A Mr. Ludwig Lenzlich was a teacher and tutor in a mental hospital
for psychopathic children. He was always called "Mr. A.B.D." He was
beardless, like an actor, and he spoke like one. Generally he wore a
severe, sharp mask on his face.
This Mr. Lenzlicht, two days after the burial of the pupil Martin
Mueller (who had hanged himself with the stockings of the teacher
Nora Neumann on the window bolt of a skylight), found in a dark
corner of his desk a notebook. He took it out and looked at it. On
the label was written: This work Martin Mueller dedcates to the new
primitives. On the first page was written: Dear Lenzlicht, you are
the only one of the imbeciles in the institution whom I believe
capable of half-way understanding the observations which I have
written down here. But reading this will demonstrate to you that you
also, poor blind man, came into only glancing contact with my
personality, as if it were some empty face, without feeling its
powerful sensibility. Perhaps you will get an inkling (then you
could call yourself lucky). I shall kill myself on the top-hung
window, alone in the realization. My work will endure. Martin
Mueller.
Mr. Lenzlicht was surprised when he read the sentences. Then he
thought about the dimensions of childrens' imaginations. He was
neither happy nor sad, but he seemed dark. Thinking was for him no
passion, therefore he soon continued reading.
On the next page some essays were written about the value of art,
about its future, about the interrelationship of individual arts,
about the architecture of literary style, about the new primitives
who, according to Mueller, would bring about a victorious revolution
in the life of art. The essays almost filled the notebook. Mr.
Lenzlicht read it without taking an active interest, and he often
skipped pages.
The last essay in the notebook seemed to interest him more. His eyes
widened, and they fastened themselves to the letters. He held the
paper like someone who was near-sighted, and with both hands.
Sometimes he said something vague. Or he laughed without knowing it.
Or he laughed, (the way someone would say "damn"). Or he let his
tongue hang out of his mouth. In the notebook was written:
I sit at the desk and dream, which would seem suspicious to the good
Lenzlicht: The young should not dream. Lenzlicht has already noticed
that the skin around my eyes has become ashen. He often asks, with
special emphasis, whether I slept badly saying that I look so funny.
Once I became angry, and said: "You too, Mr. Candidate." Smiling
embarassedly, he beat me until I bled.
I had to interrupt my writing, because Miss Neumann had come in.
Today she has colored legs with patent-leather shoes--I find that
exciting. I had promised myself to watch her no longer... lately she
shown herself to be such a prude... in the afternoon she went into
the city. She came back late. I met her on the staircase. But she
broke away and said, excitedly, "Go to bed." And she went into her
room. In the following days I did not see her. The servant Hermann
said she must be taking care of her room. I asked why. He said she
had become engaged. He smirked.
For me the erotic discussions had gradually become detestable. I
always try to free myself. I am seldom successful. I know that an
understanding woman might free me. This one wouldn't: Miss Neumann
is a silly young thing, eighteen years old. The cook is an immature
bitch.
The housemaid Minna is arrogant; she is unapprochable, unjustifiably.
Perhaps the head of the institution, Dr. Mondmilch, is a possibility,
but when I try to make my valleys and peaks comprehensible to her,
looking with longing into her eyes, give myself to her--she is
distant, takes notes, has secret talks with Lenzlicht, prescribes
tranquilizers. She is very brutal, I sometimes believe that she
loves me secretly. She seems to be unhappy; I like her.-Yesterday I
had to interrupt my writing, because the fat idiot Backberg called me
to the table. I sit next to the Russian Recha. She likes to pinch
my leg; she says I'm too fat. She kisses tall Lehkind, because he
looks like a skeleton. Anyway, I can't stand the vermin that have
been assembled here. There's trouble every day. In particular, the
very small seven-year old Max Mechenmal--an unusually insignificant
person--causes me unusual trouble. He does not like me, because he
is conscious of my superiority. He tries in every way to make me
look ridiculous. He is deceitful and cowardly. No one finds him
nice. He likes nothing better than to provoke us against each other,
to spread angry gossip, and to do as much damage as possible. He
knows how to stay in the background, to disappear at the right moment.
-Once I was writing, suspecting nothing bad, in our spacious bath and
w.c. (here I was safe from surprises) a longer work on the "Hoax of
Genius". I explained that genius is a title, not a quality. That
fact is often overlooked, and engenders great confusion. The name is
accidental, generally suspicious. Whoever is called a genius is
therefore not a brilliant person. Brilliant people usually do not
attain the title, which is awarded by the crowd. The most brilliant
people of all time flowered in madhouses and prisons. Someone who is
understood by thousands of
every-day people, is loved... is worthless to me.-At that point I was
startled by the slow, soulful screams of blind little Kohn, with whom
I had established a friendship, in spite of my anti-semitic
principles. I leaped up, hurried out. I saw how Max Mechenmal was
running back and forth, pinching Kohn in the legs or doing other
nasty things, while calling out: "Catch me." The little Kohn was
pale. In his helplessness. He pressed his back against a wall. His
thin, suffering hands groped in the air... I have never seen such
concentrated pain as lay in the dead eyes of little Kohn. Without
giving myself time to put my clothes in order, I hurried to Mechenmal,
to beat him for his brutal behavior. My trousers were damaged by a
nail which was sticking out of the wall. Mechenmal used the delay to
slip by me, run into the w.c., which he locked behind him. I beat on
the door. He said: "Occupied!" I was very angry. It occured to me
that in my haste I had forgotten to take with me the paper on which
the work on the hoax of genius was written. I called to him to pass
it out. He did not answer. Later I heard how loudly he giggled.
