Lenz Read online

  Since Mr. K. . .’s visit, Mr. L. . . was no longer lodged in the schoolhouse but rather at our home, in the room above the children’s room. For most of the day he stayed in my study and kept busy sketching and painting views of Switzerland, leafing through and perusing the Bible, writing sermons, and conversing with my wife.

  On February 5th I returned from my journey; he was, as I mentioned above, initially dismayed by this and very much regretted that I had not gone to Switzerland. I told him how the honorable Pfeffel considered country clergymen to be a happy lot and how he thought their occupation worthy of admiration because it so thoroughly stimulated good works towards one’s neighbor. This made an impression on him. I took advantage of this moment to admonish him to comply with the wishes of his father, to reach a reconciliation with him, etc.

  Given that I had on several occasions observed that his heart was tormented by terrible unrest, I said to him that he would not find peace until he did this, for God knew how to underscore his commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” etc.

  Whatever I said was mostly in response to the fragmentary, often virtually unintelligible words that issued forth from the great oppression of his heart. I observed that he shuddered at the memory of sins, unknown to me, he had committed, and doubted could possibly be forgiven; I offered a reply to this; he raised his downcast face, gazed heavenwards, wrung his hands, and said “Ah! Ah! Divine consolation — ah — divine —O — I pray — I pray heartily.” I said to myself with considerable certainty that he was now acknowledging and praising the rule of the Lord, which had so swiftly guided me to provide him with consolation.

  I moved about the room, unpacked, set things in order, turned to him. He said with a friendly expression on his face: “Dear Reverend, could you be so kind as to tell me how she is faring, this lady whose fate weighs upon my heart like a hundred-weight?” I told him I knew nothing about all this, I was willing to do everything in my power to help him achieve some true peace, but he had to specify the place and the individuals. He did not answer, he stood there in the most wretched state, uttering broken words: “Ah, is she dead? Is she still alive? — The angel, she loved me — I loved her, she was worthy of it — O, the angel! — Damned jealousy! I sacrificed her — she was still in love with somebody else — but she loved me — yes deeply — sacrificed — I had promised her marriage, afterwards abandoned — O, damned jealousy! O, dear mother! — she loved me as well — I am the murderer of both of you!”

  I answered as best I could; among other things I told him that perhaps all these people were still alive and perhaps happy; be this as it may, God would, if he just turned to him, do these people so much good through his prayers and tears that the benefit they gained from him would perhaps far outweigh the injury he had inflicted. — This quieted him down by and by and he returned to his painting.

  In Emmendingen Mr. C. had given me some bundles of switches wrapped in paper, together with a letter for him. At one point he came to me; on his left shoulder he had a scrap of fur, of the sort I often place on my lap when I can no longer endure the cold. In his hand he held the still unwrapped bundle of switches; he gave it to me with the request that I should beat him with it. I took the switches out of his hands, pressed a few kisses on his lips and said: these were the blows I intended for him, he should remain calm, work things out with God on his own; no amount of blows could eradicate a single one of his sins, Jesus had seen to that, he should turn to him. He left.

  At supper he was somewhat pensive. Yet we spoke of all sorts of things. Pleased with each other, we finally went to bed. — Around midnight I suddenly awoke; he was running around the courtyard, shouting out in a harsh hollow voice a number of syllables which I did not understand; having in the meantime discovered that the name of his beloved was Friedericke,* it strikes me that this was the name he was speaking with great rapidity, confusion and despair. He threw himself, as usual, into the basin of the fountain, splashed around, then got out and went up to his room, then back down into the fountain, and so on several times — at last he grew quiet. My maids, who slept in the children’s room below him, said they had often heard, especially that very night, a deep humming noise that they could only compare to the sound of a demon. Perhaps it was him moaning in his hollow, ghastly, desperate voice.

  * That this Friedericke was the daughter of the pastor from Sesenheim emerges from Lenz’s letter to Salzmann.

