Four Mystery Plays
GA 14
The Soul's Probation (Written 1911)
Scene 4
The same room as in Scene 1. Capesius and Strader.
Capesius (to Strader who is entering):
A hearty welcome to the friend whose tongue
With many a disputatious argument
Stoutly withstood me! 'Tis long time since
Thou crossed this threshold. Yet in earlier days
Thou wast my constant welcome visitor.
Strader:
Alas I have not had the time to spare;
My life hath undergone a curious change.
No longer do I plague my weary brain
With hopeless problems. Now I dedicate
The knowledge I have won to honest work,
Such as may serve-some useful end in life.
Capesius:
Thou meanest, thou hast given up thy quest?
Strader:
Say rather, that it hath abandoned me.
Capesius:
And what may be thy present labours' goal?
Strader:
There are no goals in life ordained for man
Which he may see and clearly understand.
It is a mighty engine by whose wheels
We are caught up and wearied, and cast out
Into the darkness when our strength is spent.
Capesius:
I knew thee in the days when eagerly
And undismayed thou didst set out to solve
The riddles of existence. I have learned
How thou didst see thy treasured knowledge sink
Into the bottomless abyss, and how
Thy soul, profoundly shaken, had to drain
The bitter cup of disappointed dreams.
But never for one moment did I think
That thou couldst drive the impulse from thy heart
Which had become so fully master there.
Strader:
Thou hast but to recall a certain day
On which a seeress by her truthful speech
Made clear to me the error of my ways.
I had no choice but to acknowledge then
That thought, however hard it toil and strive,
Can never reach the fountain: head of life.
For thought cannot do otherwise than err,
If it be so that highest wisdom's light
Can be revealed to that dark power of soul
Of which that woman showed herself possessed.
The rules of science cannot ever lead
To such a revelation; that is plain.
Had this been all, and had I only met
This one defeat whilst following my quest,
I do believe I could have brought myself
To start afresh by striving to unite
My methods with those other different ones.
But when I saw how some strange spirit cult—
Born of hallucinations as I deemed—
Impotence into creative strength could change,
Hope disappeared, and left me in despair.
Dost thou recall the artist, that young man
We both encountered whilst he was engrossed
Following the dubious course of spirit-ways
After such buffetings from fate I lived
For many weeks benumbed, to madness nigh
And when by nature's aid I was at last
Restored to sense, I made a firm resolve
To meddle with such seeking never more.
Long, long it was before I had regained
My body's health and 'twas a joyless time.
I made myself proficient in those things
That lead to business and to normal life.
So now I am a factory manager,
Where screws are made. This is the work I thank
For many hours in which I can forget
My bitter sufferings in a futile quest.
Capesius:
I must confess I scarce can recognize
My friend of former days; so different
Is now the guise in which he shows himself.
Beside those hours of which thou spak'st just now
Were there not others full of storm and stress,
In which the ancient conflicts were renewed
That urged thee forth from this benumbing life?
Strader:
I am not spared those hours in mine own soul
When impotence 'gainst impotence doth strive.
And fate hath not so willed it in my case
That rosy beams of hope should force their way
Into my heart, and leave assurance there
That this my present life is not an utter loss.
Renunciation is henceforth my goal.
Yet may the force which such a task requires
Endow me later on with faculty
To follow up my quest in other ways—
(Aside.)
If this terrestrial life repeats itself.
Capesius:
Thou spak'st,—if I indeed have heard aright,—
Of repetition of thy life on earth.
Then hast thou really won this fateful truth,
Found it on spirit-journeys, which to-day
Thou none the less condemnst as dubious?
Strader:
This was the third thing—thou hast spoken it
That finally did strengthen my resolve
To make a fresh beginning in my life.
I sought upon my sick-bed once for all
In comprehensive survey to embrace
The field of knowledge traversed by myself.
And this I did, ere seeking other aims.
I must have asked myself an hundred times
What we can learn from nature, and infer
From what we know at present of her laws.
