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

In addition, a letter from Perpetua who in the meantime has taken a look at the house near Bevensen. During the trip she got into a political discussion with the driver. To her amusement, he ended it with the comment: “Anything but a group where the chairman has lice.”

By the way, it is one of her greatest qualities that she can converse on all social levels. When she presides at table she puts everyone at ease.

In my dream, I was at Emmerich Reitter’s in Paskau looking at insects. He showed me a case filled with examples of the species Sternocera . Instead of showing their typical cylindrical form, all of them were broad and flat. I nonetheless recognized their classification at first sight. I love these variations that still preserve the species. These are the adventurous journeys of an idea across archipelagoes of matter.

In the afternoon, Charmille picked me up to go swimming. Magnificent sight in the pond. I saw one of the large and marvelous fishes cloaked in tiny bubbles, hovering in the green water. I perceived this from above, foreshortened, as is frequently the case with magical things.

A restless night. Sleep interrupted by long period of wakefulness. I spent the time thinking of Carus, my imaginary son.

In the evening, I saw Armand, who wants to go underground. We ate together in the Brasserie Lorraine. After walking up Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where I always feel good, he asked me whether I wanted to meet his friend Donoso, and I said no. Later he responded to a comment about both our countries: “ Ah, pour ça je voudrais vous embracer bien fort .” [Ah, for that I’d like to give you a big hug.] Said goodbye on Avenue de Wagram.

I then put my uniform on and went to the George V. Speidel, Sieburg, Grüninger, and Rörecht, chief of the General Staff of the First Army, with whom I had discussed Rimbaud and similar things in Hamburg right after World War I. Then Colonel Gerlach, who has come to us from the East as a quartermaster, and in whose conversation one can study the pungent wit of Potsdam.

There are always the same conversations in these gatherings, sometimes more, sometimes less emphatic, as though we were in the antechambers of the inevitable. In these situations, I always have to think of Bennigsen and Czar Paul. Gerlach, in particular, was informed about the lack of winter clothing in the East. This—like the execution of hostages in the West—will become one of the major themes of later research, whether that research is focused on the history of the war or on adjudicating it.

On optics. In the afternoon in the Raphael, looking up from my reading, I stared at a round clock. When I turned my gaze away, it remained as a pale, round after-image on the wallpaper. I kept my eye focused on a projection from the wall that was closer than the part the clock was fastened to. Here the after-image appeared much smaller than the clock. But when I moved my eyes so that my gaze got very close to the clock, then its after-image merged with it, and they both overlapped. And finally, when I projected it to a point farther away, I had the impression that it grew bigger.

This is a nice example for the mental alteration that we project based on distance. By straining the retina in the same way, we enlarge a familiar object in the distance, and we minimize it when it seems closer. E. A. Poe bases his story “The Sphinx” upon this law.

Nowadays when I wake up at night in the Raphael, as often happens, I can hear the deathwatch beetle in the wooden paneling. It knocks louder and slower—and with greater significance—than the ones I heard in the dead wood of my father’s pharmacy. These somber signals probably come from a large dark Anobiid [wood borer beetle]. I found a specimen of one on the staircase last summer and now have it in my collection in Kirchhorst. I could not identify it; it is probably an imported species.

These sounds announce a tremendous remoteness from everyday life—sounds from a creature active nearby in the dry wood. And yet, in comparison to other distances, it is close and familiar. We are passengers on one ship.

In the evening with Doctor Weber in Palais Rothschild. Thanks to his clandestine gold purchases, he has a thorough knowledge of all the occupied territories and the neutral countries. I asked him if he would pay a visit to Brock in Zürich regarding the matter of the Swiss newspapers. He can also be useful to me in other ways. I enjoy talking with him, especially because he’s a compatriot who exemplifies the dry humor of the Lower Saxon type. He leaves the impression that the world is not about to end all that soon.

Incidentally, it is instructive to see a gathering of intellects like those assembled during that remarkable meeting of national revolutionaries at Kreitz’s at the Eichhof [Conference] and to consider them in a European and global context. One can sense what lies at the core of the human being—sometimes it is the tyrant in the petty bookkeeper or the mass murderer in the ridiculous swaggerer. These histrionics are rare because it takes extraordinary circumstances for this core to reveal itself. It is also remarkable to reencounter marginalized characters and literary types whose chaotic nocturnal rantings are impossible to forget. How amazing to meet them again in positions of authority where their word is law. There are times when the flimsiest dreams force their way into reality. Yet when Sancho Panza [33] Sancho Panza: character in Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605). was governor of Barataria, at least he didn’t take himself seriously. That’s still his most attractive attribute.

In yesterday’s dispatch, the Russians claim that when they try to remove the boots from German prisoners, the feet come off too.

A typical snippet of propaganda from that icy hell.

Visit to Charmille on Rue de Bellechasse.

The clock runs faster during our chats, as in the primeval forests of old. Various factors converge to create this effect: beauty, complete intellectual comprehension, and the presence of danger. I attempt to slow the pace through reflection. This retards the delicate clockwork.

I find a human being—that’s like saying, “I discover the Ganges, Arabia, the Himalayas, the Amazon River.” I saunter through that person’s secluded places and vast expanses; I note the treasures I find there, and in doing so, I change and grow. In this sense, especially in that person, we are formed by our fellow human beings, our brothers, friends, women. The atmospheric conditions of other climates remain in us—so powerfully that after some encounters I feel: “This person must have known this or that other one.” Contact with human beings stamps us like goldsmiths’ hallmarks on precious objects.

In Fontainebleau with Röhricht, the commander of the First Army. He lives in the house belonging to the Dolly sisters. I spent the night there. Reminisced about old times, the Hanoverian Riding School, Fritsch, Seeckt, and the aged Hindenburg—in those days, we lived in the embryo of the Leviathan. The stone floor of the dining room is tiled in green-veined marble and lacks a carpet. According to the old custom, it is uncarpeted so that diners could toss bones and scraps of meat onto the floor for the dogs. Fireside chat, first about Mommsen and Spengler, and then about the progress of the campaign. Our conversation reminded me of the damage Burckhardt caused with his Renaissance , [34] Reference to Burckhardt’s influential work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (German original, 1860). especially those Nietzschean impulses that spread among the educated class. These were intensified by theories from natural science. It is strange how pure speculation can be transformed into will, into passionate action.