KSRK: Guilty?/Not Guilty? (January 12. Midnight.)

The recollection continues, but not without some reflection first:

Everything is asleep; at this hour only the dead emerge from the grave and live their lives over again. And I am not doing even that, for since I am not dead I cannot live my life over again, and if I were dead, I could not relive it either, for, after all, I have never lived.

In the previous entry Quidam identified himself as an old man; here takes it a step further and calls himself a dead man. The words 'I have never lived,' lead me to think that he is perhaps considering his depression. By turning it into a life or death issue, seems to be raising his thoughts it to the level of the absolute. Perhaps this isn't pure hyperbole, at least if it was his beloved who first called him a murderer.

In order to keep my nocturnal pursuits as hidden as possible, I take the precaution of going to bed at nine o'clock. At twelve o'clock I get up again. No one imagines that, not even the sympathetic who have enough sympathy to take exception to my going to bed so early. Was it chance that brought us so close, or what power is pursuing me with her, from whom I am fleeing and yet do not wish to escape. To see her is as horrible as it must be for the sinner to hear the death sentence read aloud, and yet I do not dare to avoid this sight any more than I dare to seek it, which could very well be disturbing to live. If I were convinced that in order to avoid her I had gone a step out of my usual way, in order to avoid her I had stayed away from some place where I am in the habit of going, I believe I would go out of my mind. Only by enduring and suffering, by deferring to every argument against my shattered soul, do I maintain any meaning in my existence. If I were to walk the street, take one step, to look for her, I think I would go out of my mind out of worrying that I had prevented her from helping herself. I dare not do a thing, dare not refrain from doing anything; my situation is like the everlasting torment of the condemned.

The nocturnal pursuits must refer to his stalking trips to the household of his beloved, somethat would probably get him arrested today. In the sentence beginning 'No one imagines that ...' he reveals an awareness of his ridiculousness with the inwrought irony that often seems the like the last refuge of the wretched. But of course Quidam is just beginning. 'Was it chance?' Certainly not, but where he was able to name Possibility in the previous entry, he here seems unable to name what I think could be called Necessity. The rest of the paragraph is particularly opaque, so focused is Quidam here on his shattered, suffering soul.

And today it was our engagement day! She was crossing the street diagonally to the sidewalk, I was on the sidewalk and had the right of way. She could not set her foot on the curb before I had passed; a carriage driving by made it impossible for her to have recourse to the street. If I had wanted to talk to her, the situation was as favorable as possible. But no, not a word, not a sound, not a movement of the lips, not a problematic hint in the eyes, nothing, nothing on my part. Good God, if she were sick with a fever, if this word from me were the glass of cold water she wanted, would I deny it? So I am a brute, then! No, my little lady, no, we have talked together enough! Oh, that I can talk this way about her in my thoughts, her for whose sake I will risk everything if only I understood that it is beneficial to her. But why does she pursue me? I am wrong, it is true, very true - scandalously wrong. But am I not being punished, do I not have a murder on my conscience? have I no rights at all? Will she not be able to understand at all what I am suffering? Is it a loving girl who behaves this way? And why does she look at me that way? Because she believes that it makes an impression on me deep within. So she does believe there is something good about me. And then to want to wound someone who is tortured to death!

More opacity. Here he indicates that is she who pursues him, which seems to contradict the previous paragraph. What makes this difficult to follow is that Quidam seems to be imputing his own extreme thoughts to her ("Is it a loving girl who behaves this way?"; "... she believes that it makes an impression on me deep within."), even as he manages to maintain a degree of chivalry ("... if only I understood taht it is beneficial to her"; "I would go out of my mind out of worrying that I had prevented her from helping herself") in his thoughts about her. But it would seem to be only in his thoughts: "Oh, that I can talk this way about her in my thoughts, her for whose sake I will risk everything if only I understood that it is beneficial to her." Perhaps impotence would explain this. It certainly would be difficult to explain, and there does seem to be something as yet unnamed that would stand between them.

I made the moment last as long as possible. In this kind of encounter there is always a halt, because the one has to wait until the other has passed. I used my advantage to judge how she looked and if possible her state of mind. I had taken out my handkerchief and, just as one quite leisurely holds it out to see what part one wants to use, I stood there impassive as if I did not know her, although I was looking at her and with the exactitutde of despair. but not a word, my whole expression as meaningless as nothing. Yes, just boil inside, for I, too, have warm blood, perhaps only too warm; burst, my heart, and then I shall topple over dead. That is more like it; one can put up with that. Palpitate in the fingertips if you must, beat upon the brain with the blow of terror, but not visibly in the temples, not on the lips, not in the eyes - that I do not want, I do not want that. Why did I get so worked up; why was I compelled to discover my capacity to dissimulate when it serves a good cause!