I could not find a loophole for escape.
The repetition of our earthly life
Cannot and must not be denied by thought
That doth not wish to tear itself away
From all research hath found for ages past.
Capesius:
Could I have had one such experience
Then should I have been spared much bitter pain.
I sought through many a weary wakeful night
For liberating thoughts to set me free.
Strader:
And yet it was this spirit lightning-flash
Which robbed me of my last remaining powers.
The strongest impulse of my soul hath been
Ever to seek for evidence in life
Of what my thought hath forced on me as truth.
So it befell, as if by chance, that I
Wen in those days of misery should prove,
And by my own life testify the truth,
That cruel truth with all that it involves:
Which is, that all our sorrows and our joys
Are but results of what we really are.
Aye! this is often very hard to bear.
Capesius:
Incredible seems such experience.
What can there be to overshadow truth,
For which we search unwearying, and which
Unto our spirit firm assurance gives!
Strader:
For thee it may be so, but not for me.
Thou art acquainted with my curious life.
By chance it seemed my parents' plans were crossed,—
Their purpose was to make a monk of me;
And naught so hurt them, they have often said,
In all their life as my apostasy.
I bore all this, yea and much more besides;
Just as one bears the other things in life
So long as birth and death appear the bounds
Appointed for our earthly pilgrimage.
So too my later life and all the hopes
That came to naught, to me a picture seemed
That only by itself could be explained.
Would that the day had never dawned, on which
I altered those convictions that I held,
For—bear in mind—I have not yet confessed
The total burden laid on me by fate.
No child was I of those who would have made
A monk of me, but an adopted son
Chosen by them when but a few days old.
My own real parents I have never known,
But was a stranger in my very home.
Nor less estranged have I remained from all
That happened round me in my later life.
And now my thought compels me to look back
Unto those days of long ago, and see
How from the world I stole myself away.
For thought is linked with thought to make a chain:
A man to whom it hath been thus ordained
To be a stranger in the world, before
His consciousness had ever dawned in him,
This man hath willed this fate upon himself
Ere he could will as consequence of thought.
And since I stay that which I was at first,
I know without the shadow of a doubt
That all unknowing I am in the power
Of forces that control my destiny,
And that will not reveal themselves to me.
Do I need more to give me cruel proof
How many veils enshroud mine inmost self?
Without false thirst for knowledge, judge this now;
Hath my new truth revealed the light to me?
It hath, at any rate, brought certainty
That I in mine uncertainty must stay.
Thus it portrays to me my destiny
And like in its own way, is my reply,
Half anguish and half bitter mockery.
A fearful sense of horror on me grew.
Tortured by scorn I must confront my life;
And scoffing at the mockery of fate
I yielded to the darkness. Yet there stayed
One single thought which I could realize:
Do with me what thou wilt, thou life-machine;
I am not curious how thy cog-wheels work!
Capesius:
The man whom I have recognized in thee
In such condition cannot long remain
Bereft of Knowledge, even if he would.
Already I can see the days approach
When we shall both be other than we are.
The curtain falls, leaving them standing opposite one another
Viertes Bild
(Dasselbe Zimmer wie im ersten Bild. Capesius und Strader.)
Capesius (zu dem eintretenden Strader):
Mir Freuden grüße ich den Freund,
der mir in mancher heißen Redeschlacht
Recht wacker stand gehalten.
Ihr habt Euch lange nicht
In meinem Hause sehen lassen. –
Ihr habt es früher doch so gern besucht.
Strader:
Es fehlte mir an Zeit.
Mein Leben hat sich stark verändert.
Ich martre mein Gehirn nicht mehr
mit hoffnungslosen Denkgespinsten.
Ich hab’ das Wissen, das ich mir erwarb,
der echten Arbeit Dienst gewidmet,
die Nutzen stiften kann im Leben.
Capesius:
So habt Ihr denn verlassen Euren Forscherweg?
