Pasternak, "Heinrich von Kleist" (part 2)

The conclusion to an essay by this Russian poet on this German man of letters.  You can read the original in this omnibus.

The consequences of Goethe's mysterious and secret dislike for Kleist extended throughout the latter's life.  Attempts to clarify the matter only exacerbated the enmity.  Kleist did not know that it was to the tactlessness of intriguers that he owed his notoriety to Goethe, who was like a sacred object to him, who could have brought him happiness, and to whom he must have seemed like a foolish copy of Werther.  In 1809 Goethe wrote a man of letters the following about Kleist: "I am right to reproach Kleist because I loved and ennobled him.  But either his development has been delayed by time, as one may notice in many nowadays, or for some other reason he has not justified his potential.  Hypochondria is killing him as both a person and a poet.  You know full well how much effort I exerted so that his Broken Jug would be performed in our theaters.  And if nevertheless he did not succeed, we may attribute this to the fact that a talented and witty scheme may be lacking in naturally developing action.  But to impute his failure to me and even, as has been proposed, to consider issuing me a challenge – this is, as Schiller says, evidence of the severe distortion of nature, excusable only by an extreme irritability of the nerves or by an illness."

Kleist's life assumed a certain quality during the time of his return from Switzerland: he was recognized and acknowledged.  Beside his innate timidity, his proud and secretive nature, arose the lack of freedom of a person noticed by his century.  This gave his unhappiness legitimacy.

He tried to establish himself somewhere, first in Königsberg then later in Dresden.  Constantly distinguishing himself in his methods, he wrote some remarkable and striking works, like his brilliant stories, The Earthquake in Chile, The Marquise of O., the aforementioned Michael Kohlhaas, and others.  As if possessed by some kind of demon he fled from the favors of any fate, woman, work, or safe haven, and the wartime chaos aided him in his mobility.  These aimless meanderings were sometimes complicated by the interference of the police.

Such was the case, for example, during his second trip to Paris when, in a frenzy, he burned his Guiscard and quarreled violently with von Phull, the future general and his friend, whom he obliged to race among the morgues of Paris the whole next day in search of his body.  Such was the case on the French coast as the army was preparing itself for disembarkation to England.  Kleist believed that it was the fate of the troops to be buried at the bottom of the ocean.  They found Kleist in Saint-Omer where he had gone to enlist as a volunteer.  Here he was arrested on suspicions of espionage; only thanks to the efforts of the Prussian emissary Lucchesini did he avoid getting shot.  Instead, he was sent back to his homeland.  In 1807, on exactly the same suspicions, he was deported from French-occupied Berlin to the French Fort de Joux, the place of the recent captivity and death of the black consul Toussaint Louverture.  This circumstance informed Kleist's fearful tale, The Engagement in Santo Domingo.          

The years which we have covered in this brief overview were a turning point for Kleist's moral structure.  He had once been ruled by fibs and fictions; his delusions had triumphed over facts.  But now this would all change.  In 1806 Prussia lost the battle of Jena-Auerstedt.  Every facet of life fell into disarray; devastation set in.  Kleist stopped receiving the financial support earmarked for him by Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.   Before him hovered the spectre of indigence.

The assumption that politics would always trump life seemed merely like the unspoken exaggeration of publicists; yet in the years of a century's upheavals it is true.  When, in 1808, Spain rose up against the French dominion, this affected countless other corners of the world.

Kleist was then in Dresden.  He nurtured personal enmity towards Napoleon of the kind he had only experienced towards Goethe.  The events in Spain animated and inspired him.  With his usual prolificness Kleist wrote, in a little more than a year, three five-act dramas: Penthesilea, based on themes from Greek mythology; The Trial by Fire, a dramatic fairy tale about German knights in the Middle Ages; and The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, a patriotic drama glorifying medieval German warfare.  But what was Kleist supposed to feel when in the spring of 1809 one of the German states, Austria, following Spain's example, emerged from its thrall to its conqueror?  Kleist rejoiced and, abandoning his affairs and job, sought to enlist in active duty in the Austrian army.  In a camp near Aspern some acquaintances of his, as well as unpleasantries experienced twice before, awaited him.  He seemed suspicious.  With some difficulty he wriggled his way out of this confrontation and left to Prague.  It was here that he learned of the catastrophe at the Battle of Wagram – a blow from which he would never recover.

