadowy outline was enough for the bold words I had already prepared to stick in my throat, like a sharp fishbone choking me; for a minute or so I stood there, stunned. Then—and a terrible moment it was!—I had to ask him humbly to wait in the kitchen for a few minutes while I tidied my room. As I have said, I didn't see his face, but I sensed that he knew what was going on. I sensed it from his silence, from the restrained manner in which, without giving me his hand, he stepped behind the curtain in the kitchen with a gesture of distaste. And there, in front of an iron stove smelling of warmed-up coffee and turnips, the old man had to stand waiting for ten minutes, ten minutes equally humiliating to both of us, while I bundled the girl out of bed and into her clothes, past my father, who was listening against his will, and so out of the house. He could not help noticing her footsteps, and the way the folds of the curtain swung in the draught of air as she hurried off, and still I could not bring the old man in from his demeaning place of concealment: first I had to remedy the disorder of the bed, which was all too obvious. Only then—and I had never in my life felt more ashamed—only then did I face him.

My father retained his composure in this difficult situation, and I still privately thank him for it. Whenever I wish to remember him—and he died long ago—I refuse to see him from the viewpoint of the schoolboy who liked to despise him as no more than a correcting machine, constantly carping, a schoolmaster bent on precision; instead, I always conjure up his picture at this most human of moments, when deeply repelled, yet restraining himself, the old man followed me without a word into the oppressive atmosphere of my room. He was carrying his hat and gloves and was about to put them down automatically, but then made a gesture of revulsion, as if reluctant to let any part of himself touch such filth. I offered him an armchair; he did not reply, merely warded off all contact with the objects in this room with a movement of rejection.

After standing there, turned away from me, for a few icy moments, he finally took off his glasses and cleaned them with deliberation, a habit of his which, I knew, was a sign of embarrassment; nor did it escape me that when he put them on again the old man passed the back of his hand over his eyes. He felt ashamed in my presence, and I felt ashamed in his; neither of us could think of anything to say. Secretly I feared that he would launch into a sermon, an eloquent address delivered in that guttural tone I had hated and derided ever since my schooldays. But—and I still thank him for it today—the old man remained silent and avoided looking at me. At last he went over to the rickety shelf where my textbooks stood and opened them—one glance must have told him they were untouched, most of their pages still uncut. “Your lecture notes!” This request was the first thing he had said. Trembling, I handed them to him, well knowing that the shorthand notes I had made covered only a single lecture. He looked rapidly through the two pages, and placed the lecture notes on the table without the slightest sign of agitation. Then he pulled up a chair, sat down, looked at me gravely but without any reproach in his eyes, and asked: “Well, what do you think about all this? What now?”

This calm question floored me. Everything in me had been strung up—if he had spoken in anger, I would have let fly arrogantly in return, if he had admonished me emotionally I would have mocked him. But this matter-of-fact question broke the back of my defiance: its gravity called for gravity in return, its forced calm demanded respect and a readiness to respond. What I said I scarcely dare remember, just as the whole conversation that followed is something I cannot write down to this day—there are moments of emotional shock, a kind of swelling tide within, which when retold would probably sound sentimental, certain words which carry conviction only once, in private conversation and arising from an unforeseen turmoil of the feelings. It was the only real conversation I ever had with my father, and I had no qualms about voluntarily humbling myself; I left all the decisions to him. However, he merely suggested that I might like to leave Berlin and spend the next semester studying at a small university elsewhere; he was sure, he said almost comfortingly, that from now on I would work hard to make up for my omissions. His confidence shook me; in that one second I felt all the injustice I had done the old man throughout my youth, enclosed as he was in cold formality. I had to bite my lip hard to keep the hot tears in my eyes from flowing. And he may have felt something similar himself, for he suddenly offered me his hand, which shook as it held mine for a moment, and then made haste to leave. I dared not follow him, but stood there agitated and confused, and wiped the blood from my lip with my handkerchief, so hard had I dug my teeth into it in order to control my feelings.

This was the first real shock that, at the age of nineteen, I experienced—without a word spoken in anger, it overthrew the whole grandiose house of cards I had built during the last three months, a house constructed out of masculinity, student debauchery and bragging. I felt strong enough to give up all lesser pleasures for the act of will demanded of me, I was impatient to turn my wasted abilities to intellectual pursuits, I felt an avid wish for gravity, sobriety, discipline and severity. It was now that I vowed myself entirely to study, as if to a monastic ritual of sacrifice, although unaware of the transports of delight awaiting me in scholarship, and never guessing that adventures and perils lie ready for the impetuous in that rarefied world of the intellect as well.

The small provincial town where, with my father's approval, I had chosen to spend the next semester was in central Germany. Its far-flung academic renown was in stark contrast to the sparse collection of houses surrounding the university building. I did not have much difficulty in finding my way to my alma mater from the railway station, where I left my luggage for the time being, and as soon as I was inside the university, a spacious building in the old style, I felt how much more quickly the inner circle closed here than in the bustling city of Berlin. Within two hours I had enrolled and visited most of the professors; the only one not immediately available was my professor of English language and literature, but I was told he could be found taking his class at around four in the afternoon.

Driven by impatience, reluctant to waste an hour, as eager now to embark on the pursuit of knowledge as I had once been to avoid it, and after a rapid tour of the little town—which was sunk in narcotic slumber by comparison with Berlin—I turned up at the appointed place punctually at four o'clock. The caretaker directed me to the door of the seminar room. I knocked. And thinking a voice inside had answered, I went in.

