NEUOFFENBARUNG10 August 1847
[JS.01_006,01] Look, we are in a splendid royal chamber. Everything here gleams with gold and silver, the most precious gemstones and paintings of the greatest value in the eyes of the world. The floor is laid with the finest Asian carpets. The large plate-glass windows are hung with curtains, any one of which costs enough to feed a thousand poor people for an entire month. Cabinets, tables, sofas, chairs and many other costly pieces of royal furniture adorn the room. All sorts of fragrances fill the sickroom, and the most renowned physicians surround the richly gilded bed in which the man of high earthly rank waits in vain to recover.
[JS.01_006,02] One consultation follows another, and the medicines are changed every hour. In the adjoining room two monks take turns praying without pause from Latin books printed in red and black. Wherever there is a house of prayer or a chapel, a solemn Mass is said for the recovery of our great commander. But none of it helps. For this commander's illness there is no further help in the apothecary's shop, the breviary or the missal. It is time for the summons: ‘Come and let us see what your works are like!’
[JS.01_006,03] Now look at the sick man and see how bravely he bears up! But this courage is only for show. Within, our hero is almost beside himself with fear and despair, and he curses his painful illness as a hussar curses a horse that refuses to obey. The two things go very nicely together. Over there the monks are praying, with a devotion that is hard to equal, to be sure, secretly joined to the very opposite wish, propter certum quoniam [for a certain reason]. Yet it is always an odd sight when the man they pray for, at least for appearances, swears in a way that is a downright disgrace!
[JS.01_006,04] But now his pain grows ever worse, almost unbearable. Our patient, kindled with rage, starts up in a fury, to the astonishment of those around him, and cries at the top of his lungs, ‘O you damned whore of a life! Creator, if there is such a thing as you, cannot you take it from me in a less painful way? Let all the devils, if there are any, shit on such a whore of a life! I would do it myself if only I could. Here, you stupid beasts of doctors, the whole lot of you not worth a charge of powder, give me a pistol loaded with live shot, so that I can prescribe for this dog's and whore's life a medicine through the brain that will free it with one bang from all further torment!’
[JS.01_006,05] A chief physician approaches the bed to feel the man's pulse and asks him to remain calm. But the eminent patient sits up and says, ‘Come here, you wretch, you sorry dog of a doctor, so that I can cool my righteous anger on you! Go to the devil, you stupid wretch! Would you like to torment me with opium again? See how clever these scoundrels are! As soon as they are at a loss, they come up with opium so that the patient goes to sleep. That frees them for several hours from the just reproach they so richly deserve. Meanwhile they laugh up their sleeves and work out how much each of them can claim at the third level of settlement after I die. Ha, ha, ha! You see, I know what you are up to. Away with you, you vicious dogs, or with the last of my strength I will put an end to your miserable lives! Hey, what are those two black-clad scoundrels I see next door? What are the wretches doing? I do believe they are praying for my soul! Who called them in to do that? Out with them, or I will get up and shoot them down like dogs!’
[JS.01_006,06] Look, at this tremendous explosion from the commander-in-chief, the monks make themselves scarce very nimbly. The doctors shrug more and more emphatically. The patient falls silent and begins to rattle, his face horribly contorted. There is nothing more to observe of the patient here, so we shall go at once into the world of spirits and see very briefly how our hero enters it.
[JS.01_006,07] Look, we are there already. The patient is lying on the same sort of bed in a chamber of exactly the same appearance. He is still rattling, as you can easily tell, drawing terribly laboured breaths and biting his tongue in the secret fury of his enraged soul.
[JS.01_006,08] But see, there is the destroying angel, alone and ready to release our hero's enraged soul from its exceedingly proud and arrogant aristocratic flesh. The angel is armed with a flaming sword, a sign of the great strength I have bestowed upon him, of his courage and of his utter fearlessness before such mighty heroes of the earth and before all hell.
[JS.01_006,09] Look, the last grain of sand has fallen in this hero's hourglass. The angel touches him with his flaming sword and says, ‘Rise, you weary soul. And you, proud dust, fall back into the sea of your bottomless nothingness!’
[JS.01_006,10] Look, now the body disappears, and the bed and the chamber full of earthly splendour are no longer visible. In their place rises, as you can readily see, a dark ash-grey soul, miserably stunted, standing on loose sand that threatens to swallow it. Angry, bewildered and frightened, it looks round and sees nothing but itself. Yet it sees itself quite differently from the way we see it. It still sees itself as a field commander adorned with all its decorations and a sword.
[JS.01_006,11] ‘Where am I, then?’ says the hero. ‘What devil brought me here? Nothing and nothing again! Wherever I look, there is nothing. Look, there is nothing beneath me either!
[JS.01_006,12] Am I sleepwalking? Am I dreaming? Or can I really have died? Ah, what a damnably stupid state to be in! I am perfectly well now, it is true, and I feel no pain. I remember every little thing in my whole life. I was terribly ill. I gave the stupid doctors a piece of my mind and drove the two hypocrites to the devil. And of course, because the pain was too strong to bear, in my fit of rage I said a few very rude things to the Creator's face. I remember all that quite well! I know, too, that I was very angry and could have torn everything to pieces in my fury. But all that has passed now. Everything would be fine if only I knew where I actually am and what has happened to me.
[JS.01_006,13] There is some light about me, but the further I look, the darker it grows, and I see nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing again! Damn it all! Truly, if this does not drive a man out of his mind, nothing ever will!
[JS.01_006,14] Strange, strange! I am growing more and more alert, more and more alive, yet it grows emptier and emptier around me. Surely I must be in some kind of trance? But those who fall into a trance are supposed to hear and see everything happening around them. I hear and see nothing except myself, so this cannot be a trance.
[JS.01_006,15] It is neither cold nor warm here, nor completely dark, though the light will certainly dazzle no one. What I cannot understand is that in this solitary state I am so cheerful and in such good spirits that I could play the clown. Yet to judge by appearances I can scarcely have had less company in my mother's womb than I have here! Truly, if I had a little thing here, eh, a little thing, well, you know, yes, that is it, if I had a little human being here with me, I really might forget myself so far as to … Oh, to blazes with the commander and his five dozen noble ancestors! Truly, I would give everything now for a little human being of the lowest rank!
[JS.01_006,16] If only I could find out where I actually am! If this goes on much longer, it could become damnably boring! I once heard something about a God. I might as well turn to him in earnest. I behaved rather roughly towards him before, to be sure, but if he exists, he will not hold it against me too much. Hey there, my God, my Lord! If you exist anywhere, help me out of this strangely wretched predicament!’
[JS.01_006,17] Now look, an angel comes at once and says, ‘Friend, you will stay in this state until the last drop of your arrogance has been driven out of you and the last drop of the blood you shed from many thousands of your brothers has thereby been paid for. Cast off all your insignia as commander, and you will find ground beneath you, more light and company. But beware of your own kind, or you are lost! Above all, turn to the Lord, and your way will be short and easy. Amen.’
[JS.01_006,18] Look, our hero does not follow this advice yet. So the angel leaves him, and he will remain in this suspended state for several hundred years more.
[JS.01_006,19] From this you can already discern his ‘water’, so nothing further about him for now.