A. Personal Existing in Relation to the Esthetic Writing
A
PERSONAL EXISTING IN RELATION TO THE ESTHETIC WRITING
So now to my work as an author and the first period of my existing. Here was a religious author, but one who began as an esthetic author, and this first part was the incognito, was the deception. Very early and very thoroughly initiated into the secret that mundus vult decipi [the world wants to be deceived],25 I was [XIII 545] unable at that time to choose to pursue this strategy. Quite the opposite, it was a matter of deceiving inversely on the largest possible scale, of using all my familiarity with people and their weaknesses and their obtusities—not in order to profit from them but in order to annihilate myself, to weaken the impression of myself. The secret of the deception that indulges the world, which wants to be deceived, consists partly in forming a clique and all that goes with it, in joining one or two of those mutual admiration societies whose members assist each other by word and pen for the sake of worldly gain, and partly in hiding from the human throng, never being seen, in order in this way to produce an effect on the imagination. Therefore the very opposite had to be done. I had to exist and safeguard an existence in absolute isolation, but I also had to make a point of being seen at every time of the day, living, so to speak, on the street, associating with every Tom, Dick, and Harry and in the most casual situations. This is truth’s way of deceiving, the ever-sure way to weaken the impression of oneself in the world, furthermore certainly also the way of self-renunciation taken by men quite different from me in order to make people aware. Those highly esteemed, the “deceivers,” who want the communication to serve them instead of their serving the communication, are merely intent on winning esteem for themselves; the despised, the “truth-witnesses,” who deceive inversely, have always followed the practice of sacrificing themselves in a worldly sense, of being nothing, although working night and day, and among other things also without the support of the illusion that the work they are doing is their official career or livelihood.
So this had to be done, and it was done, not now and then but every blessed day. I am convinced that a sixth of Either/Or,26 a little clique, and then an author one never managed to see—this would have become, especially over a long period, something extraordinary in quite another way. I had, however, made sure I could work as hard as I pleased, and as the spirit prompted me, without being afraid of gaining too much esteem, because in a certain sense I worked just as hard in another direction—against myself. Only an author will really be able to understand what such a task is: to work qua author, that is, with intellect and pen, and then practically be at everybody’s service. It is a criterion for criticism (even though it did also give me extraordinary enrichment with observations) that would bring most people to despair, since it means taking away completely even the least illusion and providing the pure idea-relationship—and truly it is not truth that rules the world but illusions. Even if an achievement were eminent to a degree never seen before—if the author [XIII 546] just lives in this way, he will in a very short time have safeguarded himself against worldly esteem and against the bestial flattery of the crowd. The crowd has no ideality and therefore no power to hold on to an idea despite appearances; the crowd always falls into the trap of appearances. To be seen day after day and to be seen in the most casual company are enough to make the crowd lose the idea and very soon become sick and tired of a person. It does not even take very much time to manage to be seen every day if only one ingeniously (i.e., humanly speaking, insanely) uses the time properly—that is, walks to and fro in the same but the most frequented place in the city.
Anyone who conserves his esteem in a worldly way does not return by the same way he went out, even if it is his path, lest he be seen twice in so brief a time—then people might think that he did not do anything, which would not occur to anyone if he sat at home in his parlor and loafed two-thirds of the day. On the other hand, an hour spent properly, devoutly understood, an hour lived for eternity, spent in walking to and fro among the common people, is already not a little. It is truly pleasing to God that truth is served in this way; his spirit witnessed powerfully with my spirit27 that it had his complete and highest approval. All the truth-witnesses nod to one their approval that it is the truth, the idea one wants to serve, not the truth one wants to betray and then wants to profit from the illusions. It was a purely Christian satisfaction for me to dare to carry out on Monday a little bit of what on Sunday, when the pastor preaches and in so doing even sheds tears, one sheds tears over—and on Monday quite rightly laughs at. It was a purely Christian satisfaction for me that if ordinarily there was no one else there was definitely one in Copenhagen with whom any poor person could without ceremony speak and associate on the street; that if ordinarily there was no one else, there was one who, in whatever social circles he otherwise moved, did not slink by but acknowledged every maidservant, manservant, and every day laborer he knew in other contexts. It was a purely Christian satisfaction to me that if ordinarily there was no one else there was one who (several years before existence again assigned the lesson to the generation) in action tried a little to do the doctrine about loving the neighbor—alas, one who precisely by his act also received a frightful insight into what an illusion Christendom is and indeed, particularly later, also into how the common people let themselves be seduced by wretched journalists, whose striving and fighting for [XIII 547] equality can only lead, if it leads to anything, since it is in the service of the lie, to making the elite, in self-defense, proud of their aloofness from the common man, and the common man brazen in his rudeness.