In order for the last chapter of his life to stand out more prominently, no further information on Kleist will be provided at this time.  Some are convinced that during these months he was preparing an assassination attempt on Napoleon; rumors spread about his demise; and this is precisely when he arrived in Berlin.

He came in coldest winter.  He was no longer the odd crank of before, who even in good times saw everything in the blackest of hues, but a level-headed warrior against the true iniquities of fate.  In cold and desolation, regardless of what means it required, he would develop a reality that now seems incredible.   He wrote The Prince of Homburg, his very best work, an historical drama realistic in its performance, concise, witty, flowing and well-paced, a mix of the fire of lyric poetry and a clear sequence of events.  He took the reins of an evening paper for which he would compose an endless amount of small articles and stories over a period of several months.  Only a negligible part of these writings has been identified amidst the pile of anonymous material in which it appeared.  He finished a novel in two books that vanished without a trace in a Berlin print shop, and prepared for publication the second volume of his peerless stories.

All this time his destiny did not abate.  Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, his protectoress, died.  The ministry that had been so lenient to him and his newspaper was replaced.  The new cabinet began imposing limitations on the paper, devaluing the business enterprise itself, which finally collapsed.  Kleist ended up in debt.  The Prince of Homburg did not get published.  The stories already in print no longer interested anyone.  Then in February of that terrible winter of 1811 for which no end seemed in sight, Kleist remembered his first distraction, his first conscious steps towards a calling, his childish game of playing soldier, penned a farewell to his illustrious name, and reenlisted in the army.  His request would soon be met, but it proved impossible to get him into uniform.  He beseeched the king anew to loan him money for equipment and awaited a reply.  Summer passed by and no answer had been received.  Autumn came with strong evidence of the return of that winter without end.

Kleist had a female acquaintance, the terminally ill musician Henriette Vogel.  One time when they were playing together as lovers might, she said that if she could find a partner she would like to part with this life.  "Why then did we even start all this?" said Kleist, and offered himself up as a companion on this treacherous road.

On November 20, 1811 they went out to the Wannsee near Berlin, a site for long strolls outside the city.  They took two hotel rooms by the lake and spent the evening and a part of the next day there.  All the morning through they strolled; after lunch they asked that a table be taken out to the dam on the same side of the creek.  From there two shots were heard at dusk.  One Kleist discharged into his girlfriend, the other he used to end his own life.

Had our interest in Kleist arisen recently it would have been an inexplicable anachronism.  Kleist began to be studied before the war.  In 1914 together with Sologub and Wolkenstein, I translated The Broken Jug.  The remaining translations of The Prince of Homburg, The Family Schroffenstein, and Robert Guiscard were completed between 1918 and 1919.

Getting to know Kleist's work was abetted by the publications in Vsemirnaya Literatura and Academia.  The first is prefaced by a marvelous article by Sorgenfrei; the second supplemented by interesting commentary by Berkovsky.  The translations of Kleist's stories by Rachinsky and Petnikov remain above any possible praise.

Pasternak, "Heinrich von Kleist" (part 1)

The first part to an essay by this Russian poet on this German man of letters.  You can read the original in this omnibus.

In my collection of translations the publishing house Sovetskii pisatel' decided to include a drama by Kleist; another publishing house put out his comedies.  And so here it behooves me to say a few words about him.

Heinrich von Kleist is one of the most interesting German writers of the past century.  The realm of his fame is not nearly as wide or as unquestionable as the world of Schiller, Goethe, or Heine, and for that reason he should not be compared to them.  Yet everything he has ever written brims with force and exceptionality, placing him in the first rank right after the abovementioned triptych. 

