Эрнст Юнгер - A German Officer in Occupied Paris - The War Journals, 1941-1945

In my dream I felt Dorothea returning from my early childhood days. I felt her approach and touch me with her delicate and slender fingertips. I felt each individual finger, especially at the point where the fingernails begin as she trailed her hands over me. Then she stroked parts of the face, the eyelids, the corners of the eyes, the zygomatic arches.

That was a very pleasant characteristic of this being and her whole conception. She performed the most detailed physical survey on me; it almost seemed as though she were trying to sculpt me, for she moved her fingers as though molding a fine pastry dough.

Then she turned her attention to the hand, but she seemed to make a mistake as she made long strokes across the back of my hand. While this was happening I noticed in the magnetism of this contact that she was now caressing the imaginary hand whose fingers were a bit longer than those of the physical one.

In parting, she placed her hand upon my forehead and whispered, “My dear friend, say your farewell to freedom.”

For a long time I lay awake in the dark, sad as never before, at least since the days of Vincennes.

The Japanese are attacking with fierce determination. Perhaps because time is most precious for them. I surprise myself by changing allegiances. Sometimes I am overcome by the mistaken belief that they have declared war on us. It is impossible to untangle, like a sack full of snakes.

Floods. I was in the nineteenth century with a party of people on an outing who had taken refuge upon toppled oak trees to escape the mud. At the same time, great numbers of snakes were struggling to get to these dry spots. The men lashed out at the creatures with their walking sticks and flung some of them high into the air, so that some smashed when they fell but others landed in the crowd, biting. That caused an outbreak of panic, and people threw themselves into the mud. I was bitten by a living cadaver as it hit me. I thought: if these brutes left the animals alone, we would all be safe.

As I translate the letters of the executed hostages as a document for future ages, I notice that the most frequent words are “courage” and “love.” Perhaps “farewell” is even more frequent. It seems that in such situations man senses a compassionate power and abundance of generosity, and he can comprehend his actual role as that of victim, as that of benefactor.

On furlough in Kirchhorst. Here I feel hardly any urge to write—a good sign for the gravitational pull that Perpetua exerts on me. Why carry on a monologue? Visitors, including Carl Schmitt. He stayed here for two days.

During the night, images in the style of Hieronymus Bosch: a crowd of naked people, among them executioners and victims. In the foreground a woman of wonderful beauty whose head the executioner struck off with a single blow. I saw the torso stand for a moment before it crumpled—yet even headless, it seemed desirable.

Other henchmen dragged their victims along on their backs so as to slaughter them somewhere else, in private. I saw that they had bound the chins with cloth to prevent any obstruction to the blow.

The ducks in the garden. They mate in the puddles on the lawn left by the rain. Then the duck stands in front of the drake and flaps her wings, puffing out her chest—a primeval courtship ritual.

Returned to Paris at midnight. Before that, dinner on Stephansplatz with Ernstel and Perpetua. [27] Ernstel, affectionate diminutive of Ernst, E. J.’s elder son. See Glossary of Proper Names. Looking at the boy in profile, I noticed the genteel but also pained quality his face has acquired. In these times, the two go hand in hand. The year will be extraordinarily perilous; we never know whether we are seeing each other for the last time. Every farewell includes the confidence in a higher reunion.

In the compartment, conversation with a lieutenant returning from Russia. His battalion lost a third of its men to the freezing temperatures, in part because of the amputations. The flesh turns white, then black. Conversations like this are now quite common. He says there are field hospitals for soldiers with frostbitten genitals, and even their eyes are endangered. Frost and fire conspire like the two blades of a vicious pair of shears.

At Ladurée’s in the company of Nebel and the Doctoresse. We spent the afternoon chatting in the [Hotel] Wagram. I have the impression that, given the nature of the situation, we can no longer continue as caution dictates. As in the act of childbirth, we are forced onward. This is the effect of the reviews of On the Marble Cliffs [28] Reference to E. J.’s novel, Auf den Marmorklippen [ On the Marble Cliffs ]. As soon as the work was published in 1939, it was considered a roman à clef in both Nazi and anti-Nazi circles and made enemies for E. J. within the regime. in the Swiss papers.

I like the euphony of the Ei in bleiben [remain, stay], in the same way that I like other vowel sounds, such as in manere [Lat. remain], manoir [Fr. country house, manor]. This is the way we must rediscover language.

Grüninger, about his conversation with a theologian: “Evil always appears at first as Lucifer, then evolves into Diabolus, and finally ends as Satanas.” This is the way the Bringer of Light develops, from the one who divides to the one who destroys—or, to express this with the quality of vowels, we see the triad: U, I, A .

During the midday break bought paper for my manuscript about peace. Began with the outline. Also tested the safe for its security.

Stavrogin. [29] Stavrogin: character in Dostoevsky’s novel Demons (1872). His disgust with power. No corrupt authority ever tempts him. By contrast, we have the man who comes from below, Pyotr Stepanovich, [30] Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky: character in Dostoevsky’s Demons . who understands quite well that under such conditions power becomes a possibility for him. Thus, the humbler man rejoices when he sees the magnificent woman he desires shamed, for only then does she become attainable for him.

This also shows up after the fact, in the regiment. Where villains reign, they can be seen exercising infamy without restraint and disregarding the tenets of statecraft. This infamy is celebrated like a mass; in its depths, it conceals the mystery of popular power.

Read the manuscript of Maurice Betz’s translation of Gärten und Straßen [Gardens and Streets]. For the word freilich [certainly] I found il est vrait [it is true], which in this instance does not sound right to me. Freilich can precede a qualifier; on the other hand, it can also signal emphasis. The closest to it is probably “my opinion boils down to…,” or “when we consider this properly, we find that…” You could say that it’s an intensifier, but it also makes you put your cards on the table. Yet something else is in play here as well, namely a note of exhortation, a kind of cheerful affirmation implied for the reader’s benefit. The reader’s assent has been tacitly assumed.

At the George V in the evening. Among those present were Nebel, Grüninger, Count Podewils, Heller, and Maggi Drescher, a young sculptress. Nebel declaimed the poem to Harmodios and Aristogeiton, to whom there stands a magnificent statue in the Museo Nazionale [Naples]. He followed this with verses by Sappho, Sophocles, and Homer. He easily accesses the extraordinary memory he has at his disposal, giving the impression that he is actively creating the poetry. That’s the way to quote: by incantation…