To develop in more detail this sketch of my personal existing cannot be done here, but I am convinced that rarely has any author used as much cunning, intrigue, and ingenuity to win honor and esteem in the world in order to deceive it as I have done for the opposite reason—to deceive it into an understanding of the truth. By just a single episode, for which I have the proofreader of Either/Or, my friend Giødwad,28 as witness, I shall attempt to give an idea of the scale on which this deception was carried out. When I was reading proof pages of Either/Or, I was so busy that it was impossible for me to spend the usual time strolling up and down the street. I did not finish until late in the evening—and then in the evening I hurried to the theater, where I literally was present only five to ten minutes. And why did I do that? Because I was afraid that the big book would bring me too much esteem.* And why did I do that? Because I knew people, especially in Copenhagen; to be seen every night for five minutes by several hundred people was enough to sustain the opinion: So he doesn’t do a single thing; he is nothing but a street-corner loafer.
That was the way I existed, shoring up the esthetic writing (in addition breaking with all cliques) and entirely with the polemical aim of regarding every eulogy as an attack, but every attack as something to which no attention was to be paid. That was the way I existed publicly. I almost never made visits, and at home one thing was strictly observed—unconditionally not to receive anyone except the poor who asked for help. There was no time for visits at home, and in a visit someone could easily come to suspect what he was not supposed to suspect. That is the way I existed. If Copenhagen was ever of one single opinion about [XIII 548] someone, I dare say it has been of one opinion about me: I was a street-corner loafer, an idler, a flâneur [lounger], a frivolous bird, a good, perhaps even brilliant pate, witty, etc.—but I completely lacked “earnestness.” I represented the worldly mentality’s irony, the enjoyment of life, the most sophisticated enjoyment of life—but of “earnestness and positivity” there was not a trace; I was, however, tremendously interesting and pungent.
As I think back on this form of existence, I could indeed decide to make a kind of apology to the distinguished and esteemed members of society. True enough, I truly was fully aware of what I was doing, but from their point of view they were still justified in censuring me because by weakening myself in this way I was on the whole contributing to weakening power and esteem, however conservative I have otherwise always been in this regard and with however much respect, veneration, and admiration I have been happy to give the distinguished and esteemed person what he deserved. But it did not follow from my conservative nature that I myself in any way participated in the same thing. And just because the esteemed in society have in so many ways shown me not only sympathy but even preference, in so many ways have tried to do what from their side was no doubt honest and well-intentioned—to draw me to themselves—I feel impelled to make an apology to them, even though I naturally cannot repent of what I have done, since I was serving my idea. Yet the esteemed have always proved to be consistent in comparison with the common people, who not even from their own point of view have been in the right toward me, inasmuch as, in consequence of the foregoing, they did indeed attack me—because I was not elitist, which is very odd and ludicrous of the common people.
This is the first part. By means of my personal existing, I attempted to support the pseudonymous writers, all the esthetic writing. Depressed, incurably depressed as I was, sorely afflicted in my innermost being, after having in despair broken with the world and what is of the world, rigorously brought up from childhood in the view that the truth must suffer, be insulted and mocked, spending a certain time each day in prayer and upbuilding meditation, myself personally a penitent. Since I was who I was—yes, I do not deny it—in a certain sense I found a satisfaction in that life, in that inverted deception, a satisfaction in thinking that the intrigue succeeded so extraordinarily that the public and I came to say du29 to each other, that I was in vogue proclaiming a gospel of worldliness, that even if I did not have the [XIII 549] kind of esteem that can be obtained only by a completely different mode of life, yet secretly, and therefore all the more adored, I was the public’s favorite, in everyone’s good graces as tremendously interesting and pungent, although everyone no doubt considered himself better and more earnest and more honorable and more positive than I. This satisfaction, which was my secret, a satisfaction in which at times I was as if beside myself, could in other respects have been a dangerous temptation for me. That the world, the public, and the like would tempt me with its flattery, admiration, etc.—no, there I was certain. If I had capsized, it would have to have been on this reflection raised to the second power—an almost obsessed rapture over the thought of how the deception succeeded, which indescribably satisfied the secret resentment I had harbored since childhood, because long before I myself had ever seen it I had learned that lies and baseness and injustice ruled the world, which often led me to think of those words in Either/Or, “If you people only knew what it is you are laughing at,”30 if you only knew with whom you are involved, who this flâneur is!