Strader:
Man könnt’ auch sagen,
ich sei von ihm verlassen worden.
Capesius:
Und welchem Ziele habt Ihr Euch denn zugewandt?
Strader:
Das Leben ist geeignet nicht,
dem Menschen Ziele anzuweisen,
die lichtvoll er durchschauen kann.
Ein Triebwerk ist es nur,
das uns in seine Räderläufe zieht – –,
und müde ins in Finsternis verwirft,
wenn unsrer Kräfte Maß erschöpft sich hat.
Capesius:
Ich habe Euch gekannt, als Ihr mit hohem Mut
euch kühn an Daseinsrätsel wagtet.
Erfahren hab’ ich auch,
wie Ihr errungne Wissensschätze
ins Bodenlose sinken saht,
und tief erschüttert eure Seele
den bittren Kelch enttäuschter Forscherträume trank.
Doch lag mir stets die Meinung ferne,
daß Ihr aus eurem Herzen reißen könntet
den Trieb, der Euch so ganz erfüllte.
Strader:
Gedenkt Ihr noch des Tages,
da eine Seherin durch ihrer Worte Wahrheit
mir klar des eignen Weges Irrtum wies?
Nicht konnt’ ich anders, als mir selbst gestehn,
daß alles Denkens Werk
des Lebens echte Quellen nirgends finden kann.
Es muß ja alles Denken irren,
wenn sich der höchsten Weisheit Licht
erschließen kann der Seelenkraft,
die jene Frau ihr eigen nannte.
Gewiß doch strebt vergebens strenge Wissenschaft
zu solcher Offenbarung.
Und wär’ es noch geblieben
bei dieser einen Niederlage meines Forscherwahns: ‒
ich glaube, daß vermocht ich hätte,
von vorne wieder anzufangen,
und meine eignen Wege
mit jenen andern Wegen zu verbinden.
Doch als ich sehen mußte,
wie eine sonderbare Geistesart,
die mir als Wahnwitz nur erscheint,
in Schaffenskraft die Ohnmacht wandelt: –
da schwand mir alle Hoffnung.
‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒
Gedenkt des jungen Malers Ihr,
den wir zusammen trafen
auf zweifelhaften Geisteswegen? –
Nach solchen Schicksalsschlägen
verlebt ich viele Wochen
mit dumpfem Sinn, dem Wahnsinn nah.
Und als Natur mich wieder zur Besinnung brachte,
da stand es mir auch felsenfest,
zu meiden alles weitre Suchen.
Um ganz gesund zu werden,
bedurft’ ich langer Zeit.
Ich habe sie recht freudelos verlebt.
Ich übte mich in solchen Dingen,
die mich zur Lebenspraxis führten.
So steh’ ich heute einer Werkstatt vor,
in der man Schrauben walzt.
Doch dank’ ich dieser Arbeit,
daß ich vergessen kann durch viele Stunden,
wie qualvoll war mein wesenloses Ringen.
Capesius:
Bekennen muß ich, daß ich kaum
den frühern Freund kann wiederfinden,
in dem, der heute mir sich zeigt. – ‒
Erlebt Ihr außer jenen Stunden,
von denen Ihr mir spracht,
nicht solche auch,
in welchen alte Stürme sich erneuern,
die Euch aus diesem dumpfen Leben drängen?
Strader:
Es sind mir nicht erspart die Stunden,
in welchen Ohnmacht nur mit Ohnmacht
in meiner Seele kämpfen will.
Doch hat mein Schicksal nicht gewollt,
daß neue Hoffnungsstrahlen
für dieses ganz verlorne Leben
ins Herz mir dringen können.
Entsagung will ich mir erringen;
Die Kraft, die jetzt sie fordert,
Sie möge mir Begabung bringen,
den Forschungsweg in andrer Art zu wandeln,
‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒
wenn dieser Erdenlauf sich wiederholen sollt’.
