The Sleepwalkers (76 page)

But yet another and very decisive characteristic of that epoch may here find its determining cause: the glorification of “action,” the phenomenon of the “deed,” which is so conspicuous in all expressions of life in the Renaissance, and not least in Protestantism; that nascent contempt for the word which tries to confine the function of language as far as possible to its autonomous realms of poetry and rhetoric, refusing it access to other spheres and substituting for it as sole operating factor the man who acts; that movement towards a dumbness which was to prepare the way for the dumbness of a whole world: all this stands in a relation which cannot be ignored to the disintegration of the world into separate value-systems, and follows from that changing-over to the language of things which, to keep the metaphor, is a dumb language. It is almost like a testimony to the fact that any understanding between the separate value-systems was superfluous, or as though such an understanding might falsify the severity and singleness of the language of things. The two great rational vehicles of understanding in the modern world, the language of science in mathematics and the language of money in book-keeping, both find their starting-point in the Renaissance, both arise from that single and exclusive concentration on a single value-system, from that esoteric theory of expression, which might be called ascetic in its severity. Yet such an attitude had little in common with the asceticism of Catholic monks, for unlike the latter it was not a means to an end, not a device for summoning ecstatic “aid,” but sprang from the singleness of action, of that “action” which was thenceforth accounted the sole unambiguous language and the sole determining
force. So Protestantism also by its origin and its nature is an “action”; it presupposes a religiously active man, seeking God, finding God, a man endowed with the same positive activity as the new scientific researcher, or, indeed, the new type of soldier or politician. Luther’s religion was through and through that of a man of action, and at bottom anything but contemplative. But even in the heart of the action, at the core of this matter-of-fact sense of actuality, there lay the same severity, the same categorical imperative of duty, the same exclusion of all other value-systems; that literally iconoclastic asceticism of a Calvin which one might almost call an epistemological asceticism, and which drove Erasmus to the point of insisting that music should be excluded from the service of God.

Yet the Middle Ages too had recognized the force of action. And no matter how violently the new positivism recoiled from Platonic scholasticism, in referring the individual to the solitary authority of his ego it also laid bare the “positivist roots” of Platonism. The new Christianity did not merely protest, it reformed as well, it looked upon itself throughout as a Renaissance of the Christian idea; and although at first it had no theology, it developed later, on a more autonomous and restricted basis, a purely Platonic and idealistic theology: for that is what Kantian philosophy amounts to. So the orientation of values, the ethical imperative directing action, remained the same as in the Middle Ages, and indeed could not have changed, for value consists only in the effective will to value and to unconditionality—there are no values save absolute values. What had changed was the delimitation of the value-producing action: hitherto the intensity of human aspiration towards the absolute had been concentrated on the total value of the Christian organon; now, however, all the radicality of a self-dependent logic, all the severity of autonomy, was directed to each system of values separately, each value-system was raised to an absolute value of its own, and that vehemence was engendered which was to maintain these absolute values side by side in isolation without reference to each other, that vehemence which gives the age of the Renaissance its characteristic colouring.

Of course it could be objected that the general style of the age embraced indifferently all the disparate value-systems, that the personality of Luther, for instance, was by no means ascetically limited to one single system, but strikingly united in a characteristic fashion both religious and worldly impulses. In return it could be just as reasonably asserted that we are
dealing here with the mere beginnings of a movement that needed five hundred years for its full development, that the age was still full of yearning for the medieval synthesis, and that it was precisely a personality like Luther’s, a personality subsuming in itself the most disparate tendencies, not by force of logic but by virtue of its human breadth, that met the needs of the age half way, and dominated and influenced it to an incomparably greater degree than the more “logical” Calvin. It is as if the age were still full of fear in face of the new “severity” and the approaching dumbness of the world, as if it wanted to shout down that dreadful approaching dumbness, and for this reason, perhaps, had to bring to birth the new language of God, the new polyphonic music. But these are assumptions that cannot be proved. On the other hand it can be taken for granted that this uncertain state of the age, this confusion of inchoate impulses, made possible the Counter-reformation; that the fear of approaching loneliness and isolation opened the way for a movement which promised to regain the lost unity. For the Counter-reformation took upon itself the gigantic task of gathering in again the value-systems excluded by the narrow and ascetic religiousness of Protestantism, of attempting a new synthesis of the world and all its values, and, under the guidance of the new Jesuit scholasticism, of once more striving towards the lost medieval wholeness, so that, enthroned as the supreme value, the Platonic unity of the Church might maintain for ever its divine position above all other values of the world.