Kleist is distinguished by a level of materiality unusual in German literature, as well as by a restrained wealth of passionate, bright, and original language.  He bequeathed us eight dramas and just as many stories.  These are the sole existing expressions for his particular flights of human passion.  For example, one's instinct for justice in its blind embodiment. In Kleist we see when, under the influence of perceived offense and with a thirst for vengeance rising in one's throat, what would otherwise be a beneficial gift is transformed into a source of numerous evil deeds and crimes committed without accountability.  When we read about arson and murder in Kleist, crimes committed at the height of emotion and enragement, we cannot rid ourselves of the impression that Pushkin might have known Kleist when he wrote Dubrovsky.

In vain is Kleist clustered with the Romantics.  Despite their contemporaneity and his friendship with some of the more notable in the movement, between them lies a gaping abyss.  In contrast to the penchant for amateurishness of which all Romantics were proud, and the formless fragmentariness for which they strove, Kleist battled his whole life with being undereducated and irrelevant, qualities he had long since suspected in himself.  And although not everything created by him can be rightly deemed perfection, everything was infused with the sullen seriousness of a genius who knew in life neither peace nor satisfaction.

He was born on October 18, 1777 in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder.  Being a member of the old clan of Kleists meant that from the cradle he was destined for a military career.  At the age of fifteen he became a member of the rank and file guard; at eighteen he participated in the Rhine campaign against revolutionary France.  When he returned home his parents had already passed away.  He then served for two years in the Potsdam garrison.

A new period of his life began.  Napoleon, an omnipresent, magical, and, before long, hated name, became his inspiration and then his victim.  Amidst the daily changes to which the borders, mores, duties, and notions of these states were subjected, a new societal division assumed the form of a middle estate or stratum for whose sake a declaration of rights would feature articles about personal freedom, and which the Petersburg nihilists of the 1860s would call the intelligentsia.  Schiller spoke about the realm of aesthetic ideas; the nineteenth century was in the palm of his hand complete with its own future lexicon; the expression "the development of one's own I," which indicated an education in the humanities, came rather easily to Fichte; in this way Kleist was encircled in pedagogical fever.  As a result he enrolled as a student at the University of Frankfurt.

This decision lowered him in the eyes of his kin and forced him into lifelong justifications before the highest judgments of the old house of Kleist by the quay, a location of a future post office.  Kleist imagined that once he had taken the world by surprise and done something no one had ever done before, he would again rise in their estimation.  This pathologically intensified his self-esteem and imbued his works with both hyperbole and violence.  

A certain receptibility bordering on mediumism speckled his life with signs of everything in his environs.  In his works one detects traces of Schlegel's unfinished Shakespeare, the meanderings of time and its sensations.  He mined Schiller's The History of the Revolt of the Netherlands for a Germanized version in The Broken Jug, and the South American travels of Alexander von Humboldt for an exotic tale that would not involve cutting off an ear and calling it a national custom.  In those days Kant was not only the main event of the intellectual world, he was also the pride of Eastern Prussia.  An exposure to contemporary trends and ideas settled Kleist's choice on mathematics and moral philosophy. 

In order to cease the ordeal and approach a certain degree of solemnity vis-à-vis his relatives, Kleist decided from his initial foray as a student that he should prepare himself for a career as a professor; he even ordered a professorial chair from a joiner and proceeded to regurgitate what he had learned in a series of lectures to a modest number of ladies, wives from a circle of officers whom he knew.  The main visitors among them were Wilhelmine von Zenge and his half-sister Ulrika.  She was the envy of her gender and, in the manner of the cavalry-maiden, Nadezhda Durova, would walk around in breeches with a long hunting crop.  She understood her brother and would later become privy to his secrets, his companion when he traveled, and, to a certain degree, his sponsor whenever he became impecunious.

Kleist soon cooled to the theories of speculative reason and dropped out of university, at which point his relatives set him up with a job in one of the ministries.  He left for Berlin.  Soon people began getting alarming messages from him: something had happened to him which had driven him to deepest, then persistent melancholy.  This matter was never explained or named and has lent itself to widespread speculation among biographers.  In Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas, in a way a German Pugachev, one has to read pages and pages about child heroes so as to understand how influential Kleist's heredity was.  Yet another facet that would cost him dearly.  Kleist was temperamental, mistrustful and impatient.  Unexpectedness offended him and made him, having revolted against everything on earth, into an enemy of society.