Capesius:
Ihr spracht –, o hab ich recht gehört,
von Wiederholung Eures Erdenlaufs.
So habt Ihr doch gewonnen
die schicksalsschwere Wahrheit
auf jenen Geistesbahnen,
die Ihr auch heute noch
als zweifelhaft nur gelten lassen wollt?
Strader:
Ihr selbst habt so das dritte aufgefunden,
daß mich bestärkt noch hat,
ein neues Leben zu beginnen.
Auf meinem Krankenlager suchte ich
zum letzten Male noch zu überblicken
des Wissens Umkreis, den ich mir erworben hatte.
Ich tat’s, bevor zu andrem Ziele ich mich wandte.
Und hundertmal wohl fragt’ ich mich:
Was kann Naturerkenntnis lehren,
wie wir sie jetzt schon überschauen können?
– ‒ ‒ Es gibt da kein Entweichen – ‒ ‒:
Des Erdenlebens Wiederholung,
die kann und darf kein Denken leugnen,
daß nicht mit allem brechen will,
was Forscherfleiß erkannt in langer Zeiten Lauf.
Capesius:
Es wäre mir durch solch Erlebnis
gar vieles Leid erspart geblieben.
Ersehnt hab’ ich in mancher Nacht,
die schlaflos ich vollbracht,
daß mir Gedanken dieser Art
Erlösung bringen möchten.
Strader:
Doch hat mir dieser Geistesblitz
Die letzten Kräfte noch geraubt.
Ich fühlte stets als meiner Seele stärksten Trieb,
am Leben nachzuprüfen,
was mir das Denken als die Wahrheit gibt.
Es wollt’ ein Zufall nur in jenen schweren Tagen
am eignen Dasein mir erweisen,
wie grausam diese folgenschwere Wahrheit ist.
Sie läßt die Lebensfreuden und das Lebensleid
als Folgen unsres eignen Wesens uns erscheinen.
Und dies ist oft recht schwer zu tragen.
Capesius:
Unmöglich scheint mir dies Erlebnis. –
Was könnte eine Wahrheit überstrahlen,
die wir doch unabläsig suchen,
Und die dem Geist Gewißheit gibt?
Strader:
Es mag für Euch so sein.
Doch ich muß anders fühlen.
Bekannt ist Euch mein sonderbarer Lebensweg –,
ein Zufall schien’s zu sein,
Der meiner Eltern Absicht kreuzte. –
Sie hatten mich zum Mönche machen wollen.
Sie haben mir es oft gesagt,
daß sie als ihres Lebens größten Schmerz
des Sohnes Ketzerei betrachten müßten.
Ich nahm dies alles hin – ‒
und vieles noch dazu,
wie man das Leben eben nimmt,
wenn man Geburt und Tod
zu Grenzen macht der Erdenpilgerschaft.
Und auch mein spätres Leben
mit allen zertretnen Hoffnungen,
es stellte sich mir als Gebilde dar,
das sich durch sich nur selbst erklären läßt.
O wäre nie der Tag gekommen,
der mich zu andrer Meinung hat gebracht.
Denn wißt, ich habe Euch nicht alles anvertraut,
was mir das Schicksal auferlegt.
Ich bin nicht jener Leute Kind,
die mich zum Mönche haben machen wollen.
Sie haben, als ich wenige Tage alt erst war,
an Kindesstatt mich angenommen.
Meine wahre Herkunft ist mir unbekannt.
So war ich Fremdling schon im Elternhaus.
Und fremd bin ich geblieben allem,
was ich um mich erlebt in spätrer Zeit.
Und jetzt verpflichtet mich mein Denken,
den Blick in alte Zeiten hinzuwenden,
in welchen ich mich selbst der Welt beraubt.
Es fügt sich ja Gedanke and Gedanke:
Wer so zum Weltenfremdling ist bestimmt
noch ehe sein Bewußtsein dämmert,
der hat dies Schicksal schon gewollt,
bevor er denkend wollen konnte.