However, I had misheard. No one had told me to come in, and the indistinct sound I had caught was only the professor's voice raised in energetic speech, delivering an obviously impromptu address to a close-packed circle of about two dozen students who had gathered around him. Feeling awkward at entering without permission because of my mistake, I was going to withdraw quietly again, but feared to attract attention by that very course of action, since so far none of the hearers had noticed me. Accordingly I stayed near the door, and could not help listening too.

The lecture had obviously arisen spontaneously out of a colloquium or discussion, or at least that was what the informal and entirely random grouping of teacher and students suggested—the professor was not sitting in a chair which distanced him from his audience as he addressed them, but was perched almost casually on a desk, one leg dangling slightly, and the young people clustered around him in informal positions, perhaps fixed in statuesque immobility only by the interest they felt in hearing him. I could see that they must have been standing around talking when the professor suddenly swung himself up on the desk, and from this more elevated position drew them to him with words as if with a lasso, holding them spellbound where they were. It was only a few minutes before I myself, forgetting that I had not been invited to attend, felt the fascinating power of his delivery working on me like a magnet; involuntarily I came closer, not just to hear him but also to see the remarkably graceful, all-embracing movements of his hands which, when he uttered a word with commanding emphasis, sometimes spread like wings, rising and fluttering in the air, and then gradually sank again harmoniously, with the gesture of an orchestral conductor muting the sound. The lecture became ever more heated as the professor, in his animated discourse, rose rhythmically from the hard surface of desk as if from the back of a galloping horse, his tempestuous train of thought, shot through with lightning images, racing breathlessly on. I had never heard anyone speak with such enthusiasm, so genuinely carrying the listeners away—for the first time I experienced what Latin scholars call a
raptus
, when one is taken right out of oneself; the words uttered by his quick tongue were spoken not for himself, nor for the others present, but poured out of his mouth like fire from a man inflamed by internal combustion.

I had never before known language as ecstasy, the passion of discourse as an elemental act, and the unexpected shock of it drew me closer. Without knowing that I was moving, hypnotically attracted by a force stronger than curiosity, and with the dragging footsteps of a sleepwalker I made my way as if by magic into that charmed circle—suddenly, without being aware of it, I was there, only a few inches from him and among all the others, who themselves were too spellbound to notice me or anything else. I immersed myself in the discourse, swept away by its strong current without knowing anything about its origin: obviously one of the students had made some comment on Shakespeare, describing him as a meteoric phenomenon, which had made the man perched on the desk eager to explain that Shakespeare was merely the strongest manifestation, the psychic message of a whole generation, expressing, through the senses, a time turned passionately enthusiastic. In a single outline he traced the course of that great hour in England's history, that single moment of ecstasy which can come unexpectedly in the life of every nation, as in the life of every human being, a moment when all forces work together to forge a way strongly forward into eternity. Suddenly the earth has broadened out, a new continent is discovered, while the oldest power of all, the Papacy, threatens to collapse; beyond the seas, now belonging to the English since the Spanish Armada foundered in the wind and waves, new opportunities arise, the world has opened up, and the spirit automatically expands with it—it too desires breadth, it too desires extremes of good and evil; it wishes to make discoveries and conquests like the conquistadors of old, it needs a new language, new force. And overnight come those who speak that language, the poets, fifty or a hundred in a single decade, wild, boisterous fellows who do not, like the court poetasters before them, cultivate their little Arcadian gardens and versify on elegant mythological themes—no, they storm the theatre, they set up their standard in the wooden buildings that were once merely the scene of animal shows and bloodthirsty sports, and the hot odour of blood still lingers in their plays, their drama itself is a
Circus Maximus
where the wild beats of emotion fall ravenously on one another. These unruly and passionate hearts rage like lions, each trying to outdo the others in wild exuberance; all is permitted, all is allowed on stage: incest, murder, evildoing, crimes, the boundless tumult of human nature indulges in a heated orgy; as the hungry beasts once emerged from their cages, so do the inebriated passions now race into the wooden-walled arena, roaring and dangerous. It is a single outburst exploding like a petard, and it lasts for fifty years: a rush of blood, an ejaculation, a uniquely wild phenomenon prowling the world, seizing on it as its prey—in this orgy of power you can hardly hear individual voices or make out individual figures. Each strikes sparks off his neighbour, they learn and they steal from each other, they strive to outdo one another, to surpass each other's achievement, yet they are all only intellectual gladiators in the same festive games, slaves unchained and urged on by the genius of the hour. It recruits them from dark, crooked rooms on the outskirts of the city, and from palaces too: Ben Jonson, the mason's grandson; Marlowe, the son of a cobbler; Massinger, the offspring of an upper servant; Philip Sidney, the rich and scholarly statesman—but the seething whirlpool flings them all together; today they are famous, tomorrow they die, Kyd and Heywood in dire poverty, starving like Spenser in King Street, none of them living respectable lives, ruffians, whore-masters, actors, swindlers, but poets, poets, poets every one. Shakespeare is only at their centre, “the very age and body of the time”, but no one has the time to mark him out, so stormy is the turmoil, so vigorously does work spring up beside work, so strongly does passion exceed passion. And as suddenly as it vibrantly arose that magnificent eruption of mankind collapses again, twitching; the drama is over, England exhausted, and for another hundred years the damp and foggy grey of the Thames lies dull upon the spirit again. A whole race has scaled the heights and depths of passion in a single onslaught, feverishly spewing the overflowing, frenzied soul from its breast—and there the land lies now, weary, worn out; pettifogging Puritanism closes the theatres and thus silences the impassioned language, the Bible alone is heard again, the word of God, where the most human word of all had made the most fiery confessions of all time, and a single ardent race lived for thousands in its own unique way.