In reply to his letters full of despair, grandiosity, and strange preteritions, Ulrika came to see him in Würzburg, where he had gone into hiding.  In order to calm him down, it was decided that he would be sent on a long trip abroad.  Ulrika accompanied him.

In 1803, after a long stay in Paris, Kleist ended up in Switzerland near Lake Thun.  Beyond his window loomed the Schreckhorn and the Finsteraarhorn.  Smoke rose towards the sky from the villages ensconced in the valley.  He was surrounded by winter Alpine beauty, pure lines, pure mores, and people who believed in him and who were devoted to literature.  Not long thereafter the gift of creativity awoke in him.  Until this point he had never even contemplated poetry.    

Here he gave his will over to his inspiration.  It poured out into three very different works: the first is The Schroffenstein Family, his rather feeble debut, a helpless and protracted tragedy replete with silliness; the second is Kleist's short comedy, The Broken Jug; and the third, the crown jewel of his efforts, Robert Guiscard, a fragment of a tragedy which occupied Kleist his whole life and which was destroyed in several published versions.

One of the Swiss acquaintances with whom he stayed, the Bernese publisher Gessner, put out The Schroffenstein Family without including Kleist's name.  In Der Freimutige, August von Kotzebue's publication which relentlessly sought out opportunities to spite Goethe, there appeared a eulogistic critique of the tragedy under the headline, "The Birth of a New Poet."

Nerval, "Aurélie"

A prose poem ("Aurelia") by this French writer, as the last part of "Sylvia," a section of this famous work.  You can read the original here.

Onward to Paris!  A five-hour drive by coach, but I was in no hurry provided I arrived by evening.  Around eight o'clock I was sitting at my habitual stall.  Aurelia was spreading her inspiration and charm in verse feebly inspired by Schiller, which one owed to a contemporary talent; in the garden scene, however, she became sublime.  During the fourth act, in which she did not appear, I went to buy a bouquet from Madame Prévost.  There I inserted a letter signed in a very tender hand: An unknown admirer.  And I said to myself: here is something concrete for me to think and dream about.  The next day I was on my way to Germany.

And what I did plan to do there?  Reorder my feelings, or at least attempt to do so.  Were I to write a novel, I would never be able to convince anyone of a story involving a heart seized simultaneously by two loves.  Sylvia was getting away from me, and it was my own fault; but seeing her again for one day was enough to elevate my soul anew: since that time it stood like a smiling statue in the temple of Athena.  Her look had halted me on the edge of the abyss.  I rejected now with greater energy the idea of going and introducing myself to Aurelia, which would involve a brief struggle with a horde of vulgar suitors who would shine in her presence and then crumble into pieces.  We will see each other, I told myself, if she so intends.

One morning I read in the newspaper that Aurelia was ill.  I wrote to her from the mountains of Salzburg.  The letter was so imbued with German mysticism that I could not reasonably expect from it any great success; at the same time, I did not ask for a reply.  I was counting somewhat on chance and on the unknown admirer.  

Months pass.  Through my travels and idleness I had attempted to pinpoint in a poetic action the love and passion of the painter Colonna for the beautiful Laura, whose parents made her a nun, and whom he would love until his death.  Something of this subject was related to my constant preoccupations.  The last verse of the drama now written, I dreamed of nothing more than returning to France.   And what could I say at this time that had not been said by the stories of so many others?  I passed through all those testing grounds that one calls theaters.  "I ate tambourines and drank cymbals," as the saying goes, stripped of its sense as apparent from the initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries.   It means doubtless that, when necessary, one must go past the limits of nonsense and absurdity; and reason for me meant conquering and concretizing my ideal. 