Und da ich ferner so geblieben bin,
wie ich im Anfang war,
so muß mir jeder Zweifel schwinden,
daß ich in Dumpfheit Mächten unterliege,
die mir die Schicksalsfaden spinnen,
und die sich mir nicht offenbaren wollen.
Was fehlt da noch, mir grausam zu beweisen,
wie dicht die Schleier sind,
die mir das eigne Sein verhüllen!
Und jetzt, o, urteilt ohne falsche Wissenssucht,
ob meine neue Wahrheit mir das Licht gebracht?
Gewißheit hat sie mir jedoch gegeben,
daß ich im Ungewissen bleiben muß.
Sie hat mir so das Schicksal vorgestellt,
daß ich ihm, halb vom Schmerz erfüllt,
und halb wie seiner spottend,
mit gleicher Münze zahlte.
Es kam ganz furchtbar über mich:
Mit bittrem Hohngefühl durchpeinigt,
mußt’ ich dem Leben mich entgegenstellen;
und alles Schicksalsgaukelspiel verlachend,
ergab ich mich der Finsternis.
Ich konnte nur noch Eines denken:
Nimm mich ganz hin, du Lebensräderwerk;
ich will nicht wissen, wie du’s treibst.
Capesius:
Der Mann, den ich erkannt in Euch,
Er kann in solcher Wissensöde
nicht lange bleiben, auch wenn er wollte.
Mir stehn die Tage schon vor Augen,
In denen wir uns anders finden werden.
(Vorhang fällt, während die beiden noch sich gegenüberstehen.)
Scene Four
(The same room as in the first scene. Capesius and Strader.)
Capesius (to Strader, who enters):
I greet my friend with joy,
who stood his ground so bravely in many a heated debate.
You haven't been seen in my house for a long time.
You used to enjoy visiting so much.
Strader:
I didn't have the time.
My life has changed greatly.
I no longer torment my brain
with hopeless fantasies.
I have devoted the knowledge I have acquired
to real work,
which can be useful in life.
Capesius:
So you have abandoned your path of research?
Strader:
You could also say
that it abandoned me.
Capesius:
And what goals have you turned to?
Strader:
Life is not suited
to assign goals to man,
which he can see through with clarity.
It is only an engine
that pulls us into its cogs – –,
and tiredly discards us into darkness,
when our strength is exhausted.
Capesius:
I knew you when, with high courage,
you boldly ventured into the mysteries of existence.
I also learned
how you saw the treasures of knowledge you had acquired
sink into the abyss,
and deeply shaken, your soul
drank the bitter cup of disappointed research dreams.
But I always thought it impossible
that you could tear from your heart
the impulse that filled you so completely.
Strader:
Do you still remember the day
when a seer, through the truth of her words,
clearly showed me the error of my own path?
I could not help but admit to myself
that all the work of thought
can find no true source anywhere in life.
All thought must be mistaken,
if the light of the highest wisdom
can be revealed to the power of the soul that woman called her own.
Certainly, strict science strives in vain for such a revelation.
Surely, strict science strives in vain
for such a revelation.
And if it had remained
at this one defeat of my research delusion: ‒
I believe that I would have been able
to start again from the beginning
and connect my own paths
with those other paths.
But when I had to see
how a strange state of mind,
which to me seems only madness,
transforms powerlessness into creative power: –
then all hope vanished from me.
‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒
Do you remember the young painter,
whom we met together
on dubious paths of the mind? –
After such blows of fate
I spent many weeks
in a dull state of mind, close to madness.
And when nature brought me back to my senses,
it was rock-solid for me
to avoid any further searching.
To become completely healthy,
I needed a long time.
I spent it quite joylessly.
I practiced such things
that led me to the practice of life.
So today I stand in front of a workshop
where screws are rolled.
But I am grateful for this work,
because it allows me to forget for many hours
how agonizing my futile struggle was.