  Friday the 6th, the day after my return, I had decided to ride over to Rothau to see reverend Schweighaüser. My wife went with me. She had already left and I was just about to set off as well. But what a moment! There was a knock on my door, and Mr. L. entered, body bent over, head hanging down, ashes scattered all over his face and clothing, his right hand clutching at his left arm. He asked me to tug at his arm, he had dislocated it, he had thrown himself out of the window; because no one saw him he did not want to tell anyone.

  I did what he had asked me and immediately wrote to Sebastian Scheidecker, the schoolmaster from Bellefosse, requesting he come down and watch over Mr. L. I rushed off. Sebastian came and carried out his errand superbly, he made as if he had dropped by to chat with us, told him that if it were not an imposition or a distraction he would like to enjoy his company for a few hours. Mr. L. was quite delighted by this, and suggested a stroll to Fouday — why not? He visited the grave of the child he had tried to awaken, knelt down several times, kissed the earth of the grave, seemed to be praying, although in considerable disarray, tore something from the wreath placed on the grave as a memento, set back off toward Waldersbach, turned back again, Sebastian always by his side. Mr. L. in the end wanted to ascertain the intentions of his companion; he sought ways to get rid of him. Sebastian appeared to give in to him, but found a secret way to alert his brother of the danger, and now Mr. L. had two guardians instead of one. He led them this way and that, finally returned in the direction of Waldersbach; but as they approached the village, he wheeled around like a flash and, notwithstanding his wounded foot, bolted back toward Fouday like a stag. Sebastian came to us to report all the foregoing, and his brother set off after the invalid. While he was looking for him in Fouday, two shopkeepers approached him and told him that a stranger had been tied up in a house who claimed to be a murderer and who wanted to give himself up to the authorities though he certainly couldn’t be one. Martin hurried over to the house and discovered this was so; at his violent insistence, a young man had tied him up out of fright. Martin untied him and successfully brought him back to Waldersbach. He looked bewildered; but when he realized I was taking him back in with love and affection, his spirits rose, his face brightened, he thanked his two escorts kindly and courteously, and the evening passed quietly.

  I implored him not to go bathing anymore, to remain quietly in his bed at night and when he could not sleep, to converse with God, etc. He promised and in fact did so the following night; our maids heard him praying almost the whole night through.

  The following Saturday the 7th he came into my room with a contented look on his face. I was hoping we would soon be done with our mutual torment; but the result alas proved to be quite different.

  After we had spoken of this and that, he said to me in an exceptionally friendly fashion: “My dearest reverend, the lady of whom I spoke to you has died, yes died — O, the angel!” How did you find this out? “Hieroglyphs — Hieroglyphs!” — and then cast his eyes heavenwards and again: “Yes — dead — hieroglyphs!” — He wrote a few letters, then handed them over to me, requesting that I add a few lines of my own to them.

  I had to work on a sermon and in the meantime slipped the letters into my pocket. In one of them addressed to a noble woman in W., he seemed to compare himself to Abaddon; he spoke of taking his leave. — The letter was incomprehensible to me, also I only had a moment to glance over it before I sent them on. In the other one to the mother of his beloved he said to her that he could at this point only inform her that her Friedericke was now an angel and that she
would find satisfaction.

  The day passed pleasantly and without incident. Toward evening I was called to Bellefosse to see a patient. As I was returning, I encountered Mr. L. . . . The weather was mild and the moon was out. I asked him not to stray too far and to go easy on his foot. This he promised.

  I was now in my room and was considering sending someone after him when I heard him climbing the stairs to his room. A moment later something crashed into the courtyard with such a loud thud that I could not conceive it could have been made by a person falling. The nursemaid, deathly pale and trembling all over, went to my wife: Mr. L. had thrown himself out of the window. My wife called out to me in a distraught voice — I rushed out, but Mr. L. was already back in his room.

  I had only a moment’s opportunity to say to one of the maids: “Vite, chez l’homme juré, qu’il me donne deux hommes,” and went up to Mr. Lenz’s room.