Aurelia had accepted the main role in the drama that I had brought back from Germany.  I will never forget the day when she permitted me to read her the play aloud.  The love scenes were prepared with her in mind.  I fully believe that I read them with conviction in my soul, but most of all with enthusiasm.  In the ensuing conversation, I revealed myself as the unknown admirer of those two letters.  She said to me: "You're quite mad; but come by and see me again.  I have never been able to find anyone who knew how to love me."

O woman, you seek love!  And I, then, seek ...?  

In the days that followed I wrote her the most tender and beautiful letters she could have ever possibly received.  I understood from her that they were filled with logic and reason.  At one point she was moved; she beckoned me over and admitted that it was difficult for her to sever an older attachment.  "If you truly love me for myself," she said, "then you will understand that I can belong to only one person." 

Two months later I received a letter ebullient in its emotions.  I made great haste to her place.  During this interval, as it were, someone had passed along a precious detail.  The handsome young man whom I had met one night had just come from serving in the Spahis. 

The following summer stops were made in Chantilly.  The theater troupe to which Aurelia was attached was giving a performance there.  Once in the region, the troupe was ordered by the director to remain there for three days.  I befriended this gallant fellow who used to play Dorante in the comedies of Marivaux.  For a while now he had been the young dramatic lead.  His latest success had been as the lover in the play in the vein of Schiller, where my binoculars betrayed him as rather wrinkled.  From up close he seemed younger and, having remained thin, he still made an impression in the provinces.  He had a certain passion.  I accompanied the troupe in the capacity of gentleman poet; I persuaded the director to add performances in Senlis and Dammartin.  He was initially leaning for Compiègne; but Aurelia shared my opinion. 

The next day while they were off to negotiate with venue owners and the local authorities, I rented out some horses and we took the route of the ponds of Commelles to go have lunch at the castle of Blanche de Castille.  Riding side-saddle with her blonde hair floating in the breeze, Aurelia crossed the forest like a queen of olden times, and the local peasants stood there dazzled.   Madame F. was the only one they had ever seen so imposing and yet so gracious in her greetings.  After lunch we descended into villages recalling those of Switzerland in which the water of the Nonette makes the sawmills move.  These vistas so dear to my memories did not cease to interest her.  I had planned to take Aurelia to the castle, near Orry-la-Ville, to the same green location where I had first espied Adrienne.  Yet no emotion appeared in her.  And so I told her everything; I spoke of the source of this love glimpsed every night, dreamt of later still, realized in her.  She listened to me seriously and then said: "You don't love me!  You're expecting me to tell you that an actress is like a nun; you're looking for drama, and here's everything except the dénouement, which eludes you.  Go now, I no longer believe you!"

These words were like lightning.  The bizarre urges which I had felt for so long, these dreams, these tears, these bouts of despair and of tenderness ... was all this not love?

But then where is this love?

Aurelia was on stage that evening in Senlis.  I thought I noticed that she had a weakness for the director – the wrinkled 'young' lead.  This man was of excellent character and had done her many favors.

And one day Aurelia told me: "Here is the one who loves me!"

Blok, "Навстречу вешнему расцвету"

For Alexandra on her birthday, a work ("To hail the coming vernal bloom") by this Russian poet.  You can read the original here.

To hail the coming vernal bloom,
How emerald these isles become!
And yet one song remains undone;
Eternal words, forgotten, loom.

My striving soul has been subdued,
Its crooked flight has frozen still;  
Some secret it could not distill, 
Some visions it could not construe. 

Now envy-ridden and distraught, 
It sees the melted snow agleam,
While rivers flow in strident stream,
And there will its new shores be sought.

Jiménez, "Nostalgia"

A work by this Spanish poet.  You can read the original here.

And so shall we approach the end,  
And softly clasp the joy achieved; 
Far from vain cares, on lonely bend,
Thoughts troubling faith and life's release.

Wet, yellow branches of willows torn
Will graze our brows; while sandy pearls
And vervain's brimming cups adorn
Our peaceful, lazy footprints' swirls. 

Your tender waist my arm shall round, 
Your head my shoulder shall embrace;
Your beauty, e'er by time unbound, 
An ideal evening's love shall grace.