The watchmaker Samwald often came out to the hospital now. He lingered at the places where his brother had been tended, and, wishful to show his gratitude, not only regulated the clocks of the hospital free of cost, but also offered to repair gratis the inmates’ watches. And then he went to see Gödicke of the Landwehr.

Gödicke looked forward to these visits. Since the funeral many things had become clearer and less disturbing to him: the earthly part of his life had become more solid, and yet it seemed to be growing loftier and airier, without losing any of its stability. He knew now quite clearly that he need no longer be terrified at the looming darkness behind which stood that other Gödicke, or more precisely the many Gödickes of yore, for that dark barrier was nothing but the period during which he had lain in the
grave. And should anyone come up and try to remind him of what was on the other side, of what had happened before his burial, he need no longer have any fear, but could, as it were, dismiss it with a shrug of the shoulders, knowing that it had ceased to be of any consequence. All that he had to do was to bide his time, for he need not dread the life that was condensing round him now, even when it pressed quite close upon him; for he had already put death behind him, and everything that came would simply serve to build the scaffolding yet higher. True, he still did not utter a word, nor did he listen when the sisters of his ward-mates addressed him; but his deafness and dumbness were now far less a defence of his ego and his solitude than an advertisement of his contempt for those who disturbed his peace. The watchmaker Samwald was the only one he tolerated, indeed he looked forward to his coming.

Samwald certainly made things easy for him. Even though Gödicke walked with his body bent, leaning on his two sticks, he could look down on the little watchmaker; but that was not what mattered most. More important was the fact that Samwald, as though he knew whom he was dealing with, made not the slightest attempt to question him or to remind him of anything that he, Ludwig Gödicke, did not like. In truth Samwald was not a great talker at any time. As they sat together on a seat in the garden he would show Gödicke a watch that he had taken over for repair, making the cover fly open so that one could see the works, and trying to explain where the defect lay. Or he would speak of his dead brother, who, so he said, was to be envied, for he had got over his troubles and was now in a happier land. But when the watchmaker Samwald went on to speak of Paradise and its heavenly joys, on the one hand that was to be discountenanced, for it pertained to the confirmation class attended by a long-discarded Ludwig Gödicke, yet on the other hand it was a sort of homage to the man Gödicke, like a question addressed to one who was already on the farther side and knew all about it. And when Samwald spoke of Bible gatherings which he was in the custom of attending and from which he derived much enlightenment, when he maintained that the misery of this war must finally lead to a brighter day of salvation, Gödicke did not bother to listen; yet it was vaguely a kind of corroboration of his new-won life, and a challenge to take up in that life a fitting and as it were a postmortem position. The little watchmaker seemed to him then like one of the lads or women who carried the hods of bricks to the wall, and whom one never talked to civilly but merely ordered about, yet whom one needed
nevertheless. This too may have been the reason why he once interrupted the little watchmaker in his stories with the order: “Bring me a beer,” and when the beer did not promptly arrive he stared in front of him in incomprehending indignation. For many days he was angry with Samwald and refused to look at him, and Samwald racked his brains trying to find some way of propitiating Gödicke again. That was difficult enough. For Gödicke did not himself know that he was angry with Samwald, and he suffered a great deal from the fact that under the compulsion of an unknown decree he had to turn his face away whenever Samwald appeared. And it was not that he regarded Samwald as the originator of the decree; but he blamed him most bitterly for the fact that the decree was not rescinded. It was a sort of laborious search for each other that arose between the two men, and it was almost an inspiration of the watchmaker’s when one day he seized Gödicke by the hand and led him away.