Capesius:
I must confess that I can hardly
recognize my former friend
in the person who stands before me today. – ‒
Apart from those hours
you spoke to me about,
not also those
in which old storms renew themselves,
urging you out of this dull life?
Strader:
I am not spared the hours
in which powerlessness only wants to fight powerlessness
in my soul.
But my fate has not allowed
new rays of hope
for this completely lost life
to penetrate my heart.
I want to achieve renunciation;
May the strength that now demands it
bring me the gift
to walk the path of research in a different way,
‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒ ‒
if this earthly journey is to be repeated.
Capesius:
You spoke—oh, did I hear correctly?
Of repeating your earthly journey.
So you have gained
the fateful truth
on those paths of the mind
that you still today
consider only doubtful?
Strader:
You yourself found the third,
which has strengthened me
to begin a new life.
On my sickbed, I sought
to survey one last time
the circle of knowledge I had acquired.
I did so before turning to other goals.
And a hundred times I asked myself:
What can knowledge of nature teach us,
as we can already see it now?
– ‒ ‒ There is no escape – ‒ ‒:
The repetition of earthly life,
which no thinking can or may deny,
that does not want to break with everything,
what diligent research has recognized over a long period of time.
Capesius:
Such an experience would have spared me
a great deal of suffering.
I have longed for many a night,
which I spent sleepless,
that thoughts of this kind
might bring me salvation.
Strader:
But this flash of inspiration
robbed me of my last strength.
I always felt that the strongest urge of my soul
was to verify in life
what my thinking gave me as the truth.
It was only a coincidence in those difficult days
that proved to me,
how cruel this momentous truth is.
It makes the joys and sorrows of life
appear to us as consequences of our own nature.
And this is often very difficult to bear.
Capesius:
This experience seems impossible to me. –
What could outshine a truth
that we seek relentlessly,
and that gives the mind certainty?
Strader:
That may be so for you.
But I must feel differently.
You know my strange path in life –
it seemed to be a coincidence
that thwarted my parents' intentions. –
They had wanted me to become a monk.
They often told me
that they would consider their son's heresy
to be the greatest pain of their lives.
I accepted all this—
and much more besides,
as one accepts life,
when one makes birth and death
the limits of one's earthly pilgrimage.
And even my later life,
with all its trampled hopes,
presented itself to me as a construct
that can only be explained by itself.
Oh, if only the day had never come
that changed my mind.
For know that I have not confided in you everything that fate has imposed on me.
I am not the child of those people who wanted to make me a monk.
When I was only a few days old,
they took me in as their own child.
My true origins are unknown to me.
So I was a stranger even in my parents' house.
And I remained a stranger to everything
I experienced around me in later life.
And now my thoughts compel me
to turn my gaze to ancient times,
in which I robbed myself of the world.
Thoughts fit together:
Whoever is destined to be a stranger to the world
even before his consciousness dawns,
has already wanted this fate
before he could think for himself.
And since I have remained as I was in the beginning,
every doubt must vanish,
that I am subject to dull powers
that spin the threads of fate for me
and do not want to reveal themselves to me.
What else is there to prove to me cruelly how thick are the veils that conceal my own being!
What else is needed to prove to me cruelly
how thick are the veils
that conceal my own being!
And now, oh, judge without false thirst for knowledge,
whether my new truth has brought me light?
It has given me certainty, however,
that I must remain in uncertainty.
It has presented fate to me in such a way
that I, half filled with pain
and half mocking it,
paid it back in kind.
It came over me quite terribly:
tormented by a bitter feeling of scorn,
I had to face life;
and laughing at all of fate's games,
I surrendered to the darkness.
I could only think one thing:
Take me completely, you wheel of life;
I don't want to know how you work.
Capesius:
The man I recognize in you,
He cannot remain in such a wasteland of knowledge
for long, even if he wanted to.
I can already see the days ahead,
In which we will find ourselves differently.
(The curtain falls while the two are still facing each other.)