And what is this 'good cause'?

She was less pale, but perhaps that was due to the fresh air; perhaps she had been walking more. her glance ventured to judge me, but then she dropped her eyes, and she looked almost imploring. A woman's pleas! Who inexcusably put this weapon into her hands, who gives the madman a sword, and how, powerless he is compared with the pleading of the powerless!

When I turned the corner, I had to lean against the building. Now if there were an intimate acquaintance to whom I would say, "So it is," I would be able to look quite calm and collected, but when I turn the corner I am almost fainting, and if this acquaintance were an inquisitive fellow who wanted to spy on me, what then? Then I would become aware of it. for just as Kaspar Hauser could feel metal through countless layers of clothing, so I feel deception and cunning through any covering. What then? Then I would not become faint as I turned the corner, but when I had gone down the street and the inquisitive acquaintance had perceived nothing, then I would find the nearest cross street in order to fall in a heap.

Who is the deceiver here? And is it just to hide his depression here? It rather seems that the skill of dissimulation he developed to protect himself (and others) from his depression has now become for him a habit from which he is unable to desist.

Sleep, my beloved, sleep well! Would to God that she might sleep all her pain away and sleep herself happy and rosy for tomorrow! Do tightrope dancers who are parents have no father love and mother love, have they none when they place their child on that thin rope and walk beneath it in deathly anxiety? If the verdict that I am a murderer has not yet been pronounced, what worse can happen than that she dies, and yet there is no likelihood of that now. Either she is the rarity among girls, and then my procedure contributes something so that she is not disturbed in becoming the outstanding one, a girl whose deification did not begin with death but with grief - or she is, indeed, I would rather not say it, or she has fancied etc., and thereupon she becomes commonsensical etc. - that is , she fancies herself to have become commonsensical etc. - Stop! I have no factual information that justifies me in any conclusion. Therefore, I remain in my misery and hold her in honor. But my understanding, my understanding, it tells me this, indeed, it tells me this in order to insult me, for it certainly was not my wish that she should appear to be less than what she seemed, and neither for her sake nor my own could I wish to be saved in this manner, that is to become the butt of ridicule.

I think that with the etc.s Quidam is here raising innocence above exerience. But this passage is also extremely dense, or I am, because I find it very difficult to follow. I think that here Quidam believes he is helping her attain a certain degree of worldly wisdom that he himself scorns, but then realizes that all these reflections are a house of cards without factual information. He seems skeptical about the true value of his reflections - or at least his motivation - as he realizes also that even what he gains in understanding is used by himself, or some aspect of himself, for tormenting himself ('my understanding ... insult me'). The last sentence is quite beyond me, except perhaps that he estimates the price of experience as too high.

In the last paragraph Quidam claims that however much he'd been aware of his situation, there was no way of knowing the torment he was about to undergo. I wonder what reaction he had in mind for her, after dismissing the commonsensical as kind of worldly naivete, anger as terrible, and amusingly as revolting.

But there is nothing, nothing at all, that can help me with a little information, I impatiently and to no avail throw myself from one side to the other; when one is stretched on the torture rack, it pains all over. She can despise me - good God, that is what I want, that is what I am working for, and yet I shudder at the thought of such lifelong martyrdom. Whether I shall be able to stick it out, whether I shall not utterly despair, I do not know; but I do know, and the power knows who by his very nature shares the most hidden thoughts, he knows that I pulled the cord of the shower bath. Whether it will crush me I do not know. - She can prepare her soul for patience, can take the veil of sorrow with an unscathed conscience - what can I do? Where shall I hide from myself, where is the resting place where the wary one can gather new strength, where is the bed on which I can slumber quietly and recuperate? In the grave? No, Scripture is not true when it says that there is no recollection in the grave, for I shall recollect her. In eternity? Is there time to sleep? In eternity! In what way shall I see her again? Will she come toward me accusingly and condemningly? How terrible! Or will she perhaps have passed the whole thing off as if it were a childish prank? How revolting! And yet not revolting but something worse, for was not her becoming such a one perhaps due to my silence. And I, who feared precisely that a word from me might make her a chatterbox and set her mind at rest in gossip!