  I led him with friendly words to my room; his whole body was shivering with cold. On his upper body he was wearing nothing but a torn shirt which like his underclothes was completely filthy. We warmed up a shirt and sleeping gown for him and dried out his. We discovered that during the short time that he was outside he must have tried to drown himself again, but God had again watched over him. All his clothes were completely soaked.

  Now, I thought, you have deceived me enough, now you too must be deceived, things have gone on long enough now, now you must be watched. I waited with great impatience for the two men I had requested. Meanwhile I had continued writing my sermon and had had Mr. L. . . sit by the oven, a step away from me. I did not trust him for a single minute, I just had to wait. My wife, who was worried for me, also remained there. I would have wanted to send for the men I had requested once again, but there was no way I could mention this to my wife or anybody else; had I spoken of this aloud, he would have understood; nor did we want to be surreptitious about it because the slightest hint of suspicion makes an altogether too powerful impression on such people. At 8:30 we went down to eat; little was said, as usual; my wife was trembling with fright and Mr. L. . . with cold and confusion.

  After we had been sitting there barely a quarter of an hour he asked me whether he could go back up to his room. — What do you want to do there, my dear friend? — some reading — go in God’s name; — he left, and I, pretending I had eaten my fill, followed him.

  We sat together; I wrote, he leafed through my French Bible at a frantic pace, and finally grew calm. I went to my study for a moment without lingering there at all, just to get something from my desk. My wife meanwhile stood by the door of the room and watched Mr. L.; I was about to leave my study when my wife screamed out in a ghastly, hollow, broken voice: “Lord Jesus, he’s going to stab himself!” In my entire life I have never seen an expression of deadly, distraught panic that could compare to the bewildered and horridly contorted face of my wife at that moment.

  I stood outside his door. — What are you up to again, my friend? — He put down the scissors. — He had been peering this way and that with his horrid stare and seeing nobody around in his disarray, had seized the scissors and had placed them against his heart clenched tightly in his fist, all of this so quickly that only God could have delayed the blow until my wife’s scream startled him and brought him somewhat back to his senses. After a few moments, I took the scissors from him as if distracted and paying no heed to him; and when he courteously attempted to reassure me that he had not intended to kill himself with them, I did not want to pretend that I barely believed him.

  Because all previous arguments against his suicidal obsession had proved fruitless, I tried another approach: you were a complete stranger to us, we knew absolutely nothing of you; we had only heard your name a few times before making your acquaintance; we took you in with love, my wife tended to your wounded foot with such great patience and you pay us back with so much harm, driving us from one fright to another. — He was moved, he sprang to his feet, wanted to ask my wife for forgiveness; but she was still so frightened of him that she rushed out the door; he wanted to follow after her, but she held the door shut. — He began moaning and groaning that he had murdered my wife and the child she was carrying; wherever he went he murdered everything in sight. — No, my friend, my wife is still alive and God can certainly mend the harmful aftereffects of fright, nor would her child die of them or suffer any damage. — He calmed down again. It was soon ten o’clock. Meanwhile my wife had sent for urgent help from the neighbors. People were in bed; but the schoolmaster turned up, pretended as if he had something to ask me, filled me in on local happenings, and Mr. L., who had in the meantime regained his spirits, also participated in the conversation, as if absolutely nothing were.

  At long last I received news that the two men that had been sent for had arrived — O how happy I was! It was high time, Mr. L. in fact was just asking to go to bed. I said to him: “My dear friend, we all love you as you fully realize, and you love us, as we also fully realize. If you committed suicide it would only worsen your condition, not improve it; it is therefore incumbent on us to insure your survival. But when you are overcome with melancholy, you are no longer your own master; I have therefore asked two men to sleep (to stay awake, I thought to myself) in your room in order to provide you with company or, if necessary, help. He readily agreed.

