Frederick Schiller - The Short Stories

Wollmar

Edwin! Edwin! How you diffuse earnestness again with a laughing joke! People say such things about our Princes who believe they can provoke some destructive effect with just a wink of an eye. People say that about our beauties who want to fool our wisdom with some colours painted on their faces. People say that about the sweet little gentlemen who make of a handful of blond hair into an object of worship of their God! Do they only care how roughly the shovels of the grave diggers stroke Yorik's skull!? What good is a woman with all her beauty, if the great Caesar is reduced to repair a fissuring wall to protect himself from the wind?

Edwin

But what is the meaning of all this?

Wollmar

Miserable catastrophe of a miserable farce! Do you not see it, Edwin? The destiny of the soul is written in the matter. Now, make for yourself the happy conclusion.

Edwin

Calm down, Wollmar! You are getting all excited. Do you know how careless you were, there!

Wollmar

Let me go on! Good things have nothing to shy away from inspection.

Edwin

Wollmar should only indulge in inspection when he is in a happier mood!

Wollmar

Oh, come on! There you are opening again, the most dangerous wounds. According to you, wisdom is like a talkative laundress who goes cleaning in every house and adapts with dexterity her talk to any possible mood: denying even grace to unfortunate people, approving even malevolence in the fortunate ones. A stomachache can make people take the planets for hell; a glass of wine can make people idolize a devil. If our moods are the models of our philosophies, you say, to me, Edwin, in which one will truth be found? I am afraid, Edwin, that you are only wise, when you are gloomy!

Edwin

I do not want to be gloomy to be wise!

Wollmar

You have used the word „fortunate“. How do people become fortunate, Edwin? Work is the condition of life, the goal is wisdom: and felicity, you say, is the price. Thousand and again thousand wide open sails leave the port to look for the happy island in the immense sea and to rob the Golden Fleece. Tell me now, you wise man, how many of them will find it? I see, in one instance, a flotilla whirled around in the eternal ring of needs, leaving eternally this shore to land eternally again on it, eternally landing on it to leave it again. It hurries into the entrance hall of its determination, cruises fearfully along the shore to pick provisions and to do some repair works, but never charts onto the high sea. These are the people who, today, tire themselves on what can tire them again tomorrow. If I put them aside, then the number of candidates is already reduced by approximately its half.

The whirlpool of sensibility pulls again other sails into an inglorious tomb. These are the ones who waste the whole force of their existence to enjoy the labor of previous existences. When people disregard them, then only a little quarter of the whole candidates still remains on course.

Anxious and shy, the remaining candidates sail further without any compass, escorted by the corresponding stars, on the fearsome ocean; the happy coast already scintillates like white clouds in the horizon, “Land!” shouts the steersman and then what!? A miserable little plank breaks somewhere on board, and the leaking ship sinks heavily along the shore. Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. Almost unconscious, the most skilled swimmer fights his way to the land, like a foreigner in the ethereal zone, he wanders in loneliness and seeks with crying eyes to return to his Nordic homeland. In this way, I remove from the great number in your generous system one million people after the other. The children rejoice over the protection of adult men, and these men weep that they are not any more children. The stream of our knowledge meanders backwards from its delta to find maturity, the evening is dawning like the morning; in the namely night where Aurora and Hesperus are embracing, the wise man who would like to break the walls of mortality, sinks downwards and becomes again a loving boy. Now, Edwin, do you prove the potter's skill in the pot, please answer, Edwin!?

Edwin

The potter's skill is already proven, when he can prove that the pot is his work, no matter how beautiful it may be!

Wollmar

Please answer!

Edwin

I only say that even if people don't reach the island, yet is the journey not lost.

Wollmar

To content oneself with grazing the eye, with just the picturesque landscape which appears on one's right and left? Edwin!? And why would one be thrown into internal turmoil only for such views!? Why tremble as if before a fearful obstacle only for such views!?

Why agonize oneself of rage in the undulating desert of a threefold death only for such views!? Do not speak any more; my sorrow is more eloquent than your happiness!

Edwin

And should I crush the little violet under my feet, because I cannot

obtain the rose? Or should I not enjoy this Mayday, because a thunderstorm can darken it? I create cheerfulness under the cloudless blueness which will shorten itself for me, later on, its unpredictable boredom. Should I not pick the flower today, because it will fade away tomorrow? I throw it away when it withers, and pick its young sister who already springs attractively from the bud.

Wollmar

For nothing! In vain! Wherever a burgeon of pleasure only blooms, thousand seeds of misery are already germinating. Wherever a tear of joy is only shed, thousand tears of affliction lie beneath.

Here, on the spot where the human being exults, thousand insects have perished. In precisely the moment where our delight whirls into heaven, thousand curses of damnation are profferred. It is a deceiving lottery; the few miserable gains hide the numerous failures! Every moment in time is a dying minute for joy; every blessing dust is the tombstone of a buried pleasure! In every point in the eternal universe, death has impressed its monarchic seal. In every atom, I read the desolate inscription: death!

Edwin

And why not death? May every sound from a death song become happiness! It is also the hymn of the all-encompassing love! Wollmar, against this lime tree, my Juliet has kissed me for the first time!

Wollmar (suddenly leaving the place)

Young man! It is under these lime trees that I have lost my Laura!

Attending theatres and reading novels reveal to us the most glowing traits of the human heart; while our fantasy will be inflamed, our heart remains cold, and at least, the passion in which our heart will be thrown into in this manner, will be only temporary and leaves it still fit for the practical life.

In the namely moment when the simple generosity of sincere outburst moves us almost to tears, would we also be capable to dismiss impatiently a beggar knocking at our door? Who knows, maybe, precisely this artificial existence in an ideal world, will also shake up our true existence in the real world? We hover, so to speak, above the two extremes of morality, the angel and the demon, and only in the middle, the human being, we allow ourselves to land.

The following story about two Germans (I write this down with quite some proud joy!) has an indisputable merit, as it is a true story. I hope that this story will leave my readers with warmer feelings than all the books written by Grandison and Pamela.

Two brothers, Barons of Wrmb, both fell in love with the same young, perfect lady of Wrthr; without the lady knowing about the passion which the two brothers had for her. The love felt by both brothers was tender and strong, because it was the first time for both. The young lady was beautiful and sensitive. Both allowed their inclination to grow into a full passion, because none knew about the danger which was most terrible for a heart: to have one’s own brother as a rival. Both spared the young lady with an early confession of their love, and hence, the two brothers went on, until an expected event revealed the whole secret of their sentiments to one another.