It was a fine warm afternoon, and the watchmaker Samwald led Gödicke the one-time bricklayer by the sleeve of his tunic, cautiously, step by step, taking care to avoid the jagged flint-stones on the road. Sometimes they rested. And when they had rested for a while Samwald tugged at Gödicke’s sleeve, and Gödicke got up and they went on again. In this way they arrived at Esch’s house.

The ladder leading up to the editorial office was too steep for Gödicke, so Samwald deposited him on the bench in front of the garden and ascended alone: he came back presently with Esch and Fendrich. “This is Gödicke,” said Samwald. Gödicke made no sign. Esch led them towards the summer-house. But in front of the two forcing frames, whose glass covers were open, for Esch had been sowing for the autumn crop, Gödicke remained standing, gazing into their depths at the bottom of which lay the brown mould. Esch said: “Well?” But Gödicke still went on staring into the frames. So they all remained standing, bareheaded and in their dark suits, as though they were gathered round an open grave. Samwald said: “It was Herr Esch who started the Bible class … we are all seeking guidance from Heaven.” Then Gödicke laughed, he did not laugh scornfully, it was only perhaps a somewhat noisy laugh, and he said: “Ludwig Gödicke, arisen from the dead,” he did not say it very loudly, and he looked triumphantly at Esch, more, he straightened himself from his humble and bowed posture and was almost as big as Esch. Fendrich, who carried the Bible under his arm, regarded him with the feverish eyes of a consumptive, and then he softly touched Gödicke’s
uniform, as though he wished to make certain that Gödicke was really present in the flesh. But for Gödicke that seemed to finish the matter, he had done his part, it had not even been a very great strain, he could afford to rest now, and so he simply let himself down on the wooden edge of the frame, waiting for Samwald to sit down beside him. Samwald said: “He’s tired,” and Esch went with long strides back into the courtyard and shouted up to Frau Esch at the kitchen window to bring some coffee. Then Frau Esch brought out coffee, and they fetched Herr Lindner too from the printing-shed to drink coffee with them, and they stood round Gödicke while he sat on the edge of the frame, and gazed at him sipping his coffee. And none of them saw what Gödicke saw. And after Gödicke had been refreshed by the coffee Samwald once more took him by the hand, and they set out on their way back to the hospital. They went cautiously, and Samwald saw to it that Gödicke did not step on the jagged flints. Sometimes they rested. And when Samwald smiled at his companion, Gödicke no longer turned his eyes away.

Yes, Huguenau was in a very bad humour. The printed appeals for the Iron Bismarck had been wretchedly botched. That the printing-office did not possess a block of Bismarck’s head was perhaps excusable, but not even a proper Iron Cross with laurel wreath complete was to be found in the place, and so there had been nothing for it but to embellish each of the four corners of the appeal with one of the little Iron Crosses usually employed to mark the death notices of soldiers killed in the war. He wouldn’t have gone personally with the miserable sheet to the Major at all if he hadn’t had a piece of good news as well: a firm of carvers in Giessen, whose advertisement he had discovered and to whom he had immediately wired, were prepared to supply a Bismarck statue within two weeks. But naturally enough the Major must have been deeply disappointed by the tasteless appeal; at first he had not even listened to Huguenau, and had dismissed his excuses with an ill-humoured and indifferent: “It doesn’t matter.” And even though he had finally condescended to fix his visit for to-day, yet he had spoilt it immediately by inquiring after Esch. That was all the more unjust, seeing that Esch himself was to blame for the lack of decent blocks in the printing-office.

His hands in his trousers-pockets, Huguenau strolled up and down the courtyard and waited for the Major. As for Esch, he had manœuvred him out of the way quite nicely. It had been quite a sly move to dissuade him the day before from going out to the paper factory—and then to-day one found that it had been a mistake after all, and that strangely enough there was a shortage of paper, and so the Herr Editor had just had to go. Unfortunately the lout had considered it necessary to take his bicycle, and if the Major put off coming for very much longer the whole manœuvre would be up the spout, and the two of them would meet after all.