  One should not be surprised that I spoke and dealt with him in this fashion; he always displayed considerable understanding and an exceptionally sympathetic heart; when his fits of melancholy had passed, everything seemed so stable and he himself was so amiable that one almost felt guilty about suspecting him or troubling him. Add to this the most tender empathy that we as frequent witnesses had felt for his immeasurable torment. For what he was experiencing was indeed horrible and hellish, and it pierced and broke my heart when I felt compelled to empathize, as far as he was concerned, with the consequences of those principles expounded by much of the fashionable literature of our day, with the consequences of his disobedience to his father, his erratic way of life, his aimless occupations, his excessive frequenting of the fairer sex. I was horrified and I underwent a particular form of torture, never before experienced by me, when he went down on his knees, his hand in mine, his head leaning on my knees, his pale cold sweaty face buried in my sleeping gown, his whole body trembling and shivering, not exactly confessing, but unable to hold back the outpouring of his tormented conscience or frustrated longing. — The more difficult it became to calm him down the more pitiable he grew to me, for the principles we respectively observed were diametrically opposed, or at least appeared to differ.

  Now back to the facts: I have mentioned that he agreed to have two men in his room. I accompanied him back in. One of his guards shot him a terrified glance. In order to allay the latter’s fears, in the presence of the two guards I told Mr. Lenz in French what I had previously told him in my room, namely that I loved him dearly, as he did me; that I desired his survival and hoped that he himself realized that his fits of melancholy left him nearly powerless over himself, I had therefore asked these two citizens to sleep with him in order to provide him company or, if necessary, help. I concluded with a few kisses which I pressed on the young man’s mouth with my entire heart, and made my way to bed, limbs quivering with exhaustion.

  When he had gotten into bed, he said to his guards among other things: “Ecoutez, nous ne voulons point faire de bruit, si vous avez un couteau, donnez-le moi tranquillement et sans rien craindre.” After making this request repeatedly and receiving no response, he began banging his head against the wall. In our sleep we at several points heard a thumping noise that seemed to keep starting and stopping and that finally woke us up. We thought it was up in the attic but we could not figure out the cause. — The clock struck three and the thumping continued on; we rang for a light; our people were all deep in horrible dreams and had difficulty rousing themselves. Finally we discovered that the thumping was coming from Mr. L. and in part from his guards who, because they were not allowed to let hi
m out of their hands, were stamping on the floor to call for help. I rushed into his room. As soon as he saw me, he stopped trying to wrestle free from his guards’ hands. The guards then also released their holds. I motioned to them to set him free, sat down on his bed, chatted with him, and he having requested to pray, I prayed with him. He was still a bit jumpy, and at one point he smashed his head against the wall with great violence, the guards sprang into action and again restrained him.

  I left and called for a third guard. When Mr. L. saw the third one, he jeered at them, saying that all three of them wouldn’t be strong enough for him.

  I secretly ordered my coach to be made ready, to be covered, to have two extra horses brought over in addition to mine, and sent for Seb. Scheidecker, the schoolmaster of Bellefosse and Johan David Bohy, the schoolmaster of Solb, two sensible, determined men, both of whom Mr. L. quite liked. Johan Georg Claude, the churchwarden of Waldersbach also came; the house was all astir even though day had not yet broken. Mr. L. sensed something afoot, and just as he had previously been so cunning or so violent in his attempts to get free, to smash his head apart, to acquire a knife, now he was suddenly so quiet.

  After I had arranged everything, I went to Mr. L., told him that in order for him to receive better care in accordance with his condition I had asked several men to accompany him to Strasbourg and that my coach was now at his service.

  He was lying there calmly, with only a single guard sitting by his side. Hearing my proposition, he moaned and groaned, begged me to have patience with him for only nine more days (seeing him one felt like crying). — But he said he wanted to think it over. A quarter of an hour later, he let it be known: Yes, he wanted to leave, stood up, got dressed, was most reasonable, packed his things up, thanked everyone individually in the sweetest fashion, even his guards, sought out my wife and maids who had hidden themselves away from him and had kept quiet because shortly before this, whenever he heard a woman’s voice or thought he had heard one, he would fly into a rage. Now he asked to see everybody, thanked everybody, asked forgiveness of everybody, in short, took leave of everybody in such a moving fashion that all eyes were bathed with tears.