Monologue
1845
May 14, 1845.
Arrival in Berlin.
The only character on board whom one could make any use of was a young lad wearing a velvet cap tied on with a kerchief, and a striped smock over his coat, and a stick hanging by a string to one of the buttons. Frank, honest, travelling, interested in everything, naive, shy, and yet confident. By combining him with a melancholy traveller (like Herr Hagen) one could produce a fine melancholy effect.
It is curious that The Corsair has never thought of representing people in the classical style, naked, with a fig-leaf.
A drawing of Hercules for example, or something in that style, and underneath : Pastor Grundtvig.
A possible conclusion to all the pseudonymous works
I shall now tell an honoured public how it happened that I became an author. The story is quite simple, for there is no question of my having had a vision, a dream or the inspiration of genius, or anything of the kind to which to appeal. I had spent some years of my life as a student in a sort of idleness, certainly reading and thinking a bit, but my indolence always had the upper hand completely; then one Sunday afternoon, four years ago, I was sitting out in a café in the Frederiksberg Gardens smoking my cigar and looking at the servant-girls and suddenly the idea struck me : you go on wasting your time without profit; on every side one genius after another appears and makes life and existence, and the historical means of conveyance and communication with eternal happiness, easier and easier—what do you do? Could you not discover some way in which you too could help the age? Then I thought, what if I sat down and made everything difficult? For one must try to be useful in every possible way. Even if the age does not need ballast I must be loved by all those who make everything easy; for if no one is prepared to make it difficult it becomes all too easy—to make things easy. From that moment I found my entertainment in that work. I mean the work has been amusing, for in another sense I did not find it entertaining, but had to sink money in it. Nor can one really ask people to pay in order to have things made difficult; that would be to make it still more difficult. No, really those who make things easy should support me out of their profits. They have moreover made good use of me and straightway assumed that I did it for their sakes, simply so that they should have something further to make easy.
When a skipper sails with a smack he usually knows his whole cruise beforehand; but a man-of-war only gets its orders at sea—that is what happens to genius, he is out on the deep before he gets his orders, we others know more or less what we have to do.
Monologue
When one reads Luther one gets the impression, rightly enough, of a sure and certain mind, of one who speaks with a decision that is “authoritative” (he preached with authority—εξoυσ
α Matt. vii. 29). And yet it seems to me there is something disturbing about his certainty, which is in fact uncertainty. It is common knowledge that a particular state of mind often tries to conceal itself beneath its opposite. One encourages oneself with strong words, and the words become even stronger because one is hesitant. That is not deception, but a pious wish. One does not even wish to express the uncertainty of fear, one does not wish (or dare) even to name it, and one forces out the very opposite mood in the hope that it will help. Thus Luther makes paramount use of that which is used with such moderation in the New Testament: the sin against the Holy Ghost. In order to encourage himself and the believer he makes immediate and draconian use of it on every occasion. With the result that ultimately there is not a single man who has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, not only once but many times. And the New Testament says that it cannot be forgiven; so what then?—I know full well that most people will cross themselves when I compare Luther’s assurance with that of Socrates. But is that not simply because the majority of men have a greater understanding of and leaning towards disturbing? Luther, as is well known, was shaken by the lightning which killed his friend beside him; in the same way his expressions always sound as though the lightning were continuously striking down behind him.
Just as the top layer in a case of herrings is crushed and spoilt, and the fruit next to the crate is bruised and worthless, so too in every generation there are certain men who are on the outside and are made to suffer from the packing case, who only protect those who are in the middle.
Happily I am neither marked out by fortune nor among the admired, for much as I am willing to rejoice with them and pay them my tribute, I am little desirous of being one of them, because that kind of existence is at variance with the universal and distressing in relation to the unfortunate.
There is a bird called the stormy-petrel, and that is what I am, when in a generation storms begin to gather, individuals of my type appear.