And I knew: I would never see the manuscript which I had intended to
send to the new newspaper, "The Other A." Sadly I went away-Ah,
little Kohn unfortunately is now dead. He has died of his ghosts, as
he had often predicted to me. The blind little Kohn had seen his
ghosts. Sometimes in stark daylight. At such times he was found
trembling, pale, in a corner. He had drawn up his legs so far that
his thigh was pressed against his sunken chest. His head lay between
his knees. The tiny, frightened fingers clutched the tops of his
shoes. If someone touched him, he shrieked. The shriek was so
piercingly frightening that one instinctively let him go, as though
one had been shoved. Each time it happened one was as as helpless as
the first time. Doctor Mondmilch was called. She stroked him a bit.
His rigidity dissolved in sobs. He received drops, was put to bed,
slept badly. Mechenmal called out, so that it echoed in the street,
"Kohn is mad again."
Towards the end, the attacks had become more frequent, especially at
night. His fainting attacks lasted longer, and the exhaustion that
followed was disheartening. One evening, when Doctor Mondmilch had
accepted an invitation of the veterinarian and neurologist Dr. Bruno
Bibelbauer, and had gone away for an extended time, the catastrophe
happened. Little Kohn lay in bed, nearly dead. Mechenmal said: "Now,
at least, he will no longer disturb anyone who he wants to sleep."
The fat idiot Backberg had a good time at the burial. The cook
howled; so did the housemaid Minna. Nora Neumann shut herself up in
a room; I think she wrote poetry. The Russian Recha disappeared;
Lenzlich later found her in the dead man's room. She sat on the bed,
held Kohn's hand ecstatically to her heart, and moved the lid of his
right eye back and forth with her right hand. I heard how she cried
and said: that was so interesting. Lenzlicht complained wistfully.
Mechenmal still says, when he speaks about little Kohn, "he was
certainly crazy." I disagree. Every person who is not stupid has
experiences now and then that cannot be brought into harmony with
traditional visions available to everyone. Sometimes one is more
sensitive than at other times and than other people. When one is
alone, familiar things are more peaceful... perhaps, in the evening,
when the lamp is half-lit... in the twilight, in lonely rooms... on
nights which bring no sleep. At those times sounds arise from the
stillness which I have never heard, which I cannot explain. I am
startled, alarmed, want, in this burning enlightenment to be with
many happy people--do not want to hear... hear more finely.
Stillness is shattered. Everything yawns and has sound. Objects
begin to move. Evil shadows generate fear. All forms lose their
familiarity. I wait for... a horrible, incorporeal wonder.
I am a firm enemy of ghosts and specters and such things. I find
these appearances are not sensible or funny; I want to have nothing
to do with them. And yet I could prevent the fact that, shortly
before noon, the form of an ancient woman, with austere facial
features, appeared to me. I was unpleasantly moved by it. Even more
so, when it later occurred to me that it had possibly been my mother.
It is not less unreasonable to deny ghosts than it is unreasonable to
acknowledge wonders. If ghosts were an everyday occurrence,
philosophers would construct natural laws, by means of which one
could derive them. And without fuss overlook them.
I shall avoid further musing on these confusing things, by taking my
life. People will be shocked. Deny me the right to have control
over myself. They will offer the explanation that I was at the
breaking point. Supplying medical reasons. To calm themselves down;
for if everyone thought so, then there would soon be a universal
protest against living. Life would be boycotted. That must not
happen. If you ask: why not?--you will be condemned as a sophist.
People don't like to die; the term is called life-energy. They have
recourse to Gods and a more cheerful outlook on life. If misery
becomes too severe, you can always go to a better insane asylum.
I decided to free myself from myself a long time ago. The most
important motive for the action was: I really don't like myself. I
happen to be unable to bear the idea of living with myself for an
entire life. I have often complained that I cannot get rid of myself.
I feel myself as a terrible burden. I would like to be in a
courageous, honorable, pure young man. My person is untrue,
unaesthetic, clumsy. I know that death will destroy me entirely; the
thought for me is the cause for keen despair; I can't bear this
thought for long. I have lost the ability to breathe. I feel as
though a monster is pressing me from within. My brain's activity
seems to have stopped. My hands are clenched in animal fear. I weep
dry tears. The institution of death is probably not fitting for many
men; one should be able to find means and ways to circumvent death.
But dying is a trifle. The man who is preparing for death must not
think of death.